Garfield is a fictional cat and the protagonist of the comic strip

Garfield, created by Jim Davis. The comic strip centers on

Garfield, portrayed as a lazy, fat, and cynical orange cat. He is
noted for his love of lasagna, coffee and sleeping, and his hatred
of Mondays, fellow cat Nermal (sometimes), raisins and exercise.
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External links Character[edit]
Fictional biography[edit]
 Garfield, as portrayed on the back cover of Garfield At Large.
Garfield was born on June 19, 1978, in the kitchen of Mamma
Leoni's Italian Restaurant. As a kitten, he developed a taste for
lasagna, which would become his favorite food.[2] Because of his
appetite, the owner of Mamma Leoni's had to choose between
keeping Garfield or closing down his restaurant; so Garfield was
sold to a pet shop. Garfield was adopted from the store by Jon
Arbuckle on June 19, 1978. In his cartoon appearances, Garfield
usually causes mischief in every episode. In June 1983, comic
strips introduced Amoeba Man, one of Garfield's alter-egos, yet he
was only shown in six strips (June 20–25). In February 2010,
another alter ego was introduced called Super Garfield, and his
sidekick Odieboy (Odie). Amoeba Man and Super Garfield are only
two of his few imaginary alter egos though, his most common one
being the Caped Avenger. And for a very short period of time in
2001–02, Garfield would fall prey to an overweight dog assuming
various identities (e.g. Bungee Dog, Trapdoor Dog, Warm-Up Dog,
etc.), which would appear from out of nowhere and squish him in
any direction.
It is also given that Garfield uses the "sandbox" on occasion, such
as in one 1978 strip; he says he hates commercials because
they're "too long to sit through and too short for a trip to the
sandbox".[3] It was revealed on October 27, 1979, that he doesn’t
like raisins.[4] His birthday is June 19, 1978, the day the first
Garfield strip was published.[5][6][7] On Garfield's 25th anniversary in
2003, several strips were featured with him interacting with the
version of him from 1978.
Garfield frequently gets into many adventures, such as getting
stuck in roll-up shades, sparring with mice, and getting locked up
in animal shelters. In 2005, Garfield and Jon appeared in several
comic strips of Blondie in honor of their 75th anniversary.[8] Garfield
got excited because he didn't have to think.[9] There was an earlier
Blondie crossover on the Garfield strip published April 1, 1997 and
vice versa, as part of the comic strip switcheroo.[10]
Garfield was one of numerous cartoon characters featured in the
1990 animated special Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue.
Personality[edit]
Garfield is an overweight anthropomorphic orange tabby noted for
his laziness, smug sarcasm, and intense passion for food,
particularly lasagna, pizza, and ice cream. Throughout the course
of the strip, Garfield's weight is often an object of ridicule,
particularly by his talking electronic scale. Garfield usually does not
handle insults or commands from the scale (or anybody else) very
well, and will normally respond to such remarks with violence or a
comeback of some type.
Garfield lives with his slightly eccentric, socially awkward owner
Jon Arbuckle and Jon's dimwitted pet dog Odie, and derives
pleasure from satirically teasing their idiotic behavior. Garfield is
not particularly fond of Odie (as obviously expected from the
common hatred shared by cats and dogs) and enjoys causing him
physical harm or insulting him, seldom showing empathy for the
beagle. Albeit Odie shows Garfield no belligerence of any kind and
would never deliberately cause him harm, Garfield dislikes him
regardless and is apt to make rude comments based on the utter
lack of intelligence displayed by Odie. However, Odie is not the
only target of Garfield's torments; he frequently pokes fun at Jon
as well for his nerdy behaviors and unpopularity with women,
along with his tacky, ridiculous fashion sense. Despite this,
Garfield cares for Odie and Jon regardless, but he especially
shows affection for his beloved teddy bear Pooky, which is
frequently seen in his arms or close to its owner.

Jon Arbuckle is a fictional character from the Garfield comic strip by Jim Davis. He has
also appeared in the animated television series Garfield and Friends, the computer-
animated The Garfield Show, and two live-action/computer-animated feature films.
A geeky and clumsy man yet caring owner, Jon is the owner of Garfield and Odie. He
converses with Garfield and is often the butt of his jokes.

