Animated series based on the comic strips of Jim Davis.Each episode is in Three Shorts 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 "and Friends") is US Acres, 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.Garfield is a fat, lazy orange cat whose hobbies include sleeping, eating lasagna, sleeping, watching television, and sleeping. He lives with his human owner, Jon, and Jon's dog, Odie, who slobbers incessantly and lacks internal speech. Other recurring characters include Nermal, the world's cutest kitty-cat; a tribe of mice (Garfield refuses to hunt mice, since human food tastes better and is easier to catch); Liz the vet, on whom Jon has a crush; the relentlessly annoying TV show host Binky the Clown; and Penelope, a Suspiciously Similar Substitute of Arlene who appeared late in the series.Unlike Garfield 's non-talking pets, U.S. Acres is set on a farm inhabited and apparently run by Talking Animals. 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 Aesop. (U.S. Acres is known as "Orson's Farm" outside the United States, where the original title's slight pun is not the selling point it was in the USA.)Characters include:
Orson Pig. Relatively normal, but reads a lot and lets his imagination run away with him from time to time.
Roy Rooster, a lazy practical joker with a high opinion of himself.
Wade Duck, a hypochondriac who can work himself into a frenzy of fear over anything. He's even afraid of water, and always wears an kiddie pool inner tube around his waist; it has a duck head on the front that looks just like him and mimics his facial expressions.
Bo and Lanolin, a brother-sister sheep duo. Bo is laid back to the point of absurdity, while Lanolin is hot-headed and argumentative to the point of contrariness.
And the little chickens Booker and Sheldon. Booker hunts worms with an obsession comparable to Elmer Fudd's pursuit of Bugs Bunny (and similar results). He likes ninjas. Sheldon, the younger of the two, appears as an egg with a pair of legs sticking out the bottom. He choose to stay inside his shell after reading horrible world news from a pile of newspapers put under him while incubating.
Those who only know Garfield as "that comic everyone likes to make fun of" might be surprised to hear how popular this series was and still is. In large part this is because of Lorenzo Music's dead-on performance as Garfield; anyone who saw this cartoon as a kid will still hear his voice in their head if they read one of the comic strips. Also influencing things is the fact that Jim Davis had little to do with the series, besides putting his name on it (much like Steven Spielberg's involvement with the 1990s Warner Bros. Animation revival); veteran TV and comics writer Mark Evanier was the showrunner, wrote most of the episodes and was responsible for a lot of the edgier humor.
This series contains examples of:
Ascended Extra: Binky the Clown had a very important role in the show, despite the fact the he had appeared personally in a total of three strips at the time, all from an arc that involved Garfield joining the circus. (And even today, he's only been in four. The one new one was just a minor title panel cameo)
Animated Adaptation: Unlike the actual episodes, the Garfield "Quickies" were directly adapted from the original Jim Davis strips. Also, some of the first episodes were minor arcs from the original comic padded out to fill a 7-minute cartoon.
Big Lipped Alligator Moment:invoked The Buddy Bears' cameo in "Mistakes Will Happen" appears to be a parody of this trope.
Cast as a Mask: One episode had Lanolin disguise as Orson. While in the disguise, she is voiced by Orson's actor, Gregg Berger.
The Cast Showoff: Desirée Goyette is a professional singer (she can even be heard in the Theme Tune) and she got to show it off more than once. Thom Huge has a pretty good singing voice, too.
They mention it directly in their introductory song:
Buddy Bears: "Oh we are the Buddy Bears, we always get along! Each day we do a little dance and sing a little song! If you ever disagree, it means that you are WRONG! Oh we are the Buddy Bears WE ALWAYS GET ALONG!"
Couch Gag: Garfield always said a different short line at the end of the theme song.
Cryptid Episode: In one episode, Jon goes looking for Bigfeets.
Dinner Order Flub: Jon is at a French restaurant and tries to order in French and is served a pair of boiled athletic shoes by a French Jerk waiter. In another episode, he ends up ordering the name of the chef.
Dripping Disturbance: In "Peace And Quiet", Garfield is annoyed by a dripping faucet while trying to get some rest.
