The Garfield Movie (2024)didn’t make much of an impression on movie-goers when it hit theatres. The negative reviews could be due to the non comic-accurate backstory that was given to the orange feline. Or perhaps viewers didn’t care for how the plot pulled Garfield away from his owner Jon Arbuckle and took him on a convoluted side adventure. Whatever the reason, the film still provided a detailed answer for why the famous cat hates Mondays.
Toward the beginning of the film, Garfield gives the audience a mini overview of his life. After introducing his family, which consists of Jon and the yellow-furred, brown-eared beagle Odie, Garfield reveals his hatred for Mondays. A montage offers viewers a glimpse of the exact activities and mishaps the orange tabby Persian cat has had to endure on the dreaded first day of the work-week. This includes being tormented by a spider, dropping his ice-cream, and being hit in the face with a pie.
However, Garfield’s biggest problem with Mondays, based on how much of the montage is dedicated to these activities, are brushing his teeth and having to wake up early to visit the vet who announces to the entire office that they will require the “big scale.” Garfield does not care for this particular comment that low-key throws shade at his weight. The first day of the work-week also brings about bath day. Garfield is seen complaining throughout the entire mildly aggressive washing and drying process.
At the end of the montage, Garfield, wrapped in his iconic blue blankie, shreds a page with the word Monday written on it in red ink while saying, “That’s why we should go from Sunday to Tuesday.” It’s a funny pet-centric explanation for why a spoiled house cat could possibly hate Mondays so much. However, if one does a little research into cartoonist Jim Davis, Garfield’s hatred for that specific day of the week became a running gag in the comic strip for a slightly darker reason.
Speaking to HuffPost in 2014, Davis revealed that Garfield’s hatred for Mondays stem from the same existential crisis experienced by humans. “Garfield does not have a job, Garfield does not go to school, and every day is the same,” the cartoonist explained. “Nevertheless, every Monday is just a reminder that his life is the same old, same old cycling again. And for some reason, even though his life is pretty much the same every day, on Mondays specifically, awful things tend to happen to him physically.”
That’s a pretty grim, albeit realistic, explanation for the gag. But it works due to the levity with which it’s executed. Since new Garfield comic strips hit the papers every Monday, the joke resonated with folks reading the funny pages on their way to work. September 18, 1978, was the first time Garfield expressed his dislike for Mondays. The simple three-panel strip featured the orange cat getting caught in a window’s roll-up blinds and simply stating, “I hate Mondays.”
The joke appeared in the papers in a different setting the very next Monday, and the rest is history. Over the years, fans have shared various theories about why Garfield hates Mondays. Those who never looked up the gag’s backstory believe it’s because Jon goes back to the office, and his cat hates being alone. Others suggest it’s due to memories of Mamma Leoni’s Italian Restaurant, where Garfield was born, being closed on Mondays -which meant there was no lasagna to munch on all day.
