Garfield and Friends

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by AnmaFinotera (talk | contribs) at 02:18, 21 November 2007 (grammar fix). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

There was also an unrelated children's television series, titled Garfield Goose and Friends, that ran from the 1950s through the 1970s.
Garfield and Friends
The cast of Garfield and Friends. Clockwise from bottom left: Sheldon, Wade, Orson, Odie, Garfield, Roy and Booker.
Created byJim Davis (original comic strips)
StarringLorenzo Music
Gregg Berger
Thom Huge
Julie Payne
Desirée Goyette
Victoria Jackson
Howard Morris
Frank Welker
Country of origin United States
Original languageEnglish
No. of episodes121 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producersJim Davis
Lee Mendelson
Phil Roman
Running time30 minutes (with commercials)
Original release
NetworkCBS (1988-1994)
ReleaseSeptember 17, 1988 –
December 17, 1994

Garfield and Friends is an American animated television series based on the popular comic strip Garfield by Jim Davis. This show was originally produced by Film Roman, and ran on CBS Saturday mornings from 1988 to 1994. The show's seven seasons make it one of the longest running Saturday morning cartoons in history (most only last one or two seasons).

Regular segments featured both Garfield and U.S. Acres, a lesser-known comic strip created by Davis. The latter was retitled Orson's Farm for foreign syndication.

242 Garfield segments and 121 U.S. Acres segments were produced. There were two "Garfield" segments on each show, two "quickie" shorts based on Sunday comic strips, and in between was a U.S. Acres segment. A total of 121 half-hours were produced, and as of December 6 2005, all of these have been released in the U.S. on five DVD sets by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The first season aired in a half-hour format. In the second season, it switched to an hour-length format, showing two episodes each week. However, in the show's last season, the second half-hour of the show featured either an episode from the previous season or one of Garfield's TV specials.

For a complete listing of episodes, see List of Garfield and Friends episodes.

Voice actors and their characters

The Latin American dub was made by Leonardo Céspedes Producciones, in Santiago, Chile. The Spanish voice of Garfield was performed by Sandro Larenas. Jon Arbuckle's (Jon Bonachon for Latin America) voice was dubbed in Chile by the actor Adriano Castillo, who's been working in the Chilean sitcom "Los Venegas" since its debut in 1989.

In addition to the regular voice actor cast above, there have been several celebrity guest stars who did voice acting on Garfield & Friends. They are, in chronological order:

Other actors who have appeared:

The cast

Garfield

Regular characters

File:JonArbuckle.jpg
Jon Arbuckle
  • Garfield: A fat, lazy tabby cat (once described in the comic strip by his owner Jon as "an orange meatball with stripes") who wants nothing more out of life than to eat and sleep. Enjoys tormenting Odie and likes trying to mail Nermal to Abu Dhabi. He made a small handful of appearances on U.S. Acres (once wearing nothing but a black mask over his eyes as his "disguise"), but was more often seen in the form of various Garfield merchandise the characters appeared to own.
  • Odie: A beagle who used to belong to Jon's former roommate Lyman (who never appeared on the show, but was a character who appeared in the earliest comic strips). Is often kicked off the kitchen table by Garfield. Looks incredibly stupid and gullible, but is actually much more cunning and smart than he lets on. Odie is the only animal character who doesn't communicate with any form of dialogue, solely communicating with body language and his enthusiastic barking and other dog sound effects.
  • Jon Arbuckle: A bachelor cartoonist who has poor luck with women and a somewhat nerdy demeanor. Often annoyed by some of Garfield's antics, and he has an unrequited love for Dr. Liz.

