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 character is named after Davis's grandfather, James Garfield Davis, who was named after former U.S. president James Garfield.

Characters

Primary characters

• Garfield: fat orange cat with distinctive black stripes and an attitude. He hates Mondays (not applicable if it's also his birthday), loves to eat and sleep (both to amazing amounts), watch TV, and play jokes on Jon and Odie. His favorite food is lasagna, and he loves to snack on canaries ("you can't eat just one canary!"); however, he hates raisins and spinach. He refuses to eat mice, and has befriended several. He also hates spiders. He is in #8 of his 9 lives.
• Odie: loveable but dopey yellow-furred, brown-eared dog constantly panting with his very large tongue, and the only character without a "voice" (though he was once shown to be thinking "I'm hungry". More recently, he was seen actually speaking in one of Garfield's dream sequences). Often kicked off the table by Garfield or the victim of some practical joke. Odie's original owner was Lyman, a friend and roommate to Jon Arbuckle. However, Lyman disappeared in 1983 and Odie became a pet to Jon. Odie is, to Garfield, a complete slobbering idiot (though it's not the actual case since Odie did manage to take revenge on Garfield occasionally, and Garfield usually cannot notice it). He is rarely seen without his giant tongue and drooling. Recently, Odie seems to be walking on two feet more often. He first appeared on August 8, 1978.
• Jon Arbuckle: Garfield and Odie's owner. A total nerd and clumsy individual who is extremely unlucky in the world of dating and coolness. He is constantly striking out when trying to get dates with women, perhaps due to his ridiculous pick-up lines (said to a woman in the grocery store: "you must be today's special, because you're making me hungry") or loud and flashy outfits. His biggest crush is Dr. Liz Wilson, Garfield and Odie's vet, who has gone out with him a few times but the dates were usually unsuccessful. Primary fodder and conversation partner to Garfield and is often the butt of his jokes. Was (possibly still is, due to it never being contradicted) a cartoonist, but this reference has not been seen since the early days of the comic strip. Whatever his occupation, Jon still manages to make enough money to keep Garfield in lasagna -- no easy feat. His full name has been revealed as Jonathan Q. Arbuckle in a Christmas strip.
• Arlene: Garfield's on-and-off girlfriend. A thin pink cat who seems to be the one living thing in the world who can successfully crack jokes at Garfield on a regular basis. She has distinctively big lips and a very thin neck. Earlier in the series she also had a gap between her teeth; she also appeared more often than now.
• Pooky: Garfield's huggable teddy bear. First appearance was October 23, 1978. The strip shows Garfield searching through Jon Arbuckle's bottom drawer, finding Pooky, and adopting him as his own.
• Nermal: cute kitten who flaunts his cuteness (the cutest kitten in the world, he says), which annoys Garfield immensely, usually resulting in him shipping Nermal to Abu Dhabi. Often comes in unannounced, much to Garfield's chagrin. When he first appeared, he was owned by Jon's parents, but that connection was quickly dropped from the strip. When we see him, it is usually because Jon has to babysit him. He is not seen on Jon's parents' farm. Because of his eyelashes and seemingly effeminate personality, fans have often mistaken him as female. However, in ', Nermal appears as an adult Siamese rather than as a cute kitten.
• Mom: Jon's mother who's always cooking up a meal, and sending Garfield the most uncomfortable sweaters.
• Dad: Jon's father who tends the family farm.
• Doc Boy: Jon's only brother who tends to the pigs on the farm, and who is as much a loser as Jon. Resents being called Doc Boy. He is apparently younger than Jon.
• Grandma: She is a Harley-riding, leather-wearing old lady. She loves Jon and Garfield, and occasionally makes appearances throughout the series. The most is revealed about her in Garfield's Christmas special, where it is revealed that her husband has passed away and she talks about her life with him.
• Lyman: Friend of Jon's who lived with him for a while and was the original owner of Odie. He disappeared from the comic in 1983 and his disappearance was never fully elaborated upon. His last appearance in the strip was a cameo in the logo panel for the Sunday strip published on June 19, 1988. A webcomic called Melonpool involved this character in one of its storylines, showing why he disappeared from the Garfield strips in the first place. Of course, since Melonpool is a spoof piece, it has no continuity with Davis' work and is just for kicks with a disclaimer attached. Recently, Davis was forced to directly address the issue of 'What happened to Lyman?'. According to Davis, Lyman's original purpose was to be someone who Jon could actually talk to and express other ideas?a role more and more taken over by Garfield himself. Hence he was removed without explanation. The closest thing Davis has ever given to explain his absence is "Don't look in Jon's basement"
• Irma: waitress and owner of "Irma's Diner," a diner occasionally patronized by Jon and Garfield. The food, service, and mental stability of her restaurant is questionable. For instance, her idea of a "chicken surprise" is her coming up to the table wearing a rubber chicken mask and saying "SURPRISE!" However, this may be attributed to her operating the diner 24 hours a day with no help (though in other comics, she is shown to speak to other diner employees). Although her main and most memorable appearences took place earlier in the strip, in 1999 she appeared (updated to match the most recent style of the strip), once again doing wacky things at the diner.
• Dr. Liz Wilson: Garfield's 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).
• Herman Post: Jon Arbuckle's mailman. He is constantly being tormented by Garfield, and perpetually trying to find a way to deliver the mail safely, but almost never succeeding.

