Character page for Garfield.

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Primary Characters

Garfield

"Feed me."

Voiced by: Scott Beach (The Fantastic Funnies), Lorenzo Music (Garfield Specials and Garfield and Friends), Bill Murray (live-action films), Jon Barnard (most non-animated appearances), Frank Welker (Garfield Animated Movie Trilogy, The Garfield Show, Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis, and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl), Chris Pratt (The Garfield Movie)

The strip's title character. Most of the time, he's a fat, lazy, cynical cat, with Jon being the main victim of his constant sarcasm. Many of the strip's gags revolve around his constant eating and/or sleeping, as well as offering plenty of sarcasm towards Jon and abuse towards Odie.

Achievements in Ignorance: One of the earliest times Garfield tried walking on his hind feet, he was largely successful — even doing such things as tap-dancing and drop-kicking Odie — until Jon told him that cats couldn't walk on their hind feet, at which point Garfield promptly fell on his face.
Acid Reflux Nightmare: Garfield had◊ several◊ of◊ these◊, one interestingly from drinking too much coffee.◊
Acrofatic: For a cat who is supposedly morbidly obese and hates to exercise, Garfield is surprisingly athletic when he wants to be. Subtly lampshaded in an early strip when Garfield ran so fast that he went straight up one wall, across the ceiling, and down the opposite wall! Jon noted that "I know cats are fast, but that's ridiculous." Another strip shows Garfield voluntarily jogging, of all things. He tells the reader that even he can run when he has the proper motivation, and in the last panel we see that he's chasing an ice cream truck. Additionally, many of the video games that Garfield has starred in are platform games, such as Garfield: Caught in the Act and Garfield: Saving Arlene.
Adaptational Jerkass: Garfield's live-action counterpart is this as much as he isn't, being more snarky, inconsiderate, and selfish, even by his usual standards, which is no thanks to him being depicted as a real cat. The conflict in the first live-action film happens largely due to his inflated ego and wanting to be Jon's favorite, leading him to lock Odie outside of the house and eventually resulting in Happy Chapman kidnapping him.
Adaptational Nice Guy: In his animated and film ventures, he tends to be less mean-spirited and has many more Pet the Dog moments towards Jon, Odie, and others. This can probably be attributed to a difference in medium from a three-panel gag comic with no space to show consequences or any real story, to actual narratives that need to make Garfield a protagonist the audience would want to root for.
Anti-Hero: Type V/Villain Protagonist, at least in the comic strip. This unedited comic exemplifies this well, as it is very typical of how Garfield does things in the comics. He Took a Level in Kindness for The Garfield Show, bringing him down to Type III/IV, depending on the show. He also had plenty of pet the Odie moments in Garfield and Friends. Basically anytime he's written by Mark Evanier he's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
Anti-Role Model: Undoubtedly.
Garfield: Remember kids, crime does not pay!
(Garfield steals Jon's doughnut)
Garfield: Although it can be pretty tasty.
Anthropomorphic Shift:
- In the early days of the strip, he looked much more like a normal orange housecat. By 1984, his body had become more humanoid in shape.
- In the strips, the animated specials and Garfield and Friends, he never actually talked (everything heard was his internal thoughts) while in The Garfield Show and both live-action movies, he moves his mouth to show he's actually talking.
Animal Talk: It's suggested that Garfield and the other animals' Thought Bubble Speech represents them talking in a way that humans can't understand. While in The Garfield Show it's a bit ambiguous, the movies explicitly state that Jon can't hear him talk.
Apathetic Pet: He's an apathetic fat orange cat that mainly thinks about himself and often ignores his owner (Jon Arbuckle) in trouble, at least until he gets fed... or Jon is eating something.
The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People: Downplayed, but Garfield's generally at his most sympathetic when there's a large danger threatening his loved ones, particularly with Jon and Odie.
Berserk Button:
- Don't mess with his food if you know what's good for you. Even a potential girlfriend isn't safe.
- He really hates dieting.
- Mondays.
- Whenever Nermal comes to visit.
- Alarm clocks.
- The bathroom scale.
Big Damn Heroes: He actually fights an escaped panther to save Jon and Odie in "Garfield In The Rough". While he doesn't actually defeat the panther, his intervention does buy the park rangers enough time to tranquilize the bigger cat.
Big Eater: Blatantly. It's pointed out he only stops eating when there's nothing left in the house. A character from a dream sequence said it best:
"There's not enough food in the world to feed this cat!"
- This is further shown when Jon asks Garfield if he has ever eaten until he was full. Garfield didn't even understand the concept.
- One strip has him declare that, since he didn't know what to eat, he decided to eat "everything". Cue Jon asking where the fridge has gone.
- Garfield often resorts to stealing food when he isn't full, be it from Jon and Odie, or pizza delivery men, Girl Scouts with cookies and other proprietors of food.
Birthday Hater: Garfield hates birthdays, mainly because they remind him of how old he is. (Considering the strip has been around for two or three regular cat lifespans, he may have a point.) When the actual party comes, however, he usually softens up.
Born Lucky: Almost everything goes right for him.
Jon: Life's not fair, Garfield.
Garfield: Let's be realistic. Remember, you can't always get everything you want. You can't. I can.
Brilliant, but Lazy: Many strips have had him thwart criminals, fight the mailman, or build something with household objects; quite a repertoire for a supposedly fat lazy cat.
Buffoonish Tomcat: While Garfield is usually level-headed and snarky, he shows an occasional lack of common sense, can be silly or humorous at times, was shown to lose half of his IQ when around Arlene and is prone to slapstick due to occasionally being a Butt-Monkey.
The Bully: He kicks Odie off the table, steals Jon's dinners, plays cruel pranks on both Jon and Odie (he rarely gets any comeuppance for it), harasses the mailman and his human neighbors like Ms. Feeny and even robs food sellers going as far as to mug Girl Scouts for their cookies.
Bullying a Dragon: On occasions he bullies or laughs at mean, large dogs or small dogs that didn't look menacing before they proceed to maul him. One dog bruised Garfield so badly he had to wear a body cast for a week. In a 1987 strip, he kicked a mouse for no good reason (when the mouse didn't do anything) and so that mouse sicked his giant, monstrous sister Loretta on Garfield. One 1993 strip had him pick a fight with a big, burly cat before being pounded flat forcing Odie to bring him home with his teeth.
Butt-Monkey: He has it a lot better than Jon or Odie, but he still can go through a bit of slapstick on occasion, usually on Mondays. Examples include getting hit in the face by pies that go "Splut!", big mean dogs attacking him and hostile reception from audiences of his dancing on the fence.
Cats Are Lazy: Garfield's main personality traits are eating and sleeping. Anything else just gets in the way.
Cats Are Mean: Garfield is self-centered and cruel (especially to Odie); in the strip, these traits are shared by most cats. That said, he does have his redeeming moments.
Cats Are Snarkers: If there is snarking to be done, you can count on him:
Jon: Did you miss me?
Garfield: Yes I did, Jon. In fact... I wasn't done missing you. Would you mind leaving again?
Cats Are Superior: Garfield is very vain of his own species, often considering himself superior to humans and dogs. And try telling him otherwise.
Centipede's Dilemma: In one strip◊, Jon asks Garfield which way he puts his feet down when he walks. Garfield is then paralyzed, saying, "I'll never walk again."
Character Catchphrase:
- Feed me.
- Big, fat hairy deal!
- I love lasagna!
- Nature's most perfect food.^noteDoesn't only call lasagna this.
- Nice touch.^note
- Whoever [invented or coined an unnecessary term/appliance] should be drugged out into the street and shot.
- I hate Mondays / mornings / dogs / February.
- I'm not known for my compassion.
- Diet time.^note
- Show me a good mouser and I'll show you a cat with bad breath.
Chick Magnet: Yes, as unbelievable as it might sound, Garfield has attracted more than a few ladies over the years. Several weren't even female cats but gorgeous, curvy human bombshells. Although the latter were shown via Imagine Spot so take it with a grain of salt.
Child Hater: Garfield is often portrayed as not liking children much, which is hard to blame him for since most children he encounters tend to abuse and mistreat him. This isn't always the case, though, as the March 23, 2013 strip showed him watching a channel devoted to babies laughing for the sole reason that doing so cheers him up.
Cloudcuckoolander: Garfield himself had his moments in early strips before he was Flanderized into a full-time Deadpan Snarker.
Garfield: Hello, I'm a bluebird.
Jon: Garfield, you're too big to be acting this way.
Garfield: But I'm small for a sperm whale.
Jon: I'm thinking of getting you some professional psychiatric help.
Garfield: You mean there are amateur psychiatrists?
Companion Cube: He treats his teddy bear Pooky as if he were a real person. He might have the right idea.
Cool Cat: Especially in situations where he's not either the aggressor or the guy being put down. His ability to sit around impassive with a smirk and a quip is often the funniest part of the strip.
Cosmic Plaything: For some strange reason, on Mondays.
Deadpan Snarker: Most of the time. Jim Davis even said that part of why Lorenzo Music worked voicing Garfield was how “He had a way of throwing a line away and not really caring about it."
Denial of Animality: He constantly forgets that he's a cat. One time, he forgot to such an extent that he shaved.
Didn't Think This Through: One strip went like this:
(Holding bird in one paw)
Garfield: Watch as I toss this bird into the air, and catch it in my mouth.
Looks up, opens his mouth, and throws bird into the air, and it flies away.
Garfield: I am sooo stupid...
Disproportionate Retribution: He's been known to frame Jon for animal cruelty and get him thrown in jail if Jon tries to put him on a diet. That said, since Jon's attempts consist of giving him solely small portions of vegetables, Garfield does have a point.
Does Not Like Spam: His least favorite foods are raisins and spinach. He also doesn't like mice, and makes friends with them occasionally. Other standard cat prey such as birds and fish aren't so lucky. He also dislikes refrigerator leftovers and once gifted a birthday cupcake to the meatloaf.
The Drag-Along: He often forces Jon to bring him along on dates with Liz, just so Garfield can enjoy the food at the restaurant Jon and Liz are at.
Dreadful Musician: Quite a few strips over the years have depicted him singing badly, such as this.
Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes: His default expression, usually when snarking or grudgingly waking up.
Everyone Has Standards: As much of a jerk as he can be, Garfield is capable of care and empathy when needed. In one TV special, he even fought a PANTHER to save Jon and Odie.
Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas:
- A downplayed case as saying he's evil is stretching it. Still, a 1984 arc reveals he does love his mother.
- He also feels this way towards Jon's mother and grandmother. He hates the sweaters Mrs. Arbuckle makes him for Christmas, but he loves the large amounts of food she makes at family gatherings. He also has a special bond with Grandma Arbuckle and loves sleeping in her lap.
Expressive Ears: A few times his ears tuck back whenever he's displeased, annoyed, or in a bad mood in general.
Extreme Omnivore: Occasionally. Non-food things he has eaten include his own food dish (accidentally while shoveling down his food super-fast), the TV remote (to prevent Jon from taking it), Jon's wallet ("Genuine cowhide."), and an unknown object Jon was carrying on a plate ("I hope that was food!") When on a diet, he's resorted to knowingly eating wax fruit, his own blanket and pages from (or all of) a diet book. If the June 27, 2021 strip is anything to go by, Garfield is willing to take a bite out of the moon should he be hungry enough.
Fantastic Racism: Unless you count Odie and occasionally the Big Vicious Dog as exceptions, he has often expressed a resentment towards dogs. One strip in particular had Jon ask him what needed to be done to make the world a better place, Garfield replying by giving suggestions that would more than likely result in dogs getting killed.
Fat and Proud: To quote one of his earliest strips: "I'm fat, and I'm lazy, and I'm proud of it!"
Fat Bastard: A cynical fatty tabby. Other than abusing Odie and making his owner's life hell, he does nothing but eat, sleep and watch TV (newer strips after the year 2006 also depict him regularly on a smartphone and obsessed with texting all the time).
Feeling Their Age: Some of the later strips show him having more trouble doing things he used to be able to do without problem in his younger years.
