Garfield and Friends, which consists of Three Shorts, two of Garfield and one of US Acres (Orson's Farm outside the US, based on another Jim Davis strip about farm animals)
Two live action movies, starring a CG Garfield voiced by Bill Murray and the remaining animals are in live action. Breckin Meyer played Jon and Jennifer Love Hewitt played Liz.
Some edutainment computer games.... the list goes on.
Jim Davis has stated that he created Garfield with the sole intention of making money. He decided to create a strip that would be popular with the masses, in order to be commercially successful. The fact that he succeeded says one of two things, depending on how cynical one is. On the other hand, at least he was willing to admit it.Garfield's speech is completely internal, even in his animated version. Although it made animation much easier, fans wondered exactly how much Jon understood Garfield considering they couldn't actually hold a conversation. With that in mind, they started the trend of removing Garfield's dialogue— or even Garfield altogether— from the comics. What results is a surreal trip into the mind of a very disturbed and lonely man, which is often considered funnier than the original strip, even by Jim Davis himself.Probably holds the distinction of being the comic strip that features the most tropes whilst not naming any.
Aborted Arc: Many storylines end like this, especially the ones where Garfield, Jon and Odie take a trip. They always go out of their way to make a strip or two preparing or heading to their destination, but by Sunday they're suddenly back home as if nothing happened. If the story spans more than one week, the Sunday strip will continue the storyline instead.
Garfield: Aha! Could this be a telltale trail of teddy bear hair? Even if it isn't, that was a pretty nifty bit of alliteration.
Affectionate Parody: Jim Davis sometimes uses Jon's family to poke fun at his own Down On The Farm roots. Jon's father is depicted in one strip at being amazed by an indoor toilet, while in another he breaks Jon's sink after trying to pump the faucet.
Affectionate Pickpocket: Garfield has done this to steal food from people's pockets on at least two occasions.
Alien Animals: One strip suggests that cats are invaders attempting to subjugate humanity, and that they are responsible for certain seemingly-mindless actions of dogs and lower-class humans.
All Cloth Unravels: Garfield only pulls on a thread from Jon's pants, but the shirt somehow unravels, too, leaving Jon naked outside.
Anthropomorphic Shift: Garfield originally started out looking more like a real-life housecat, but per Art Evolution, he became extremely humanoid in 1984.
Animal Jingoism: The traditional cats vs. dogs rivalry is played straight on many occasions between Garfield and Odie and all the other dogs he interacts with, but it's also repeatedly subverted. Garfield and Odie can get along perfectly well when they feel like it. One particular strip involves what looks like a large, angry barking dog chasing a terrified Garfield, but in the last panel they stop to catch their breath as a despondent Garfield tells the dog that they'll never catch the ice cream truck.
"What's new, Garfield?" "Well, King Kong is on the roof batting down airplanes. The entire planet is being ravaged by brain-eating aliens... but more important, my dish is empty."
"Birthdays bring you lots of things... Gray hair. Bad eyesight... Creaky joints. Ear hair, aches, pains, bad teeth... Sigh... And cake!"
Another one that occurs while Jon's watching a soap opera:
Jon: I have some bad news, Garfield. I ran out of your favorite cat food.
Garfield: I'll survive.
Jon: Odie chewed up your scratching post.
Garfield: Big deal.
Jon: And Frank left Marcia for Stephanie.
Garfield: (dramatic expression) HOW COULD HE?!
"Why do people expect us cats to eat mice? This mouse could be somebody's mother. This mouse could be a deacon in its little mouse church. And one of the fuzzy sucker's bones might get caught in my throat."
Art Evolution: A rather extreme example, as Garfield has gone from having a huge body and beady eyes, to having a huge head and a body that looks like a basketball with legs. Just look at his face alone.◊
2003 Garfield: So I was you, huh? 1978 Garfield: A long time ago. 2003 Garfield: How did I see out of those itty-bitty eyes? 1978 Garfield: First explain how you stand on those two spindly legs.
Further lampshaded in that year's birthday strip where we see not only 1978/2003 Garfield, but also 1978/2003 Jon and Odie
Aside Glance: Occurs in the final panel of nearly all the comics, often as a reaction to a particularly stupid line or action.
