Garfield and Friends (2021 TV series) (Johnsonverse)

Garfield and Friends is an American traditionally animated television series based on the comic strip Garfield by Jim Davis and a continuation of the 1988-1994 series of the same name.
As in the original series, the revival features segments with Garfield and segments with the characters from U.S. Acres. Like the comic strip these are based on, the animated segments are re-titled Orson's Farm for viewers outside of the United States (taking the name of their main character, Orson Pig).
The first season was released on Netflix on September 25, 2021. The second season was released on October 15, 2022. The third season was released on December 5, 2023. It has been renewed to a fourth season, set for release in 2024.
== Characters ==
=== Garfield ===
====Regular characters====
* Garfield (voiced by Lorenzo Music from seasons one to three and Maurice LaMarche since season four): A fat, lazy, sarcastic orange tabby, who wants nothing more out of life than to eat, sleep and watch television. He has a penchant for consuming lasagna, enjoys tormenting Odie and trying to mail Nermal, his rival tabby, to Abu Dhabi. Deep down, Garfield nevertheless loves Jon and Odie, and also has a deep appreciation for music. Garfield does not speak aloud, but his thoughts are heard by everyone.
*Jon Arbuckle (voiced by Thom Huge): Garfield and Odie's owner, a cartoonist with a somewhat nerdy demeanor. He is often annoyed by some of Garfield's antics, and also has a relationship with Dr. Liz. Whenever Garfield gets in trouble, Jon will punish him by taking away his lasagna, not letting him watch television, or taking him to the vet. He also tries to convince Garfield to do the right thing whenever the cat gets into trouble. Jon occasionally forces Garfield to lose weight and catch mice, which is always unsuccessful due to Garfield not wanting to eat mice and his friendship with one such mouse named Floyd.
*Odie (voiced by Gregg Berger): A yellow Beagle who is Garfield's best friend. He used to belong to Jon's former roommate Lyman (a character from the earliest comic strips). A running gag has Garfield kicking him off of a kitchen table. Though he does not seem very intelligent, Odie is actually much more cunning and smart than he lets on. Odie is the only animal character who does not communicate with any form of dialogue, solely communicating with body language and his enthusiastic barking and other dog sound effects, although Garfield is able to understand what he says.
*Nermal (voiced by Jason Marsden): A cute grey Tabby kitten whom Garfield considers to be annoying. Nermal is the self-proclaimed "World's Cutest Kitty Cat". Nermal seems kind and playful, although he frequently tends to antagonize Garfield by bragging about how much cuter he is. Garfield often attempts (usually unsuccessfully) to mail him to Abu Dhabi as a result. Marsden previously voiced Nermal in Garfield; Garfield lampshades the fact that Nermal suddenly gained a different, more masculine voice compared to the one he had in the original series.
*Arlene (voiced by Audrey Wasilewski): A female cat who is Garfield's on-and-off girlfriend. She only made a single cameo appearance in the original series due to creative differences between Jim Davis and CBS. Wasilewski previously voiced Arlene in Garfield.
*Dr. Liz Wilson (voiced by Julie Payne): Garfield and Odie's sarcastic veterinarian and Jon's girlfriend.
*Binky the Clown (voiced by Thom Huge, Fred Tatasciore in some episodes): A loud, obnoxious and generally annoying 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. He also stars in his own segment, "Screaming with Binky", that lasts the length of a Quickie and runs at the midway point of an hour episode. In this segment, a character is doing a task that requires much accuracy and precision, only for Binky to distract them, causing them to fail (resulting typically in said character chasing after Binky). His catchphrase is, "Hey, kids!" with the vowels prolonged; to Garfield, he yells "Hey, cat!" with a prolonged E. He was phased out in the original series' third season, but in the revival, he is back on the air after the Buddy Bears were repeatedly canceled on social media.
*Herman Post (voiced by Gregg Berger): A mailman who loves delivering the mail, despite being the victim of Garfield's booby traps. 
*Irma (voiced by Tress MacNeille): The homely-looking owner and sole waitress of a diner Jon and Garfield frequent.
*Vito Cappelletti (voiced by Jason Marsden): The owner of Vito's Pizzeria, a restaurant Garfield and Jon frequently visit. He sometimes gets annoyed by Garfield's antics. Vito is one of the few characters ported over from Garfield (he was previously mentioned in the comic strip on the September 11, 2021 issue, two weeks before the series premiered).
*Floyd (voiced by Gregg Berger): Garfield's mouse friend who takes place of his mouse friend Squeak from the comic.
*Tad Tasker (voiced by Jon Barnard): A news anchor at the local television station WBOR. He and the other onscreen WBOR staff are new characters created for the revival.
