Garfield
When I was a kid, Garfield was everywhere. I'd buy his books, his posters, I'd watch his TV specials... Garfield was the #1 cartoon of my youth.
There was nothing better than scoring a new Garfield book at the Scholastic Book Fair. And if you could score an I Hate Mondays poster... that was the coolest.
In the mid-to-late-80s, Garfield was king, and then he was gone. I don't know if I just grew out of Garfield or if his star faded, but Garfield-mania came to an end.
Garfield's creator, Jim Davis, is still with us, but he recently cashed out.
In 2019, Davis sold Paws, Inc. to the mass media conglomerate Viacom,[18] which months later merged with CBS Corporation to form ViacomCBS (now Paramount Global).
If that isn't a sign of the times, I don't know what is.
And lest we forget the GarfieldEats restaurant that opened here in 2020. It didn't last long. But that's okay, I get my lasagna from Palma Pasta.