Garfield, that Darn 'Lasagna Cat'

The Internet loves cats. We like to see them looking both cute and essentially contextualized to look, well, retarded. So it should come as no surprise that Garfield, the wisecrackin’ calico made famous by cartoonist Jim Davis, has found new popularity online in alternately bizarre, existential forms.

Garfield Minus Garfield, a web comic in which Dan Walsh, a technology programmer in Dublin, subtracts the title character from Davis’ original panels, has left the Internet (and Jim Davis) in awe of what is either a brilliant Tumblr-powered parody of stale punchlines or an existential meditation on slouching towards the single life.

At about the same time that G-G found popularity online, our perennial favorites at Fatal Farm broadcast an equally clever and subversive series about Garfield (this time in video form) called Lasagna Cat

Started in November 2007, it’s what A Tale of Two Kitties could’ve been if directed by Michel Gondry. The idea is simple: a live-action recreation of some Garfield comic strips, archived by date, and followed with a laugh track and a music video “inspired” by the preceding tri-paneled comic in what can only be a mocking tribute to the creator of the well-oiled franchise.

With Lasagna Cat, Fatal Farm continues creating the viral equivalent of avant garde art that rattles the brain, asking viewers to digest a truly crazybananas take on an animated product beloved by receptionists, grandparents, and self-effacing fat people everywhere.

Here’s to the kookiest cat to storm Web 2.0 since, well, the one that can haz cheezburger.