Garfield
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Wikipedia-Article "Garfield"
Garfield is the world's most widely read comic strip, created by Jim Davis featuring the cat Garfield, the less-than-brilliant pet dog Odie, and their socially inept owner Jon Arbuckle. The main character is named after Davis's grandfather, James Garfield Davis, who was named after former U.S. president James Garfield.
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Overview
Debuting June 19, 1978 (also considered Garfield's birthday, the strips on June 19th always show Garfield celebrating his birthday on that day, except one in 1979 when he was shown celebrating his birthday on June 20), the syndicated comic strip pokes fun at pet owners and their relationship with their pets often portraying the pet as the true master of the home. Garfield also appeals because of the way he struggles with very human problems, such as diets, hatred of Mondays, apathy, boredom, and so on.
Over the course of the strip, Garfield's behavior has become more human and less cat-like. His appearance has also evolved, initially being drawn as grossly obese with flabby jowls and small round eyes. Later, his appearance was slimmed down and his eyes enlarged. By 1983, his familiar appearance—featuring oval-shaped eyes—had taken shape. By this time, Garfield had begun walking on two feet, and the strip changed to more of an emphasis on sitcom situations (Garfield making fun of his owner's stupidity, Jon's inability to pick up girls) and less on the foibles of cats. A number of the strip's readers feel that the quality of the writing has lessened, even as the artwork retained a consistent level of quality (although Davis is no longer the sole, or even principal, artist).
The comic strip was turned into a cartoon special for television in 1982 called Here Comes Garfield. Actor Lorenzo Music, previously known as the voice of Carlton the doorman on the show Rhoda, was hired to portray the voice of Garfield. Soul singer Lou Rawls provided musical accompaniment. Twelve television specials were made (through 1991) as well as a television series, Garfield and Friends, which ran from 1988 to 1995.
The Monday-Saturday strips were offered to newspapers in full-color effective June 7, 1999.
A live-action movie version of the comic strip, Garfield: The Movie (with a computer-animated Garfield and live-action Odie), debuted in the USA on June 11, 2004. Bill Murray provided the voice of Garfield; Murray's laid-back, deadpan delivery has often been compared to Music (incidentally, Music did the voice of Peter Venkman, Murray's character, in the cartoon version of Ghostbusters). Murray became the fourth actor to play the part (Tommy Smothers of the Smothers Brothers voiced the role in a cat food commercial, and an unnamed Music soundalike was used in another TV spot). Prior to Murray being cast, it was widely reported that actor John Goodman had been picked to provide Garfield's voice for the film.
Production and criticism
Like many comic strips, Garfield is not exclusively drawn and written by its creator. Jim Davis's company, Paws Inc., employs cartoonists and writers who do most of the work of scripting, drawing, and inking the strip, while Davis's work is usually confined to approving and signing the finished strip. Davis spends most of his time managing the business and merchandising aspects of Garfield. The strip is also deliberately written to be inoffensive, avoiding any of the social or political commentary present in some of Garfield's contemporaries, such as Doonesbury, Dilbert, Calvin and Hobbes, and even Cathy. The characters and situations are constant, with no change or development for the past several years. While this is not unique to Garfield, as Calvin of the aforementioned Calvin and Hobbes and the children of Peanuts never grow up, other strips such as For Better or For Worse, Cathy, and Doonesbury maintain a continuity with characters who develop, age, and may even die as the strip proceeds.
Garfield's inoffensive, merchandising-oriented approach has been widely criticized by many commentators including Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson, whose views against merchandising were explained at great detail in The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book. Watterson, when asked for his opinion of fellow cartoonists, including Jim Davis, once tactfully described Garfield as "consistent". [1]
Characters
- More at Garfield characters
Major characters in Garfield include:
- Garfield
- The main character. A lazy, overweight, orange cat who likes eating and sleeping above all. He considers himself to be more intelligent than humans or dogs.
- Jon
- Garfield's owner. He has poor social skills and his attempts at dating women always fail, but Garfield is happy as long as he keeps him fed.
- Odie
- Jon's pet dog. A yellow, long-eared dog who is always drooling. He is very stupid and naïve and because of this, Garfield likes to play tricks on him, but sometimes,he is smart enough to play tricks on Garfield and walks on two legs.
- Arlene
- Garfield's on-and-off girlfriend. A pink cat with a long neck and a tooth missing. Garfield is deeply in love with her but she has doubts about him.
- Nermal
- The world's cutest kitten, and well aware of it. Garfield hates him when he comes to show everyone how cute he is. Garfield often tries to mail him to Abu Dhabi.
- Liz
- A veterinarian. Garfield hates going to the vet's, but Jon often forces him to. Sometimes the visit is just an excuse for Jon to ask the beautiful Liz out for a date.
Themes and Settings
Usually, the standard setting is Garfield standing on a table or floor, always flat. Around 80% of the comic takes place as such. But occasionally, Garfield ventures elsewhere. When Garfield goes somewhere else, he'll usually spend the week in that area (or even two).
- The TV Chair is one of Garfield's favorite places, where he entertains himself with shows such as Binky the Clown and others. Many of the shows mentioned are absurd and stupid, and give Jim Davis an opportunity to comment on pop-culture.
