Line #56 Trivia/Garfield


1	!![[ComicStrip/{{Garfield}} The comic strip]]
2	* AccidentallyCorrectWriting: Garfield [[DoesNotLikeSpam hating raisins]] is because Creator/JimDavis does so, but given raisins are poisonous to cats, he has a reason to avoid them.
3	* BeamMeUpScotty: A lot of the quotes attributed to him were either only said in merchandising and book covers, or said once in the strip and forgotten. "I'm not overweight, I'm undertall" was only ever said as such in the first compilation book, ''Garfield at Large'' (he later said it to the ''reader'' as part of one of his semi-annual National Fat Week strips).
4	* {{Defictionalization}}
5	** Being a teddy bear, Pooky gets this occasionally.
6	** The website www.coffeequick.com was briefly up just to see how many readers would look it up in the strip where Garfield visits a site by that name (the domain has since been bought by a coffee maker company). Back then, the site would take you to a Garfield official game called [[https://garfield.com/games/bean-me Bean Me!]] that involves you giving Garfield a variety of coffees to help wake him up. Another strip had a website www.dingleball.com that when accessed loaded a Flash game featuring Odie.
7	* DevelopmentGag: The August 15, 1978 strip had Garfield remarking that Odie should have been named Spot. Odie's original name was Spot, and Jim Davis changed it when he found out that name was taken already. To take it further, the exact strip was done for "Jon," the prototype/predecessor to "Garfield." The only difference is Garfield's thought in the final panel, which originally said, "So '''that's''' why they call him 'Spot.'"
8	* EditedForSyndication: The October 20, 2002 strip [[http://www.mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=2799 originally]] quoted Creator/RobertFrost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay", but replaced it with [[https://licensing.andrewsmcmeel.com/features/ga?date=2002-10-20&hstc=110897754.fd005cd79bb5a9b6ebf99ca80fb39fa8.1603110870545.1605037719423.1605039931558.52&hssc=110897754.16.1605039931558&__hsfp=2435156794 original dialogue]][[note]]The official version of the strip on [=GoComics=] has the outlines severely misaligned with the coloring and text; the above link is to an officially licensed reprint that doesn't have the error[[/note]] for the book and online reprints due to the poem still being under copyright at the time (the copyright has since lapsed in the United States and in countries where copyright expires 50 years after the author's death).
9	* ExecutiveMeddling:
10	** Garfield was given his trademark tabby stripes as a suggestion from an editor.
11	** Davis was forced to change Odie's ears from black to brown by the publisher because they apparently made him look too much like [[ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}} Snoopy]] [[ViewersAreMorons somehow]].
12	* FandomLifeCycle: The strip is easily a Stage 5, being one of the most recognizable and quoted comic strips in the world.
13	* FollowTheLeader: Jim Davis developed a book format for the first ''Garfield'' compilation, which featured very wide pages to accommodate the three-panel strip horizontally as it appeared in the paper, as opposed to being vertically stacked like most comic strip trade books of the day. This wide-page format came to be known as the "Garfield format". Many other comic strips soon followed suit with their own books, including ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'' and ''ComicStrip/FoxTrot''. {{Iron\|y}}ically, since 2001, ''Garfield'' itself no longer uses the Garfield format for its compilations, and the earlier "Garfield format" compilations have been republished in a square-shaped book style.
14	* FranchiseZombie: The comic is a prime example of this trope. While Jim Davis maintains creative control and signs the strips, he now only does the writing and rough sketches while his assistants do the inking and coloring. This is due to the fact that Jim Davis now spends most of his time supervising production and merchandising his characters through his company Paws, Inc. And as of 2016, he is currently an adjunct professor at Ball State University, his alma mater, meaning that he will most likely devote less time to his strip he created forty years ago.
15	* KeepCirculatingTheTapes:
16	** Two Garfield books: ''Babes and Bullets'' and ''Garfield: His 9 Lives'' are out of print, and neither are listed on the Garfield Website's store. Interestingly, the animated specials based on both books ''are'' listed on the Garfield Website store.
17	** A 1986 compilation of original gags, ''The Unabridged Uncensored Unbelievable Garfield'', is also out of print.
18	* KidsMealToy:
19	** In 1987, UsefulNotes/McDonalds released a set of four mugs. These mugs are infamous for containing ''extremely'' dangerous amounts of lead paint, making them a serious health risk to use.
20	** In 1989, [=McDonald's=] released a set of four racing toys with interchangeable Garfield figures. These consisted of a scooter, a skateboard, a jeep, and a motorcycle (with Odie in the side car).
21	** In the 1991 holiday season, [=McDonald's=] released a set of three plush toys; two of Garfield, and one of Odie.
22	** Dairy Queen released a set of six sports figures in 1998. There were five of Garfield and one of Odie.
