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Garfield celebrates birthday with a win

| June 16, 2018 1:00 AM

It’s official …

North Idahoans love cats.

The first hint was when I asked readers to send in stories and photos of their pets doing unusual or funny things.

I received almost three dozen replies, and they were ALL about cats.

Every one.

Where were some cool and loveable dogs? Doesn’t anyone have a fascinating ferret?

To be honest, I never gave a thought to that personal photo barrage having the slightest impact on our poll to find out your favorite cartoon character.

I mean, they’re totally separate things, right?

Or …

Maybe you don’t think so, because this local fascination with cats actually carried over into comics and cartoons.

When more than 160 replies had been counted — one of which arrived four minutes before a midnight deadline — your No. 1 character turned out be that chubby, fairly obnoxious, lasagna-swilling feline …

Garfield.

NOW IT’S worth considering here that the voting was wildly spread out.

I’ll have to count again, but I think 27 different characters got at least one vote — including Owl Jolson, who popped by virtue of one iconic song (“I Love to Singa”) in 1936.

That’s 82 years ago!

Apparently the owl and that song have developed something of a cult following in recent years.

Even Jim Mowreader, who nominated Owl Jolson, admitted that readers around here probably had seen the animated feature — so he cast another vote for Bugs Bunny.

And by the way, several comic strips got plenty of support, but none for a specific character. Somehow I didn’t consider that when we put together the poll, but The Far Side was very popular (I love it, too, and own several of Gary Larson’s “almost psycho” books).

So was The Family Circus, which did have some individual characters, but apparently none that stood out enough to get more than three emails of support.

NO DOUBT you’re waiting to see how the voting broke down behind that fat and admittedly funny Garfield.

I can tell you up front that there were some stunning surprises in our list.

The No. 2 was NOT one of them, as it belonged to bratty Calvin of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes — a real show of support since the strip only ran for 10 years (1985 to 1995).

By comparison, Jim Davis has been drawing Garfield, Jon and poor Odie the dog since 1978. The strip will celebrate its 40th birthday next Tuesday.

Garfield thus has covered several very different generations, and stayed popular.

So has Peanuts (Snoopy was No. 3 in our poll and got my vote), which Charles Schulz drew and edited for 50 years until his death in 2000.

It tells you something that Charlie Brown, Lucy and Snoopy are still starring in TV specials (and a theatrical production) right to this day — and that the entertainment company DHX bought worldwide licensing rights to Peanuts for $345 million, which is not peanuts, in 2017.

As for Snoopy, he’s been everywhere, including the moon. The Apollo 10 lunar module carried Snoopy’s name and likeness.

THE FOURTH spot in our poll went to a star born solely on TV, the luckless Wile E. Coyote.

The poor beast keeps buying strange gadgets from the mysterious Acme Co. in his attempt to trap the Roadrunner.

Suffice to say, Wile E, takes a fearful beating for all his efforts.

Finally …

There was a traditional hero at No. 5, Bugs Bunny.

And all you can say to that might be: “Eh, what’s up, Doc?”

There was one genuine surprise in the voting — the almost complete absence of Disney characters.

They’ve been all over TV, at famous theme parks and everywhere else — but they weren’t present in our poll.

The top Disney character (with just three votes) was Captain Hook, of all people.

Mickey Mouse, the rodent who now rules the world, was mentioned only twice.

Is it just me, or is that just plain strange?

Heck, the drug-ravaged Bill the Cat from Bloom County was sixth (more cat love), Bullwinkle was seventh, and then the votes were spread all over creation.

Here’s a list of votes that came in order during a one-hour stretch …

Felix the Cat, Mighty Mouse, Jessica Rabbit, Pickles and Kimba the White Lion.

Wow!

But hey, the poll was fun, which many readers mentioned.

I’m delighted with that.

Now let’s all go get some lasagna.

•••

Steve Cameron is a columnist for The Press. A Brand New Day appears Wednesday through Saturday each week.

Email: scameron@cdapress.com.

Twitter: @BrandNewDayCDA