Flanderization: Inverted. Garfield started out very lazy and sarcastic. By the late eighties he was still that, but he had also developed a more playful attitude. Over time though, he's gradually shifted back into his more cynical self.
Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better: Began entirely quadrupedal, but after he began walking on his hind legs in 1981, he gradually became more bipedal to the point where it is extremely rare to see Garfield in any quadrupedal pose in a strip past 1988. Lampshaded in a strip from 1990 (long after Garfield had almost entirely abandoned quadrupedal locomotion) where Jon angrily exclaims (in response to Garfield yet again stealing his food) "for a cat that walks on his hind legs, you don't talk much!" Also lampshaded in a 2023 strip, in which Jon asks Garfield why he doesn't walk on all fours anymore and if he's forgotten how, and Garfield tries to demonstrate he still can... only to immediately trip over.
Fur Is Clothing: There are occasional gags where it's established that his fur is actually a suit.
- The February 12, 1981 strip has Garfield rip his "cat suit" when he tries to pick up a chocolate-covered peanut, causing him to remark that he needs a bigger one.
- In the August 10, 1985 strip, Garfield attempts to cheat the bathroom scale by taking off his fur and then getting onto the scale while bald.
- The September 20, 1987 strip has Odie pull at a thread, causing the fur covering Garfield's lower half to fall down like pants. Jon laughs at Garfield's misfortune, which causes Garfield to retaliate by taking Jon's belt to make Jon's pants fall down. The mailman Herman Post walks by and laughs at Jon, which then leads to Herman running in terror as his pants are being pulled down by Jon, who has Garfield grabbing Jon's leg while also trying to hold up his fur-pants. Jon's elderly neighbor Hubert witnesses this and calls for his wife Reba to come and see what's going on.
- The title panel of the August 1, 1993 strip shows Garfield's fur hanging on a clothes hanger as if it were a suit.
- The title panel of the November 7, 2004 strip shows the door to Garfield's dressing room opening, revealing a startled Garfield powdering his face while wearing nothing but boxer shorts, a corset and socks, his fur hanging behind him on a clothes hanger.
Furry Reminder: He often does feline things, like grooming himself, eating birds, playing with balls of yarn, etc.
Gasshole: Pure belch variant. In one strip from 2006, he even set off a car alarm with a loud burp.
Gigantic Gulp: Mostly with coffee.
Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: He's the Grumpy to Odie's Gleeful. He's lazy, snarky, and enjoys kicking Odie off the table when given the opportunity.
Hating on Monday: Garfield hates Mondays (except when it's his birthday), and it's little wonder because nothing ever seems to go right for him on that day.
Heavy Sleeper: He's timed himself to see just how long he can sleep.
- In one strip, this gets exaggerated; he wakes up and looks out the window to see a Jetsons-esque future, to which he says that his nap was a little long.
The Hedonist: His main priorities are eating, sleeping, watching TV, and finding ways to amuse himself, often at the expense of others.
Hidden Depths: This strip reveals that Garfield is a a surprisingly skilled sketch artist, able to a draw a pig in a mostly realistic style.
Hypocritical Heartwarming: He wants to be the only one to kick Odie around, refusing to let other characters abuse Odie in any form. Also, despite often voicing annoyance at Jon, Garfield tends to become jealous whenever someone takes his attention away.
It's All About Me: His standard outlook on his own life. This is most shown in attitude towards food, as he acts like all food should be eaten by him and only him; in one strip where Jon angrily states after a disastrous restaurant visit that the food at other tables belongs to other people, the reply he gets is "who made up that stupid rule?". Garfield admits himself that he isn't known for his compassion and to being self-centered.
Jerkass Has a Point: While he isn't a Nice Guy/All-Loving Hero, he can make valid statements.
- He stated an earlier comic strip that rocking chairs are dangerous for cat tails. And he's far from wrong.
- While Garfield saying that "diet" is "die with a t" is meant to be a joke at his sheer unwillingness to lose weight, note that his diets usually exclude meat and proteins altogether. Any cat owner can tell you that denying a cat, a carnivore, his/her meat without any substitutes is asking for an early grave to be dug.
- When Jon was planning on getting Garfield declawed in a few of the early strips, he then quipped that his main means of defense would be gone. Which actually has had more and more pet experts against declawing cats for that very reason in recent years.
- Garfield's disrespect towards Jon and Odie's incompetence is reasonable, since they're usually very dumb. Not helping matters is that he often ends up getting involved in their shenanigans.
- Despite years of expressing contempt towards Nermal, neither Nermal nor Jon can ever seem to take Garfield's hint. Furthermore, Nermal himself has gotten more nasty in attitude over time, to the point of outright earning Garfield's ire.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Garfield is lazy, selfish, cynical, smart-mouthed, unsympathetic, irreverent, yet very lovable and caring at the same time. He constantly abuses both Jon and Odie but he loves them both deeply and does show genuine care for their well-being. His softer side is most prominent around Christmastime. This is much more common with his animated versions, due to Adaptation Expansion and longer screentime allowing him to show more depths.
Karma Houdini: An extreme example - he can bully Jon, Odie, and Nermal (verbally and physically) and NEVER receive any punishment whatsoever. Every rule has its exceptions, though, and sometimes karma does get him. Not so much in The Garfield Show, where Jon tends to accuse Garfield of wrongdoing when something bad happens, usually trying to straight-up punish him afterwards. This becomes more understandable in later seasons, namely due to Garfield's flanderization as a trouble-maker.
Kick the Dog: Does this to Odie constantly and quite literally.
Klatchian Coffee: One of his favorite ways of staying awake.
Laborious Laziness: At his most active, he quite often works to make sure he can stay lazy no matter what, such as one Sunday strip where he nailed a TV to the ceiling so he could watch it while laying on his bed.
Lack of Empathy: As Jon noted many times, Garfield refuses to show empathy to a lot of Jon's problems such as getting a cold, being attacked by wolves, failing to secure a date with a woman, getting his head stuck in a wastebasket and somehow getting trapped inside the house's walls. Garfield will even smile or make sardonic comments at Jon's unlucky nature. And for the latter two issues, Garfield merely drew a crude stick figure or smiley face on the wall or basket.
Lap Pillow: One of the more cat-like things Garfield occasionally does is to sleep on Jon's lap.
Like an Old Married Couple: With Jon, according to Liz. In one strip, he even puts on hair curlers just to get into character as a naggy, old wife.
Mr. Imagination: Garfield shows signs of being this in early comics. Remember when he became Banana Man? Or Amoeba Man?
Jon: [after Garfield pretends the curtains were The Sludge Monster] I wish you'd curb that imagination of yours, Garfield.
Never My Fault: His typical form of self-chastisement.
Garfield: [after he hits Odie with cymbals] Oh, sure! Blame me!
Garfield: [after he knocks the potted plant off the table, loosens the screws on the ceiling lamp, and puts a ruler underneath the open window] Why is it that I'm blamed for everything around here?
Nice Mean And In Between: The mean to Odie's nice and Jon's in-between; he is a selfish, sardonic, lazy cat who abuses Odie and puts down Jon regularly.
Not a Morning Person: One strip has him declaring that mornings should not start until noon.
Only Sane Man: Despite his own wackiness, Garfield frequently notes the absurdity of others and many given situations.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: If Garfield is refusing to eat his favorite meals, then you know something's wrong.
Out-of-Character Moment:
- This 1979 strip◊ has Garfield praising Mondays. Keep in mind that he had already established "I hate Mondays" as a catchphrase.
- Also invoked at the end of Garfield's Halloween Adventure:
  Garfield: Odie, I'm about to do something that's really out of character for me. But seeing that you saved my life about 10 bazillion times tonight, I'm going to give you something that's very close to me. Something that really represents who I am. Here's your half of the Halloween candy.
Perpetual Frowner: Despite his rather easy, spoiled life he never seems fully satisfied.
Pie in the Face: Garfield used to be the frequent target of "Splut!" pies, which made that noise when they hit his face.
Really Fond of Sleeping: Garfield is very fond of his catnaps. Sleeping and eating are his major hobbies or pastime activities.
Ring-Ring-CRUNCH!: He regularly smashes his alarm clock, also a telephone and an ice cream truck.
Security Blanket: He sometimes cuddles up with his teddy bear, Pooky, and/or his blue blanket.
Silent Snarker: He doesn't speak, he apparently thinks out loud. Whether or not other characters can understand him varies from strip to strip.
Sleepyhead: He once slept through an entire strip. Come the next day, he woke up and declared, "You know it's Monday when you wake up and it's Tuesday."
So Unfunny, It's Funny: Garfield not only sings on fences like other cats, but he tries to make a career of it, along with being a comedian. He even has an agent that books his "performances." Unfortunately, the reviews tend to be...hostile.◊
Spiders Are Scary: He doesn't like being face-to-face with them. As such he loves splatting them, specially with newspapers. Even when told that spiders will eat more bothersome pests, he keeps up this behavior. Averted in one series of strips where Garfield specifically hired a spider to get rid of a housefly that had been bothering him for a while.
Stepford Smiler: A mild example, but he pretends to be happy when he had to listen to Arlene's terrible "yowling voice".
The Stoic: Most of the time, Garfield doesn't show emotion beyond seeming to not care. Unless there's food for him to eat, anyways.
Stout Strength: For being an overweight house cat, Garfield can be amazingly strong when he's motivated enough. He once smashed an ice cream truck after the noise kept him from sleeping. On another occasion, when he and Jon started poking each other with sticks, he tore an entire tree up by the roots and brought it into the house to try and poke Jon. He eventually tired out and the tree squished him, but the fact that Garfield was able to do it in the first place is an amazing feat by itself. Other strips have Garfield subvert it by flexing his fat so that he looks like he has huge muscles. Jon is stunned at the sight, while Arlene simply waits and watches to see how long Garfield can hold that pose.
Talking Animal: Subverted; his speech is represented through thought bubbles, a-la Snoopy. Due to the Rule of Funny, Jon can understand him only if Jon's understanding is necessary for the punchline.
Took a Level in Kindness: While Garfield retains his sardonic nature, he's rarely if ever violent to Jon or Odie nowadays. In fact, for all intents and purposes, Odie is now his best friend and the two get along quite well.
Toxic Friend Influence: He's a bad influence on both Jon and Odie.
Trademark Favorite Food: Lasagna. However, it's rarely mentioned nowadays and seems to have been replaced with pizza. Then again, Italian cuisine as a whole seems to be this for him.
- Lasagna is utilized in excess in both animated series, however.
- Jim Davis admitted once he wished he made pizza Garfield's favorite as it's easier to draw.
Troublesome Pet: Garfield is known as quite the trickster towards both Jon and Odie. He frequently hogs their food and coffee, among other things.
Truth in Television: Jim Davis himself was surprised when he heard testimonials about how much people's cats love lasagna, even though Garfield's own love for lasagna was conceived through Rule of Funny.
Tummy Cushion: Garfield will sometimes sleep on Jon's stomach. It actually made him look trimmer to the point where Liz complimented him.
Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Barring moments of kindness, Garfield is a lazy, rude, mean-spirited and selfish hedonist that loves to torment Jon and Odie just for fun. He is less harsh towards strangers though, provided that they don't antagonize him first, and he rarely—if ever—causes Liz any trouble.
Would Hurt a Child: He has no problem with beating up Nermal. He rarely harms human kids though, so it's somewhat zigzagged.
Would Hit a Girl: He once punched out a female cat simply for eating his food. He also physically attacked a Girl scout for her cookies off-screen and hosed Arlene with a fire hydrant as payback for refusing to go out on a date with him. In a 1979 strip, he grabbed Irma by the neck when she refused to serve cats.
Your Mom:
- In one strip, when Garfield stands on the talking scale:
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 (as well as Garfield Goes Hollywood), 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!"
- Another strip has Garfield arrive at a back alley populated with stray dogs. He provokes them by telling them that their mothers wore flea collars.