Fictional biography[edit]
Jon's birthday is July 28, as Jon told Garfield that he was 29 years old (he would have
been 30 but he was sick a year) in a December 23, 1980 strip.[4] However, in the episode
"T3000" of The Garfield Show, he is described as 22.[citation needed] In the animated
show Garfield and Friends, we learn that Jon has an Italian ancestor whose name was
Tony Arbuccli. Some episodes of the show suggested that Jon and his pets live
in Muncie, Indiana. Jon wears contact lenses, his eyes are green,[5] and his favorite music
style is polka. Jon believes in God, as he is seen praying before going to bed in the April
29, 1987 strip.[6] His personal will states that he wishes to be cremated and have his
ashes spread over his accordion. He can play accordion, guitar, and bongos and sing,
though his singing and musical skills are far from good. Jon Arbuckle's favorite color is
red, and he likes decaffeinated coffee, chocolate-chip cookies, and unleaded gasoline.
According to one episode of Garfield and Friends, some of his "fun" ways to cure
boredom are buying new socks, clipping his toenails, or playing "Guess the Burp" with
Garfield.[7] Jon was raised on a farm and occasionally visits his mother, father, grandma,
and brother Doc Boy, who live on the farm.
Jon acquired Odie when Lyman, an old friend of his (and Odie's original owner), moved
in with him and Garfield. After a few years, Lyman disappeared from the strip, never to be
heard from again. The book Twenty Years and Still Kicking, which marked Garfield's
twentieth year, included parodies of how Lyman left, such as "Had lunch with Jimmy
Hoffa and then...". Lyman does appear in an episode of The Garfield Show, during which
Jon sets out to look for him. Odie goes back to Lyman, but returns to Garfield at the end.
Despite his somewhat timid and honest nature, Jon is sometimes shown to be quite
assertive on Garfield And Friends. He also shows a tendency to be a miser, as Garfield
mentions how Jon passes out seeing the rates on a parking meter and Jon tries to
perform an appendectomy on himself to save money.
Jon was voted number one on the Best Week Ever blog's list of "The Most Depressed
Comic Book Characters".[8]
Jon also dresses in snappy outfits whenever he goes out on a date. It is briefly
mentioned in one strip where Jon mentions that Liz called him a "fashion emergency". In
a May 2006 strip, when he asks Garfield if his tie is too big, Garfield replies "Not at all, as
long as your circus friends don't object, neither do I!"[9] In a June 2006 strip, Garfield
laughs at his outfit, and when Jon asks what he is laughing at, Garfield replies, "Oh,
my...where to start...where to start...".[10] In a January 2002 strip, Garfield mentions that
two hundred moths committed suicide after seeing Jon's wardrobe.[11] Also, on
the Halloween 2014 strip, Jon was scared of a monster hiding in his closet. Garfield said
not to worry because his wardrobe will kill it.[12]
In the earlier strips, Arbuckle makes his living as a cartoonist. Garfield and Friends also
shows him several times as a cartoonist. His occupation is likely still that of a cartoonist
on The Garfield Show, as in the episode "Family Picture" he draws a sketch of a
photograph that he wants to take as Liz's birthday present. Also, in the strip from May 2,
2010, Liz tells her parents Jon is a cartoonist.[13] Jon was also seen doing his work briefly
in the August 2, 2015 strip.[14]
 Odie is a fictional dog who appears in the comic strip Garfield by Jim Davis. He has also
appeared in the animated television series Garfield and Friends and The Garfield Show,
two live-action/computer-animated feature films, and three fully CGI films.

Contents
[hide]

 1Appearances
 2History
 3Speaking
 4Odie's intelligence and tongue
 5Relationship to Garfield
 6References
 7External links

Appearances[edit]
Odie is a yellow-furred, brown-eared dog. In the live-action/animated films based on
the Garfield franchise, he is depicted as a wire-haired dachshund/terrier mix.[1]
He has a large tongue and slobbers in his appearances. After October 1997, he began
walking regularly on two feet, instead of all fours, like Garfield. In the feature film
adaptation Garfield: The Movie, Odie's ability to walk, and more importantly dance on two
legs earns him a lot of attention, and is a major plot point throughout the film.