*Diane Dianson (voiced by Tara Strong): Tad's co-anchor.
*Bobby Bowen (voiced by Wally Wingert): WBOR's "roving reporter".
*Eddie Gourmand (voiced by Frank Welker): A famous television food critic who often judges Vito's pizza to see if it's right. Eddie is another character ported over from Garfield.
====Minor characters====
* Pooky: Garfield's teddy bear and sleeping companion of whom Jon is jealous. Found in a drawer, he is Garfield's only toy.
* Cactus Jake (voiced by Maurice LaMarche): The foreman of the Polecat Flats dude ranch; he behaves in the manner of an old-fashioned cowboy and often refuses to have anything to do with modern technology. He also has a massive extended family.
* The Buddy Bears (voiced by Gregg Berger (Billy), Thom Huge (Bobby), Frank Welker (Bertie)): Their names are Billy, Bobby and Bertie. They are three talking bears who promote conformist propaganda in the form of song and dance ("Oh, we're the Buddy Bears we always get along... if you ever disagree, it means that you are wrong"; etc.), their message boiling down to "the group is always right, and anyone who disagrees is a troublemaker who deserves to have a safe dropped on them" (though they at least make a point to warn kids not to actually drop safes on anyone). 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, The Care Bears, The Smurfs and other 1980s cartoons focused on "caring", emotions, pleasant human interactions, harmony and a general lack of plot or conflict where the one person who disagrees is the one the audience is intended to root against, no matter how valid their complaints are (showrunner Mark Evanier had worked on several of these series and used the Buddy Bears as an outlet for his frustration with the moral messages). Garfield tends to get the last laugh with them, at one point bringing an argument between the three bears over pizza toppings (which, as Garfield says, no two humans have ever been able to agree on in history). There is a fourth female Bear, their sister Betty (voiced by Julie Payne). Since the original series, the Buddy Bears have lost their entire audience (outside of certain conservative circles), due to their messages of unquestioned conformity being considered extremely dangerous in an era where individualism and self-expression are highly valued; as a result, they have tried other avenues of getting their message out, only to constantly fall victim to cancel culture; the goths of America consider the Buddy Bears "Public Enemy Number One" for obvious reasons. Now demonized by society, both Garfield and Roy take sadistic pleasure in getting back at the bears.
* The Singing Ants (voiced by Ed Bogas): Ants who sing while stealing food. In the revived series, they appear in "A Third Ant Episode".
* J.D. (a.k.a. Jim Davis, voiced by himself): The cartoons' director.
* Mr. Arbuckle (voiced by Frank Welker): Jon and Doc's father who lives in a farm.
* Mrs. Arbuckle (voiced by Julie Payne): Jon and Doc's mother.
* Doc "Doc Boy" Arbuckle (voiced by David Lander using VoxMutatio, raw performance by Maurice LaMarche): Jon's younger brother. Originally, Maurice LaMarche was to have completely taken over the role of Doc Boy from the late David Lander, before Lander's family gave permission to recreate his voice using VoxMutatio; LaMarche still provides the raw performance.
* Big Vicious Dog (voiced by Gregg Berger): A large dog who enjoys tormenting Garfield.
* The Talking Scale (voiced by Tress MacNeille): A scale with a built-in voice chip that makes sarcastic quips at Garfield's weight.
* Hubert (voiced by Frank Welker): An elderly man who often comments on Jon's antics. This is the first appearance of Hubert in animation since the Here Comes Garfield special in 1982.
* Reba (voiced by Tress MacNeille): An elderly woman who is Hubert's wife. As with her husband, Reba also makes her first animated appearance since Here Comes Garfield.
*Lyman (voiced by Frank Ferrante): Odie's original owner and Jon's former roommate. He disappeared in 1983 for unknown reasons; Lyman appears in several episodes, all in cameos.
* Gnorm Gnat (voiced by Frank Welker): A gnat who starred in a comic strip of the same name in the early 1970s. He appears in a cameo in the episode "Down the Hole!", in which he tries to call out Garfield for stealing his thunder, only for Garfield to crush him with his foot (a nod to Jim Davis' oft-repeated story that he ended the Gnorm Gnat comic by having a giant foot crush Gnorm, though it turned out to be false after the actual final strip was discovered in 2019, showing Gnorm saying "Thanks, Pendleton" next to a "Merry Christmas" message).
* Penelope Pussycat (voiced by Victoria Jackson): A female cat who replaced Arlene as Garfield's love interest in the original series due to creative differences between Jim Davis and CBS. She appears in one episode in the revival, in which she fights with Arlene for the position of Garfield's girlfriend, losing badly and getting shipped to a Southern Illinois town, where she runs afoul of a pack of stray dogs.