Ass Shove: Implied in one strip where Jon says, "Ellen, I have a cold. I thought you might like to feed me some soup… that's not what spoons are for, Ellen."
Author Appeal: There is a definite point in the comic's long run when you will notice that most of the (human) females begin to be consistently drawn with huge breasts, butts, and lips. Some strips, such as this one◊, draw women in a Non-Standard Character Design.
Aww, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: They may give each other a hard time, but Jon and Garfield really do care for one another. Jon even went so far as to throw out a potential girlfriend (literally) when she told him she was allergic to cats and forced him to choose between her or Garfield. Garfield and Odie also qualify.
Beach Bury: Garfield once buried Odie◊ "up to his knees" (i.e., only his legs were sticking out of the sand).
Happens in another episode when Jon lets some kids bury Garfield. He actually finds it relaxing... at first.
Beach Episode: The cast frequently visit the beach. Bad things happen to Jon every time.
Beat Panel: Very often, which is surprising for a three-panel strip.
Be Careful What You Wish For: One strip has Garfield stranded up a tree. Garfield says to it "Stupid tree...May all your stupid branches fall off!" Needless to say, all the trees branches broke off and fell to the ground. Including the one he was on.
Generally averted, since Jim Davis has said that he tries to avoid US-centric references or puns, so that the strip can be easily translated. He didn't always do this in the first few years, leading to dopey errors in the Spanish translation — among others, "I ate a Milk Dud and kissed a cat" becoming "I hate spoiled milk and kissing cats", or "I love it when the Good Humor man comes" with "Good Humor" translated literally, as if it were a friendly man.
Other translation errors in the Spanish version are just inexcusable. For instance, in this strip, Garfield's dialogue was translated to something like "Pero al menos no he roto una pata" ("But at least I haven't broken a limb/leg") even though he's clearly pointing to a branch — i.e., the "sturdy limb".
The current Spanish translators are quite skilled, to the point that they sometimes slip in their own puns (for instance, this strip went with a pun on "sleeping bag" that works when translated back into English) and even make sure to localize*
(in most Spanish cultures, cats are said to have seven lives instead of nine)
. But even then, they're not infallible: in the Spanish version of this strip, they forgot to invert the words for "beef stew", thus killing the joke. Considering how well the rest of the strips are translated, this one really stands out as a glaring error.
This one also got translated literally into Spanish, but to be fair, it was a very rare exception to Jim Davis' "no wordplay" rule.
Thesetwo strips ended up with each other's dialogue.
A couple of Hungarian bloopers: In this strip, the spider's line became "I can tell when I'm being fooled!". Which doesn't make the slightest of sense. In another strip, "my place" was translated litarally, as "én helyem" ("my spot"), when "nálam" ("at my place") would have been correct. Similarly, the expressions "Well, what do you know!" and "Okay, I'll bite" have also seen word-for-word translations ("Just what do you know!" and "Okay, I'll bite you"). Also, in one instance, the word "Egad" was left untranslated.
Bowdlerise: In one farm-based strip, Garfield says "wanna swap sheep jokes?" His editor, concerned over this being misconstrued for a bestiality reference, changed it to "dirt jokes".
Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Garfield is looking in the mirror when he says: "Oh no, a wrinkle! Oh no, a gray hair! OH NO, A WRINKLED GRAY HAIR!!!"
Garfield "kicking Odie into next week". Odie is absent from the comic for the next 6 days, and, sure enough, he comes crashing back down (Onto Garfield.) on the seventh day.
Almost all of the supporting cast (particularly Arlene, Nermal and Jon's family) hardly appear nowadays.
Clip Show: June 19, 1988, the 10th anniversary strip. This strip is also the last appearance of Lyman (look at the logo box).
Cloudcuckoolander: Irma, the eponymous diner waitress of Irma's Diner. Jon sometimes wanders into this as well, making comments such as "I think my toes are jealous of my fingers because they get to point at things."
Clutching Hand Trap: Happened to Garfield in this strip, but he subverts it by breaking the cookie jar on Jon's head, instead of just simply letting go of the cookie that he wanted.
Not a cookie jar, but Jon got both of his hands stuck in pickle jars (as did his date) in this strip.
Garfield gets his hand caught in an olive jar in this early strip.