History[edit]
The name came from car dealership commercial written by Jim Davis, which featured
Odie the Village Idiot. Davis liked the name Odie and decided to use it
again.[2] When Garfield was first submitted, Davis called Odie "Spot". He then visited
cartoonist Mort Walker to show him his strips, and Walker told Davis "I had a dog named
Spot". When Davis asked "Really?", Walker replied "Yes, in Boner's Ark, one of my comic
strips". Davis changed Odie's name.
Odie first appeared in the strip on August 8, 1978; the date is considered his birthday. He
was originally a pet to Jon Arbuckle's roommate Lyman, but Lyman disappeared from the
series after about five years.

Speaking[edit]
Odie is the only animal character in the Garfield series without recurring thought
balloons, as he is portrayed as a "normal" house dog. However, he was shown thinking
"I'm hungry" on June 15, 1980,[3] and once said ″Hi to the people, dummy″ in the March 3,
1989 strip[4] and has had multiple minor "speaking roles" since then. In the cartoon, he
speaks minor words such as "Ta-da!", "Huh?", or, more commonly, panting "Yeah, yeah,
yeah!" He has said more intelligible sentences, such as "No horsey?" in the
episode Dessert in the Desert, and in the first episode he even says "Right!" while
agreeing with Jon. When he talks on the show, he speaks by actually moving his mouth,
although other dogs have also been shown to do so.

Odie's intelligence and tongue[edit]

A running gag throughout the strip is Odie's idiocy. Garfield frequently calls him a moron,
to the point where Odie was completely shocked one day when Garfield didn't insult him.
He is mostly viewed as an idiot, but in rare cases, it is shown that he hides his high
intelligence. For example, once while he, Garfield, and Jon were camping, he locked
himself in the car. Garfield and Jon then get suspicious when Odie turns on the radio and
the lights and start eating chips, smiling while Jon and Garfield were trapped outside with
no food or shelter during a thunderstorm.[5] Another time, when Garfield and Jon were
out, Odie was reading War and Peace, smoking a pipe, and watching a television special
about Mozart. Another running gag is Odie's long tongue. In another strip, Odie is
running around the family room, and Garfield grabs on to his tongue to see how long it is.
The next panel shows Odie right next to Garfield, but with his tongue literally wrapped
around all the furniture, going through the hallway, wrapping around Odie himself and
Garfield, and with room to spare, much to Garfield's shock. Another strip shows Garfield
theorizing how he can have such a long tongue, and store it in his mouth. He then
guesses that he has the rest of his tongue stored in where his brain should be, also
stating how much of an idiot he is. Also, in one winter themed Sunday strip, Odie's
tongue is stuck to a lamp post stretched from two blocks to Jon's dining room, prompting
Garfield to tell Jon, "We need a blow dryer and a really, really long extension
cord." [6] Another comic shows Jon, Garfield, and Odie are painting a wall, and Jon yells
at Garfield because he's using the end of Odie's tongue as a paintbrush.
In The Garfield Show, Odie's tongue is once again shown to be very long and stretchy. In
the episode "Out on a Limb", Odie uses his long tongue in an attempt to lower Garfield
down a very high tree.