Recurring characters

  • Binky the Clown: A loud, obnoxious clown who appeared a few times in the strip before becoming a regular on the show. Within the series, Binky has his own TV show that Garfield and Odie try to avoid watching. It seems that they both hate the show. In the episode where Binky was temporarily cancelled, Garfield narrated, "All his fans were depressed-both of them", indicating they were the only ones who watched the show, and they didn't seem depressed at all. Binky once had his own segment on the series called "Screaming With Binky" that was the length of a Quickie. (Most of these segments were removed in syndication.) His catchphrase is, "Heeeeeey, kiiiiiiids!" at the tops of his lungs.
  • Nermal: A cute gray kitten who's the self-proclaimed "World's Cutest Kitty Cat". Nermal seems kind and playful, but likes to annoy Garfield and brag about how much cuter he is. Garfield often attempts (usually unsuccessfully) to mail him to Abu Dhabi as a result.
  • Herman Post: A mailman who loves delivering the mail. Is constantly the victim of booby traps set by Garfield.
  • Dr. Liz Wilson: Garfield's sarcastic veterinarian and long-time crush of Jon Arbuckle. She occasionally dates him, but these outings always become disasters (often thanks to Garfield tagging along for the ride).
  • Floyd: A mouse who shows up at least once every season. A common running gag with the character is his continuous complaints over not appearing often.
  • Cactus Jake: The foreman of the Polecat Flats dude ranch; behaves in the manner of an old-fashioned cowboy, and often refuses to have anything to do with modern technology.
  • Al G. Swindler: As his name suggests, he is a businessman and con artist who constantly swindles the perennially gullible Jon, but is eventually outwitted by Garfield. In the episode Lemon Aid his name was given as Al J. Swindler.
  • The Buddy Bears (Bobby, Billy, Bertie): Three talking bears who spew conformist propaganda in the form of song and dance ("never have an opinion of your own," "if you ever disagree, it means that you are wrong/Oh, we are the Buddy Bears; we always get along," etc.) Their television show once replaced Binky's, and Roy Rooster of U.S. Acres has twice been stuck as the fall guy of their routines. The Buddy Bears are a satire of The Get-Along Gang and other '80s cartoons that placed the importance of group harmony over individualism. They seem to have a habit of dropping several-ton safes on Roy Rooster.[1]
  • Penelope: Penelope is Garfield's girlfriend who takes the place of his love interest Arlene from the comics. Mark Evanier recently explained that the reason Arlene never appeared in the series was that Jim Davis had a very specific idea on how the Arlene character should be, and if the writers couldn't do that, then to not use the character. Mark Evanier subsequently invented Penelope.
  • The Singing Ants: The Singing Ants, ants who sing while stealing food, appeared first as the stars of the musical episode The Picnic Panic, where they steal all of Garfield's picnic lunch. They later made a cameo appearance in A Vacation from His Senses, where they are seemingly delusions of Jon, who thinks that he has gone crazy. Their final appearance is in Another Ant Episode, where they have another starring role, this time taking over Garfield's house.

Orson's Farm (a.k.a. U.S. Acres)

Regular characters

  • Orson: A friendly pig whose favorite pastime is reading books and imagining himself into many scenarios, a la Walter Mitty.
  • Roy: A self-centered rooster who prides himself on his practical jokes.
  • Wade: A duck who wears a rubber flotation tube, and is admittedly afraid of everything, no matter how trivial. As a gag, the head on his flotation tube copies every movement and appearance change Wade's real head does.
  • Bo: An affable sheep with a positive, laid-back attitude, whose mannerisms and vernacular are like a California beach bum.
  • Lanolin: A loud-mouthed sheep who spends most of her time disagreeing with her brother, Bo. It is hinted that she has a crush on Orson.
  • Booker: A small chick who is constantly in pursuit of unnamed worms. Got his name from Orson's love of books.
  • Sheldon: Booker's brother, who, despite having hatched, is an egg with feet popped out. He seems to have all kinds of things in his shell, including a pinball machine and a stove.

Recurring characters

  • "The farmer": The unseen owner of the farm assumed to be Jon's parents.
  • Mort, Gort and Wart: Orson's older brothers, who are constantly trying to steal vegetables from the farm and torment Orson.
  • The Weasel: One of many predators who attempts to steal the chickens.
  • The Wolf: Another one of the many predators who attempts to steal the chickens.
  • The Worms: Cunning worms who occasionally talk. Constantly pursued by the hapless Booker.
  • Fred Duck: Wade's highly annoying cousin who wears a parachute when flying because he's secretly afraid of heights.
  • Chloe: Roy's niece and a bookish chick. Roy likes her more than he'll admit. She was first introduced in "Uncle Roy to the Rescue", and then was seen again in "Snow Wade and the 77 Dwarfs, pts. 1-2".