23	** In 2000, Wendy's released a set of five toys in their kids' meals.
24	* LiveOnStage: ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCOw9O_Dbyw Garfield: The Musical with Catitude]]'', a musical adaptation that mostly follows an original story about Garfield's birthday, and him realizing what ThePowerOfFriendship truly is.
25	* MilestoneCelebration: Every June 19 (the date the strip debuted) celebrates Garfield's 'birthday'. It's the only comic to celebrate its anniversary '''every''' year.
26	** [[https://www.gocomics.com/garfield/1988/06/19 June 19, 1988]] is Garfield's 10th birthday. Jon and Garfield proceed to look through a photo album and see images of the last ten years. [[CreatorCameo Jim Davis]] even makes a cameo.
27	-->'''Jon:''' You've really changed in ten years, Garfield.
28	-->'''Garfield:''' Feed me.
29	** 2003 marks Garfield's 25th birthday. In a [[https://www.gocomics.com/comics/lists/1720860/when-garfield-met-garfield-25th-anniversary series of strips]] leading up to his 25th birthday Garfield meets himself from 1978.
30	** 2018 is Garfield's 40th Birthday. Nothing special about the birthday itself, but a special anniversary book called "Age Happens: Garfield Hits The Big 4-0" was released. The book contains a collection of every birthday comic strip to be released and features fan art from both fans and comic artists alike, along with an intro by Creator/LinManuelMiranda.
31	* MissingEpisode:
32	** Most online archives inexplicably omit the first and fifth panels from the February 22, 1981 strip, as [[http://www.mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=1097 pointed out]] by ''Webcomic/SquareRootOfMinusGarfield''.
33	** For some reason, May 2-5, 1990 never made it into the original version of ''Garfield Takes Up Space'', and the next book (''Garfield Says a Mouthful'') starts with May 6 instead. This was also true of the original "Fat Cat 3-Pack" reprints of those books. They finally returned, however, in the colorized "square" reprint of ''Takes Up Space'' and its corresponding "Fat Cat 3-Pack" reprint (they're also available on the [=GoComics=] website).
34	** Jim Davis did two comic strips before Garfield: ''Gnorm Gnat'' and ''Jon'', an early prototype that would evolve into Garfield. Many of these strips though have not been seen outside their original publication in the Pendleton Times of Pendleton, Indiana, the only newspaper to print them both.
35	*** ''ComicStrip/{{Jon}}'' [[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mIxJ-58j1j001X7PHmafY3y8mdtG8HV-/view has been uploaded in PDF format]].
36	* MoneyDearBoy: Jim Davis made no secret of the fact that he created the strip to make money. He chose a cat as the subject because he felt it was a widely relatable topic. These days, he works more with the ''Garfield'' merchandise while only writing and thumb nailing the comics. It's not a full-on antipathetic example however, since Davis has still routinely shown passion in working on and quality checking the franchise despite this motivation.
37	* MythologyGag: When asked about the fate of Jon's friend Lyman after he'd been [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome phased out]], Jim Davis half-jokingly replied [[YouDoNOTWantToKnow "Don't look in Jon's basement."]] In the online game "Garfield's Spooky Scavenger Hunt," [[spoiler:Lyman is chained up in the basement of the haunted house]].
38	* {{Padding}}: There are quite a number of {{Sunday strip}}s with a gag that could easily be done in the usual 3 panels, but are stretched out over 6 - 7 panels with unnecessary scenes. [[https://www.gocomics.com/garfield/2020/08/02 Take this one]] for example.
39	* PopCultureUrbanLegends: Garfield is really DeadAllAlong. This legend stems from EpilepticTrees caused a 1989 story arc where Garfield has a [[AllJustADream dream]] where he's in an abandoned house.
40	* PopularityRedo: Many early ''Garfield'' comics are revamps of gags from the prototype ''ComicStrip/{{Jon}}'', and a handful of those were already revamps of ''ComicStrip/GnormGnat'' comics.
41	* ReleaseDateChange: In Jim Davis' announcement about becoming nationally syndicated, he stated the strip would be on hiatus about a year before reviving as a national strip. The syndication deal was sealed in January 1978, and the final ''ComicStrip/{{Jon}}'' strip ran in February 1978. The nationally-syndicated ''Garfield'' debuted June 19, 1978, only about half a year after the syndication agreement.
42	* RealitySubtext: [[WordOfGod "When I go on a diet, Garfield goes on one too."]]
43	* RecycledScript: A lot. See [[RecycledScript/{{Garfield}} the subpage]].
44	* ScrewedByTheLawyers: There was a short run of ''Believe it, or don't'' gags... until PAWS Inc. got a cease-and-desist letter from the Robert Ripley estate.