* 80s Nermal (voiced by Desirée Goyette): The Nermal from the original Garfield and Friends. He appears in one episode claiming to be the real Nermal and that the modern Nermal is an imposter, leading to the two getting into a "cute-off". Garfield judges the competition, and declares both to be insufferable and mails them both to Abu Dhabi. While modern Nermal is intercepted by Jon, 80s Nermal is sent to a street resembling Sesame Street, where he gets thrown in the Oscar parody's trash can.
=== U.S. Acres (a.k.a. Orson's Farm) ===
====Regular characters====
* Orson (voiced by Gregg Berger): A pig who is the main character of the series. His favorite pastime is reading books and imagining himself into many scenarios, à la Walter Mitty. Orson also has two missions set before him: get Roy to do the right thing and get Wade to be brave. A running gag is that Orson is a neat freak and constantly showers and keeps clean. He is a good friend of the other denizens of the farm and a father figure to Booker and Sheldon. Orson's afraid of his brothers. Orson has a superhero identity well named Power Pig, and a Roman-themed alter-ego named Hogcules, as well as a James Bond-figure character named Double Oh Orson.
* Roy (voiced by Thom Huge): A loud and sometimes self-centered rooster who prides himself on his practical jokes. He is constantly into a scheme which, more often than not, Orson or another character has to bail him out of. He is also in a constant game of oneupmanship with Lanolin. Despite his tendencies of selfishness, he is a good rooster when he wants to be and is more often than not the saving grace of his friends when it comes to antagonists such as Orson's brothers or the chicken predators. Despite some of his and Wade's differences and the fact that they argue sometimes, they are actually close.
* Wade (voiced by Tom Kenny): A cowardly and melodramatic duck who wears a rubber flotation tube, and has a bunch of phobias no matter how trivial. As a gag, the head on his flotation tube (which is identical to and smaller than Wade's head) copies nearly every movement and appearance change Wade's real head does. When he gets scared (which is almost all the time), he will blabber with no one understanding what he is saying. Though seemingly afraid of everything, Wade's greatest fear is the Weasel. Like most ducks, Wade has the ability to fly with his wings, but seldom does so due to his phobia of heights. Despite some of his and Roy's differences and that they argue sometimes, they are actually close.
* Bo (voiced by Frank Welker): An affable sheep with a positive, laid-back attitude, whose mannerisms and vernacular are similar to a California beach bum. Though not especially bright, it is almost impossible for him to get mad, and acts as a guide for Orson when dealing with his three older brothers. On the one occasion he actually did get mad, he destroyed the planet, but the animators reset everything, and the directors (voiced by Tim Johnson and Mark Evanier) agreed to never make Bo angry again.
* Lanolin (voiced by Julie Payne): A loud-mouthed sheep who spends most of her time arguing with her twin brother Bo. The arguments are often triggered by her being disagreeable seemingly for its own sake. As of late, though, she's stopped arguing with Bo so much after she saw videos of entitled people on social media (to which she said "If I ever become like that, hit me as hard as you can, and DON'T hold back."). Out of all the main characters in this segment, she seems to be the nicest to Orson.
* Booker (voiced by Frank Welker): A small, cute, but very assertive chick who is constantly in pursuit of unnamed worms. His name was inspired by Orson's love of books.
* Sheldon (voiced by Frank Welker): Booker's twin brother, who, despite having hatched, still lives in his egg with his feet popped out of the shell so he can walk. He seems to have "all kinds of things" in his shell, including a pinball machine and a stove. In the episode "Shell Shocked Sheldon", Sheldon actually hatches, with another shell subsequently appearing. Booker and Sheldon's parents are unseen in the show, as Orson noted that their mother abandoned them.
*Blue (voiced by Tara Strong): A blue cat who, unlike Garfield, is friendly and graceful, albeit a bit downtrodden since she often has to keep Cody out of mischief or saying anything stupid. She did not appear in the original series and was phased out of the comic by the time the original series began. Garfield finds her "less annoying than Nermal, but more annoying than Odie".
*Cody (voiced by Rob Paulsen): A friendly, but often gullible dog who tries to maul other animals such as birds (apart from Lanolin, who often scares him). Blue often has to keep him out of trouble. Like Blue, he was phased out of the comic by the time the original series began.
*Chuck (voiced by Maurice LaMarche): A cow who gives advice to Orson and the others. He was scrapped from the comic before it began, but appeared in early merchandise and made a cameo in the title panel of a Garfield strip.