Edited for Syndication: And how; most of the Quickies were edited out of The Program Exchange's prints, as was the original theme song, replaced with the "We're Ready To Party" theme song used in seasons 3-6. The last three seasons weren't seen in reruns after the show ended its run either, as CBS declined to sell them the rights.
The show was broadcast in Finland in a format that dropped the U.S. Acres segments but kept the opening titles. It was bizarre having characters in the titles that never appeared in the show.
Friendly Tickle Torture: One Quickie (and therefore probably a U.S. Acres/Orson's Farm strip) has Orson and Bo trying to tickle Roy and Lanolin in an attempt to cheer them up. No reaction, aside from deadpan snarking when they leave.
Count Dracula: Wake up, Count Lasagna! The villagers are storming the castle!
Count Lasagna: The villagers always storm the castle. Haven't you ever seen a monster movie?
Human Mail: Garfield mailing Nermal to Abu Dhabi, or threatening to do so, is something of a Running Gag.
Hypno Fool: While not being actual hypnosis, Garfield's Hawaiian cat flu in Garfield Goes Hawaiian causes him to dance the hula or do something Hawaiian whenever someone mentions something Hawaiian. Played straight in Wade, You're Afraid, however.
Ink Suit Actor: A large number of guest stars during later seasons, including but not limited to Rip Taylor, Ray Jay Johnson, and Eddie Lawrence doing his "Old Philosopher" routine in cat form. Most notable was adding Aloysius, a pastiche of voicing comedian Kevin Meaney (right down to his catchphrase, "That's not right!"), as a recurring character on U.S. Acres.
Inner Monologue Conversation: Garfield and Odie talk this way, in reference to the comic strip's thought bubbles.
Joker Jury: "Wanted: Wade", where Wade the duck actually starts thinking that he was a criminal after removing a tag on Orson Pig's chair. He then starts to have a nightmare where he is actually put on trial where Orson is the judge presiding over said trial and sentencing him to 9999 years in prison after declaring him guilty.
Karma Houdini: Just like in the comic strip, Garfield.
About one third of the time, any trick he plays backfires miserably, so I don't know about that.
Lampshade Hanging: Entire episodes of both cartoons consisted purely of this, such as Garfield's lecture "How to be Funny" (which covered the Running Gag, timing jokes, and funny costumes) and "Secrets of the Animated Cartoon" on Orson's Farm, which discussed Cartoon Physics.
Limited Wardrobe: Jon always wears a blue shirt and brown pants and shoes.
Monster Clown: Binky - not evil, but very, very annoying: "Heeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyy, CAT!!!" Really an exaggerated Non Ironic Clown more than anything.
Nerd in Evil's Helmet: An episode had the Masked Mauler, a pro wrestler so bloodthirsty that nobody will wrestle him because he never follows the scripts. When he roped Jon into a match against him, Garfield saved Jon by discovering that the Masked Mauler was allergic to cat hair, making him sneeze so hard that his mask flew off, revealing his nerdy face.
Niche Network: "The Potato Channel" (in which a man lists all the different ways to prepare potatoes), "The All Snail Racing Channel", and "The All Lasagna Channel" are a few examples.
No Fourth Wall: Garfield knows he's in a TV show, and frequently speaks directly to the audience; the U.S. Acres characters also address the audience directly at times. The show also casually references itself as just being a TV show or even a cartoon (on a few occasions, Garfield characters and US acres characters had a pencil and/or an eraser to illustrate this), one episode even involved Orson giving an academic lecture on cartoons with many references to the characters being animated. Also, in many instances, they would show things happening off set or have multiple takes. There were even times when what's in-universe and what's breaking the fourth wall were so blurred that the show's plot resolution required doing things that broke the fourth wall. In fact, there are very few episodes where the fourth wall breach is NOT apparent.
Non-Sequitur Thud: When Jon blindly bumps into a tree in "Mistakes Will Happen":
Jon: "No, ladies, I'm not Tom Selleck. But I can understand how you can make that mistake."
One Series Actor: Thom Huge (who voiced both Jon and Roy) never did anything outside Garfield.