Secondary characters

• Hubert and Reba are Jon's stereotypical "grumpy old neighbors."
• Mrs. Feeny is another neighbor, who has never appeared in the strip. Garfield routinely torments her and her little dog (who has also never appeared) and as such Mrs. Feeny is always complaining to Jon about Garfield over the phone.
• Ellen is a local girl whom Jon often tries to go out with. She has never appeared in the strip, but many strips focus on Jon phoning Ellen asking for a date. She usually asks him to do something very stupid first, before refusing.
• The Caped Avenger is Garfield's alter ego, which mimicks Superman. However, The Caped Avenger is a coward, and runs off when in danger. Usually, danger is represented by an overly large dog.
• Jon's house is also inhabited by mice (unnamed, though one of their first appearances shows one of them giving Garfield a business card for "Herman Vermin"), enjoying a quite full social life?to much annoyance of Jon. Garfield, however, cannot be bothered to chase them, and according to him they tend to either bribe or blackmail him to stay so. One particular mouse in the comic strip started appearing in 1984, and was named Squeak by Garfield, but he looked no different from the other mice. (The way you know Garfield is talking to Squeak in particular is when there are no other mice around to confuse him with.) In the cartoon show, there was a significant mouse named Floyd, who could be told apart by the fact that he was drawn with oval eyes like the other regulars. A running gag with Floyd was mentioning the fact that he didn't appear often.
• Garfield's otherwise boring life is occasionally enriched by spiders, who sometimes walk around the house or dangle from the ceiling?and who he squishes with rolled-up newspapers. This, of course, leads to several attempts by the spiders to get back at Garfield?unsuccessful in most cases. Garfield does occasionally obtain help from the spiders, such as to get rid of an annoying fly. A spider by the name of Guido has been introduced.
• When on diet, Garfield often has hallucinations, taking shape in walking food with limbs and a provocative manner of encouraging Garfield to eat them.
• Three trusty household appliances in the comic are the talking bathroom scale, the TV and the alarm clock. The three objects have quite different personalities: The scale, sometimes known as RX-2 usually allows itself to be quite cynical and crude about Garfield's overweight state. But sometimes when it does so, it gets smashed or thrown into a trash can. A cover on one of the Garfield paperbacks show Garfield putting a foot on the scale and it heaving with agony. The clock usually retracts from ringing loud and waking Garfield, since he tends to smash it into pieces. The TV also speaks to Garfield by itself on occasion, usually trying to persuade Garfield into continuing to watch it or turning it off. Once, when Garfield fell asleep in front of the TV, the TV yelled at him to turn it off.
• Clive is Garfield's invisible friend. He is another way through which Garfield plays pranks on and irritates Jon and Odie.
• Binky the Clown is a television personality noted for his extremely loud and piercing greetings, most notably "HEEEEEEEY, KIDS!"
• Stretch is Garfield's rubber chicken, who was given to Garfield on his 6th birthday. It only appeared for a week after, yet makes cameo appearences from time to time, mainly used as a weapon against Jon.
• Garfield loves to eat sparrows, and has many attempts to catch them (most of the time failing), most notably his "barbeque bird bath" and his various bird disguises.
• A tree is always trying to encourage Garfield to climb him, always ending in Garfield falling for its "same old lies". In the beginning, he sits on a tree branch, but more recently finds himself gripping the branch by his front paws and dangling. Once while stuck up a tree, he meets a cat named Ed who was raised by squirrels and had never walked on the ground before.
• A recurring plot in the strip is Garfield eating Jon's various pet fish, which causes Jon to get mad. In an attempt to prevent Garfield from eating his second pet fish one week, he lets Garfield name it. Ironically, Second Helping (the fish Garfield named) lasted to the end of the strip, an event very rare in a Garfield comic. Another time, he named a fish Sushi. Garfield once had a staring contest with a goldfish, causing his eyeballs to dry out. Another time, Jon kept the fishbowl in a cage to keep Garfield from getting to it.
• A little chick that looks up to Garfield and calls him "Daddy" (it was originally "Mommy" until Garfield explained to the little guy what gender was). He is a nuisance to Garfield who, oddly enough, is reluctant to eat the little guy (for some strange reason, the thought just never crossed his mind). The chick doesn't like lasagna.
• A big, vicious dog often enjoys barking at Garfield. His rear end is rarely seen. He is almost always seen next to a "Beware of Dog" sign, hence the name he's been given by several fans (another one is Chain Dog).
• Mondays are another nemesis of Garfield's. Often, they are shown off-panel but causing things to happen in-panel (such as throwing a pie at Garfield). When they are shown, they are drawn as ugly monsters. The most prominent theme was "The Monday That Wouldn't Die", in which every day in the month after a certain Monday was also Monday.