Humor

The chief guiding force behind the show was comedy writer Mark Evanier, also known as a co-creator of Groo the Wanderer, who wrote "virtually all" of the shorts by his admission (with the exception of several shorts that were written by Sharman DiVono during the first four seasons). Because of this, the show (particularly in later seasons) had a markedly different style of humor than the previous specials or strips. Whereas the specials and strips tended to focus on more character-based humor, Garfield and Friends frequently tended to be much wackier and admittedly more sophisticated, in the vein of later cartoons such as Animaniacs or Pinky and the Brain.

Episodes were filled with puns and non sequiturs, and often lapsed into complete absurdity (such as the US Acres short "Over The Rainbow", in which Roy's quest to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow leads him instead to a Let's Make A Deal-style game show complete with Rod Roddy announcing). Running gags were frequent, throughout either single shorts (such as in the Garfield short "The Creature That Lived In The Refrigerator, Behind the Mayonnaise, Next to the Ketchup and to the Left of the Cole Slaw!", in which the name of said creature is spoken repeatedly), or entire seasons (the Klopman Diamond is mentioned in many, many episodes). U.S. Acres characters would frequently make unexplained cameo appearances in Garfield shorts, and vice-versa. For example, the "Giant Radioactive Mutant Guppies" that Garfield and Nermal flushed down the sewer resurfaced in the U.S. Acres quickie that immediately followed, and then one asks the others if they could maybe get on the Muppet Babies, which at that time preceded Garfield and Friends on the CBS Saturday Morning lineup. There was even some mild satire, particularly in the form of the "Buddy Bears", which spoofed such saccharine cartoons as The Get-Along Gang and Smurfs.

Many episodes tended to break the fourth wall. Garfield would frequently address the audience directly, openly acknowledging that he is, in fact, in a cartoon, or he would read through the script to find out what would happen in the short. Another example is a scene where Garfield is trying to prevent a plane from crashing and asking the audience to check the TV listings to make sure it's not the last episode. The characters would even fight with unnamed network executives over the direction of the show, and in at least one instance, the show was "canceled". Entire shorts would even be built around this conceit, such as "Mistakes Will Happen", a short that featured Garfield disputing a claim that the show was featuring various mistakes—and then proceeding to run a short that was filled with dozens of animation, sound, and writing errors. In one short, "Flat Tired", Garfield refused to do a cartoon, stating to the cameramen "Go away. I'm not in this episode." Odie takes over the short (complete with a title card with Odie's name/logo) as "A Witch In Time", wherein he is kidnapped by a witch, and rescued (reluctantly) by Garfield.

Some episodes referred to the budget of the show. An example is in one episode, Garfield tells people in the cartoon not to talk to save money on paying voice actors.

Production

When the show was originally broadcast on CBS, the episodes usually had three Quickies (30- to 45-second gags), usually two "Garfield Quickies" (the first one being played before the intro theme) and one "U.S. Acres Quickie," the latter of which was never shown in syndication. Midway through the second season, "Screaming with Binky" quickie-style segments were added. These "Screaming with Binky" segments were typically used at the halfway point of hour long blocks of Garfield and Friends (as Garfield ended each one with "We'll be right back.") to let the viewers know that unlike most Saturday morning cartoons at the time, it was not over in the usual half-hour. However, in the syndicated reruns, only one Quickie is shown per episode, and it's always at the end rather than around the shorts. The DVD sets and Boomerang reruns restore the original rotation. After the third season, only one "Garfield Quickie" is shown per episode. The seventh season (1994-1995) was the last one because CBS wanted to cut the budget (it was still doing well in the ratings). The production company nixed this proposal, so they mutually agreed to cease production.

