The concept would be more interesting and realistic if they removed only Garfield's thought bubbles (after all, Jon can't hear Garfield's thoughts anyway) but still left Garfield in the comic.
Yeah I never liked this one. There's that one other that replaces Garfield with a slightly realistic cat (without thought bubble of course) and I prefer that.
The somethingawful forums started this with garfield in the comic before "Garfield minus Garfield" was a thing. I agree that the original gag is much better.
