Garfield gets it right... OK?

Press, 14 March 1987, Page 16

Garfield gets it right... OK?

Rosaleen M c Carroll

When my nephew turned six, he wanted a transformer for his birthday.

So it was to the cutprice toy shop. Now I’ve forked out for a few highpriced playthings in my time ... but this was ridiculous. Suffice to say, it is not long since you could have bought two weeks groceries for the price paid. And this was wholesale, remember. Now, for the uninitiated — and I hasten to add, I’m not very initiated myself — a transformer can be transformed from one guise to another, say a car to an aeroplane. Even after buying it, I didn’t know that. I thought it was something to do with radio. After all, I had paid about enough for FM stereo. When Simon opened the packet, he found an anodised aluminium kitset. With some help, he assembled the pieces into a robot. I waited. It didn’t walk, talk, flash its eyes. Nothing. The pieces could be reassembled into a gun. I don’t believe in giving children guns, but he was quite safe with this one. It didn’t shoot, click, bang, or do anything. I couldn’t believe it. If those two items were sold separately there is no way they would cost more than $l5 each, and that is only a fraction of what I paid.

I don’t know if the toy met the child’s expectations, but it certainly didn’t meet mine!

Expensive toys, like transformers, put unreasonable damands on a child. Because they cost so much you expect children to look after them, and keep track of the pieces, and guard against younger children swallowing the bits. But pretty soon the arm on Simon’s transformer broke, and it could never again be transformed into anything anyway.

Next birthday, I was determined not to be ripped-off again. I followed my own instincts and bought him a soft toy ... Garfield.

It would have been more convenience for me to have dropped Garfield off at school but I didn’t want to risk, humiliating Simon in front of his friends who would probably call him a sissy, or a baby ... or whatever jibes with which little boys taunt one another. But I couldnt have been more wrong. Like any other excited small boy he ripped open his presents, but he swept aside the high status TV promoted gewgaws, and seized on Garfield.

Nothing else even rated, and he insisted on taking Garfield to school. All the little boys fought over the smart-alec cat all day long. Just everybody wanted to be that striped moggie’s best friend. Garfield came home from his first day at school with a scratched eye but after all, what’s the use of a toy if a kid has to pussyfoot around it. Ever since, Garfield has been everything to that little boy ... friend, protector, confidant. He talks to him constantly, takes him for rides on his bike, and sleeps with him ... where he goes Garfield goes. Garfield gets washed, dressed, fed, thrown up trees, or he may simply be used to hit Simon’s sisters over the head.

Garfield has to extend the child's

imagination than that dumb transformer. ever did. Simon consults him about everything and will often say something like ... “Garfield loves baked beans’’ or “Garfield doesn’t think much of it.” There is simply no-one whose opinion he respects more. I consulted my friend about a present for Simon’s next birthday. With four sons badgering her, she can’t help being up to date about these things. "A Tamiya car. Little boys love them.” “How much do they cost?”

“About $2BO secondhand!” “Cripes! That’s more than twice as much as we paid for our first family sedan!” I'll just have to tell Simon ... “Garfield simply HATES Tamiya cars!”