Comic Book Time: A weird zig-zagging. Garfield's birthday (and occasionally Jon's) is celebrated in every year, and he complains about getting old. However, none of the characters ever age physically.
One should also note that after the 25th anniversary, they stopped listing Garfield's age every year. Possibly because of the fact that a real cat typically only lives within half the time that Garfield's been around.
Jon: This morning I had a bowl of cereal with strawberries. When I turned my back, a mouse ate them. What do you say to that, Garfield?! Garfield: We have strawberries?
In another one, Jon mocked Garfield by commenting Garfield must be missing the time he could see his feet. Garfield then asked himself if he had feet.
Liz, whose job for nearly three decades was to become exasperated by and/or snark at Jon's attempts to woo her.
Jon's father, too. He typically was a Grumpy Old Man who was there to complain about the antics of the other characters (though on certain occasions he did get to be silly).
Contrived Coincidence: Jon gets his head caught in a wastebasket and his hands caught in pickle jars right before his date, then worries what to do because his date is coming at any moment. Turns out she had the same thing happen to her.
Cool Old Lady: Jon's grandma, who rides a motorcycle, boogies down on the piano, and is just an out-and-out badass grandma. (Ironically, her daughter is much more old-fashioned.)
The strip began using digital artwork in November 2011, and thus artwork is often reused and modified, pushing it into this trope.
Cut a Slice, Take the Rest: One logo box pictures Jon holding a single slice of pizza, and Garfield holding the entire rest of the unsliced pizza over his mouth.
Deadpan Snarker: Pretty much everyone at some point, though Garfield is the most prominent. Special mention must be given to the bathroom scale ("You know those two pounds you lost last week? They are back with reinforcements"; "Let me put it this way... Have you ever considered a career as a river barge?").
Deconstruction: Of Zipperiffic, bizarrely enough. Jon wears a suit with an absurd amount of zippered pockets, then forgets which pocket he put his keys in. Cue Garfield giving an Oh Crap face and exclaiming, "This could take months!"
Depending on the Artist: Ever since the strip went to being in color every day, there's been little to no consistency on the palette of Jon's house, wardrobe, etc. This also applies to the older strips, which were colored retroactively with just as little regard for consistency.
Diet Episode: There are numerous strips about Garfield being put on a diet by Jon (or occasionally Liz).
A Dog Named Dog: Discussed in an early strip, where Lyman said that he grew up with four cats all named Cat... because there's no point in naming an animal that won't come when you call it.
Doing It for the Art: Garfield's performances on the fence, which always have a hostile reception. The strip itself is an inversion of this trope.
Don't Answer That: Garfield says this to his mirror after asking it who's the cutest cat and then seeing Nermal walk in.
Don't Explain the Joke: In April 26,2012, a spider about to be swatted said it was okay as long as Garfield didn't sit on it and then explained he said it because Garfield was fat.
Doom It Yourself: This occurred in one strip when Jon and Doc tried setting up some Christmas lights when Jon visited the family farm for the holidays. They ended up both getting entangled in the lights:
Jon's Dad: What am I going to do with you two? Garfield: Why don't you plug them in?
The Door Slams You: Has occurred to Garfield at least once. Not surprisingly, on a Monday.
Everything's Even Worse with Sharks: Jon, reading the warning on Garfield's new flea collar: "While this collar will repel fleas, it has been known to attract sharks."
Exact Words: "We'll be back after a word from our sponsor." "Sasquatch." "And we're back."
Exposed Animal Bellybutton: Subverted in one strip. Garfield notices a black spot on his belly in the mirror and remarks "I didn't know I had a belly button". Said spot turns out to be a bug, which promptly flies away.
Though played straight with some animal characters who appeared in some strips of this comic, especially bigger ones.
Eye Poke: This strip features a televised face-slapping tournament that ends with one of these from one of the athletes.
FanGame: A fan made a non-profit Adventure Game based on the comic, named Attack of the Mutant Lasagna. He made the mistake of contacting Universal Press Syndicate to ask whether they liked it, and was promptly Screwed by the Lawyers.