Jon Arbuckle

Jonathan Q. "Jon" Arbuckle

"You know, Garfield, sometimes I think my life has been a failure... that I'm a loser and a bore... but then I get out my lint collection and I know it's been worth it."

Voiced by: Thom Huge (The Fantastic Funnies, all animated specials except Here Comes Garfield, Garfield and Friends), Sandy Kenyon (Here Comes Garfield), Wally Wingert (CGI film trilogy and The Garfield Show), Nicholas Hoult (The Garfield Movie)

Portrayed by: Breckin Meyer (live-action films)

Garfield's owner, a (supposed) cartoonist who works from home, and the most prominent human in the strip. For most of the strip, he was a simple enough bachelor who cared for Garfield, but eventually grew to be portrayed as a stereotypical 'cat person' and total loser. His personality hit a watershed in the late 2000s when he and Liz finally became the Official Couple.

Aside Glance: The other prime user of this trope, usually in response to one of Garfield's remarks.
Author Avatar: Somewhat - Jim Davis, like Jon, grew up on a farm, has had some out-there dating experiences, has a brother nicknamed "Doc Boy", and is a cartoonist.
Born Unlucky: Almost nothing goes right for him.
Jon: You wouldn't believe my day, Garfield. First, I tripped and fell down six flights of stairs. When I landed, I got my head stuck in a bucket of pork chops. Then, a roaming pack of hungry wolves mistook me for lunch...and chased me into an open elevator shaft, which wouldn't have been so bad had it not been for the rabid shaft badgers.
- Jon once wore a bowtie so large he missed a date because the wind was against him.
- Subverted in a 1989 strip where Jon is singing at the window and calls out to a woman walking by:
Jon: Hey there good lookin', I got the blues. Want to cheer me up?
Woman: You? The blues? Ha! There you sit in your powder blue oxford shirt in your own home in a middle class suburb. You don't know nothing about the blues!
Jon: Well, excuse me for succeeding!
Butt-Monkey: It seems the whole universe hates him, with rarely anything ever going right for him. Subverted in one strip indicating that, despite everything else he goes through, Jon's general quality of life isn't that bad. He makes enough money to somehow keep Garfield fed and still be able to pay for his own and Odie's food and all the other expenses of a middle-class suburban home.
Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Almost anytime he outsmarts, tricks or taunts Garfield, karma strikes him down "like a one-winged duck." (When Garfield's the one who outsmarts/tricks/taunts Jon, karma is Garfield's friend....Usually.)
Casanova Wannabe: Until Liz finally caved in and became his willing girlfriend.
- Good thing, since his dates with other women also used to end in tragedy.
- Ironically, there were at least two instances of dates that Jon had before he and Liz finally hooked up where the girl genuinely liked him, but Jon never followed through because he couldn't cope with the quirks of his date (Bertha and Kimmy). Also, Jon has mentioned having other girlfriends before Liz became his girlfriend.
The Chew Toy: His abuse has never failed to make the readers laugh over the years.
Characterization Marches On:
- When the series started out, Jon was originally The Everyman and played The Straight Man to Lyman's goofiness and Garfield's mischievous antics. However, over time when Lyman started to be phased out around the 80's, he started to talk to his cat more than Lyman, and his character evolved into the more hopeless goofball of a character we're all much more familiar with now and Garfield became The Straight Man to Jon's goofiness.
- Jon seldom interacted with Odie originally, and most strips with him involving Odie were him and Lyman trading "dog person vs cat person" sentiments. Another trade off from Lyman leaving was Odie becoming Jon's pet, with the two more often than not on the same page compared to Garfield.
Childhood Brain Damage: It's been implied in a few strips that his eccentric behavior is the effect of several head injuries he suffered growing up on a farm.
Cloudcuckoolander: Here's one example:
Jon: I think my toes are jealous of my fingers because they get to point at things.
Deadpan Snarker: More so in the animated adaptations, particularly when he knows that Garfield is up to something.
Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe: Jon tried to smoke this in some of the earliest strips, but Garfield always got to it first. A later strip showed Garfield using it as a Bubble Pipe.
The Ditz: Whether it's the snowball fights against Garfield or attempting to save his dinner from Garfield, much of the strip's humor relies on Jon's ignorance. He's very gullible, can fail even the most basic tasks, and does things in a very poorly-conceived way.
Dreadful Musician: Many strips over the years have been dedicated to him singing badly, to the annoyance of Garfield and/or Odie, such as this one◊. Completely averted in the animated specials and Garfield and Friends, where Jon was given several opportunities to show off Thom Huge's singing skills.
Eccentric Artist: Although his job as a cartoonist is often downplayed, he is certainly an odd character.
Enemy Eats Your Lunch: Garfield is always stealing his dinners and (even did so on Jon's birthday!). Garfield on at least 2 occasions admitted he wants Jon to feel miserable about this - the first involved chocolate pudding, the second was when Jon tried surrendering his dinner in the first place but Garfield stole it after feigning rejection of it.
Everyone Has Standards: Jon had a few dates where he was the one who couldn't handle the other person's quirks. Bertha had a Big Fun personality, but Jon found her exhausting. Kimmy was literally Raised by Wolves and only brought back to civilization a week ago, and she was too eccentric even for him.
Failure Is the Only Option:
- The Jon/Liz relationship until the late 2000s.
- Also, most attempts at outsmarting Garfield.
Fake Fabric Fashion Faux Pas: Jon Arbuckle's continuing love of polyester suits is presented as only one of his many crimes against fashion (e.g., out-of-date cuts, eye-watering colors, and odd accessories).
Flanderization: He was originally portrayed as an ordinary young bachelor and The Straight Man to Garfield's mischievous antics, but during The '80s gradually began to devolve into a Straw Loser in comparison to Garfield (while the strip run on April 16, 1979 was the first to depict Jon's goofier, more nerdy side, this only became a major component of his character during the early 90's), hitting a nadir during the late Nineties and early 2000s (until his long-time crush Liz finally hooked up with him in 2006, resulting in some minor de-Flanderization). However, Jon's nerdier traits are often dialed back in the animated adaptations.
Hidden Depths: When Jon really tries and stows his ill-conceived notions of machoism, he can be legitimately thoughtful and charming. There are a few occasions when he genuinely sweeps Liz off her feet after they become a couple.
Impossibly Tacky Clothes: What he usually wears on a date. According to Garfield, two hundred moths committed suicide in his closet.
Incredibly Lame Fun: His hobbies include sorting socks and making toast.
Jerkass: Before hooking up with Liz, Jon could be genuinely harsh or even cruel to Garfield. Either cracking jokes about Garfield's weight, or even verbally tearing into him unprovoked, which makes Jon look pretty bad when you remember he can't hear Garfield's comebacks (Maybe). It's implied that Jon might be taking his own frustrations out on Garfield.
The Klutz: There's rarely a job or a chore Jon does where he doesn't end up hurting himself somehow.
Lethal Chef: Jon is fine on everyday meals, but his attempts to produce something special invariably have results that even Garfield would rather starve than eat. The cartoon tends to exaggerate this.
Like an Old Married Couple: With Garfield, according to Liz.
Jon: I want a divorce!
Garfield: I get the fridge!
Literal-Minded: Seems to be this at times—once, he went on a date with a woman named "Cindy," who was said to like the "strong, silent type" when it came to her taste in men. So Jon decided to dress up as a muscle-bound mime for their date.
Line-of-Sight Name: Davis took Jon's name from a coffee commercial.
Manchild: From his fashion taste to the ways he spends his spare time, it's obvious that he has practically no life.
"Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: "Sneaky◊" and "adventure◊".
Nice Mean And In Between: The in-between to Odie's nice and Garfield's mean; flaws aside, he's generally a friendly guy who cares about his pets and Liz, but can be arrogant and has moments of being rather harsh and even abusive to Garfield (though considering how tricky Garfield can be to him, it's somewhat justified).
The Noseless: With the way he's drawn, it looks more like he just has a really long philtrum leading from his lips to his eyes instead of a nose. This hasn't stopped Garfield from shoving a tiny suit and a camera up his nose at various points.
No Social Skills: Mostly when it comes to women, but it also shows in his love for polka and often tacky wardrobe.
The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Although Jon is ostensibly a cartoonist, he's rarely seen doing anything besides occasionally go out on dates and sit around the house being just as bored as his pets.
- In the comic strip anyway (though it is referenced from time to time). In both animated series, we do hear more of his work and occasionally see him working on his cartoons.
Papa Wolf: In the first movie, he slugs Happy Chapman for kidnapping Odie and Garfield.
This is for stealing my dog and my cat. (knocks Chapman unconscious)
Parental Favoritism: A heavily downplayed case. While he dearly loves Odie, Jon is more close to Garfield as his companion. Jim Davis even likens their relationship to light sadomasochism. That said, it's obvious which pet Jon treats with more respect and trust.
Davis: Garfield is his favorite because of the depth of their relationship. He confides in Garfield so much. and I think Jon may have a little masochistic problem. He enjoys the abuse that Garfield heaps up.
Polka Dork: He loves polka and plays the accordion.
Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Prior to hooking up with Liz, one strip had Jon dress up wearing baggy clothes, a backwards facing cap, and talk in a more "hip" lingo in an attempt to pick up women. It ends with him tripping and falling on his face when his pants fell to his ankles.
Garfield: Word.
Pyrrhic Victory: In the September 17, 2000 strip, Jon and Garfield have a hot pepper eating contest. Jon wins, but he isn't happy about it because Garfield breathed fire on him while eating a Peruvian death pepper and burned all his hair off.
Say My Name: He frequently screams, "GARFIELD!!" out of anger (sometimes also pain or shock) when Garfield does something bad, either to him, Odie, his pet goldfish or other people.
Straw Loser: Jon was Flanderized into this over the first two decades of the strip's run, becoming possibly the biggest loser in the world by the mid-Nineties so that Garfield, with his laziness, gluttony, and general lack of doing anything in the comic other than just laying there can seem cool by making wisecracks at his expense. It's pretty sad when you're a Straw Loser to a cat (although in 2006, his unrequited romantic interest Liz fell for him and they began officially dating, which, apparently, takes some of the points off his Loser Scale.)
Swapped Roles: Most of Jon's dating disasters come from the woman being horrified by him. His dates with Bertha and Kimmy ended with him not wanting to call them again.
Terrible Pick-Up Lines: Jon is characterized heavily by his terrible come-ons.
This Loser Is You: "Sometimes you're lucky...and sometimes you're Jon."
Took a Level in Dumbass: In the early years of the strip, he was a fairly normal person who frequently saw through Garfield's antics, clearly sustained a few friends during his life (most notably Lyman) and had a fairly active lifestyle with interests befitting typical men of his age group (in an early strip, he is even depicted as having subscribed to a bachelor magazine). Since the mid-Nineties, however, he's become a total moron who finds interest in exaggeratedly mundane activities (such as filling in dot-to-dot books and completing two-piece puzzles) that often cross into Manchild territory, mistakes sudoku for crosswords, accidentally fries his hat for dinner, apparently serving it to Garfield without noticing (and wears a live chicken on his head in its place), unknowingly wears his underwear in public whilst attempting to attract a date and mistakes an upside down restaurant menu for French. Nowadays, he wouldn't be too out of place as The Ditz in a Cartoon Cartoons show. Though, his animated versions dial it back somewhat, even they can be pretty clueless at times.
Throw the Dog a Bone: After many years of bad dates and pining for Liz, in 2006, Jim Davis has Jon and Liz become an item. Liz finally admits to Jon that she loves him and she becomes his long-term girlfriend.
- Before that, he actually managed to get a real date. Granted, the woman in question was a bit of a Gonk, but despite that she had a lovely personality, and they both had a wonderful time.
- Garfield will give Jon credit if he feels he deserves it. For instance.
Trademark Favorite Food: Ever since this strip, almost all of Jon's dinners are a plate of meatloaf, buttered mashed potatoes and peas. Most of the time he doesn't get to eat it though, cause Garfield keeps stealing it.
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He hates mice, as he always complains to Garfield about not chasing them.

Odie

"That's not a dog, that's a tongue with eyeballs and feet."

Voiced by: Gregg Berger, Harvey Guillén (The Garfield Movie)

Introduced in the strip's first year as Lyman's pet dog, but later Retconned to be Jon's dog. He's typically portrayed as wide-eyed, drooling and supposedly dumb.

