Azrael VS Garfield, The Clever Cat Challenge!

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For our next “Versus” match up we have two very clever cats from the 1980s. We have Azrael from “The Smurfs”, Gargamel’s trusty clever sidekick. And trying to get his claws out on the other end is Garfield. Two special cats that somehow get things done.(?!?) We have a poll at the end so don’t forget to vote for your favorite cat! Here is a little history about each character to help you decide which one is the best. Because as always, we let you decide…


Azrael_Smurfs_Azrael

Azrael is a pet cat owned by the evil wizard Gargamel, and the secondary antagonist of The Smurfs. He is voiced by Don Messick in the cartoon. Azrael serves as Gargamel’s companion in helping capture the smurfs. However, Azrael is usually more intelligent than Gargamel, and often tells him about some kinks in his plans. Azrael is sometimes treated cruelly by his owner, and has been known to turn on Gargamel numerous times. In one episode, he eventually got tired of Gargamel treating him so badly that he turned against him.

Azrael is one of the main characters of the Smurfs comic books and the Smurfs cartoon show. In the comic books, he first appeared in the story “The Flying Smurf” which was part of The Black Smurfs comic book album, although in story continuity, his first encounter with the Smurfs was in “The Smurfnapper” from the same book. In the cartoon show, he has appeared up until Season 8. He is Gargamel’s cat who usually is helpful in ferreting out hiding Smurfs for his master, though at times he tends to get in the way of his master, resulting in Gargamel getting angry with his pet for his incompetence.

SMURFSazreal

The coloring of Azrael is different in the two main continuities he appears in. In the comic books, Azrael is an orange cat, while in the cartoon show, he is a brown cat. Also, Azrael has white eyes with black pupils in the comic books while he has yellow eyes with black pupils in the cartoon show (with the exception of the Season 1 intro sequence).

In the movie Azrael is the secondary antagonist. Azrael has gotten his revenge on Gargamel for abusing him and twice throwing him into unknown places. He does this by saying, “Are you dead?” in cat language after Gargamel is hit by a bus. However, in his confrontation with Smurfette, he does have a small chunk of his right ear torn off when a metal crate falls on him, pinning his ear to the floor. Azrael also shows up in The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol to give chase to Grouchy during his visit by the three Smurfs of Christmas, and in The Smurfs 2 to give his master no end of grief as he kidnaps Smurfette with the intention of having her reveal the formula used for making her into a real Smurf.


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Garfield

Garfield is an American comic strip created by Jim Davis. Published since 1978, it chronicles the life of the title character, the cat Garfield, Jon, his owner, and Jon’s dog, Odie. As of 2013, it was syndicated in roughly 2,580 newspapers and journals, and held the Guinness World Record for being the world’s most widely syndicated comic strip.

Though this is rarely mentioned in print, Garfield is set in Muncie, Indiana, the home of Jim Davis, according to the television special “Happy Birthday, Garfield”. Common themes in the strip include Garfield’s laziness, obsessive eating, and disdain of Mondays and diets. The strip’s focus is mostly on the interactions among Garfield, Jon (his owner), and Odie (Jon’s pet dog), but other recurring minor characters appear as well. Originally created with the intentions to “come up with a good, marketable character”, Garfield has spawned merchandise earning $750 million to $1 billion annually. In addition to the various merchandise and commercial tie-ins, the strip has spawned several animated television specials, two animated television series, two theatrical feature-length live-action/CGI animated films and three fully CGI animated direct-to-video movies. Part of the strip’s broad pop cultural appeal is due to its lack of social or political commentary; though this was Davis’s original intention, he also admitted that his “grasp of politics isn’t strong,” joking that, for many years, he thought “OPEC was a denture adhesive”.
garfield

Garfield is an orange, fuzzy tabby cat born in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant (later revealed in the television special “Garfield: His 9 Lives” to be Mama Leoni’s Italian Restaurant) who immediately ate all the pasta and lasagna in sight, thus developing his love and obsession for lasagna and pizza.

Gags in the strips commonly deal with Garfield’s obesity (in one strip, Jon jokes, “I wouldn’t say Garfield is fat, but the last time he got on a Ferris wheel, the two guys on top starved to death”), and his disdain of any form of exertion or work. He is known for saying “breathing is exercise”. In addition to being portrayed as lazy and fat, Garfield is also pessimistic, narcissistic, sadistic, cynical, sarcastic, sardonic, negative, and a bit obnoxious. He enjoys destroying things, mauling the mailman, tormenting Odie, and kicking Odie off the table; he also makes snide comments, usually about Jon’s inability to get a date (in one strip, when Jon bemoans the fact that no one will go out with him on New Year’s Eve, Garfield replies, “Don’t feel bad Jon. They wouldn’t go out with you even if it weren’t New Year’s”).

Though Garfield can be very cynical, he does have a soft side for his teddy bear, Pooky, food and sleep, and one Christmas he says, “they say I have to get up early, be nice to people, skip breakfast… I wish it would never end.” However, in the feature film Garfield Gets Real and its sequels, Garfield is better behaved, friendlier towards Jon and Odie, less self-centered, and more sympathetic.

It has been wondered by many readers if Garfield can actually be understood by the human characters around him. Sometimes, it seems like Jon can hear him. However, it is mentioned in more than one strip that Jon cannot understand Garfield. However, in the feature film Garfield Gets Real and its sequels, Garfield and the other animals save for Odie are able to talk to, and be understood by, Jon and the other humans. In the 1 April 1997 strip, Garfield, still with thought balloons, can be understood by Jon.

To break the fourth wall, 19 June is celebrated within the strip as Garfield’s birthday. The appearance in 1979 claimed it to be his first birthday, although in the first appearance of the strip (19 June 1978), he was portrayed as a fully-grown cat, implying that the birthday is of the strip itself. Garfield learns about his past from his grandfather, who makes many jokes about Garfield


With all that said and what you know about these cats  which one  do you think is the more clever cat?  We want you to decide!  Vote below! Would you like to hear more about this topic?  We have all the information you need about this versus and more!  Listen to our podcast at www.podcastunlimited.com.  go to our archive section and look for episode 92!  Listen to us discuss the  figure and see who picked what side and why we choose it!

“Love me, feed me, never leave me.”
-The engineer

“They got a bad scratch fever, The cat scratch fever.” (Ted Nugent, “Cat Scratch Fever”)
-The Editor

Which 1980's cartoon cat is the most clever?
Azrael
13 Vote
Garfield
8 Vote
Heathcliff
1 Vote
Catwoman
1 Vote
Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat)
0 Vote
Samurai Pizza Cats
3 Vote
None of the Above
0 Vote
Other (comment below)
1 Vote

 

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