The sixth episode of the first season of Garfield and Friends.
Post-opening Sequence Line: "Pay careful attention, everyone. There'll be a quiz later!"
Identity Crisis
Garfield tricks Ralph the dogcather into thinking that Garfield is a dog, Floyd the Mouse is a cat, and a bulldog that Ralph chased is a mouse.
The Bad Sport
When Orson convinces his friends to try a new sport called Pigball, Roy plays a trick on him by making up a bunch of fake rules in the game book.
Up a Tree
After Jon kicks Garfield out of his house for clawing at his curtains when Nermal comes to visit, Garfield climbs up a tree, but now he can't get down from it.
"Identity Crisis" provides examples of:
- Bully Bulldog: Downplayed; Garfield comes across a fat bulldog who was previously chased by Ralph, who appears to be a mean one at first, but turns to Garfield's side after Garfield convinces him that he's a "Fido Felinus". The bulldog also shows Floyd his mouse imiatation.
- Cassandra Truth: The Chief Dogcatcher doesn't believe Ralph when he tells them that Garfield can bark. When Ralph asks Garfield to bark, Garfield meows.
- Incorrect Animal Noise: Garfield invokes this trope to get rid of Ralph the dogcatcher; Garfield barks like a dog despite being a cat, and teaches Floyd the Mouse to meow, while the bulldog shows Floyd his mouse imitation. At the end of the episode, when Garfield, Floyd, and the bulldog perform their act, a pigeon moos.
- Mid-Battle Tea Break: As Ralph chases Garfield, Garfield stops him to let Floyd's rat friends run past them. He then allows the chase to continue after they leave.
- Rewind Gag: Garfield goes into a pet store and puts a bunch of birds and fish on a tray, with the intent to eat them. When he runs into the store's clerk, who glares angrily at him while tapping his foot, the footage of Garfield putting things on the tray is played in reverse.
- Sanity Slippage: Ralph goes crazy after the Chief Dogcather fires him for catching Garfield, and tries to prove to him that the bulldog can squeak and Floyd can meow.
- Whack-a-Monster: A variant; Garfield pops in an out of different trash cans as Ralph tries to catch him. He then walks out of one and tells the viewers "I think we all know how this joke works by now."
"The Bad Sport" provides examples of:
- Absurd Phobia: Wade reveals that sports make him nervous, and in football in particular, if the players get into a huddle, he always thinks they're talking about him.
- An Aesop: Bo sings "Don't Be Afraid of Something New" to tell both Lanolin and the viewers about how it's a good idea to try something new, as you may end up liking it.
- Bigger on the Inside: In this episode, Sheldon is revealed to have a tennis table inside his eggshell.
- Brick Joke: One of Roy's rules in pigball involves the captain of the blue team finding a live hippopotamus to win 600 points. Wade, who is the captain of the blue team, finds one named George at the end of the episode.
- Calvinball: This episode involves Orson convincing the others to play a game of "pigball". We don't see how actual pigball is played, as Roy plays a joke by switching the actual rules with a set of increasingly absurd ones (like flipping a baked potato not only to see who plays first, but if the game is actually played at all), which instruct the players to score points by doing embarrassing and ridiculous stunts (like dressing in silly outfits or finding a live hippopotamus). They get back at Roy with a "game" called "roosterball", whose rules are to take the person with the most feathers and throw him in a mud hole.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: This line from Roy when he reads the rules of roosterball:Roy: The object of roosterball is to take the person with the most feathers and throw him in the mud... hole! Hey, this game isn't even fair, I have all the feathers here! I'm bound to... (stutters) Hey, guys. (laughs nervously) Let's play another game!
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Lanolin quits the game of pigball when she can't take any more of its rules. This is how she discovers Roy's typewriter and jar of glue, and Roy laughing.
- Script Swap: Roy pastes a page of his own rules onto the page of rules for pigball in Orson's book. Lanolin gets back at Roy by writing the rules for roosterball.
"Up a Tree" provides examples of:
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Before Garfield attempts to mail Nermal to Abu Dhabi, he tells the viewers "Listen, you might want to change to another channel for a moment so you won't see this."
- Cat Up a Tree: Garfield falls victim to this in this episode. After a while of nobody rescuing him, he lures Nermal up there by telling him humans think it's cute. His plan was to be rescued as an afterthought, if nothing else. The firefighters, news vans, and crowd of people soon gather around... and proceed to ignore Garfield, rescuing only Nermal and dispersing with scarcely a trace. Jon himself later rescues Garfield... but makes the mistake of gushing over Nermal's cuteness (while also mentioning he had known Garfield was up in that tree for hours), prompting Garfield to climb down the ladder himself and leave Jon stuck in the tree.
- Comically Missing the Point: When Jon scolds Garfield for trying to give Nermal away, Garfield tells him "Well, who's gonna pay for something like that?"
- The Dog Bites Back: Or rather, the cat. When Jon comes to rescue Garfield, he tells Garfield that he left him up in the tree for hours because he was gushing over Nermal's cuteness. Garfield climbs down the ladder, taking it with him and leaving Jon stuck in the tree.
- Exact Words: When Garfield hears Jon yelling for help at the end of the episode, he says that he can't bear to hear it and has to do something... that something being finding something loud enough to watch on TV to drown out Jon's voice. He watches The Binky the Clown Show, deciding it's the perfect show.
- Get Out!: Jon kicks Garfield out of his house for clawing his curtains, kickstarting the main plot of Garfield being stuck in a tree.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: As Garfield passes by a tree, he tells the viewers that he has too much willpower to climb a tree... and then climbs up it.Garfield: Sometimes it's hard to fight primal instincts.
- Mama Bear: While in the tree, Garfield comes across a pair of unhatched eggs in a nest. He picks them up, saying "You'll be lunch, and you'll be dinner." He then turns around and comes across the mother bird, who glares angrily at him. He then puts the eggs back in the nest and says "As I was saying, you'll be Beatrice, and you'll be Arthur."