Achievements in Ignorance: He once climbed a tree because he didn't know that he couldn't.
- Pretty much anything Odie does is because of this.
Adaptation Name Change: The strip's "prototype", Jon, called him Spot.
Amplified Animal Aptitude: Ever since his character design first changed.
Ambidextrous Sprite: Averted. He is often shown to have a spot on both sides.
Anthropomorphic Shift: He used to walk on four legs much like Garfield did, but is now bipedal.
Beware the Nice Ones: Odie isn't above taking revenge on Garfield, and he occasionally stands up to him too.
Beyond the Impossible: One episode of the first animated series had him instead of burying bones in the backyard, he would bury automobiles...with the drivers still inside of them (not to worry, no one was in any real trouble; they were all mostly above ground and just really annoyed by it and honking and grumbling to get out as it was more of an inconvenience for them than anything else.)
Big Brother Instinct: Towards Nermal. One Garfield and Friends episode had Garfield trick him into running away. While Garfield found it funny, Odie began menacing him until he relented and went to bring him back home.
Cartoon Dog Breed: He's got yellow fur, giant brown ears, and a single brown spot on his back. He doesn't look like much except "a cartoon."
Character Development: Downplayed. Odie started off the strip as quite dumb and largely brainless. As the strip has gone on though, his level of stupidity has steadily been dialed down with Odie steadily showing more and more moments of intellectual pursuits, working alongside Garfield, and actually be fairly intelligent. He still has his moments where he's a dumb dog, but they aren't nearly so common.
The Ditz: Sometimes he appears to be this, but see Obfuscating Stupidity.
Dogs Are Dumb: Is constantly smiling and drooling. No matter how many times Garfield's kicked him off the table, Odie still prefers to stand on the edge of the table and never suspects when Garfield's behind him.
The Dog Bites Back: Odie occasionally gets back at Garfield, including the psychological bullying on Garfield on each of his birthdays for getting older. Odie makes Garfield get a taste of his own medicine in this strip. Odie has been far more successful in this trope towards Garfield than Jon has.
Enemy Eats Your Lunch: Not to Jon's extent, but Garfield has often stolen Odie's dinner.
Fat and Skinny: The skinny to Garfield's fat.
Flanderization: He was never depicted as the brightest bulb, but earlier on didn't seem to be anything much past how a standard canine is generally depicted in fiction. As time went on, however, and as it became a more frequent Running Gag, it's gotten to nowadays, that whenever Odie's intelligence is ever brought up it either shows him as smarter than the average dog or greatly exemplifies his stupidity for the occasion. In some instance, he's treated as much a dog as an epitome for low intelligence.
Genius Ditz: In The Garfield Show in particular, where he occasionally displays outright action hero tendencies and is sometimes more observant of things than even Garfield himself. He's still a drooling imbecile the rest of the time however.
Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: He's the Gleeful to Garfield's Grumpy. He's energetic, affectionate, and simple-minded.
Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Despite Garfield's treatment of him, he is still very loving and loyal towards him.
Informed Species: Jim Davis said he's supposed to be a beagle. To make matters worse, in the live-action movies Odie is played by a dachshund. (Garfield himself says he's a "purebred clown◊")
Iron Butt Monkey: He's constantly the victim of Garfield's pranks, and yet he still is perpetually happy and likes Garfield nonetheless.
Kindhearted Simpleton: When his much smaller brain doesn't obscure things, he's shown a very loyal and forgiving treatment towards Garfield and Jon. That's not to say he doesn't take the odd opportunity to get revenge however...
- He has a lot of compassion and affection for Nermal.
Leitmotif: In animation, Odie's leitmotif is a tune similar to a cavalry bugle call. It tends to play when Odie enters the scene, or when the focus is on him.
Nice Guy: A nice and very loyal dog, to both Jon and even Garfield.
Nice Mean And In Between: The nice to Garfield's mean and Jon's in-between; he's a sweet, playful, loyal dog without a mean bone in his body.
Non-Ironic Clown: Garfield has imagined Odie as this a few times. One strip also had Garfield use a book to research what breed of dog Odie was, learning that it was "purebred clown".
Obfuscating Stupidity: Sometimes done for laughs. For instance, one strip shows him waiting for Jon and Garfield to leave the house and then watching a TV series on Mozart with a copy of War and Peace at the side. Another arc showed him to be good at sudoku. There's another one involve him looking like he accidentally locked himself in the car, while him, Jon and Garfield is on a picnic, but turns out he actually locked them out so he could eat the food himself, while forcing Jon and Garfield to wait outside while it was raining.
- In this 1983 strip, Jon sees a smug Odie beating a disgusted Garfield in 5-card draw poker.
  Jon: I don't believe it.
  Garfield: Neither do I. Odie just drew to an inside straight.
- Usually avoided in the animated series, particularly in The Garfield Show where it's a solid fact he's as stupid as he looks.
Overly-Long Tongue: Some strips show it to be even longer than his body.
Perpetual Smiler: What's shown here is his default expression.
The Pollyanna: Nothing puts a permanent dent in his good cheer, though as far as Garfield is concerned, it's because he's too dumb to know better.
Retcon: Originally the dog of Jon's housemate Lyman, but once Lyman vanished Odie was treated as having always been Jon's.
Silent Snarker: He has rare moments which suggest he'd be a Deadpan Snarker if he could speak. They're generally (albeit not always) towards Garfield.
The Speechless:
- He's the only animal in the strip that doesn't speak through thought bubbles, except for one early strip where he told Lyman "I'm hungry", and another that has him thinking "Hmm" while contemplating a Christmas gift. While Odie was easy to understand since all he did was get kicked in the ass by Garfield off the table or slobber everywhere, starting in the early 2000s Garfield often explains what Odie does or intends to the reader.
- In the animated series and CGI movies, Odie does talk (albeit rarely) in English like "Yeah!", "Hello!", "Right!", "I don't know" and "My bone!"
Strong Family Resemblance: His parents look very similar to him.
Sudden Name Change: In Jon, his name was "Spot". His name was changed to make it less generic.
Temporary Bulk Change: At the end of A Garfield Thanksgiving, he is shown to have put on a good amount of weight after the big meal, prompting Jon to put him on a diet...the following day.
The Unintelligible: A more recent Running Gag has Odie answering "Ask A Dog" letters from readers. He sometimes barks a response that Garfield then translates for the audience. More generally, Odie usually can't talk but his expressions and the tone of his whines and barks usually get his meaning across.
Urine Trouble: There are several strips involving a gag where it's implied Odie peed or wants to pee on something.
- The April 21, 1982 strip has Garfield disguised as a bush to catch some birds by surprise, only to then see that Odie has started sniffing at him.
- The December 12, 1995 strip has Jon remark that he can't decide which Christmas tree to take home. Jon then looks shocked while Garfield remarks "Neither can Odie. He likes them all", which suggests that Odie is marking his territory on all the Christmas trees.
- The May 16, 2011 strip has Garfield find himself yet again stuck up the tree. He sees Odie approaching and assumes that Odie will rescue him, but it turns out Odie had a different reason to approach the tree.
  Garfield: Well, he did something involving this tree.
- The April 4, 2012 strip has Garfield admonish Odie after the dog walks by whistling.
  Garfield: Some of us like to climb that tree!