45	* SurprisinglyLenientCensor: Jim Davis submitted a strip where Garfield takes catnip and wakes up the next morning in Atlantic City with a Barbie doll and his editor ''approved'' it. [[DontExplainTheJoke However, most]] ''[[DontExplainTheJoke readers]]'' [[DontExplainTheJoke apparently missed the marijuana/prostitution gag as well, which was probably why Davis felt he had to explain it in his twentieth-anniversary retrospective book in 1998.]]
46	* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Jim Davis did an early version of Garfield called ''Jon'' from 1976 to 1978, named after main character Jon Arbuckle; in this work, Garfield was more of a secondary character, and Odie was called "Spot". More information about it exists on [[https://lostmediawiki.com/Jon_(partially_found_prototype_%22Garfield%22_comic_strip;_1976-1978) the Lost Media Wiki]]. Odie's original name is alluded to quite a few times; in one comic, Garfield stole Odie's spot and put it on his belly. When Jon attempts to scold him and Odie chases him for his spot back, Garfield states, "Call me Spot!"
47	* WordOfGod:
48	** The infamous "Jon drinks dog semen" comic (where Jon drinks a cup he thinks is coffee, and Liz jokingly replies that he's going to give birth to a litter of puppies) eventually got to the point where Jim Davis clarified his actual intent: growing up on a farm, Davis often saw pregnant cows being given protein supplements to ease the birthing process, and the idea was that Jon drank a similar supplement meant for pregnant dogs.
49	** When [[WMG/PoisonOakEpilepticTrees a particularly dark fan theory]] about the infamous 1989 Halloween strips -- which posited that Garfield was still in a BadFuture where he was left by himself in [[OldDarkHouse a completely abandoned neighborhood]], and that his vision of him reuniting with Jon and Odie at the end was his DyingDream as he slowly starves to death -- reached Jim Davis, he laughed the theory off and explained that Garfield's nightmarish vision was indeed AllJustADream.
50	* WorkingTitle: When ''Garfield'' was picked up by United Features Syndicate in January 1978, an early title for the nationally syndicated strip was ''Garfield and Friends'', a title that would later be used for [[WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends the cartoon]].
51	* WriteWhatYouKnow: In the early days of the strip, Jim Davis would fall asleep at his desk at random intervals while writing. He turned this into Garfield's "nap attacks."
52	* WriteWhoYouKnow:
53	** Jim Davis chose a cat as the protagonist of his strip partly because he grew up on a farm surrounded by cats and thus had a lot of experience to base gags upon.
54	** Garfield is based on, [[{{Tuckerization}} and named for]], Jim's grandfather.
55	** Like Jim, Jon is a cartoonist who grew up on a farm and later moved to the city. Davis has also said that he's based some of Jon's dating disasters on some of his own dating experiences.
56
57	!![[Film/{{Garfield}} The film version]]
58	* CaliforniaDoubling: In the second film, the city of York in northern England stands in for London. Noticeable in that the "London" seen in the film is a very hilly place, whereas the real London is almost entirely flat.
59	* CreatorBacklash:
60	** Creator/BillMurray, [[AsHimself playing himself]], in ''Film/{{Zombieland}}'' says he regrets being in the first movie. He even admitted on Reddit that he only signed onto the film because he thought one of the writers, Joel Cohen, [[Creator/TheCoenBrothers was another director with a very similar name.]]
61	** Creator/BreckinMeyer once stated in his Twitter bio: "Um...sorry about that whole Garfield thing." He's also repeatedly taken shots at himself for it on ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken''.
62	** For that matter, Paws Inc. [[DisownedAdaptation doesn't mention the film much either]]. The only extensive mention of it was in a book, ''Lights, Camera, Hairballs: Garfield at the Movies'', which was mainly made as promotion for the sequel. Besides that, they've ignored the movies in the years since. What complicates things more is that now Paws Inc. is owned by Paramount Global (formerly [=ViacomCBS=]), while the movie is now in the hands of a different studio entirely (originally produced by 20th Century Fox), which is now under ownership of Disney.
63	* KidsMealToy: Provided by Wendy's, which had sold Garfield toys four years prior. Wendy's ProductPlacement appears constantly throughout the film.
64	* PreviewPiggybacking: Arguably, the only reason anyone saw the first movie when it aired on Creator/TheHub was to see the [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Equestria Girls]] commercial that premiered on it (the song, [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirls1 the film]] wasn't out until two years later). This got lampshaded in a comic that showed a screenshot from the movie, Pinkie Pie's family looking at it in disbelief, a screenshot from the commercial, and the family with happy expressions.
65	* TroubledProduction: According to Bill Murray, the directors and editors of both films were really inexperienced and had shot both films without fully accounting for the animation on Garfield. His ADR took ''months'' because they were constantly re-writing his lines and re-cutting the film. For the sequel, Murray finally stepped in to assist with cutting the movie, [[ExecutiveMeddling only to find out the studio was cutting its own version behind his back]].