Opening Credits Cast Party: Generally the only place the Garfield and U.S. Acres characters appeared onscreen together.
Although Garfield characters occasionally guested on US Acres.
A Pirate 400 Years Too Late: One episode featured a TV repairman who decided to follow the footsteps of his pirate ancestor and become a full pirate (In fact, the episode describes the tv repairman job as a way for pirate descendants to keep close to their roots). This modern day's pirate's criminal career was helped by the fact the authorities refused to believe whenever his victims reported him.
Pun-Based Title: "Garfield Goes Hawaiian" (Gidget Goes Hawaiian), "School Daze" (School Days), "Nighty Nightmare" (Nighty Night), "Banana Nose" (Banana notes), "Ode to Odie" (Ode To Joy), "Good Mousekeeping" (Good housekeeping), and "The Perils Of Penelope" (The Perils of Penelope Pitstop).
Recycled Script: The Quickies are mostly adaptations of the Sunday strips (at least one was based on a daily strip, and at least two have a direct Call Back to the preceding cartoon), but the main cartoons themselves derive from the strips, especially in the earlier episodes. For example, the episode "Caped Avenger" is an episode where Jon takes Pooky to wash him and pitches ideas for a new comic strip, but is otherwise based on two weeks of strips where Garfield, as the Caped Avenger, adopts Odie as Slurp, his sidekick (specifically, August 26-31, 1985 and September 2-7, 1985). To the cartoon's credit, it did add an additional costume gag that wasn't in the strips:
Garfield: Slurp, you really need a costume if you're gonna work with me. (Odie runs off, then comes back wearing a chicken suit) Garfield: You still haven't grasped the principle behind this.
Season 7's "Clash of the Titans" repeated the plot from Season 2's "Attack of the Big Robots"
Replaced the Theme Tune: "Friends Are There" in season 1, "We're Ready to Party" after that, and then the unnamed rap theme in the last season (but only in the US). In an unusual variant, "Friends Are There" was sometimes heard as a Leitmotif.
Also, the appearance of or reference to the Buggy-eyed Razor-beaked Fnark.
Script Swap: One of Garfield's favorite forms of mischief. Seen in the episodes Health Feud, DJ Jon, and Best of Breed.
Self-Deprecation: What Wade did as the "Ugly Duckling" when Orson told HIS version of the story to Booker and Sheldon.
Wade bemoaned he was SO ugly...leading someone to ask, "How Ugly Are You?" He'd answer, "I'm so ugly..."
"...when I enter a room, mice run up chairs."
"...my face can stop a sundial."
"...I frighten scarecrows."
"...I look worse than my driver's license photo."
"...I have to sneak up on the mirror to shave."
This works in Wade's favor when he takes the bag off his head to frighten three lackeys intending to hurt him and show just HOW ugly he was. It also scares Lanolin (The Wicked Witch of the Wool) enough to let Wade snag her shoes. But seeing his ugliness work as a secret weapon gave him a feeling of confidence and he goes, "I am invulnerable!" We then see him near a full file cabinet, adding, "Plus, I have to thousands of 'He's so ugly' jokes to use up." Wade ends up living more secure in himself, happily even if unsightly, ever after.
She's a Man in Japan: Spanish-language dubs originally referred to Nermal (whom, for some reason, was Dub Named "Telma") as gatita, the word for a female kitten. Later episodes finally get his name right, but they were still inconsistent with his gender.
The Brazilian dub also couldn't make up its mind in regards of Nermal's gender during the first season. One episode he was referred as "she" and then "he" on the next just to go back to "she" in the next and so forth. This was fixed in the subsequent seasons.
Still another was "If you change the channel, you will never see your dog again.", referencing the famous "Buy this magazine or we'll kill this dog" January 1973 cover of National Lampoon.
Also doubling as a Brick Joke: in one episode, Garfield & Nermal contend with mutant guppies, who they defeat by flushing them down the toilet. Said guppies then appear in the subsequent US Acres Quickie; after scaring that show's cast off, one guppies turns to his fellows and says "come on, let's go hassle the Muppet Babies" (which aired opposite the show on CBS at the time).