- The October 5, 2022 strip has another example involving Garfield being stuck up a tree.
  Garfield: Odie! Do something! (Odie walks towards the tree while grinning) No! No! Not that!

Nermal

"Cute is my life."

Voiced by: Desiree Goyette (Garfield and Friends), David Eigenberg (live-action film), Jason Marsden (CGI film trilogy and The Garfield Show)

The self-proclaimed "world's cutest kitten". Initially a kitten owned by Jon's mom, Nermal also had his origin blatantly retconned. He's now just a neighborhood cat who wanders into Garfield's house at random times.

Adaptational Jerkass: In the CG specials and TV series, his brattiness and narcissistic tendencies have been amped up, weaponizing his cuteness to get what he wants.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He can pretend to be a nice kitty all he wants, but at his core, he's a Smug Snake who always mocks Garfield about his weight and/or age.
Buffoonish Tomcat: What he was flanderized into in the live action films; being a friendly dimwit, but Nermal himself can lack some common sense when teasing or attempting to trick Garfield on occasion and is easily prone to slapstick in the CGI series at times.
Bullying a Dragon: Does this to Garfield, who then proceeds to throw Nermal through the door or stuff him inside a package and try to ship him off to Abu Dhabi.
Character Catchphrase: "It's me, Nermal, the world's ka-YUUUUTEST kitty cat!"
Comic-Book Time: Parodied. Nermal has been a kitten since the strip's second year. In several strips, Garfield has asked Nermal how he stays young, and Nermal has revealed that he's a dwarf who uses extensive anti-aging therapy and deliberately stunts his own growth.
Commuting on a Bus: Since the '90s, Nermal has a tendency to disappear from the strip for a long period of time then return - the longest of these absences being between July 1989 and June 1993 (between which he received a redesign, making him larger and ironically less cute than before) and between June 2004 and May 2008.
Cute Kitten: Many strips refer to him as "Nermal, the world's cutest kitten". He often hammers it to Garfield and, at his worst, exploits his Cuteness Proximity to get anything he wants.
Drop-In Character: Except for early strips, he just wanders into Garfield's house unannounced.
Dude Looks Like a Lady: He has eyelashes like most of the female characters in the strip, and his cuteness doesn't help matters. Made even more obvious on Garfield and Friends, where he has a very obviously female voice actor (Desirée Goyette). The Spanish dub even called him gatita (female kitten) before correcting it later on.
Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: While cute and not exactly evil, but he tends to be downright mean to Garfield.
Good is Not Nice: He's on Garfield's side, but he never misses an opportunity for snarky comments and being mean to Garfield for his own self benefit.
Hoist by His Own Petard: In this comic strip logo box, Nermal is portrayed as the Fantastic Four's Human Torch and tries to put out the fire on his tail.
Informed Attractiveness: After his re-design, he's still supposed to be super adorable, but he doesn't look too different from Garfield.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's rude, self-absorbed and arrogant but he does have his moments of kindness sometimes, even occasionally in the CG series and specials. In addition there have been several strips where he's able to interact with Garfield normally, without any negativity or insults from either side.
Karmic Butt-Monkey: Garfield likes to ship him, a self-absorbed Bitch in Sheep's Clothing and a Smug Snake, to Abu Dhabi and throw him out the door when he pisses him off.
Older Than He Looks: Justified as Nermal manages to keep his cute and diminutive appearance through extensive plastic surgeries and deliberately stunting his growth.
Palette Swap: He looks just like Garfield except smaller, gray, and with eyelashes.
Running Gag: Every once in a while, Garfield tries to ship him away. For whatever reason, it's almost always Abu Dhabi.
Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The sensitive guy to Garfield's manly man.
She's a Man in Japan: Was female in the Spanish dub before he got turned back into a male.
Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: While he willfully annoys Garfield, he doesn't pose a threat to anything but his ego. The other way around, however…
Smug Snake: Self-important, condescending (especially towards Garfield), a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, and nowhere smart as he thinks he is.
Super Gullible: How he is usually deceived by Garfield in the 80s cartoon series and submissive in the live action films can qualify him as an innocently gullible kitten.

Liz Wilson

Doctor Elizabeth "Liz" Wilson

"It's not the veterinary medicine I mind. It's some of the animals I have to work with."

Voiced by: Julie Payne

Portrayed by: Jennifer Love Hewitt (live-action films)

Garfield and Odie's vet, and the frequent target of Jon's affection. Although Jon spent a good quarter century trying to date her with minimal success, she finally gave in.

Adaptational Job Change: She was a waitress at Irma's diner in Jon, but she became a vet in Garfield.
Ascended Extra: Especially in the cartoon, but in the strip as well starting in 2006, after she and Jon become an Official Couple.
Character Development: After she finally gave in and became Jon's girlfriend, she changed from being little more than The Comically Serious to a more sympathetic type.
Deadpan Snarker: To Jon's lame pickup lines. She has softened up quite a bit since they started dating, but it does still pop up from time to time.
Jon: Gee, what a pretty name. Is that short for Elizabeth?
Liz: No, it's short for Lizard. (Jon makes an annoyed face)
Defrosting Ice Queen: She's gotten a bit softer to Jon as they've grown closer.
Establishing Character Moment:
Jon: What a pretty name! Is it short for Elizabeth?
Liz: No, it's short for Lizard.
Hypocritical Humor: She and Jon watch through the window as Garfield builds a snowman whose face looks like Jon. She laughs at it until Garfield builds a snowwoman whose face looks like hers. Realizing Jon is about to laugh, she glares at him to discourage the laughter.
I Want My Beloved to Be Fashionable: She's taken it upon herself whenever she and Jon go on dates now to sort through Jon's wardrobe and force him to pick something that isn't so tacky, people are going to scream in horror. She's got her work cut-out for her. On at least one occasion she's forced Jon to put Garfield on the phone so he can tell her how Jon is dressed; He loudly hacked up a hairball.
Long Bus Trip: Her last failed date with Jon was in 2000. After that, she didn't appear again until July 2006, where she and Jon were finally hooked up.
Ms. Vice Girl: Liz is a cynic, sarcastic, and smart-mouthed woman but is never portrayed as much of a jerk, just a independent woman trying to keep herself away from people trying to flirt with her. She is actually a really nice person who loves animals and her boyfriend Jon.
Nice Girl: Though definitely sarcastic and cynical, she's a genuinely nice person who cares a lot about Jon, Garfield and Odie, and the only woman who can put up with Jon enough to be an Official Couple.
Odd Name, Normal Nickname: Invoked. When Jon and Liz first meet, he hits on her by telling her "Liz" is a beautiful name and asks if it's short for Elizabeth. Liz blankly tells him it's actually short for Lizard. Later strips make it clear she was just messing with him.
Speaks Fluent Animal: Garfield and Odie exchange "meow"s and "arf"s in front of Liz under the belief she can't understand them. She proves them wrong by telling them she's not gaining weight and that's her natural hair color.
Liz: We vets are multilingual.
Trademark Favorite Food: Donuts, but she resists the urge to eat them.
What Does She See in Him?: Several strips bring up the question of why she's attracted to Jon, but she never gives an answer.
Women Are Wiser: Though considering the men she's compared to are Jon, Garfield, and Odie, that's an unbelievably low bar to jump over.

