Each scene is a recreation of a Garfield comic strip with the role of Garfield played by a real cat (who cannot speak). The given date is not the same as the date on which the corresponding comic strip appeared. Instead, these dates differ in the year and either the month or day as follows:
Given date Strip date Difference 5/19/1983 5/20/2006 0/1/23 6/16/1988 7/16/2001 1/0/13 1/5/1992 1/8/2005 0/3/13 6/11/1992 6/12/2007 0/1/15 2/21/1993 8/21/2010 6/0/17 6/26/1995 9/26/2002 3/0/7 4/15/1997 4/26/2003 0/11/6 1/5/2000 1/8/2008 0/3/8 8/13/2000 8/16/2004 0/3/4 1/21/2003 1/31/2009 0/10/6
Note that each strip appeared in a different year of the decade starting in 2001. Moreover, if the dates differ in the month/day/year, then Garfield has dialogue in the first/second/third panel, respectively.
Using the differences as indices into Garfield's dialogue from the corresponding panels gives two letters per strip. Ordering by the year in which the strips appeared spells out the clue phrase COMIC STRIP CANINE FRED. This refers to the comic strip Fred Basset, so BASSET is the answer.