Something Completely Different: "Ode To Odie" has no dialogue, only narration in the form of a rap song; "All About Odie" is an academic lecture.
Standard Snippet: Orson's Brothers onscreen would always mean In The Hall of the Mountain King usually performed by a lazy-sounding tuba. "Mountain King" also gets used whenever a character is stealing or otherwise engaged in shifty behavior. Likewise, Odie's presence was often accompanied with the fox hunt call. Finally, a recurring Mad Scientist character had "Did you Ever See a Lassie?" as his theme.
Do you mean Dr. Bean? Dr. GARBANZO Bean?
Background music for the episodes would frequently be portions of common children's songs, some of which were related to the plot and some of which weren't. Some examples: The Itsy Bitsy Spider for a Quickie involving a spider; and My Grandfather's Clock at the beginning of "The Lasagna Zone."
Talking Animal: Although like in the comics, all Garfield characters are actually thinking rather than talking.
And yet the animals still communicate between themselves like this, so apparently they're capable of telepathy.
However, on many occasions, Jon (and other humans) understood Garfield's thoughts as if spoken aloud, showing appropriate facial expressions and even responding to them. The best example being Jon singing the opening bars of Garfield's song "The Garfield garbage can and tin pan alley revue". Once, Nermal asked Jon why a commercial was taking a long time and Jon explained what an infomercial was.
One episode has Garfield reveal to the audience that there's a special microphone the show uses that verbalizes thoughts (and then he uses it for hijinks), similar to a comic strip that showed how he learned to project his thoughts. There are no humans in U.S. Acres except for the unseen farmer (implied to be Jon's dad), so who knows?
On the other hand, as in the comics, Odie has no dialogue beyond barking and other dog noises.
Although Garfield seems to be able to understand Odie just fine and has on a few occasions seemingly translated for Jon, the audience, or another human.
The Garfield case of this tends to get confusing - a few animal characters (like the Buddy Bears) actually talk while the Garfield animal regulars only think. Sometimes they're even portrayed as talking animals whose mouths don't move (sometimes when Garfield meows his mouth doesn't move either, making him more like Mister Ed in these instances, such as in "The Garfield Garbage Can And Tin Pan Alley Review" (where Jon tried to show the cop that Garfield can talk and sing) than a seemingly telepathic animal like usual.
Thematic Theme Tune: Subverted with the original theme, which had Garfield and the cast of U.S. Acressing about friendship while fighting each other for screen time. This theme was used as a Leitmotif even after the switch to the Title Theme Tune in season 3.
Adult Fear: Not necessarily involving children, but Housebreak Hotel depicts a very real fear of pet owners, that the pet hotel promising luxurious pampering is actually a pet abusing scam ran more like the city pound than a pet hotel.
Compressed Vice: "Sales Resistance" revolves around Garfield's obsession with buying useless stuff off the Shopping Channel - an obsession which he has only in this episode.
Lottery Ticket: "Fat & Furry": Garfield and Jon win millions in the lottery, but the win is disqualified when the authorities discover that it was Garfield who bought the ticket — not because he's a cat, but because he's under eighteen.
Musical Episode: "Truckin' Odie", "The Garfield Opera", "The Garfield Rap", "Ode to Odie"
Meat-O-Vision: The life-boat sequence in "Box o' Fun".
News Monopoly: "Hansel and Garfield": not news, but daytime TV - there's a Soap Opera on every channel, all playing essentially the same scene.
Off Model: 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".
In "Nighty Nightmare" Jon orders a pizza without Garfield knowing. After getting the pizza, he speeds into a room and barricades himself in, only to find upon opening the box Garfield has somehow slipped into the box and eaten the pizza.
In "Sit on It" Garfield takes a stand on Jon's Spanish book. Jon lures him away from the book with food, but the second he turns around, Garfield is back on the book.
Or Was It a Dream?: "Rip Van Kitty": it was, but for a moment it seemed otherwise.
Pick A Card: Jon tries to do the trick with Garfield, but fails. After taking out every card in the deck, Jon gives up and asks Garfield what his card was. Garfield pulls out the card with the instructions for Pinochle.