Flanderization: While certain character and story elements were present in the strip almost from the very beginning (Garfield's love of lasagna, for example), the early strips might come as a surprise to readers born after 1980 or so. When the strip was starting out, many things were different: Jon wasn't overtly a nerd, although he did have trouble getting dates; Odie was stupid, but not to the extreme degree he was later portrayed; and Garfield himself was less a cool-as-ice Deadpan Snarker than a genuinely mean-spirited (and at times sadistic) misanthrope. (The mean streak remains, of course, although the outright sadism has now softened into Comedic Sociopathy.) Also, the stories were originally slightly more based in reality; the madcap surreality that the strip has become famous for didn't truly get under way until the mid-1980s.
Flushing Toilet, Screaming Shower: Garfield once turned on the hot water in the sink to show Odie that all the pipes were connected. Of course, Jon's shower went ice cold.
Follow the Leader: 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 The Far Side and Fox Trot. Ironically, since 2001, Garfield itself no longer uses the Garfield format for its compilations, and the earlier "Garfield format" compilations have been republished in a more standard style.
Funny Answering Machine: This trope is used several times by any woman Jon tries to call for a date.
Suzy: Hi, this is Suzy. I'm not at home, but please leave a message at the tone... Unless you're Jon Arbuckle, in which case the machine will automatically hung up. ...Beep!
Jon: This is, uh, Ed Smith. (machine hangs up)
Garfield: Just amazing.
A 2008 strip had Liz listening to Jon's answering machine message, commenting on it being 'funny'. Jon was being pounded by Garfield while he recorded the message.
A Good Old Fashioned Paint Watching: Occasionally used to show how boring a life Jon's family has on the countryside, since the most mundane things excite them (watching the washing machine instead of the TV ("Here comes the red sock again!"), counting every brick in the wall of the house, taking a trip to see the new water tower, going to the airport to watch the planes take off etc.)
There's an actual in-universe TV show called Watching Paint Dry.
Greasy Spoon: Irma's Diner. You have two kinds of coffee (regular and decaf), pickle brine as a choice of beverage, and a five-pound "he-man" burger. Jon has found dry-cleaning slips and false eyelashes in his food. Irma thinks that letting cheese age means keeping it in the back of her truck, and her idea of a "special treat" is a scoop of mashed potatoes in an ice cream cone. Garfield once found a hoof in a burger there.
Guilty Pleasures: In-universe, everything Garfield catches on TV.
Hash House Lingo: Jon asks for a hamburger with extra onions. Irma then turns to the kitchen and yells "BURN A COW AND MAKE HER CRY!" which causes Jon and Garfield to lose their appetites.
Binky (on TV): Heeeey, kids! Wanna see Binky do a magic trick? Well, forget it! I'm not spending another minute in this stupid clown suit! I am an actor! But, noooo... Too short, they said!
Jon: Honest Ed seems nice enough, Garfield, but there's something about him I don't trust.
Garfield: Maybe it's the fact his office is in a pickup truck with the engine running.
Also appears in an early 1990s strip where Jon buys a Christmas tree from "Honest Frosty's."
Horrible Camping Trip: Garfield has been forced to go an a few of these (though from his perspective, a camping trip can only be horrible).
Humanlike Foot Anatomy: Strangely, Garfield's feet are still shown to be digitigrade when he's laying down, but turn into humanlike feet when he stands up. They've also gotten progressively bigger over time, as demonstrated in Square Root of Minus Garfield.
Laborious Laziness: Garfield is prone to this sort of thing. In the comic that provides the page quote, the lazy cat nails the TV to the ceiling above his cat bed so he can watch it without getting up. Think about how much effort it would've taken to hoist that television up there and then keep it in place while he nailed it there, and then think about how much effort it would've taken simply to get up and walk over to where the TV was.
Laxative Prank: Jon mentions this as one of the mean things that Garfield does to Mrs. Feeny.
Least Rhymable Word: In one strip, Jon is trying to write a love poem. After a Beat Panel, he asks Garfield, "What rhymes with 'wolverine'?" and Garfield suggests "loser".
Limited Wardrobe: Jon almost always wore a "powder blue oxford shirt", as one strip put it. Averted nowadays both by the colorists being unable to make up their minds, and Jim and co. occasionally drawing Jon in a different style of shirt.
