{"id":5038,"date":"2021-06-22T03:40:51","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T11:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/?p=5038"},"modified":"2021-06-22T03:40:51","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T11:40:51","slug":"newsday-tuesday-lets-celebrate-the-number-one-cat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/?p=5038","title":{"rendered":"Newsday Tuesday \u2013 Let\u2019s Celebrate the Number One Cat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-5030\" src=\"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/kittenPixie-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/kittenPixie-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/kittenPixie-375x500.jpg 375w, https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/kittenPixie-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/kittenPixie-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/kittenPixie-rotated.jpg 1512w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/>Saturday, June 19, was Garfield\u2019s 43<sup>rd<\/sup> birthday. That date is now a national holiday celebrating the famous cartoon character.<\/p>\n<p>Jim Davis created Garfield in 1978 using his grandfather as the model\u2014yes, in name and in character. His grandfather was named for President James Garfield. Evidently the first few newspapers Jim contacted with his idea for a comic strip were rejected, <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4740\" src=\"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/catorangefat-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/catorangefat-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/catorangefat-375x500.jpg 375w, https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/catorangefat-rotated.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/>but by 2013, the strip was being published in over 2,500 newspapers, giving Garfield the honor of being one of the first cats to go viral\u2014following in Felix the Cat\u2019s pawprints. Yeah, I grew up with Felix, Sylvester, and Tom (of Tom and Jerry), all of which were well known on many levels, but I don\u2019t <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-4149\" src=\"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/catMillicentsMac-300x226.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"226\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/catMillicentsMac-300x226.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/catMillicentsMac-768x578.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/catMillicentsMac-500x376.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/catMillicentsMac.jpg 1095w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>think any other cat has reached the heights that Garfield has.<\/p>\n<p>In 1984 he was depicted in a gigantic balloon in the Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Day Parade and he was on the cover of <em>People\u2019s Magazine<\/em> in 1982 as America\u2019s number one personality. And Garfield is still one of the most popular names for real life ginger cats.<\/p>\n<p>Happy Birthday, Garfield. Thanks for the smiles.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday, June 19, was Garfield\u2019s 43rd birthday. That date is now a national holiday celebrating the famous cartoon character. Jim Davis created Garfield in 1978 using his grandfather as the model\u2014yes, in name and in character. His grandfather was named &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/?p=5038\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5038"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5039,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5038\/revisions\/5039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}