Relationship to Garfield[edit]
Although Garfield often impugns Odie's intelligence, one strip[7] shows him enjoying
classical music on TV with the novel, War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, nearby after Jon
and Garfield leave the house. (According to Davis' comments in the 20th-anniversary
book, "I couldn't resist.") Another has him lock the others out of the car on a camping trip,
where he enjoys the sandwiches, radio, and chips, while the others just get wet. In others
he has been seen setting decoys, completing a sudoku puzzle, completing a crossword
puzzle (to Jon's amazement), writing poetry, and while playing as superheroes with
Garfield, finding a complete outfit to one-up Garfield's cape.[8] One theory is that there are
two Odies, a smart one and the more common idiot. It may be that Odie is actually
smarter than he appears, and merely uses the idiotic front as a means to gain an
advantage over Garfield. In two strips, Garfield went to see what was at the end of Odie's
tongue, and it turned out to be a second Odie (which Garfield dismissed as an effect of a
bad can of tuna from the previous night).[9]Odie has managed to take revenge on Garfield
occasionally, and Garfield sometimes cannot avoid noticing it. Garfield acknowledges this
by saying "He's not as dumb as he looks, but then again who could be?" In the first
episode of The Garfield Show an alien species that resemble lasagna scan Odie with a
ray that indicates brain power - the result was zero.
Garfield on numerous occasions actually does care a great deal for Odie, most notably in
the first Garfield special Here Comes Garfield, in which Odie is briefly captured by the
dogcatcher and a teary-eyed Garfield realizes through flashbacks of him and Odie
playing together and how sad his life would be without him (in these series of flashbacks
by Garfield, the song "So Long Old Friend" is played in the background). In one strip,
Garfield states that Odie is made of rubber.[10] Other times Garfield tries to put the blame
on Odie for some of the mishaps he has done. Jim Davis has stated, when asked why
Garfield played so many pranks on Odie, that it was because "Odie is so kick-able. He
sorta doesn't care. But Garfield would never hurt Odie for real. He just gives him a pinch
now and again."[citation needed]
Odie all too often gets kicked off the table by Garfield; once Odie tried to push Garfield off
the table, but Garfield was too heavy.[11] In addition to getting kicked off the table, Odie is
often the victim of Garfield's pranks.(Although, on a much earlier strip, Odie had kicked
Garfield off the table while he was wearing a Garfield mask and Garfield was wearing an
Odie mask.)[12] Curiously, Garfield has taken offense to others treating Odie in this
manner. In one strip, he punches out another cat who beats up on Odie, insisting,
"Nobody beats up on Odie but me!"[13] Similarly, in Garfield: The Movie after seeing
Happy Chapman use a shock collar on Odie, he says, "Hey, nobody gets to mistreat my
dog like that except me!" That attitude is shown in an episode of Garfield and
Friends when Odie is conned out of the grocery money by an alley cat. Garfield is visibly
angry at what transpired and goes to great lengths to clear Odie's name.
Odie does manage to get a little revenge on Garfield. Jim Davis stated in the 30th
anniversary book that Odie gets back at Garfield every few months. The first example
occurs when Jon accuses Garfield of clearing out his closet except for the T-shirt saying
"I love cats." While Garfield professes his innocence, he is hurled out of the house.
Comically Odie, wearing a plaid shirt, steps out to grin at Garfield, indicating he framed
him.[14] In one strip, while Garfield confesses how good a friend Odie was as Odie never
minds Garfield playing tricks on him, Odie slyly pastes a note on Garfield's back that
reads "KICK ME".[15] Once, he managed to give Garfield a taste of his own medicine in a
strip where Garfield tried to have fun with an Odie mask. Odie wasn't at the edge of the
table, and while Garfield wondered where Odie was, he showed up (wearing a Garfield
mask) and kicked the tabby off the table.[16]On at least one occasion, Odie was also
prepared for Garfield trying to kick him off the table, setting up a pillow on the floor to land
on after Garfield punts him. Yet another instance involved Garfield getting stuck in a tree
and asking Odie (who sees him from the window) for help. Odie tosses Garfield Jon's
bowling ball, and when Garfield curses Odie for his stupidity, the extra weight added by
the bowling ball causes the tree branch to break and send Garfield falling to the ground.
The final panel ends with Odie smiling evilly at the reader while Garfield notes how much
he hates dogs. In yet another instance, Garfield approached Odie at the edge of the
table, who was holding a large rock in his paws. Garfield wondered why he was holding
it, only getting his answer when he kicked the dog. Odie did not budge from where he
was standing, and Garfield hurt his foot instead, ending with Odie smiling smugly while
Garfield was hopping around, saying "That's why." In one storyline, Garfield gets beat up
by a bulldog after kicking him and has to wear a cast for nearly a week.[17] The cast
covers Garfield's entire body but his face. Odie torments Garfield throughout the duration
of this time. In the final strip of the storyline, though, Garfield tells Jon that he'd like to
keep his cast after being asked what he would like to do with it, and strikes Odie with it.