Garfield: Today's the day I do nothing. Unless I'm mistaken. Though being mistaken would be something, not nothing. So if today's the day I do nothing, I can't be mistaken. Unless I'm mistaken.◊
Jon once scolded Garfield for burying Odie in sand at the beach. Garfield defended himself by pointing out that "I only buried him up to his knees." Which would be fine....if he hadn't been buried upside-down.
"Ah, it says here carrots are on my diet. And his is a carrot cake. A loophole!"
Jon tried to teach Garfield self-control. He left a box of kitty treats in the room Garfield was in, telling him not to take the kitty treats. He left the room, then reentered a short while later. Garfield took everything except the box.
Even more audacious when Garfield was on another diet and Jon told him "You may have a salad." Garfield promptly helped himself to some pork chops, and when Jon called him out he claimed that no one had ever told him that pork chops were not a salad!
And once again: "This salad needs something. I think I'll garnish it. With a ham!" *wham*
After being hit in the head with a shoe, the Written Sound Effect "SPLUT!" appears over Garfield's head. He looks off-panel and says, "Wait a minute! Shoes don't go 'splut'!◊"
Davis also has fun with the "Z" bubbles that he uses to indicate sleeping:
One time, Garfield said that he couldn't seem to wake up, until he realized that the large "Z" was still over his head. He popped the "Z"◊ and promptly woke up.
"Boy, am I bored. I'm so bored I have nothing better to do than lie here flat as a pancake. A big fluffy pancake dripping with butter and maple syrup... Boy, am I hungry."
"Life is like a birdbath. It's made of concrete, filled with water, and uh... birds like to splash in it. Boy, that was dumb. Life isn't anything like a birdbath. Life... is like a sock monkey..."
This strip had nothing but Garfield sleeping for all three panels, no doubt leaving many readers outright baffled when it first appeared in papers. It makes much more sense when read in the books, where the next day's strip completes the gag.
Milestone Celebration: Every June 19 (the date the strip debuted) celebrates Garfield's 'birthday'. It's the only comic to celebrate its anniversary every year.
Mushroom Samba: One censored comic which only appears as a rough sketch in the 25th anniversary book, features a half asleep Garfield as he watches a periscope emerge from his water dish, followed by a tentacle. Garfield then smiles and says, "Man, that was some gooooooood catnip!"
Never My Fault: Garfield's typical form of "self-chastisement". Quite amusing some of the time.
No Fourth Wall: The fourth wall came crashing down on the first day and never went back up:
Jon: Our only thought is to entertain you.
Garfield: Feed me.
One time (in the 1980s) Jon decided Garfield should go on a diet because his weight was causing the comic strip box to dip where he walked.
The fourth wall is sometimes AWOL in-universe as well:
Woman on TV: Come closer... closer... (Jon moves closer to the TV) Woman on TV: Uh... that's close enough, dork boy. Garfield: Et tu, TV?
Another time, a television host yelled at a sleeping Garfield to turn the set off after signing off for the night.
Noir Episode: Babes and Bullets, one of the segments in Garfield: His 9 Lives. Wasn't included in the animated version but was adapted into a stand-alone TV special the following year.
No Mouth: Garfield's teddy bear Pooky had one, but as per Art Evolution he lost it (10-6-1981◊ and 2-7-1982◊ being the last strips to depict him with a mouth). Since then, at least two◊ strips◊ relied on the fact that Pooky had no mouth.
Nothing Is the Same Anymore: In July 2006, after 27 years of constant failures, Jon finally managed to get together with Liz. They're in a relationship since then.
Pie in the Face: The "Splut!" pies, which make that noise when they hit Garfield.
The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Those who have been around long enough will know that Jon is supposedly a cartoonist. It was mentioned in the first strip, and his drawing board was seen in some early strips. The only times it's been mentioned after that is the storyline in 1984, where Jon goes to a cartoonists' convention and Liz describing Jon to her parents in the May 2, 2010 strip.◊ That's right; his job went unmentioned in the strip for twenty-six years.
Pounds Are Animal Prisons: A 1981 story arc had Garfield being sent to the city pound, which was portrayed this way. (He escapes when Fluffy, another cat there, smashes him through the wall) It was even parodied in one of the strips:
(the gate slams)
Garfield: How did I get into this fix? One minute I'm free as a bird, then I'm in the city pound. Where did I go wrong? I'm just a number here, I've almost forgotten what it's like on the outside. It's not right to cage a wild animal!These four walls are closing in on me! I can't take it anymore!