Television series only

(more at Garfield and Friends)

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• Cactus Jake is the foreman of the Polecat Flats ranch, and a friend of Jon. He was seen only in the TV series and had a habit of saying Garfield's name wrong.
• Al G. Swindler is, as his name suggests, a swindler, often conning Jon whenever he can, not to mention mispronouncing his last name. He only appeared in the TV series, and at the end of the episodes he was in, he would usually say, "It's getting tougher and tougher to make an honest buck these days."
• The Buddy Bears are a trio of annoying singing bear cubs who encourage viewers to "always agree with the group" (similar to the Get-Along Gang). Their names are Bobby, Billy, and Bertie. The only disagreement they've ever had was over pizza toppings, which supposedly no one can agree on. Thankfully, they only appeared in the TV series, and Garfield has remarked that he "hates Buddy Bear episodes." In the episode "The Garfield Opera", the bears' full names are revealed to be Robert, William, and Bertram, respectively. Infrequently, they are accompanied by their sister, Betty Buddy Bear.
• In the Garfield TV series, Binky the Clown became more of a regular, and would modify his greeting to suit who it was he was greeting, such as "HEEEEEEEY, CAT!" He also occasionally had his own segment on the show, called Screaming With Binky.
• Squeak's TV show counterpart went by the name Floyd and was able to be told apart by being the only mouse with oval-shaped eyes like the other characters. A running gag with Floyd was mentioning the fact that he didn't appear often. The mouse character in the movie was named Louis.
• Penelope served as another love interest for Garfield, appearing only in the show's last three seasons.