Dr. Liz Wilson

First appearance: June 26, 1979
Jon: Tell me, Liz, haven't we met somewhere before? A rice paddy in Hong
Kong?

Liz: Look, jerk. I'll be the vet for your cat, but I won't play fall guy for your
stupid lines. Understood?
Jon, shocked: Uh-huh. So long, doctor.

Liz: Have a nice day.

Garfield (1979)[55]
Dr. Liz Wilson is Garfield's veterinarian and a long-time crush of
Jon Arbuckle. She has a somewhat deadpan, sardonic persona
and almost always reacts negatively to Jon's outlandish and
goofball behavior but can even find it endearing on occasion. Jon
often attempted to ask her out on a date, but rarely succeeded;
however, in an extended story arc from June 19 to July 29, 2006
(the main event on July 28), Liz and Jon kiss. Now, they are a
couple.[56]
Recurring subjects and themes
Many of the gags focus on Garfield's obsessive eating and obesity;
his dislike of spiders; his hatred of Mondays, diets, and any form of
exertion; his constant shedding (which annoys Jon); and his abuse
of Odie and Jon as well as his obsession with mailing Nermal to
Abu Dhabi, or simply throwing through the front door. Though he
will eat nearly anything (with the exception of raisins and spinach),
Garfield is particularly fond of lasagna; he also enjoys eating Jon's
houseplants and other pets (mainly birds and fish). He also has
odd relationships with household pests; Garfield generally spares
mice, and even cooperates with them to cause mischief (much to
Jon's chagrin), but will readily swat or pound spiders flat. Other
gags focus on Jon's poor social skills and inability to get a date;
before he started dating Liz, he often tried to get dates, usually
without success (in one strip, after failing to get a date with
"Nancy", he tries getting a date with her mother and grandmother;
he ended up getting "shot down by three generations").[57] When he
does get a date, it usually goes awry; Jon's dates have slashed his
tires, been tranquilized, and called the police when he stuck
carrots in his ears. The storylines featuring Jon's dates rarely
appear now. Before, he had dates with many odd characters,
whereas now, he exclusively dates Liz.
Garfield's world has specific locations that appear normally on the
comic strips, like the Vet's office, a place he loathes. Irma's Diner
is another occasional setting. Irma is a chirpy but slow-witted and
unattractive waitress/manager, and one of Jon's few friends. The
terrible food is the center of most of the jokes, along with the poor
management. Jon periodically visits his parents and brother on the
farm. This results in week-long comical displays of stupidity by Jon
and his family, and their interactions. There is a comic strip where
Jon's brother Doc Boy is watching two socks in the dryer spinning
and Doc Boy calls it entertainment. On the farm, Jon's mother will
cook huge dinners; Garfield hugs her for this. Jon has a
grandmother who, in a strip, kicked Odie; Garfield subsequently
hugged her. Jon's parents have twice visited Jon, Garfield, and
Odie in the city. Jon's father drove into town on his tractor (which
he double-parked) and brought a rooster to wake him up. As
Garfield has a love for food, they will often eat out at restaurants.
Most trips end up embarrassing because Garfield will pig out, or
Jon will do something stupid, including wearing an ugly shirt, which
happened one night when he took Liz on a date. When Jon takes
Liz on a date, Garfield occasionally tags along---once, he ate the
bread and other food at an Italian restaurant they went to.[58]
Frequently, the characters break the fourth wall, mostly to explain
something to the readers, talk about a subject that often sets up
the strip's punchline (like Jon claiming that pets are good for
exercise right before he finds Garfield in the kitchen and chases
him out),[59] or give a mere glare when a character is belittled or not
impressed. Sometimes, this theme revolves around the
conventions of the strip; for example, in one strip, Garfield catches
a cold and complains about it, noting, "I can hardy eben understad
by own thoughts."[60]
Short storylines
One particular semi-recurring storyline features Jon and Liz on a
date in a restaurant. They sometimes are waited on by the Italian
Armando, who is refined and sophisticated and shows a great
loathing towards Jon, presumably for his immature and uncouth
behavior at the prestigious eatery. On other occasions, the couple
receives a different waiter, such as a large ogre-like man who
intimidates Jon when he is about to report a complaint about the
food.
Another commonly recurring character, although hardly ever seen,
is Jon's neighbor, Mrs. Feeny. Garfield seems to take both
enormous pride and excess zeal in doing whatever it takes to
harass her, to the point the she even erects an electric fence
(which of course, does not stop him).
Other unique themes are things like "Garfield's Believe it or
Don't",[61] "Garfield's Law",[62] "Garfield's History of Dogs",[63] and
"Garfield's History of Cats",[64] which show science, history, and the
world from Garfield's point of view. Another particular theme is
"National Fat Week", where Garfield spends the week making fun
of skinny people. Also, there was a storyline involving Garfield
catching Odie eating his food and "kicking Odie into next week".[65]
Soon, Garfield realizes that "Lunch isn't the same without Odie. He
always slips up behind me, barks loudly and makes me fall into my
food" (Garfield subsequently falls into his food by himself).[66] A few
days after the storyline began, Garfield is lying in his bed with a
"nagging feeling I'm forgetting something," with Odie landing on
Garfield in the next panel.[67] Jon and Liz began to go out more
frequently, Jon has started hiring pet sitters to look after Garfield
and Odie, though they do not always work out. Two particular
examples are Lillian, an eccentric (and very nearsighted) old lady
with odd quirks, and Greta, a muscle bound woman who was hired
to look after the pets during New Year's Eve. Most of December is
spent preparing for Christmas, with a predictable focus on
presents. Other Christmas themed strips include Jon's attempts at
decorating the tree and house, or the attempt to buy the tree.
Some years, the Christmas strips started as early as the end of
November. Another example is "Splut Week", when Garfield tries
to avoid pies that are thrown at him. For most of Garfield's history,
being hit with a pie has inevitably resulted in the onomatopoeia
"splut", hence the name.
Every week before June 19, the strip focuses on Garfield's
birthday, which he dreads because of his fear of getting older. This
started happening after his sixth birthday. However, before his
29th birthday, Liz put Garfield on a diet. On June 19, 2007,
Garfield was given the greatest birthday present: "I'M OFF MY
DIET!" Occasionally the strip celebrates Halloween as well with
scary-themed jokes, such as mask gags. There are also seasonal
jokes, with snow-related gags common in January or February and
beach- or heat-themed jokes in the summer.