Cat: You've only been here two minutes.
Garfield: I know, but this is my first shot at a prison scene.
Precision F-Strike: Davis got a lot of letters for having Garfield say "sucked" in this strip; this was the only time that word ever appeared in it.
Produce Pelting: Happens frequently to Garfield when he's singing on the fence. He once had a watermelon thrown at him.
A watermelon? Psh. Remember Booga-Booga's wonderful scout troop? Only bloody currency is GIANT STONE WHEELS.
August 21, 1994, as the result of Jon "fixing" the toaster...
October 28, 2003 gives us a toaster that hates Jon. And it turns out to be possessed by an evil spirit.
Inverted on August 10, 1986, where Jon turns the toaster upside-down to prevent Garfield from stealing the toast. The toaster becomes projectile and smacks Garfield in the head.
Relationship Upgrade: Liz has gone from occasionally and begrudgingly dating Jon to his full-fledged (and willing) girlfriend.
Their kiss on the night they finally got together may be quite a shock for readers until you realize they've kissed before,around 24 years ago.
Remember the New Guy: Jon's aunt Gussie. Also most of Garfield's family, who appeared only in one week of strips and Here Comes Garfield without ever being mentioned again (except for his mom, who showed up in one other strip).
Retcon: Two big ones. Odie was originally Lyman's dog, and Nermal was originally Jon's parents' kitten. Now the former is treated as if he were Jon's all along, and the latter is just a neighborhood cat who wanders in to torment Garfield.
Running Gag: Kicking Odie, Mondays, spiders, Spluts. Although the Spluts haven't appeared since the mid-1990s. Later years have 'beware of dog' signs.
At least in the 1980s, Garfield would hide in a fern and the first two panels would appear the same, delivering a different punchline every time.
Jon: Garfield, I know you're in my fern. I can see your tail. What do you have to say for yourself?
Also, a number of 1980s strips had Jon saying some variation of "I wouldn't say you're fat Garfield, but...", followed by an extremely insulting joke about Garfield's fatness. Garfield usually attacked Jon in some way after that.
In the final strip that had the gag, it was Subverted. Jon says the line, but Garfield stuffs his food bowl in Jon's mouth before Jon can finish the insult and Garfield says "Then don't."
Rule of Three: After finding the Italian restaurant where he was born: "It's all gone! Where's the pasta? The people? The pasta? The excitement? The pasta?"
Also: "Decorations, presents, caroling, presents, mistletoe and presents. Six things I love about Christmas."
Sadist Show: Almost all of the humor in the strip comes from inflicted pain on the characters (usually Jon):
Garfield: Life is funny.
(Garfield laughs at Jon, who has fallen down the stairs and is lying in a heap.)
Show, Don't Tell: Averted pretty hard. Davis has a tendency to set up elaborate gags which are only expressed verbally. This strip is a particularly egregious example of telling instead of showing.
Stealth Pun: This strip has Garfield sleeping on a music staff. On a panel that has a rest in it.
Stout Strength: Subverted by Garfield. In one strip, while Jon is flexing in front of the mirror and complementing himself on his muscles, Garfield immediately flexes what looks like his own immensely powerful muscles. Jon stares at him in shock as Garfield walks away, explaining that he simply "flexed his fat".
Garfield did it again in another strip when he ran into Arlene. She continued to stand and watch in amusement, as Garfield struggled to keep up his flexing:
Garfield: Uh...don't you have somewhere you gotta be?
Arlene: And miss seeing how long you can hold that pose?
Played straight in another strip where Jon and Garfield begin poking each other with sticks and ordering each other to do things. The sticks keep getting bigger until Garfield finally uproots an entire tree and brings it into the kitchen to try and poke Jon with, until he finally tires out and the tree squishes him.
Strip Archive: Every single strip ever is available to read for free on their website. In addition, a website also allows people to search through Garfield strips before 2008, where the images for the strips are hosted at images.ucomics.com.
Jon: Some dirty, rotten, low-down, slimy, filthy, disgusting, gluttonous, hog STOLE MY SUPPER!
Surprise Jump: This happens to Jon several times, usually when Garfield scares him.
