Garfield and Friends is an animated comedy for children about a fat orange cat who's smarter than his own human owner (and most of the other humans on the show as well), so expect these characters to commit terribly stupid acts for the sake of laughter from the audience. Garfield can make stupid decisions too, being not just physically lazy but also mentally lazy.
Garfield has explained several times throughout the series that, in order for fun stories and character development to happen, one or more characters must do something stupid to get the plot running, such as in "A Jarring Experience" and "A Vacation from His Senses".
Garfield segments
- In "Binky Goes Bad!" Binky is framed by Stinky Davis, who impersonates Binky by his appearance, and he's cornered by the police after the show.
You'd Expect: Binky to surrender and plead he didn't do it since he was on the show all the time, which could make the police suspect an imposter.
Instead: He runs away using a balloon and even throws pies, pastries and cakes at the police inside the bakery shop. - In "Lemon-Aid", Jon has won a new car after answering a 'nonsense' question by Al Swindler. Just after they were to go to his lot to get his new car, Swindler comes dressed as an elderly man, asking if he wants to sell his car.
You'd Expect: Jon to ask him to drive him there before giving him the money and mostly see through his lie when he finds out that he and Swindler are the same person.
Instead: He doesn't take a moment to sell his car and takes the bait, even signing the contract.
Worse: Upon arriving, not only is he sold a 'broken and cheap car', he gets conned again by a suspicious appearing mechanic unknowing that Swindler's plan is to sell him his own car back with a higher price.- From the same episode, Swindler nearly manages to con him but Garfield and Odie dressed up as a policeman ask him to move the car or he gets the ticket. Swindler says it's Jon but Jon lies that it's his car and he gets the ticket.
You'd Expect: Swindler to realize that the policeman can't talk and see through the facade. He also would mention that Jon bought the car since he already sold the broken car to him so Jon would get the ticket instead.
Instead: He takes the bait and tries to drive the car away only for the car to go out of control. He was lucky he was rescued by Jon after negotiation.
- From the same episode, Swindler nearly manages to con him but Garfield and Odie dressed up as a policeman ask him to move the car or he gets the ticket. Swindler says it's Jon but Jon lies that it's his car and he gets the ticket.
- In "Skyward Robbery", Jon wants to go to Miami with Garfield and Odie but the flight is too expensive until Al Swindler comes to offer him to Miami with the money he has. Garfield and Odie are the only smart ones to know that this doesn't end well since Swindler takes him to Miami (even he doesn't know where it is) using a cheap and broken plane.
You'd Expect: Jon to refuse him and find an alternative route.
Instead: Garfield comments to Odie, "Just because I can’t talk he’ll never listen." Jon has to drag both of them when they refuse (although he makes a right move. See below).
Worse: In the air, it turns out Swindler can't fly the plane. He assumes the controls are broken and decides to parachute out of the plane. They were saved thanks to Garfield with the help of the control tower who's giving them instructions using Italian food as reference.
Still: Jon was lucky he brought Garfield and Odie since if he were alone, he might have ended up crash landing and died in the process. - In "Sound Judgment", Garfield realizes that he can't make any loud noise to wake up Nermal, who happens to be sleeping in Garfield's bed. Garfield goes to investigate his cartoon's sound department, and finds that the sound effects person quit due to getting a pay raise by doing swords on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987).
You'd Expect: Garfield to find another qualified person to play the sound effects, which is a job easy enough for even children (the target demographic of the show) to do.
Instead: He puts Odie in charge of the sound effects. Guess how well that turns out. - In "Hound of the Arbuckles", after waking up from a dream, Garfield finds Odie stuck up on the roof, which also causes the television to go static due to the wire that Odie got caught in. So Jon decides to rescue him and fix the television.
You'd Expect: Jon to tell Odie that he should thank Garfield since he's the one who helped him out.
Instead: Jon takes all the credit, saying he found him without mentioning Garfield's involvement. What a dick.