Arlene

"Vanity, thy name is Garfield."

Voiced by: Debra Messing (live-action film), Audrey Wasilewski (CGI film trilogy and The Garfield Show)

Garfield's on-again-off-again girlfriend. She first appeared in the strip in 1981, and has shown up occasionally over the decades. Most of her appearances involve Garfield trying to win her love (and failing miserably), or her trying to woo him, but Garfield being too full of himself to notice. She is distinguished from the other lady-cats Garfield has chatted up by her plain (though pink) coat, large lips, and gap-toothed smile.

Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: She's a pink cat.
Ascended Extra: She plays an important role in the CGI movie trilogy.
Berserk Button: Do NOT make fun of the gap between her front teeth.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Before her reappearance in 2008, she could've been this as she didn't appear in the strip for nine years.
Commuting on a Bus: Tended to appear fairly sparsely in the strip even after her introduction in 1980, only appearing in ten strips during the 1990s (and she didn't speak in one of them), before disappearing entirely outside of Sunday strip logo boxes between 1999 and 2008. Thankfully, since 2008, this seems to have finally been averted, as she is now making more regular (almost monthly) appearances.
Cool Big Sis: Though she and Nermal don't interact much (if at all) in the strip, in cartoons where they share screen time, Arlene does act this way toward him.
Deadpan Snarker: She dishes it out just as good as Garfield can.
Demoted to Extra: In Garfield and Friends, her only appearance is a brief cameo in the episode "Remote Possibilities", her role as Garfield's love interest instead filled by Canon Foreigner Penelope Pussycat.
Early Installment Character-Design Difference: She initially had two-toed feet like Odie. Starting with the 2000s, she began having three-toed feet like Garfield and Nermal.
Insult Backfire: In a 1989 strip, Arlene refused to go on a date with Garfield when he asked her out and replied "Blow it out your fire hydrant, blimpo" before Garfield hosed her with it.
No Accounting for Taste: Most of the time, Garfield is kind of a jerkass to her. In her very first appearance, he made fun of her teeth.
Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: She's pink, has long eyelashes, and seems to wear lipstick.
Trademark Favorite Food: She likes to eat mice, which Garfield dislikes.
What Does She See in Him?: Garfield's fat, arrogant, egotistical and shows no respect for Arlene yet she still dates him. Garfield even refused to kiss her at the conclusion of several of their dates. She has asked herself that question on at least one occasion.

Secondary Characters

Pooky

Garfield's prized stuffed teddy bear that Garfield originally found in a drawer around the house.

Adaptation Name Change: He was called "Huggy" in Jon.
Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: There is the occasional circumstance where the otherwise inanimate stuffed bear appears to do something on its own.
Morality Pet: Outside of Christmas, Garfield is at his most affectionate when he's around Pooky.
The Speechless: Being an inanimate stuffed bear, Pooky naturally can't speak. This doesn't prevent Garfield acting like he's The Voiceless instead and claiming he simply doesn't speak much.

Irma

The waitress at a diner that Garfield and Jon frequently attend. In one of her earliest appearances, she declined serving Garfield because of a no-cats policy but the angry cat intimidated her into compliance.

Adapted Out: She's so far the only recurring character in the comic strip who never made it into an animated adaptation, though she does make a Continuity Cameo in The Garfield Show episode "The Caped Avenger Rides Again" on a comic book cover.
Beyond the Impossible: Is said to run the diner around the clock with no help - albeit with clear effects on her mental health.
Cloud Cuckoolander: Because of the "Chicken Surprise", Jon decided it's time to call the hospital on her.
Commuting on a Bus: Went missing for more than 7 years between March 1992 to July 1999.
Cordon Bleugh Chef: Irma offers (beef, turkey, chicken, buffalo, tofu, veggie or ostrich) burgers and (orange, sauerkraut, grapefruit and pickle) juices.
The Ditz: Can be quite dumb.
Hash House Lingo: Being a waitress at a diner, this is to be expected.
"YO TONY! BURN A COW AND MAKE HER CRY!"
Lethal Chef: She often serves inedible food that has been outdated, unsanitary or improperly made. One time when Jon ordered the chili, she required that he sign a waiver first.
Literal-Minded: Many times. When Jon asked Irma how her (beef/pork) ribs are, she responded "Ticklish" and when Jon asked her what's on the menu, she replied a coffee ring and ketchup stains.
The Unreveal: She's had chefs like Tony and Bubba who have never been seen in the comics.

Mr. Arbuckle

Mr. Arbuckle/Dad

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dad_image_17112954_1024x.jpg

Voiced by: Pat Harrington Jr. (A Garfield Christmas), Frank Welker (The Garfield Show)

Jon and Doc's father who lives in a farm where Jon grew up.

Commuting on a Bus: He went missing from 1993 to 2001, and then appeared in 2011, after which he disappeared again before appearing on May 14, 2023 and July 2, 2023.
Mr. Vice Guy: He can at times seem easily irritated or no-nonsense but aside from that he is a pretty easygoing and mostly normal (albeit a bit old school) family man.
Rough Overalls: Mr. Arbuckle, as a farmer, wears these; overlaps with Overalls and Gingham.
Technologically Blind Elders: He doesn't understand technology at all.
The Thing That Would Not Leave: He was briefly this in a January 1988 storyline when he came to stay at Garfield and Jon's place and woke up Garfield at 4 in the morning. Garfield obviously got angry cause they're not even on the farm.
Unnamed Parent: His first name is unknown.

Mrs. Arbuckle

Mrs. Arbuckle/Mom

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mom_arbuckle.jpg

Voiced by: Julie Payne

Jon and Doc's mother. She always fixes too much food for her family and still treats Jon like a little boy.

Character Catchphrase: Eat, eat, eat!
Commuting on a Bus: Last appeared in 2008. She appeared again, alongside her husband, on May 14, 2023 and July 2, 2023.
Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Garfield zigzags this with Jon's mother. He loves the massive amounts of food she makes for family gatherings, but he hates the sweaters she knits him for Christmas.
I Want Grandkids: When was first introduced, the first thing see her say to Jon (besides "Eat, eat, eat!") is "You should meet some nice girl, settle down, start a family." She's since returned to this rhetoric after Jon and Liz began dating, flat out stating she wants to see grandchildren before she dies.
Nice Girl: She's very sweet and pleasant.
Running Gag: She makes very poorly-crafted sweaters for Garfield—some of the sweaters she's made didn't have a hole for Garfield's head or having too long of a neck for a turtleneck. Jon and Garfield have gotten so used to her terrible sweaters that when she makes a normal sweater for Garfield, the duo gets worried about her.
Sore Loser: In a strip from August from 2001, Jon reads a letter from his brother in which Doc Boy explains that their mom lost a pie-baking contest to a woman named Maddie Ferguson—in retaliation, Mrs. Arbuckle burned Maddie's barn down.
Supreme Chef: There's no doubt that Jon's mom is a great cook—the issue with her cooking is that she has a habit of fixing way too much food (particularly when it comes to pies and potatoes).
1990s trading card: Is it any wonder Garfield loves this woman?
Unnamed Parent: Her given name and her maiden name are both unknown—she's only ever referred to as "Mom" or "Mrs. Arbuckle."

Doc Arbuckle

Doc "Doc Boy" Arbuckle

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/doc_boy_arbucklecharcter.jpg

Voiced by: David Lander

Jon's younger brother (and his only known sibling) who lives with his parents at the family ranch.

Berserk Button: When Jon calls him "Doc Boy" (though he prefers it over "Iguana Gums").
Big Eater: He eats fairly more than Jon does and is also a bit overweight. This could be his mother's fault since his mom always fixes too much food.
Character Catchphrase: "Don't call me Doc Boy!"
Character Development: If you consider The Garfield Show canon, than Doc has certainly matured by the time of the episode "Down on the Farm". He still hates that Jon calls him Doc Boy but he's much less of a Manchild than he was in the Christmas special and shows to be quite responsible in running the family farm.
The Dutiful Son: Unlike Jon, he stayed with his parents to take care of the family farm.
Manchild: He's easily just as immature as Jon, if not more immature. Also, Doc Boy's usually portrayed as being unintelligent to the point of making Jon look like a genius by comparison.
Rough Overalls: Doc wears these as he still lives on the farm with his parents. This contrasts him with his city life brother and overlaps with Overalls and Gingham.
Strong Family Resemblance: He looks almost exactly like his father.

Grandma Arbuckle

Voiced by: Pat Carroll

Jon and Doc's grandmother, mother of Mr. Arbuckle, mother-in-law of Mrs. Arbuckle.

