The ninth episode of the first season of Garfield and Friends.
Post-opening Sequence Line: "Don't forget, kids, look both ways before crossing your teacher!"
The Binky Show
Garfield goes on Name That Fish, a game show hosted by Binky the Clown, to win a present for Jon's birthday.
Keeping Cool
Orson is in a panic when Gort, Wart, and Mort, his three mean and much bigger older brothers come to visit. Bo tries to teach Orson how to keep his cool for situations like it.
Don't Move!
Garfield makes Odie wait outside a tropical fish store while he goes inside in an attempt to get a snack.
"The Binky Show" provides examples of:
- All Just a Dream: Garfield's bad experience on Binky's show is all in his head. He runs home and finds himself sleeping, then kicks himself and wakes up.
- Birthday Episode: This episode is about Garfield trying to get Jon a present for the latter's birthday.
- Coincidental Broadcast: As Garfield wonders how he's going to be able to get Jon a birthday present, a promo for Name That Fish airs on his television, giving him the idea to go on it and win Jon a birthday present.
- End-of-Series Awareness: Spoofed; Garfield thinks a buzzer means the show has been cancelled.
- Goofy Print Underwear: Binky is revealed to wear white boxer shorts with red hearts on them underneath his pants.
- Hell Hotel; One of the prizes on Name That Fish is a vacation at the Hotel Trousers, a run-down hotel where the cockroaches are not that much smaller than the bellhops.
- Status Quo Game 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.
- Tempting Fate: When Garfield awakens from his nightmare, he says "That awful clown! I hope I never see him again." Cue Jon opening the door to find Binky wishing him a happy birthday.
"Keeping Cool" provides examples of:
- Adaptational Late Appearance: In the U.S. Acres comic strip, Orson's brothers appeared in the earlier strips before being phased out when Orson had to leave his mother and set out on his own. Their animated counterparts don't appear until this episode, the ninth one.
- Ascended Extra: Orson's brothers only briefly appeared in the first three weeks of the U.S. Acres comic strip, and weren't even given names. This series turns them into recurring villains and give them the names of Gort, Wart, and Mort.
- Be the Ball: Whenever Orson's brothers play some kind of sports game with Orson, they have him be the ball, much to his horror. They later do this to Bo in an unsuccessful attempt to make him angry.
- Big Brother Bully: Orson's brothers always picked on him even when he was a piglet and continue to do so whenever they come by to visit U.S. Acres.
- Big, Thin, Short Trio: Of Orson's three older brothers, Gort is the big, Wart is the thin, and Mort is the short. However, all three are much bigger than Orson.
- The Cameo: In a flashback, Orson can be seen reading a Garfield: World Wide comic book before his brothers play Runtball with him.
- Cool Shades: Bo wears these as he sings "Stay Cool".
- Divergent Character Evolution: In the U.S. Acres comic strip, Orson's brothers were nearly identical to each other. This series makes them more diverse by giving Gort yellow eyes and rounded teeth, Wart the tallest, and Mort the shortest.
- The Dreaded: Just someone telling Orson his brothers are coming is enough to send Orson into a panic.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: This exchange between Bo and Orson's brothers when they discover that Bo isn't holding the other end of the rope:Gort: We're gonna pull that there sheep right into the mud!
Bo: How you're figuring on doing that?
Wart: Well, you're at the other end of this rope and we are...
(Beat)
Gort: Uh, who is at the other end of this rope?
Bo: Bus.
Gort: Bus?
Bo: Yeah, the 3:14 bus to the next county, dudes!
Mort: Hey, brother, what time youse got?
Wart: 3:14. Uh-oh!
(Orson's brothers scream as the bus pulls them away.) - Fur Is Clothing: One of the ways Orson's brothers try to get Bo mad is by unraveling his wool, resulting in him being nude below the waist. Bo simply opens a shed to get a new pair of wool pants to put on.
- Human Snowman: During "Stay Cool", Bo turns Orson and Wade into duck and pig versions of this when he puts them in a snowy background.
- "I Am" Song: "Stay Cool" is a song Bo sings to Orson on taking his personal approach to life.
- Instant Wristwatch: Wart wears one to check the time, finding out it's 3:14, which is when the bus tied to the other end of the rope that he, Gort, and Mort are holding is about to leave.
- Leitmotif: Orson's brothers are represented by "In the Hall of Mountain King".
- Named by the Adaptation: Orson's brothers did not have names in their appearances in the U.S. Acres comic strip. In this series, they're given the names Gort, Wart, and Mort.
- Odd Name Out: The four pig brothers are named Gort, Wart, Mort, and Orson.
- Sinister Swine: While Orson averts this trope, his three older brothers play it straight, as they are a cruel group of pigs.
- Tempting Fate: When Wade panics over receiving some bad news in the mail, Orson assures him that there's no news in the world bad enough to warrant him panicking. When Wade tells Orson that his brothers are coming to visit, Orson starts to panic.
- Tranquil Fury: Bo gets this way. He gets mad when he sees Orson's brothers picking on Orson, so he asks them to play a game of tug-of-war. Then he switches places with a bus. All without totally losing his cool.
"Don't Move!" provides examples of:
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: After seeing the different fish in the tropical fish store, Garfield tells the viewers "Boy, there sure are a lot of fish jokes on the show this week."
- Continuity Nod: One of the fish in the Tropical Fish store is named "Walter", a reference to a previous segment, "The Binky Show".
- Paper-Thin Disguise: When Garfield discovers that he's been blacklisted from the Tropical Fish store, he puts on a pair of Groucho Marx glasses to disguise himself.
- Pelican Package Pouch: Odie rides in the pouch of a pelican after he escapes from a garbage barge.
- Trash Landing: After evading the dogcatcher, Odie gets caught in a garbage truck and taken to a garbage barge.
- Walk Into Camera Obstruction: This episode does this twice with Odie when he is riding down the sidewalk in a shopping cart. His eyes fill up the screen twice and it then cuts to the next scene each time.