Until: Jon has his comeuppance when Garfield kicks the ladder off after his sly remark that he can handle anything. After that Garfield and Odie watch the television with high volume, not caring about Jon (let alone they're using the high volume to block out his wails for help).
You'd Expect: Jon to forcefully tamper with the wires to make the television go static so that Garfield will be forced to help him.
Instead: Jon keeps yelling only at Garfield to help him, then tries tricking him by lying "I have lasagna!". - In "Supermarket Mania", manager and owner of Food Monster Supermarket, Mr. Baggett, manages to capture Garfield and Odie and intends to sue Jon with every cent he has due to what Garfield and Odie did. But Jon comments that he's already done that since his foods are overpriced.
You'd Expect: Baggett to bring them outside and tell Jon his 'wicked' selling scheme and gloat about how good Gramps' store is. He would then sue him regardless what Jon says.
Instead: Overconfident, he gloats about his 'wicked' selling scheme and even comments that his rival Gramps' general store sells way better food than he does...while Garfield holds the microphone at him since they are near the cashier counter.- In that same episode, Gramps wants to reward Garfield for bringing back all his customers. Knowing how much Garfield eats:
You'd Expect: Gramps to let Garfield have one or two items for free and remember what a Big Eater the cat is.
Instead: He tells Garfield to help himself to anything he wants.
The Result: Garfield starts emptying the entire market, causing Gramps to consider it cheaper to have gone out of business.
- In that same episode, Gramps wants to reward Garfield for bringing back all his customers. Knowing how much Garfield eats:
- "Cash and Carry" starts where Jon receives a large sum of credit card bills and was shocked about it.
You'd Expect: Him to decide to cut down the cost of food and living and hopefully get a part time job knowing Garfield and Odie can't find money for themselves.
Instead: "I'm going to cut all the credit card bills, and only spend money using dollar bills, and if it's expensive, I won't buy it."
Later: They decide to head to the new shopping mall to buy a new wastebasket and enter a long and confusing parking lot. After finally found a spot, the announcer reminds him to remember his parking lot number and color .
You'd Expect: Jon to jot down the parking lot number or ask Garfield to help him remind him about it.
Instead: "Don't worry! I can remember it easily at the back of my head!".
Then: Jon finally finds the shop and decides to use his money to pay for it. Unfortunately the cashier doesn't recognize dollar bills and ask for his credit card and Jon tells her he cut all of them.
You'd Expect: The cashier to shrug it off and just sell him the wastebasket seeing he pays the right amount of money using his dollar bills and leave it at that.
Instead: The cashier calls mall security while trying to stall him.
Worse: He gets interrogated by mall security regarding the matter, scaring the life out of Jon despite getting back his wastebasket. They even keep an eye on him.
Later: After Garfield is caught in the act by Jon for stealing all of the free macaroni samples from the free-sample guy, Jon decides to pay the damage and food to him with dollar bills.
You'd Expect: Him to take the money and move on.
Instead: "What's that?" while pointing at the dollar bills..
Finally: Jon decides to buy the credit cards and intends to go back after buying all of them.
You'd Expect: He would ask Garfield and Odie to wait for him and buy them dinner together, knowing Garfield would show him the way to his car since he can't remember.
Instead: He gives ALL his dollar bills to Garfield, asking him to take a cab back home with Odie and wait for him at home while ordering dinner.
The Final Result: Jon manages to buy his credit cards back, but now he can't even find his car and has no money to take a cab to go back home, asking Garfield for help. - In "Speed Trap", Jon is fined by Officer Weevil, a crook who dresses as a police officer, for speeding at a 8MPH small signboard. Jon refuses to pay the fine since it's ridiculous. When they reach the courthouse, Weevil quickly dresses up as the judge and defense attorney and tries to charge him. Even Garfield and Odie notice Weevil's a phony.
You'd Expect: Jon leaves and calls the real police knowing that the judge and the officer are both the same person.