Theme song

File:Garfield and Friends.jpg
The Garfield and Friends title card, shown at the end of the opening titles

The show has had three different theme songs. The first one was used during the first two seasons, and was also occasionally hummed or sung by the characters within the show. It was a song-and-dance style number about friendship, presumably based on the fact that the show was called Garfield and Friends. In the original theme music one of the female singers is Desirée Goyette, the voice of Nermal. During its second season, the audio was changed a small bit. The second theme song first appeared in the third season and was used for almost the rest of the show's run, although some of the clips in the sequence were changed in the sixth season. The idea of this song, which featured upbeat conga music, that watching the show was as much fun as going to a party. This theme song is the only one used in The Program Exchange reruns. In the seventh (and final) season, an upbeat contemporary based theme song was used, sung by J.R. Johnston, and perhaps due to not being included in the international version, it does not appear on the DVD releases. A recurring joke in the theme song is that in each episode, Garfield says a different quote ,such as, "I can't believe we get away with this every week", or, "Hey Heathcliff, eat your heart out! or, one that goes something like "Hey kids,you'll like this episode! No Binky, no Nermal, or annoying little blue people".

Directors

The following people have directed various episodes:

DVD releases

Fox Entertainment has released Garfield and Friends on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. All seven seasons have been released in five volume sets.

File:Garfield and Friends Vol. 1, & 2.JPG
Vols. 1 & 2 of Garfield and Friends
File:Garfield and Friends Vol. 3, 4, & 5.jpg
Vols. 3, 4 & 5 of Garfield and Friends

U.S. releases

  • Volume One: Released July 27, 2004 contains 24 episodes. Features all the episodes from Season 1 and part of Season 2.
  • Volume Two: Released December 7, 2004 contains 24 episodes. Features episodes from the rest of Season 2 and part of Season 3.
  • Volume Three: Released April 19, 2005 contains 24 episodes. Features episodes from the rest of Season 3 and 15 episodes of Season 4.
  • Volume Four: Released August 30, 2005 contains 24 episodes. Features the final episode of Season 4, all of Season 5, and part of Season 6.
  • Volume Five: Released December 6, 2005 contains the final 25 episodes. Features the rest of Season 6, and all of Season 7.

Each Garfield and Friends DVD Volume Box Set features Garfield with a U.S. Acres character. Volume 1 features Orson Pig, Volume 2 features Roy Rooster, Volume 3 features Wade Duck, Volume 4 features Booker and Sheldon Chick, and Volume 5 features Bo and Lanolin Sheep. Garfield and Friends Volume Box Sets contain 3 DVDs in each box. Volumes 1-4 contain 8 episodes on each disc. The first two DVDs on Volume 5 each contain 8 episodes, while the last DVD on Volume 5 contains 9 episodes. Each disc order of each set is like this: Disc 1 always features Garfield, Disc 2 features a U.S. Acres character and Disc 3 features a different character from the comic strip. The following is the order of the inside of each disc for each DVD set:

File:G&F Volume 1 R4.jpg
Australian "Volume One" release.
  • Volume 1: Disc 1: Garfield Disc 2: Orson Disc 3: Odie
  • Volume 2: Disc 1: Garfield (wearing pajamas) Disc 2: Roy Disc 3: Jon
  • Volume 3: Disc 1: Garfield (wearing a scuba mask & snorkel) Disc 2: Wade Disc 3: Pooky
  • Volume 4: Disc 1: Garfield (wearing a handkerchief) Disc 2: Booker Disc 3: Arlene (although she doesn't appear on the TV series)
  • Volume 5: Disc 1: Garfield (wearing a scarf) Disc 2: Lanolin Disc 3: Nermal

These DVD sets are also available in Canada.

Australian releases

The "Volume 1" set was released in Australia (Region 4) on December 13, 2004. The contents of this set are exactly the same as that of the U.S. release. However, unlike in the U.S., the Australian version was also released as three separate discs.

The complete "Volume 1" set was discontinued in 2007[1], but is still available as separate discs.

The "Volume 1" set was the only volume released in Australia.

As of 2007 the next four volumes have yet to be released.

Syndication history

Canada

Argentina

Australia

Chile

Estonia

Finland

United Kingdom

United States

Only 73 episodes out of the 121 episodes were syndicated by The Program Exchange between 1992 and 2007. This is due to the producers selling syndication rights when the show was still on air and CBS wanting to keep the rights for certain episodes. The show was removed from the Boomerang lineup on December 3, 2006, but returned in May 2007 only to be removed again. It is unknown if they still own the rights to the show.


Further reading

Wikiquote has quotations related to Garfield and Friends.
  1. ^ [2]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Garfield_and_Friends&oldid=172830416"