Adaptational Personality Change: Subverted. She is first introduced in the comic strip as just a typical Granny Classic in a black dress but in the Christmas and Thanksgiving specials, she develops her own distinct hard-core, snarky, but still sweet and loving personality that she is more known for. This would transfer over to the comic strip as her more recent appearance stayed true to her character from the specials.
Cool Old Lady: Admit it, you wish your grandmother was like her! Her appearances and mentions typically involve her doing things like motorcycling down the front door, taking part in martial arts championships, and vacationing in Cancún.
Granny Classic: In her initial appearance. Her personality was changed when the specials were released.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The jerk part is downplayed as it really comes down to a handful of moments like telling her daughter-in-law to "put a sock in it" when she doesn't stop talking. Aside from that, she is very grandmotherly, sweet, loving, and pretty awesome.
Mama Bear: She loves Jon dearly and will make sure that Liz knows that she can't find a better man than him.
My Grandma Can Do Better Than You: Fixes Jon's Thanksgiving dinner disaster in a heartbeat.
Never Mess with Granny: Probably best explained when she tells Garfield to make sure Liz knows that she couldn't find a better man than Jon and if she blows it, she'll have to answer to her. It's also implied in one strip where she claims to be competing in a martial arts championship that she's no one to be trifled with.

Herman Post

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tga018b.png

"Stand aside, cat. I know karate."

Voiced by: Gregg Berger

The mailman that Garfield tortures on a constant basis.

Adaptation Dye-Job: His hair is brown in the original comic strip and Garfield and Friends, while The Garfield Show and Garfield Originals depict him as blond and the Boom Studios comic book gave him white hair in his first appearance and gray hair in his second appearance.
Butt-Monkey: Garfield attacks him all the time, either biting him, Metronomic Man Mashing (during Garfield's amnesia sequence), stealing his pants (or even all his clothes), his wallet or his entire bag of mail, scaring him bad enough to run into heavy traffic and get run over by cars and ramming him against the door while running at hyper speed (though this was by accident). Even Jon has mistreated the mailman sometimes.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: In the comic strip, he hasn't made any on-panel appearances, or even been mentioned, since 2002. On the other hand, he was featured as a regular character on The Garfield Show, made a couple appearances in the Boom Studios comic book and was also a recurring character in Garfield Originals.
The Dog Bites Back: Several times, the Mailman managed to turn the tables on Garfield. He used a knight's armor, a snake, a tank, a guard dog, a buff assistant named Waldo, worked out to gain the strength to throw Garfield back into the house and in Sunday logo boxes he had chain mail socks and karate skills.
Everybody Calls Him "Barkeep": Officially, his name is Herman Post, but he's most commonly known as simply 'the mailman'.
Mailman vs. Dog: Or cat in this case. Garfield has never wasted an opportunity to torment Herman while he's making his deliveries.
Took a Level in Badass: In this comic, the mailman has been working out. Too bad for him it didn't stick.
Unstoppable Mailman: Despite knowing full well that Garfield is out to get him, the Mailman never stops doing his job.
Vetinari Job Security: The animated series shows that Herman will never be fired because he's the only one who'll put up with Garfield. He even exploits this in The Garfield Show where his two week vacation is cut short short in exchange for a raise - something he apparently does regularly.
Herman: Every year I take a vacation, and every year I get a raise to come back early.

The Talking Scale

Garfield's scale, with a built-in voice chip and an attitude.

Ambiguous Gender: It's never referred to as male or female.
Food as Bribe: In a few strips, it reports Garfield's weight as lower than it really is in exchange for new batteries.
Jerkass to One: It's never seen insulting Jon or Odie when they weigh themselves on it.
Sad Clown: Claims to be this in one strip.
Scale: Insults compensate for my own depressions, my insecurities, my loathing for this job and my lot in life.
Garfield: I'm sorry to hear that.
Scale: Thanks, blubber bottom.
Snarky Inanimate Object: Despite being just a bathroom scale, it certainly has a strong level of snark about it.
The Stoic: It claims to be this, being a machine, but it's very clear that it enjoys teasing Garfield about his weight.
You Are Fat: Being a scale, all of its insults towards Garfield boil down to this. In one strip where Garfield gets it on the fence on short notice for a comedy act, even its jokes boil down to this.

Big Vicious Dog

Adapted Out: The Garfield Specials and Garfield and Friends predated his existence on account of being a rather late addition to the cast, but he was absent from the live-action films by 20th Century Fox, the trilogy of CGI animated films and The Garfield Show, with Garfield Originals being the very first adaptation to be released after his introduction to feature him.
Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: He is a purple dog.
Angry Guard Dog: He's a large dog who enjoys tormenting Garfield whenever the cat comes his way, though he's also had his moments of civilty.
Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: In the April 26, 2023 strip, he attempts to tell a joke to Garfield, only to be distracted by a squirrel mid-sentence.
Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": As far as we know, he doesn't have an actual name and is only called Big Vicious Dog.

Live-Action Movie Characters

Happy Chapman

"Be happy!"

Portrayed by: Stephen Tobolowsky

The head of a talk show who has dognapped Odie.

Bald of Evil: He is balding.
Big Bad: He is the main villain in the first live-action film, as he continuously tries to kidnap Odie and eventually does abduct him to make him star in his show and become popular, while doing everything to make sure Garfield doesn't get him back.
Character Catchphrase: "Be happy!"
Depraved Kids' Show Host: While he may look like he lives up to his name, in reality he is very arrogant, allergic to cats, and wants a dog to star in his show to overshadow his more successful twin brother newscaster Walter. There's also how he has no qualms with using a shock collar to force Odie to do tricks.
Happy Chapman: Oh, please, what a know-it-all! And everybody always said I was the handsome one, I was the smart one, and I was born first. But there you are "live from the Hague". And here I am working with this sack of dander on a dead-end regional morning show.
Driven by Envy: Part of his overarching reason for trying to kidnap Odie is to get his claim to fame. His desperation for fame is driven by his envy of his brother's success as a newscaster. Ironically, at the end of the film, his arrest is being reported on the news by said brother.
Evil Counterpart: Happy Chapman appears to be this to Garfield character Binky the Clown, as both characters are kid's show hosts, except Chapman is eviler.
Faux Affably Evil: He's a polite, cheerful kids' show host to the rest of the world, but inside, he's an egotistical psychopath who only cares about himself.
Mean Boss: He isn't a nice businessman by any means and constantly insults his own employees.
Not Good with Rejection: In a business example, Happy Chapman doesn't take it well when Jon declines his TV promotion for Odie after he wins the dog show—though he does pretend to be good with rejection.
Plot Allergy: His allergic reaction to cats is why he prefers dogs, and what leads him to kidnap Odie.
Precision F-Strike: Happy says "Damned cat allergies" after doing a show with cats.
A Taste Of His Own Medicine: Garfield and Odie end up using the shame shock collar Chapman had used on Odie to torture Chapman.

Luca

"Oh, no. Not the ducks again!"

Voiced by: Brad Garrett

A neighbor dog that likes antagonizing Garfield.

Dog Stereotype: Downplayed. For the first part of the movie, he acts as the usual tough and aggressive guard Doberman pinscher, ready to maul Garfield for taunting him. But for the second part of the movie, he interacts a little bit with Garfield without jumping at him.
Everyone Has Standards: He calls Garfield out for causing Odie to run away by locking him out of the house.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- He's been eager to maul Garfield for the latter's taunting, but even he cheers when Garfield comes back to the cul-de-sac as a hero.
- He scolds Garfield alongside Arlene and Nermal for how he treats Odie.
Suspiciously Similar Substitute: He appears to be a stand-in for the Big Vicious Dog from the original comic strip, especially given his antagonism towards Garfield and being restrained by a chain.

Lord Dargis

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/billy_connolly.jpg

Portrayed by: Billy Connolly

A British nobleman who wants to get rid of Prince.

Bad People Abuse Animals: Like Happy Chapman, he's very clearly willing to harm an animal if it means he gets what he wants. Unlike Chapman, he actually wants to kill Garfield, or at least his Identical Stranger Prince.
Big Bad: Of the second film, as he mastermind the plot to get rid of Prince.
Cosmic Deadline: A villainous example: in order for Carlyle Estate to pass on to him, Lord Dargis has to get rid of Prince before the lawyers arrive to sign the deeds over to Prince. He thinks he's succeeded, and has a massive Oh, Crap! moment when he realizes Prince is still alive.
Dartboard of Hate: The greedy Lord Dargis is throwing darts at a portrait of Prince (who looks exactly like Garfield) when the phone rings. As Dargis answers the phone, a goat places a mousetrap next to his darts. Then Dargis hangs up and reaches for another dart, only for the mousetrap to snap his hand.
Evil Brit: He is British, after all.
Evil Chancellor: He is (perhaps justifiably) outraged when his aunt Eleanor leaves her entire estate to her cat rather than him, and resolves to get Prince out of the way before the deeds can be signed over to him.
Faux Affably Evil: Downplayed severely. Even when he is trying to be polite to lower the guard of his victims, he's such a horrible person that he still sounds incredibly condescending.
Groin Attack: Dargis is subjected to one. From his own rottweiler, no less.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Dargis tries to train his Rottweiler, Rommel, to seek out Prince (actually Garfield) and savage him to death. Winston the English bulldog intercepts Rommel before he can do so and retrains him to attack Dargis' trousers, leading to the aforementioned Groin Attack.
Jerkass: Dargis doesn't even try to hide how unpleasant of a person he is, in contrast to Happy Chapman.
Villainous Breakdown: Near the end of the film, he snaps after all the abuse he's endured and starts resorting to using a crossbow to force the executors of his aunt's will to change the will.
Villains Want Mercy: He spends his last moments on-screen begging for Smithee to let him off from the police, even though he's the one who sent Dargis to be arrested.

Prince

Voiced by: Tim Curry

A royal cat who resembles Garfield.

Good Counterpart: One to Garfield, as he's still somewhat of a jerk, but he's at least nicer than Garfield ever could be, in spite of living Garfield's dream lifestyle. Actually, Garfield's Jerkass behavior contrasts Prince's so much that the barn animals can immediately tell Prince was replaced.
Identical Stranger: He looks exactly like Garfield.
Oblivious to Hatred: He starts out completely clueless to Dargis' hatred of him. He eventually realizes the truth when Dargis stops pretending otherwise.
Pet Heir: He is left Castle Carlile in accordance with the will of Lord Dargis' Aunt Eleanor.
Spoiled Sweet: He’s a royal cat and is quite sweet. Unlike Garfield, Prince is nice to Odie and thanks him for helping Prince get home. He also politely asks John for another serving of lasagna.
The Trope Formerly Known as X: "Obviously that cat is not Prince." "He's not even the cat formerly known as Prince."