Instead: Jon begs the judge to go easy on him on the fine. Even he himself want to be arrested when Garfield and Odie drags him back into the car and make a run for it.- Later, after Officer Weevil manages to capture Jon (during a mishap on his car), Jon begs him to rescue Garfield and Odie since his car is going out of control, seeing that his pets can't stop it.
You'd Expect: Officer Weevil would help Jon and rescue them, and then bring them back for their charges at least.
Instead: Out of greed, he doesn't listen and care less on Jon's plead while charging him with the list of 'crimes' Jon broke in jail.
The Result: The two real officers who stopped Garfield and Odie apprehend Weevil thanks to the fine ticket that was still in Jon's car. Had Weevil listen to Jon's plea, he would have gotten away with the money without getting caught.
- Later, after Officer Weevil manages to capture Jon (during a mishap on his car), Jon begs him to rescue Garfield and Odie since his car is going out of control, seeing that his pets can't stop it.
- The private investigator in "Mamma Manicotti". He is told by Papa Plastique, a rival to her, to find out the secret recipe of Mamma Manicotti's since he knows his food taste bad.
You'd Expect: The investigator to spy on her by pretending to be a traveler like Jon and maybe help her as her assistant.
Instead: He decides to steal the recipe on the same night after being ordered by Papa Plastique to find out the recipe. The same day Garfield, Jon and Odie are around.
The Result: This gets himself caught and arrested due to the fact that Garfield and Odie happen to be sleeping near the kitchen and stop him just in time. - In "Safe at Home", Mr. Fluster, the salesman who works in a security company, installs high tech security system at Jon's home when his house was robbed (except the TV since the robber can't carry that load). But as he finishes fixing it, he acts as a security guard and ask for a password. Jon tries to reason with him that he has the password.
You'd Expect: Fluster would recognize that Jon is the owner of the house and tell Jon the new password so he can remember.
Instead: He keeps persistently asking Jon for the password and even gives him rules on the 'password' while refusing to believe Jon's the owner of the house.
Worse: The robber comes back again and manages to rob the TV from out the window as the alarm laser trap wasn't set up behind the house.
Even Worse: When Fluster hits the laser, he asks Jon the password. Even Jon gives an Aside Glance of his stupidity. - In "Next-Door Nuisance" a new neighbor, Larry Lark, annoys Garfield and the neighborhood with his loud "Keep On Singing" song. Garfield decides to ask Jon (and later Odie and the police) to force him to stop singing.
You'd Expect: The complainer who wants Larry to shut up to not take Larry's bait and force him to stop singing and even threaten him to sue if he doesn't.
Instead: Everyone who complains to Larry ends up becoming his 'singing member' — which ends up like a choir, much to Garfield's annoyance. - In "The Pie-Eyed Piper", a improvised tale of the Pied Piper story, the King is too cowardly and a jerkass so he decides to use Jon as a scapegoat to shoo away the rats. Once Jon (with the help of Garfield as a Pie-Eyed Piper) manages to do that, he asks if he could give Garfield his reward since Garfield agrees to help him for food as his reward.
You'd Expect: Him to realize that he did a huge favor, agree and give Garfield a huge Italian feast.
Instead: Too prideful to admit to his subjects that he needed help solve the problem, he refuses and even has the balls to toss Jon out of the castle, taking the credit for himself.
The Result: Garfield plays a tune that hypnotizes all the town chefs, which Hamelin is famous for, and follow him out of town causing all of the townsfolk to blame the king for all of this. - In "The Lasagna Zone", the satellite TV stops working while Garfield is eating lasagna, so he goes over to the satellite to fix it. Earlier, Jon warned him not to get any tomato sauce or mozzarella cheese onto the satellite.
You'd Expect: Garfield to put down the lasagna, go over there and slightly adjust it.
Instead: He not only takes the lasagna, but jumps around on the satellite with lasagna in his hand. He accidentally drops his lasagna onto the satellite.