Planet Looters: "Rip Van Kitty" includes an alien race that descend on defenseless planets and eat all their food; in a development that even the characters remark on as obvious, they turn out to look an awful lot like Garfield.
Road Runner vs. Coyote: One segment involved Garfield DeconstructingTom And Jerry-style cartoons from a cat's POV, wondering why dirty, disease-ridden vermin would be presented as heroes and questioning why the resident Angry Guard Dog would be so immediately and violently hostile towards the cat. At the cartoon's end, Garfield himself is forced into a Tom And Jerry-esque segment due to Executive Meddling.
Running Gag: Deconstructed; in one episode, while attempting to explain humor, Garfield explains that mundane jokes can be made funny through repetition. As an example, throughout the entire episode, he calls for "Lights!" and is offered lightbulbs.
Of course, the show itself does have running gags, such as Nermal getting sent to Abu Dhabi, as explained here (skip to 2:15).
The term "reasonable facsimile".
Scooby Dooby Doors: "Magic Mutt", with a three-compartment magician's cabinet.
Series Continuity Error: The singing ants are black in Picnic Panic and in A Vacation from his Senses, but (in spite of being referred to as the same ants as before) are red in Another Ant Episode.
The Speechless: Odie. He does speak coherently once, as a "mistake" in "Mistakes Will Happen".
Status Quo Game Show: "The Binky Show": Garfield tries to win something nice for Jon on Name That Fish!, but the prizes are terrible, the games are rigged to humiliate the contestant, and in the end it's All Just a Dream.
Surprise Jump: Garfield does this a few times when startled by either Nermal or Binky the Clown.
Garfield: Let me repeat. Are there any INTELLIGENT questions?
Theme Tune Cameo: Several episodes begin with a character humming along from where the title music left off; in "Short Story", Bo Sheep remarks that he's had the tune in his head all day, and wonders where he heard it.
Thirty Minutes or It's Free: In "The Pizza Patrol", Garfield managed to make sure no delivery boy from a militaristic-themed pizza parlor would deliver a pizza within 30 minutes. The owner eventually signed a peace treaty with Garfield, who was now wondering if there was any Chinese restaurant offering delivery in 30 minutes.
Title Drop: A Show Within a Show example: "You! You're not Sylvia! You're one of the Kung Fu Creatures on the Rampage! 2!" and later "You! You're not Sylvia! You're one of the Kung Fu Creatures on the Rampage! 3!"
Under The Truck: Jon and Garfield are running from cops and do this. Thing is, they are in a CAR. So the roof gets torn off while they duck.
Yes Man: All three Buddy Bears in "Binky Gets Cancelled, Again!"
The U.S. Acres segments contain examples of:
Absentee Actor: Becomes especially egregious in situations where villains are stated to have captured all of the cast when they've really just captured all of that episode's cast.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Early on in season 6, we met Roy's previously unmentioned niece Chloe. She prominently appears in two episodes (well, three, because the second was a two-parter; both these episodes are on the last disc of the Volume 4 DVD set) and is then completely forgotten afterward. When asked what happened to her, Mark Evanier stated he'd planned to have her make several more appearances, but it slipped his mind.
Clown Car Base: Sheldon's shell purportedly contains all mod cons, including a microwave, barbecue, pinball machine, and table tennis table, and enough space to hang pictures on the walls.
Identical Stranger: "Scrambled Eggs": Sheldon crosses paths with another ambulatory egg, and confusion results until one of them hatches.
Imagine Spotting: One of the most extreme examples, Orson's fantasies are a mix of this and And You Were There. The other characters are very well aware of their having been somehow transported into his mind with spoofs from "The Taming of the Shrew" to "Star Trek". It's even Lampshaded by Wade that Orson just has that vivid of an imagination.
Vinyl Shatters: "Jukebox Jon": When Garfield bowls Odie into the table where Jon's record player is playing self-hypnosis records to help him stop biting his nails, the records come off the turntable and break, each in two large pieces and a bunch of little pieces.
Wicked Weasel: A sneaky weasel, who wanted to steal chickens, was a recurring character.
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