66	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
67	** Creator/JackNicholson and Creator/JohnGoodman were considered to voice Garfield before Creator/BillMurray was cast.
68	** Creator/JimCarrey, Creator/BenStiller and Creator/OwenWilson were approached for the role of Jon Arbuckle before the casting of Creator/BreckinMeyer.
69	** Creator/AngelinaJolie, Creator/JenniferGarner and Creator/NataliePortman were considered for the part of Liz before Creator/JenniferLoveHewitt was cast.
70	** Creator/MichaelIronside, Creator/ThomasLennon and Creator/BradDourif were considered for Happy Chapman before the casting of Creator/StephenTobolowsky.
71	!![[WesternAnimation/GarfieldSpecials Animated versions]]:
72	* TheOtherDarrin:
73	** Sandy Kenyon voiced Jon Arbuckle in ''Here Comes Garfield'', but all other traditionally animated ''Garfield'' specials, including ''The Fantastic Funnies'' and ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'', used Thom Huge as Jon's voice actor. Then Breckin Meyer played him in the [[LiveActionAdaptation live-action movies]] ''Garfield'' and ''Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties''. After that, ''Garfield Gets Real'', ''Garfield's Fun Fest'', ''Garfield's Pet Force'' and ''The Garfield Show'' utilized Creator/WallyWingert's voice for Jon.
74	** Strangely, Huge (rhymes with "loogie") has literally [[OneBookAuthor no other credits]]. [[http://www.povonline.com/cols/COL191.htm According to Mark Evanier]], Thom Huge was one of Jim Davis' associates at Paws, Inc.
75	** After the death of Creator/LorenzoMusic, Garfield has been voiced by several other voice actors, most notably Creator/BillMurray in TheMovie. Creator/FrankWelker is his most recent replacement. Music himself was an Other Darrin, having replaced Scott Beach from the ''Fantastic Funnies'' animations.
76	** Zig-zagged a bit in the Latin American Spanish dubs: Garfield has being voiced by Chilean voice actor Sandro Larenas in most of the animated adaptations, even the ones not dubbed in Chile, like ''WesternAnimation/TheGarfieldShow''. The only exceptions were the live-action movies, when he is voiced by Mexican movie actor Adrian Uribe, ''WesternAnimation/CartoonAllStarsToTheRescue'', when he is voiced by the Mexican-American Roberto Colucci in Los Angeles, ''Garfield Gets Real'' when he is voiced by Bernardo Rodríguez in Mexico and both Creator/GerardoReyero (Mexico) and Marcelo Armand (Argentina) in ''Garfield's Pet Force'' ([[DuelingDubs The movie was dubbed twice in those countries]]), while Reyero voiced him exclusively in ''Garfield's Funfest''.
77	*** In the case of Jon Arbuckle, Chilean actor (and voice actor) Adriano Castillo made the voice for ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldSpecials'' and the first two seasons of ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'', being later darrin'd for several voice actors in later animations. But also Adriano darrin'd Sandro Larenas as Binky the Clown in ''Garfield and Friends'' during the season 2 until the season 7.
78	** Japan got worse on this, as all the adaptations sports different voice actors. To make matters even more confusing, ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'' got two different dubs, one for Cartoon Network's Japanese feed and another for WOWOW, a cable channel. For clarify a bit:
79	*** '''Garfield''': Creator/{{Chafurin}} (Cartoon Network dub for ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends''), Creator/TesshoGenda (WOWOW dub of the same show), Creator/TomokazuSugita (''Garfield's Pet Force''), Creator/WataruTakagi (''WesternAnimation/TheGarfieldShow''), Takashi Fujii (first live-action film), Creator/KappeiYamaguchi (second live-action film).
80	*** '''Jon Arbuckle''': Yasuhiko Nemoto (Cartoon Network dub), Creator/RyuseiNakao (WOWOW dub), Creator/ToshihikoSeki (''WesternAnimation/TheGarfieldShow''), Yuuya Uchida (live-action films).
81	* ThePeteBest: In the very first animation that aired on ''The Fantastic Funnies'' (1980), adapting five newspaper strips, Garfield was voiced by Scott Beach. Starting with ''Here Comes Garfield'', Creator/LorenzoMusic was his voice actor for all the animated adaptations until his death in 2001.
82	!!Video Games
83	* ActingForTwo: In the 2004 game (not related to the film from the same year), Garfield and Jon are voiced by the same actor, Jon Barnard.
84	* NoExportForYou: The [[UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem Famicom]] game, A Week of Garfield, was never released outside of UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}.

Context Trivia / Garfield