The Result: Garfield gets transported into the satellite and travels through TV Land, thanks to the side effects of Italian food on the aforementioned satellite. - In "Pros And Cons", Jon is playing a board game with Garfield but the only rule of the game is that Jon loses and Garfield gets to eat everything in the refrigerator. Jon realizes he needs to buy groceries.
You'd Expect: Jon would simply pause the game to go get them.
Instead: He complains he's too tired to do so and just sends Odie with a fistful of money in his mouth.
The Result: Odie gets conned by an alley cat for a used sock, causing Garfield to con the alley cat in kind so they could get their grocery money back. Only then does Jon realize he should've left first. And then he comes back with a used sock. - In "Cinderella Cat", A Fairy Godfather who looks and talks just like Marlon Brando offers Garfield three wishes. Garfield uses the first wish for lasagna, which the fairy grants by stealing it from a vendor who reclaims it just as Garfield is about to eat it, but the lasagna vendor snatches it away just in time and starts accusing Garfield of stealing it. Therefore, Garfield's left with no lasagna and only two wishes.
You'd Expect: Garfield to be more careful about what he'd use the other two wishes for so he'd not end up with stolen property again.
Instead: He wishes for money and doesn't even suspect the fairy will steal it from somewhere just like he did with the lasagna.
The Result: Not knowing it's stolen money, he goes to a bank to deposit it and it turns out to be the same bank the fairy stole it from. He ends up in jail until a guard says the bank decided not to press charges since he "returned" the money. - In "Green Thumbs Down", Jon gets fed up with grocery bills because he thinks groceries cost too much (although he fails to acknowledge that the reason he's paying so much in grocery bills is because Garfield eats a lot, not because they're overpriced) and starts considering growing his own food in his garden. He forces Garfield and Odie to help him plant the vegetables, but their garden doesn't grow anything for several days.
You'd Expect: Jon to just go back to buying groceries seeing that his garden failed.
Instead: He insists on buying more seeds and gardening supplies, and after running amok with animals that tried to eat their garden, Jon only manages to obtain one leaf of lettuce and a few radishes from his garden. Jon calculates he spent $200 per lettuce leaf and $300 per single radish. Was going through all that garden work really worth skipping groceries, Jon? - In "The Sludge Monster", Jon's car breaks down in the middle of a storm, leaving him, Garfield, and Odie with no choice but to spend the night in a creepy, decrepit hotel run by a terrifying receptionist – all of which has Garfield and Odie understandably scared and on-edge. Jon then reads the story of the Sludge Monster, a creature said to lurk in that very hotel.
You'd Expect: Jon to take a hint that Garfield and Odie are already extremely wound up over their current situation and decide that relaying the story to them is probably not a good idea.
Instead: He launches into a full-blown musical number describing to them in great detail how terrible and frightening the Sludge Monster is, and all the horrible things he'll do to them.
Even Worse: After the song is over, Jon immediately tells them that it's time for bed, with no assurance that the story is not true or any attempt at easing their distress whatsoever except for the cliché, "Everything will be fine in the morning".
The Result: Garfield and Odie are terrified shitless, and unable to sleep out of fear that the Sludge Monster will get them. They try to escape the hotel, but Odie ends up getting covered in mud; Garfield mistakes the mud-soaked Odie for the Sludge Monster, and wakes up Jon to warn him. It's not until Odie licks him and Jon cleans the mud off of Odie that Garfield realizes his mistake.
You'd Then Expect: Jon to suspect that telling the boys a scary story right before bed, when they were already scared and on-edge to begin with, just might, might have played a key role in the mess they had gotten themselves into, and thus go easy on them and apologize to them for having scared them so badly.
Instead: That never crosses his mind, and he gets all mad at them for making trouble and "not behaving themselves". This all just goes to show that Jon does not need to say "Things can't get any worse" to make things worse for himself and everyone else. - In "One Good Fern Deserves Another", Jon accidentally buys a carnivorous plant from a fern house. It tries to eat Garfield, and in its predatory attack mode, the plant clearly has a humanoid face and teeth.