Discontinued Characters

Lyman

Voiced by: Frank Ferrante (The Garfield Show)

Jon's mustached roommate, who appeared two months into the strip. He was initially Odie's owner, and was intended to provide the role of someone that Jon could talk to, until Garfield took over in that role. As a result, Lyman totally disappeared from the strip.

Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Such a prominent example that the trope could easily have been named "The Lyman" or "Lyman Syndrome". He appeared less and less in the strip between 1981 and 1982 (and not at all in the Here Comes Garfield special), finally vanishing completely after April 1983. According to Jim Davis, he joined the Peace Corps and was never heard from again.
- Finally averted in 2012, when Lyman returned from a 24-year absence in an episode of The Garfield Show entitled "Long Lost Lyman". It was explained that the character had taken a job as a wildlife photographer and had gotten lost searching for a mythical creature. It's revealed that said mythical creature was a myth propagated by a retired surgeon who dressed up as the monster to chase off illegal hunters and poachers. Lyman took up the cause after his passing.
- For decades, Jim Davis's standard response to questions about Lyman's whereabouts was, quote: "Don't look in Jon's basement!" This was lampshaded in the first Haunted House game on the Garfield.com site, where venturing down into the basement reveals a dungeon... and Lyman chained up in a dingy cell.
- In an older version of the website, if you went to the store section he was working the counter.
Cloud Cuckoolander: He did odd things like trying to walk Odie during a blizzard, name all 4 of his former cats "Cat", and had a bizarre taste in fashion.
Commuting on a Bus: Was prone to this between the time he ceased being a regular major character in August 1980 and his final appearance in April 1983 - often, he would be absent for up to six months at a time, make a silent cameo appearance in one strip, then be absent for another six months.
Demoted to Extra: Prior to being written out, he was a major character for the first two years, before being demoted to a minor character throughout the remainder of his appearances.
Heterosexual Life-Partners: He was established as Jon's inseparably close friend.
Incredibly Lame Fun: Lyman was excited to watch a movie simply about a kid who puts a tack in his teacher's chair for her to sit on it. Jon questions if that constitutes a plot worthy of being shown on cinemas.
Perpetual Smiler: As opposed to Jon, who was a Perpetual Frowner.

Hubert and Reba

Voiced by: Henry Corden (Hubert, Here Comes Garfield), Hal Smith (Reba, Here Comes Garfield)

An elderly couple living next to Jon. They frequently witness and comment on Jon's antics. Gradually disappeared from the comic since January 19th, 1992. Also made an appearance in Here Comes Garfield.

Adaptational Jerkass: In "Here Comes Garfield", Hubert is portrayed as hostile towards Garfield and Odie (which is not entirely without justification as Garfield tore up their yard and knocked a bunch of flowers and dirt on Hubert's head), calling the animal shelter personnel to remove them. In the comic, he never shows any hostility towards Garfield.
Dirty Old Woman: The September 16, 1984 and March 15, 1987 strips show Reba taking pleasure in seeing Jon Arbuckle naked.
Grumpy Old Man: Hubert is a textbook example, as pretty much all his appearances see him complain about or criticize Jon.
One-Steve Limit: Possibly an accidental aversion; Garfield also had an uncle named Hubert and an aunt named Reba.

Binky the Clown

Voiced by: Thom Huge

A clown with no sense of personal space and no concept of an indoor voice who also hosts his own show.

Break the Cutie: Binky broke down in tears to his boss when was fired, and cried a rather large amount. Cue the Ocular Gushers.
Characterization Marches On: In his first appearance in the comic strips, he was portrayed as an egotistical Nice Character, Mean Actor. Since his run on Garfield And Friends, his manically happy clown persona is treated as his real one, to the aggravation of Garfield and many others who meet him offstage.
Character Catchphrase: He often shouts "HEEEEYYYYY KIDS!"
Large Ham: Up to eleven! He's incredibly loud, abrasive and obnoxious. Much to the chagrin of Garfield, Jon, etc.
Lesser of Two Evils: In "Binky Gets Cancelled Again!", Binky's show gets cancelled and replaced with the Buddy Bears after the President of WBOR recieves complaints from parents that Binky's show isn't educational. Garfield considers the Buddy Bears worse than Binky, so he helps Binky get his show back on the air.
Never My Fault: Regardless of whatever he ruins with his lack of an indoor voice in the "Screaming With Binky" shorts, he always considers it the victim's fault for getting spooked easily.
No Indoor Voice: He is almost always shouting. He even had his own series of shorts called "Screaming With Binky", where a professional is doing something very carefully, and Binky screaming his catchphrase causes them to mess up.
Non-Ironic Clown: He's not an evil clown in the least and tends to be friendly and easygoing, but is still seen as annoying by virtually everyone.
Out of Focus: He hasn't made a major appearance since the 1990's, with modern strips limiting his presence to mentions or appearances by his restaurant Binky Burger. His only appearances in any other media post-Garfield and Friends are the 2004 video game (unrelated to the movie) and a couple of mentions in The Garfield Show, one having Garfield claim that Binky is contractually forbidden from making any more appearances, and occasional cameos in the Boom Studios comics. He appeared as a chief crew member in Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway in 2022, where he gave the player a random attack item.

The Buddy Bears

Voiced by: Lorenzo Music, Howard Morris (Billy), Thom Huge (Bobby), Gregg Berger (Bertie), Julie Payne (Betty)

A trio of singing bears prominently featured in Garfield and Friends.

Affirmative Action Girl: Betty, their sister who appears in their final episode of note, fills this role in their series and in the subject they’re spoofing.
Anvil on Head: Anyone who disagrees with them will have a 16-ton safe dropped on their head. In some cases, two of them, or a 27-ton safe.
Apple of Discord: As their debut in "Binky Gets Cancelled Again!" reveals, not even they can agree on a favorite pizza topping.^note Garfield getting them to argue over what they want on their pizza is what gets their show cancelled so Binky can get back on the air.
Bears Are Bad News: While they may not attack or maul anyone (outside of dropping 16-ton safes on them, anyway), their presence inevitably makes things worse for Garfield anyway.
Big, Thin, Short Trio: Bertie is the Big, Bobby is the Thin, and Billy is the Short.
The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Parodied mercilessly; the Buddy Bears would endlessly perform an obnoxious "barbershop" routine with canes and madcap dancing. Their show was designed to teach children "educational things," but the main thrust of the lesson was simple: "Whatever the group decides is right." In one instance, the Buddy Bears outright told children to "NEVER have an opinion of your own!"
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!
Exact Words:
- In "Big Bad Buddy Bird", Roy joins their show when he gets fed up with getting hit with pies on Orson's farm. After getting hit with a 16-ton safe two times, Roy refuses to say his line a third time unless the Buddy Bears promise not to hit him with a 16-ton safe. The Buddy Bears hit him with two 16-ton safes instead.
- In "Roy Gets Sacked", Roy leaves Orson's farm after thinking that his friends want to fire him. His agent books him on The Buddy Bears, but he refuses to be on it, telling the titular characters that they'll drop 16-ton safes on him. The Buddy Bears promise not to drop any 16-ton safes on him, but instead drop other heavy objects on him, including a car, a piano, and a 27-ton safe.
Family Theme Naming: They all have names that begin with B.
Furry Female Mane: Betty has blonde hair, while her brothers just have fur on their heads.
Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: They all wear white shirts with blue Bs on them, but no pants.
Leitmotif: They sing the aforementioned song in almost every one of their appearances, and if they don’t, it’s incorporated into the music.
Only Known by Their Nickname: In "The Garfield Opera", they reveal that their real names are Robert, William, and Bertram.
Put on a Bus: They've never reappeared after the end of Garfield and Friends. Considering how the subject they're parodying isn't as popular as it was before, the chances of them reappearing are slim to none.
The Smurfette Principle: In "Roy Gets Sacked", they are revealed to have a sister named Betty.
Take That!: They are a not-so-Affectionate Parody of cartoon shows such as The Get Along Gang and Care Bears, which focused on sweetness, harmony, friendship, teamwork, resourcefulness, cooperation, loyalty, respect, kindness, patience, resilience, integrity, problem solving, caring emotions, groupthink morality, and some other valuable life lessons and pro-social values. The Buddy Bears spoof this by telling others not to have any ideas and to only do what everyone else wants.
Terrible Trio: Garfield and Roy certainly see them as such, given how the Buddy Bears encourage children not to have their own individual points of view and punish them for thinking otherwise.

Characters / Garfield

Primary Characters

Garfield

Jonathan Q. "Jon" Arbuckle

Odie

Nermal

Doctor Elizabeth "Liz" Wilson

Arlene

Secondary Characters

Pooky

Irma

Mr. Arbuckle/Dad

Mrs. Arbuckle/Mom

Doc "Doc Boy" Arbuckle

Herman Post

The Talking Scale

Big Vicious Dog

Live-Action Movie Characters

Happy Chapman

Luca

Lord Dargis

Prince

Discontinued Characters

Lyman

Hubert and Reba

Binky the Clown

Previous

Index

Next

Characters / Garfield

Edit Locked

Primary Characters

Garfield

Jonathan Q. "Jon" Arbuckle

Odie

Nermal

Doctor Elizabeth "Liz" Wilson

Arlene

Secondary Characters

Pooky

Irma

Mr. Arbuckle/Dad

Mrs. Arbuckle/Mom

Doc "Doc Boy" Arbuckle

Herman Post

The Talking Scale

Big Vicious Dog

Live-Action Movie Characters

Happy Chapman

Luca

Lord Dargis

Prince

Discontinued Characters

Lyman

Hubert and Reba

Binky the Clown

Previous

Index

Next