Suspiciously Specific Denial: "Fib alert! You can't believe Odie! No matter what he says, I did not paint him green! And it wasn't with a two inch horsehair brush!"
Temporal Paradox: To celebrate the strip's 25th anniversary, they ran an arc where 1978!Garfield meets 2003!Garfield. 1978!Jon and 1978!Odie also show up alongside their 2003 counterparts at the end.
Garfield once found one that resembled Odie: the same ears, the same stupid expression. When it started to rain, he commented that it also had "the same slobber."
This Is My Human: Garfield refers to Jon as "his cartoonist" in the very first strip and considers himself to be superior to Jon in every way imaginable (and thus treats Jon accordingly).
This Loser Is You: Jon, although this wasn't a big part of the comic until the nineties.
Trademark Favorite Food: Garfield eats everything except raisins and spinach, but he prefers lasagna. He's also very found of pizza, to the point that he considers the pizza delivery boy his best friend.
Uncatty Resemblance: Jon and Garfield commented on this trope, with pets who look increasingly (and more absurdly) like their owners. This culminated with some guy who looked like a man in a bird suit and his pet canary. Another strip had Jon sitting down to eat dinner with Garfield, which they both began gobbling up in perfect sync. The strip ends with Jon realizing he has to get away from Garfield when they eat.
Unnamed Parent: Jon's parents. Also, Garfield's mother, who appeared in a series of strips in 1984.
Unsound Effect: For a rather unconventional example, whenever a hammer is being used, the sound effect is usually "hammer" instead of "bang." Others include "unscrew" for the top of a saltshaker being unscrewed, and "plug" for Christmas lights being plugged in.
These◊ two◊ early strips use "Leap!" to indicate Garfield jumping off a table.
And there's plenty more where that came from, such as Hook!◊ for Garfield being Vaudeville Hooked offscreen.
Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Garfield's reaction to finding out that he had eaten octopus was to spit it all back out (on Jon, no less) and then remark that it wasn't half bad.
Went to the Great X in the Sky: A spider wants to take revenge for his grandfather whom, as he says, Garfield sent to "that big web in the sky".
What Happened to the Mouse?: This strip has a blind date of Jon's named Gwen, who dresses as absurdly as he does on dates and finds him cute. Garfield even says "God made two of them!" Although she would have been a good recurring character, perhaps as a Distaff Counterpart of Jon, she was never mentioned again.
World of Snark: Garfield's the most prominent snarker, but just about everyone gets plenty of turns.
A Worldwide Punomenon: They are very, VERY, rare, but they◊ are◊ there◊. Davis stopped doing them because he wanted the strip to translate internationally.
Written Sound Effect: "SPLUT!" is the sound that a pie makes when it hits Garfield's face, although some other foods go "SPLOT!" instead. "Dingle" is also used for Odie's toy balls with bells in them. Also, "GOOSH!" is quite commonly used for wet splats.
Yawn and Reach: Jon tries doing this with Liz at the movies, only for her to "ahem" him away. He then leans on Garfield, who also gives him an "ahem."
You All Look Familiar: Non-video-game example; the Recurring Character Squeak looks just like any other mouse in the strip, and it's not often that he's explicitly named as such. Currently, the last strip in which he is named is on June 16, 1997◊.
Your Brain Won't Be Much of a Meal: In one strip, Garfield pretends to be The Igor, wandering around saying "A brain! I need a brain for my master!" He pauses to take a look at Odie, and then moves on, repeating "A brain! I need a brain for my master!"
Scale: Let me put it this way... Have you ever considered a career as a river barge? Garfield: Your mother was a blender! Scale: That hurt.
In another strip, when he does his act on the fence, he tells his audience: "All your mothers wear army boots!"
Yet another strip, Jon tries to train Garfield to be an "attack cat", and makes a dummy from him to practice. When he orders "Attack!", Garfield tells the dummy: "Your mother wears combat boots!"
In another strip, when Garfield is a bad mood, he shouts to a bunch of dogs: "All your mothers wear flea collars!" which gets him beaten up.
— or even Garfield altogether— from the comics. What results is a surreal trip into the mind of a very disturbed and lonely man, which is often considered funnier than the original strip, even by Jim Davis himself.Probably holds the distinction of being the comic strip that features the most tropes whilst not naming any.
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