Garfield Minus Garfield by Dan Walsh
Two very different cartoons that share a strategy: Both take images from trite sources (word-processor-style clip art and a longstanding comic strip, respectively) and reveal their inherent, apparently unintentional funniness* by stripping them to their bare essences. GYWO asks what the mute office drones in the clip art would be talking about, and concludes that if we could hear them we'd hear the sort of detached, cool, semi-ironic, and deeply profane kind of talk that we might encounter at work, only wittier and more political. Garfield Minus Garfield asks, even more simply, how the character Jon's words and actions would look if there wasn't an anthropomorphized cat sitting there.
The blog Wonkette called GYWO "the only example of a funny comic strip getting funnier when animated," and I have to agree. The clip art office-drones and their invisible desks look better than ever in animation. Follow this link to see it:
http://www.236.com/video/2008/get_your_war_on_new_world_orde_10121.php
*A Mark Twain coinage. Those who, like me, prefer Garfield Minus Garfield to Garfield would probably agree with this statement: The latent humor in Garfield (on which GMC relies) is superior to the manifest humor of same. It's as if Garfield's raison d'etre were to make GMG possible.
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