You'd Expect: Jon to realize that Garfield is under attack by the plant.
Instead: He thinks it's the opposite: Jon thinks Garfield is trying to eat the plant and keeps demanding Garfield release it. The plant then snatches Jon and tries to eat him (and Odie) as well, while Garfield manages to escape but not before scolding Jon for his stupidity ("You were saying something about me letting go of the fern?") - In "Health Feud", Jon becomes fascinated with following his TV personality Rick Deltoid, a physical fitness TV star, and forces Garfield to work out and drink mostly horrible tasting nutritious shakes. Garfield gets sick of Jon forcing him to eat healthy and work out and so he decides to sabotage Rick's show so he can go back to eating his favorite foods again. Garfield goes over to the network station airing Rick's show and sees Rick's cue cards (which were placed in an alley outside to let the ink dry), then replaces them with rejected cue cards found in the trash can.
You'd Expect: Rick to realize that his cue cards aren't the ones meant for him to read and follow, then improvise.
Instead: He does EVERYTHING as the misplaced cue cards say - honk like geese, put on a woman's black dress with matching white pearls, do the Binky the Clown dance, eat lots of pizza and French fries. Rick ultimately gets fired for the pathetic exercise program. Garfield does feel bad for Rick albeit while eating a pizza that Rick provided. - In "Food Fight", Jon gets hired to be a part-time cook for professional boxer George Fistycuff. He's worried about his next fight with Krusher Krellman, and George decides not to eat anything before the fight. Garfield keeps cooking food in the kitchen such as pizza and barbecued ribs which makes aromas that George can smell, which keep making George hungry.
You'd Expect: For Jon to send Garfield home and tell him to just cook and eat food at their house, not at George's place where George can smell it.
Instead: He just pressures Garfield to stop cooking food, and ultimately George gives in and joins Garfield on an eating binge just because the food Garfield made smells and tastes so good. After putting on so much extra weight very quickly, George gets a stomachache and now unable to fight.
Orson's Farm segments
- In the quickie prior to "Banana Nose", Wade is planting Mystery Seeds. Orson decides to look up what seeds the are in his book, and he finds that they are seeds of the South American Duck Choker Vine while the seeds grow into a plant that drag Wade down into the ground with it (Orson fails to witness this because he was eyes-deep into his book). Then, Orson realizes Wade is missing.
You'd Expect: For Orson to realize what happened to Wade given the information he got from the book.
Instead: He has no clue where Wade went and keeps calling for him. - At the beginning of "It's a Wonderful Wade", Orson and his friends have picked a huge crop of vegetables and store them in the silo. Orson needs someone to guard the silo to protect the vegetables from thieves, like Gort, Wart, and Mort, his mean older brothers.
You'd Expect: Orson to put someone brave, like Roy, Bo, or Lanolin in charge of guarding the silo.
Instead: Orson puts Wade, who is an extreme coward, on guard duty. Wade naturally questions this, and tells Orson that he can't be counted on since the only thing he's good at is failure. Booker and Lanolin also question why Orson put Wade on guard duty, but Orson insists that he needs everyone else out on the field to do other chores.
Result: When Orson spots his brothers hiding in the bushes, Booker sounds the alarm, and Wade hides in a bucket. When Orson, Roy, Bo, Lanolin, Booker, and Sheldon come to the silo, they find their vegetables missing and blame Wade for not keeping guard. Wade feels guilty and wishes he was never born. He meets his guardian angel, who shows him what life on Orson's farm would be like if he was never born, which is more or less the same as it was before.
Fortunately: During this time, Wade discovers why Orson's vegetables were stolen; Gort, Wart, and Mort dug a tunnel from the tractor shed to the silo to avoid being spotted. He manages to redeem himself by showing this to Orson, then helping him fill the tunnel with water to flush Gort, Wart, and Mort out and recover their vegetables.