*Julie (voiced by Tress MacNeille): A horse who
*Chloe (voiced by Kath Soucie): Roy's niece.
*Aloysius (voiced by Kevin Meaney using VoxMutatio, raw performance by Tom Kenny): A pig who works as a studio accountant and as a television executive. He gives problems to Orson and his friends concerning their show, having been created by Mark Evanier as a thinly-veiled jab at CBS. He has a dart board, which he uses to plan each season of TV. Orson and his gang find a way to pay him back near the end of each episode. His catchphrase is "That's not right!". Originally voiced by the late Kevin Meaney, Aloysius is voiced by Tom Kenny in the revival due to the former's 2016 death.
==== Minor characters ====
* Mort (voiced by Frank Welker), Gort (voiced by Thom Huge) and Wart (voiced by Frank Welker): Orson's cruel older triplet brothers who are jealous of Orson and usually appear either to bully Orson or trying to steal the fruit and vegetable crops from the farm. They seldom refer to Orson by his name, calling him "the runt". Despite being apparent triplets, they are different in size: Mort is the shortest and the ringleader (although Gort is sometimes the leader instead of Mort) who grunts in his dialogue, Gort is the smartest and has yellow eyes (although Mort sometimes has yellow eyes instead of Gort), and Wart is the tallest with buck teeth. Since the original series, all three have served time in prison for various crimes, and desperately want to go straight (mainly because they realized their plan to steal the crops is incredibly short-sighted and missing a bunch of steps, but also because Lanolin scares them), but can't because, according to Mort, the status quo enforces itself with a gun.
* Frederick "Fred" Duck (voiced by Frank Welker): Wade's highly annoying cousin who wears a parachute when flying because he is secretly afraid of heights.
* Worms (voiced by Tom Kenny): Booker often chases them unsuccessfully. They were unnamed on the show, although there was a worm named "Filbert" in the comic strip.
* The Weasel (voiced by Gregg Berger): Unnamed, the weasel is constantly seen sneaking around trying to kidnap the chickens in a bag. Usually Roy (or on rare occasions Wade or Sheldon) is the one to thwart him.
* The Fox (voiced by Charlie Adler): An unnamed fox who has more of a goofy personality than the weasel. He tries to kidnap Sheldon, despite saying he "doesn't look ripe".
* The Wolf (voiced by Gregg Berger): An unnamed wolf who, like the weasel, tries to steal chickens. The Weasel, Fox, and Wolf often argue over whose turf the farm is.
=== Additional voices ===
== Production ==
===Development===
Production on the series commenced in 2019 after Johnson Industries acquired Paws, Inc. Two new seasons were announced on September 16, 2019. 
===Casting===
Many of the original voice actors from the series reprise their roles, including Lorenzo Music as Garfield (occasionally voiced by Frank Welker), Thom Huge as Jon, Binky the Clown (though Binky is occasionally voiced by Fred Tatasciore), and Roy, Gregg Berger as Odie and Orson, Julie Payne as Liz and Lanolin, and Frank Welker as Bo, Booker, and Sheldon. Certain characters were recast, such as Nermal (voiced by Desirée Goyette in the original series, now voiced by Jennifer Hale), Wade (originally voiced by the late Howard Morris; recast with Tom Kenny using VoxMutatio to replicate Morris' performance), Cactus Jake (originally voiced by Pat Buttram. who died in 1994; recast with Maurice LaMarche), Doc Boy (also recast with LaMarche due to David Lander's death in 2020, again using VoxMutatio to replicate Lander's voice), and Aloysius (also recast with Kenny via VoxMutatio due to Kevin Meaney's 2016 death). After Music's retirement in 2024, Maurice LaMarche is set to take over as Garfield in the fourth season.
===Animation===
The animation is designed to emulate the artstyle of the original series. As in the original series, it is provided by Film Roman Productions; it is outsourced to Rough Draft Studios in Korea.
===Music===
All music for the revival is composed by Ed Bogas (who also composed the music for the original series) with all songs co-written by Paws, Inc. associate Jon Barnard and writer Mark Evanier. The original theme song, "Friends Are There", is also used, using the original 1988 recording (albeit with a redubbed opening narration by George Lowe, as the original opening announcer, Gary Owens, had died in 2015, as well as better syncing of the sound effects to the characters' movements).
==Seasons==
==Reception==
==Home media==
==International versions==
In countries such as Malaysia that prohibit the portrayal of talking pigs (including the character of Orson Pig), a separate version simply titled Garfield is broadcast that cuts all U.S. Acres segments, Quickies and references, as well as using the "We're Ready to Party" theme used in the original series from the third season on.
Category:Johnsonverse