- Outside, Garfield has confrontations with various characters, such as dogs (more vicious than Odie), birds, worms, and even conscious flowers. "Beware of Dog" signs are abound, and Garfield often tries to torment the chained-up dogs as some kind of revenge. Garfield tries to capture birds in the bird fountain, often unsuccessfully. He finds it a lot easier to capture flowers though, and often eats them.
- Early in the series, Garfield would spend time on the window ledge and always get trapped in the roll-up blinds. This culminated in a two-week storyline in which Garfield, Odie, Jon, two complete strangers, and even a street lamp (Odie had to go) all got trapped in the blinds. This was one of the few storylines in which a Sunday strip was part of the regular story arc. After this, Jon bought Venetian blinds (which Garfield, somehow, still manages to get stuck in).
- The Fence in the Alley is an area where Garfield often tells bad jokes or caterwauls, in a homage to vaudeville. Odie joins the act from time to time, once as a ventriloquist's dummy, and once as "Mr Skins", who accompanied Garfield on the drums. Garfield is frequently the target of disgusted fans, who throw shoes, rotten vegetables, and houseplants at him and once burned down his fence with burning arrows (Garfield's temporary replacement, a plastic flamingo, just "didn't feel the same"). Garfield, however, loves the attention he receives, and once complained that he thought a joke deserved more than a single shoe. He does sometimes get applause from his audience, though one time the audience consisted solely of his mother.
- Up the tree is another area where Garfield often traps himself. Garfield knows not to climb, but ironically can never overcome the urge. A firefighter usually has to save him on the last day of the week. One time, Jon got stuck up the tree trying to rescue him.
- Occasionally, Garfield will be taken to the vet's office, a place he loathes. In this setting, Jon always tries to get a date with Liz, the vet, and usually fails badly, his failures causing Garfield to snicker. At the end of one date, Jon got a kiss, currently his only on-screen kiss in the comic.
- Sometimes Jon takes Garfield to the park. Jon tries to meet girls in the park, but always fails miserably and humorously.
- Vacations are taken by Jon and his pets every so often, usually to exotic places. Early in the series, Garfield had to sneak along in the suitcase, but at some point Jon gave up and took him along as an equal. These are funny because they portray Jon's inability to get along with people normally. They also introduce new scenarios, which are usually rare in this strip.
- The Beach is frequented by Garfield and company, and is another site at which Jon fails at finding girls. Garfield hates the beach simply because it has no TV, and is too hot. This theme will often show up in the summer.
- Irma's diner was visited often early on, but not as much as the series progressed. Irma is a chirpy, but slow-witted and unattractive waitress/manager, and one of Jon's few friends. The food is terrible, and is the center of most of the jokes, along with the poor management.
- The window is a setting showing Garfield looking from inside the house, making comments on events going on outside. Sometimes Jon joins him.
- Jon periodically visits his parents and brother on the farm. This results in comical displays of stupidity by Jon and his family, and their interactions.
- The used car lot is an entertaining scene that parodies the business. Jon always gets conned by the overly clever and sneaky salesman, while Garfield knows it all along. This is paralleled in the used refrigerator store and used Christmas tree lot which appear later.
- Other themes include Garfield's week-long interactions with any one minor character, event, or thing, such as Nermal, Arlene, the mailman, the alarm clock, the scale, the TV, Pooky, spiders, mice, coffee, hamburgers (chicken, early on), balls of yarn, rubber chickens, dieting, shedding, pie throwing, fishing, Mondays, Clive (Garfield's invisible friend), lasagna, the "Caped Avenger" (not as often as in earlier strips), sweaters, colds, etc. Some more unique themes are things like "Garfield's Believe It or Don't", "Garfield's Law", "Garfield's History", which show the world, history, and science from Garfield's view. Another particular theme is the "National Fat Week", where Garfield spends the week making fun of skinny people. Most of December is spent preparing for Christmas, with a predictable focus on presents. Every week before June 19th, the strip focuses on his birthday, which Garfield dreads. Occasionally the strip celebrates Halloween as well with scary-themed jokes. Jokes are introduced seasonally, with snow-related gags common in January or February and beach or heat themed jokes in the summer.
- One storyline, which lasted a week from October the 23rd, 1989 (possibly to coincide with Halloween, although the 31st actually fell the following week), is unique in that it is not humourous. It depicts Garfield awakening in a future in which the house is abandoned and he no longer exists. This is revealed to have been a dream of some kind, and ends with the narration - another feature unique to this storyline - "An imagination is a powerful tool. It can tint memories of the past, shade perceptions of the present, or paint a future so vivid that it can entice...or terrify, all depending on how we conduct ourselves today."
Garfield marks his territory
- His album: Am I Cool or What?
- His suction-cupped kitties: "Stuck on You" phenomenon across America and takes several years for production met the demand. The concept was created after an idea trade with Scott Adams in 1990, which involved what type of object could hold the thing other than sticky items.
- His comic strips: published in over 2570 papers in the world, second to "Peanuts".