Right panel of October 27, 1989 strip.

One storyline, which ran the week before Halloween in 1989 (Oct
23 to Oct 28), is unique among Garfield strips in that it is not meant
to be humorous.[68] It depicts Garfield awakening in a future in
which the house is abandoned and he no longer exists. In
Garfield's Twentieth Anniversary Collection, in which the strips are
reprinted, Jim Davis discusses the genesis for this series:
During a writing session for Halloween, I got the idea for this
decidedly different series of strips. I wanted to scare people. And
what do people fear most? Why, being alone. We carried out the
concept to its logical conclusion and got a lot of responses from
readers. Reaction ranged from 'Right on!' to 'This isn't a trend, is
it?'
One of the recurring storylines involves Garfield getting lost or
running away. The longest one of these lasted for over a month (in
1986 August 25 to September 28); it began with Jon telling
Garfield to go get the newspaper. Garfield walks outside to get it,
but speculates about what will happen if he wanders off – and
decides to find out. Jon notices Garfield has been gone too long,
so he sends Odie out to find him. He quickly realizes his mistake
(Odie, being not too bright, also gets lost). Jon starts to get lonely,
so he offers a reward for the return of Garfield and Odie. He is not
descriptive, so animals including an elephant, monkeys, a seal, a
snake, a kangaroo and joey, and turtles are brought to Jon's house
for the reward. After a series of events, including Odie being
adopted by a small girl, both pets meeting up at a circus that they
briefly joined, and both going to a pet shop, Garfield and Odie
make it back home.
Another story involved Jon going away on a business trip around
Christmas time, leaving Garfield a week's worth of food, which he
devoured instantly. Garfield then leaves the house and gets locked
out. He then reunites with his mother, and eventually makes it
back home in the snow on Christmas Eve (1984 December 3 to
23). Part of this storyline was taken from the 1983 Emmy-winning
special Garfield on the Town.