History WesternAnimation / GarfieldAndFriends

* "NotUsingTheZWord: "The Carnival Curse" has Garfield receiving a gypsy's curse of becoming a werewolf-like creature by the full moon. Rather than being called a "werewolf" or even a "werecat", he is instead called a "wolf creature" (likely due to "were" meaning "man").

** Aloysius Pig, Orson's cousin, revealed two of his in "The Discount Of Monte Cristo": donuts ("Add to the cost of cels and pencils, and [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers all those donuts]], and-") and pizza ("Couldn't you just send out for a PIZZA?). A hidden frame just before Aloysius says the latter phrase has him staring happily at crepes, so he possibly could like crepes, too.

* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: In one episode, Aloysius Pig lists things animators need to do cartoons like ''Garfield and Friends'': cells, pencils and... '''donuts'''?

** Garfield's post-theme line from the fourth season premiere is "Don't bother checking Creator/{{NBC}}, kids. They're not running cartoons anymore."

* CulturalTranslation: In the Brazilian dub of "The Fairy Dogmother", the line where Mr. Wishnitsky's secretary mentions people from Cleveland wishing for the Indians to win a few games is changed to people from Rio de Janeiro wishing for Botafogo[[note]]A soccer team from Rio[[/note]] to win a few games.

Unlike ''Garfield''[='=]s non-talking pets, U.S. Acres is set on a farm inhabited and apparently run by {{Talking Animal}}s. In the first three seasons, nearly every episode included a point where the characters stop and sing a song related to the episode's plot or theme, often including a more or less arbitrary {{A|nAesop}}esop. In the later seasons, the episodes got DenserAndWackier and less about an Aesop. [[note]]''U.S. Acres'' is known as "[[MarketBasedTitle Orson's Farm]]" outside the United States, where the original title's slight pun is not the selling point it was in the USA.[[/note]]

* AnAesop:
** "Binky Gets Canceled...Again!" [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin As the title implies]], Binky's popular kids' show is canceled after parents complain that the program isn't educational. Binky points out that his show does teach educational content: "I make children laugh! I entertain!" The station manager then declares that entertaining simply isn't enough for children's shows anymore -- they need to have "social content" to get airtime. This seems to be a reaction against programs that treat kids like idiots while hammering home countless Aesops. It's not subtle, but it does make the legitimate claim that it's OK for children to simply have fun and enjoy themselves while watching television, rather than constantly having to learn something from it.
** Thanks to head writer Creator/MarkEvanier, every time the Buddy Bears show up, we get a message about groupthink and TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong, namely that blindly following the group and being unable to form your own opinions is not the way to be. This is particularly effective in "Big Bad Buddy Bird", because it frames the Buddy Bears as a ShowWithinAShow. Roy leaves the farm and looks for a new job in showbiz; he's placed on the Buddy Bears Show as their new friend "Big Bad Buddy Bird", who, in his own words, "never agrees with the group and sets a bad example for impressionable children everywhere". Towards the end of the episode, which features one of the Bears constantly giving up what they want to do to go with the group and outright telling children "NEVER have an opinion of your own!', Roy--who's been punished with sixteen-ton safes being dropped on his head whenever he disagrees--delivers a speech that summarizes exactly what's wrong with the groupthink; it helps that he's literally pressed up against a television screen while the Bears try to pull him off, which makes it seem like he's [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall actually speaking directly to children watching]] ''Garfield and Friends''.
--->''"NO! No more examples! Kids, don't listen to any of this--these Bears are dangerous. You should have opinions of your own! You should think and decide and not listen to what everyone else says! Use your own mind--don't do everything your friends do just because they do it, ''have a brain of your own''! LET GO OF ME! THE GROUP ISN'T ALWAYS RIGHT!"''

->''"Ladies and gentlemen... [[TitleDrop Garfield and Friends!]]"''

* InkSuitActor: A large number of guest stars during later seasons, including, but not limited to, Rip Taylor, Ray Jay Johnson, George Foreman and Eddie Lawrence doing his "Old Philosopher" routine in cat form. Most notable was adding Aloysius, a pastiche of stand-up comedian Creator/KevinMeaney (right down to his catchphrase, "That's not right!"), as a recurring character on ''U.S. Acres''.

