TIL something about a rear window Garfield craze in the late eighties. I had heard about it from the cartoon, but having been born after it, I thought it was made up as a commentary on consumerism. I learned of it because the other day I finally saw a window Garfield on a Taxi. I didn't even know these plushies were real.
Now I know these plushies were real. They were in vogue in the late eighties and came into being by accident. Jim Davies had ordered Garfield plushies with velcro on their hands but the factory fashioned them with suction cups instead. He then marketed them as window decoration. Then people started putting them in their cars. Then teen vandals started to window smash these cars for the plushies and gifted them to their girlfriends. Also that Paws would send a replacement to people mailing them a copy of the police report.
The lasagna-snorting cat's car plush led to a burglary spree and humane society protests.
www.mentalfloss.com
Some things here in our continent are very far from each other. Though I'm sure my perspective is skewed because I constantly move on a 40 mile radius across the city and back and fort between two states. Everything under a two-hour drive is registered to me as "extremely close".