- His Fantasy Books: Garfield and friends appear in a series of fantasy books called Garfield's Pet Force where Garfield, Nermal, Arlene, and Odie were given Superpowers in an alternate dimension.
Television
- Garfield and Friends (Animated cartoon series, 1988–1995)
- Garfield Gets a Life (animated special) 1991
- Garfield's Feline Fantasies (animated special) 1990
- Garfield's Thanksgiving (animated special) 1989
- Garfield's Babes and Bullets (animated special) 1989
- Garfield: His 9 Lives (animated special) 1988
- Garfield Goes Hollywood (animated special) 1987
- A Garfield Christmas (animated special) 1987
- Garfield in Paradise (animated special) 1986
- Garfield's Halloween Adventure (animated special) 1985
- Garfield in the Rough (animated special)1984
- Garfield on the Town (animated special) 1983
- Here Comes Garfield (animated special) 1982
- Garfield The Movie (CGI Movie) 2004
- Garfield 2 (Sequel) 2006
Books
Numbered Paperbacks
These books, generally released twice a year, contain reprints of the comic as it appears in newspapers daily. Printed in black and white, each book covers approximately six months of comics, including the larger weekend comics (although without color).
The titles of these books were styled as double entendres, often alluding to Garfield's weight or his habits. These books introduced the "Garfield format" in publishing, whereby the books are horizontally oriented to match comic strip dimensions. They are currently being reprinted in a larger format, showing the Sunday strips to be formatted in a size as they usually are, instead of shrunken-down to meet the book size. The new versions of the books will also be released in paperback only, and in full color (for every cartoon, not just the Sunday strips) for the first time.
- Garfield At Large: His First Book 1980
- Garfield Gains Weight: His Second Book 1981
- Garfield Bigger than Life: His Third Book 1981
- Garfield Weighs In: His Fourth Book 1982
- Garfield Takes the Cake: His Fifth Book 1982
- Garfield Eats His Heart Out: His Sixth Book 1983
- Garfield Sits Around the House: His Seventh Book 1983
- Garfield Tips the Scales: His Eighth Book 1984
- Garfield Loses His Feet: His Ninth Book 1984
- Garfield Makes it Big: His 10th Book 1985
- Garfield Rolls On: His 11th Book 1985
- Garfield Out to Lunch: His 12th Book 1986
- Garfield Food for Thought: His 13th Book 1987
- Garfield Swallows His Pride: His 14th Book 1987
- Garfield World Wide: His 15th Book 1988
- Garfield Rounds Out: His 16th Book 1988
- Garfield Chews the Fat: His 17th Book 1989
- Garfield Goes to Waist: His 18th Book 1990
- Garfield Hangs Out: His 19th Book 1990
- Garfield Takes Up Space: His 20th Book 1991
- Garfield Says a Mouthful: His 21st Book 1991
- Garfield By the Pound: His 22nd Book 1992
- Garfield Keeps His Chins Up: His 23rd Book 1992
- Garfield Takes His Licks: His 24th Book 1993
- Garfield Hits the Big Time: His 25th Book 1993
- Garfield Pulls his Weight: His 26th Book 1994
- Garfield Dishes it Out: His 27th Book 1995
- Garfield Life in the Fat Lane: His 28th Book 1995
- Garfield Tons of Fun: His 29th Book 1996
- Garfield Bigger and Better: His 30th Book 1996
- Garfield Hams it Up: His 31st Book 1997
- Garfield Thinks Big: His 32nd Book 1997
- Garfield Throws His Weight Around: His 33rd Book 1998
- Garfield Life to the Fullest: His 34th Book 1999
- Garfield Feeds the Kitty: His 35th Book 1999
- Garfield Hogs the Spotlight: His 36th Book 2000
- Garfield Beefs Up: His 37th Book 2000
- Garfield Gets Cookin': His 38th Book 2001
- Garfield Eats Crow: His 39th Book 2003
- Garfield Survival of the Fattest: His 40th Book 2004
- Garfield Older and Wider: His 41st Book 2005
- Garfield Pigs Out: His 42nd Book 2006
- In the UK, over 60 Garfield books, mainly 'Pocket Books' or paperbacks, have been published by Ravette. The format is slightly different, as the strips are presented in a vertical style.
Other books
- Garfield: His 9 Lives (1984) - novel, later made into a TV special.
- Garfield's Guide to Everything (2004)
- Garfield Crazy about numbers (discontinued)
- Give Me Coffee and No One Gets Hurt (discontinued)
Video games
Garfield was also transported into video games, the first being a never-released Atari 2600 prototype, in 1983.
Other titles:
- Create With Garfield (1985) for Apple II and Commodore 64
- Garfield: A Big Fat Hairy Deal (1987) for ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64
- Garfield: A Winter's Tail (1989) for Atari ST (Will not work on Atari STe computers), Amiga and Commodore 64
- Garfield: Caught in the Act (1995), for Genesis , Game Gear and PC
- Garfield (2004), for PC and PS2
- Garfield's Mad About Cats (2005), for PC
- Garfield: The Search for Pooky (2005) for GBA
Movies
- Garfield: The Movie (2004) — Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield.
- Garfield 2 (2006) - same cast.