** Binky could change his CatchPhrase depending on who he's addressing, such as "Heeeeeeeeeey, cat!"

* NoIndoorVoice: Binky the Clown's [[{{Catchphrase}} "Heeeeeeeeeey kids!"]] This is part of the "Screaming with Binky" quickies, in which a professional is doing something very carefully, and Binky screaming his {{catchphrase}} causes them to mess up.

* GroupCostumeFail: Played for laughs in "Origin of Power Pig", where Orson's brothers get the idea to disguise themselves as giant knockwurst in yet another attempt to steal the harvest. Mort, however shows up in a different outfit and, when one of the others says "Hey, that don't look like a giant knockwurst", Mort replies "I couldn't find a giant knockwurst costume. I'm a Vienna sausage."

* BeyondTheImpossible: In "An Egg Citing Story", Orson says he has no idea how, but Sheldon while in a full egg shell had newspapers delivered that he read, and decided he didn't want to see a world so full of bad news, so Sheldon remains unhatched.

-->'''Garfield''': ''(Reading a cue card)'' Annoying Thing Number 20: DOGS! Dogs ''stink!'' They're ''stupid!'' They're ''useless!'' They're...they're...Hey! Who put that on my cue card--

** In "Clean Sweeps," [[JerkAss Garfield laughs at Odie getting a bath becuase Odie doesn't like it]]. After Jon buys a robot that would bathe Odie, Garfield purposfully gets Odie dirty because he likes watching Odie being misserable. Odie gets fed with Garfiel mocking him, so he serves Garfield a messy meal, and when Garfield gets dirty, Odie gleefully laughs at Garfield getting forcefully washed. At the very end, they make peace with one another and make the Robot give Jon a bath.

* TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong: Parodied, rather viciously at times, with the Buddy Bears. They believe in agreeing with everything and, not only expects others to do the same, they are obligated to follow in practice. They mention it directly in their introductory song:

[[caption-width-right:272:''"C'mon in, it's time to party with Garfield and Friends!"'']]

* TheDogBitesBack: In "Annoying Things," Garfield hosts a ShowWithinAShow about [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin things that annoy him.]] A tough-talking dog is waiting outside the studio and warns him that if he makes even one joke about dogs being annoying, he'll [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beat him to a pulp.]] Garfield agrees and instead repeatedly lists [[SitcomArchNemesis Nermal]] as something incredibly irritating. But then...

* OffModel:
** Viciously parodied in "Mistakes Will Happen", where the animation goes off-model on purpose while Garfield "reviews" the episode in search of mistakes. Even though there are many blatantly obvious ones (e.g. a misspelled title card which has Garfield's face on Odie's body), the only three he points out aren't really "mistakes".
*** On the other hand, there were plenty of instances where the Ink & Paint department clearly screwed up. Or when small bits of a character are missing for a few frames.
** Jon jitters a for a frame in one shot of "The Automated Animated Adventure".

* ItCameFromTheFridge: [[LongTitle The Creature That Lived in the Refrigerator, Behind the Mayonnaise, Next to the Ketchup, and to the Left of the Cole Slaw.]]

Each episode is in ThreeShorts [=ABA=] format. The A series is ''Garfield'', derived from the massively famous comic strip of the same name. The B series (referred to in the title sequence as "[[ProtagonistAndFriends and Friends]]") is ''ComicStrip/USAcres'' (renamed "Orson's Farm" on pre-2019 DVD releases and in international versions), based on Davis's other, less famous comic strip. Before the second and third shorts would be a "Quickie", a short cartoon derived directly from the comic strips. The first and second seasons had many songs (OncePerEpisode during ''U.S. Acres''), but this practice was retired later.

* TemporaryScrappy: In one "U.S. Acres" segment, an overly-charismatic new rooster named Plato shows up and proves to be far more likable to the characters (especially the hens) than Roy. Orson starts to doubt him when he proves a little less effective at his job than Roy. But what takes the cake is when the weasel tries to capture the hens... and Plato runs and hides. By the time Roy rescues the hens, the only character who will even give Plato the time of day is [[CowardlyLion Wade]], and only because he enjoys having someone more cowardly than himself around.

* HostileShowTakeover: One episode had Nermal and Jon hijacking "Garfield's Tales of Scary Stuff" [[spoiler: (This only happens in Change of Mind when both accidentally wish to be Garfield's place thanks to a wishing star)]]. Of course before the episode end guess who's not to happy about this.