Garfield And Friends

***Garfield and Friends*** is an American animated television series based on the comic strip *Garfield* by Jim Davis and ran on CBS Saturday mornings from September 17, 1988 to December 10, 1994, with reruns airing until October 7, 1995. Seven seasons of the series were produced.

In addition to the segments featuring Garfield, the series also included segments featuring the characters from *U.S. Acres*, a comic strip Davis was drawing concurrently with *Garfield* when *Garfield and Friends* premiered on television. Like the comic strip these were based on, the animated segments were re-titled *Orson's Farm* for viewers outside of the United States (taking the name of their main character, Orson Pig). Although Davis stopped producing new strips of *U.S. Acres/Orson's Farm* seven months after *Garfield and Friends* debuted, the characters continued to appear on television for the rest of the show's run.

A total of 121 episodes were made, each consisting of two *Garfield* segments and one *U.S. Acres* segment, totaling 242 *Garfield* segments and 121 *U.S. Acres* segments. All episodes 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. Starting with the second season, it switched to an hour-length format, showing two episodes each week. During the last season, while the series was still an hour long, the second half-hour of the show featured either an episode from the previous season or one of the *Garfield* TV specials. On May 25, 2016, 9 Story Media Group acquired the worldwide distribution rights to *Garfield and Friends* and its specials.

## Characters

### *Garfield*

#### Regular characters

* Garfield (Voiced by Lorenzo Music): A fat, lazy, sarcastic orange tabby, who wants nothing more out of life than to eat and sleep. He has a penchant for consuming lasagna, enjoys tormenting Odie and trying to mail Nermal, his rival tabby, to Abu Dhabi. He makes a small handful of appearances on *U.S. Acres*, in "Mystery Guest", "Fast Food", "Quack to the Future", and "The Thing In the Box", although he is more often seen in the form of various pieces of Garfield-themed merchandise the "U.S. Acres" characters appear to own. Deep down, Garfield loves Jon and Odie. Garfield does not speak aloud, but his thoughts are heard by everyone. This is revealed in one episode to be via the use of a special microphone which amplifies the thoughts of animals apart from Odie.
* Jon Arbuckle (Voiced by Thom Huge): Garfield and Odie's owner, a bachelor cartoonist who has poor luck with women and a somewhat nerdy demeanor. He is often annoyed by some of Garfield's antics, and also has an unrequited love for 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 who is absent from the show). 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 Desirée Goyette): A cute grey Tabby cat kitten who Garfield is annoyed with. 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. Though officially considered a male, Nermal's feminine preoccupation with being cute, and the fact that a woman provides a childlike voice which is also very soft for Nermal, thus allowing the character to be mistaken for a female cat to the point that, in the first two seasons, the Spanish version features Nermal as a female kitten named "Thelma".
* Binky the Clown (Voiced by Thom Huge): A loud, obnoxious 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. Binky sometimes has his own segment on the series called "Screaming with Binky" that lasts the length of a Quickie and runs at the midway point of an hour episode—Most of these segments were removed in syndication. "Screaming with Binky" segments were only aired in seasons 2 and 3 (1989–1991) of the show, and some were re-aired for a month after eight weeks of season 4 and 5 episodes (Nov. 1991–Sep. 1993). His catchphrase is, "Hey, kids!" with the vowels prolonged; to Garfield, he yells "Hey, cat!" with a prolonged E. Binky is a recurring character for the first three seasons, then appeared sporadically afterward. He "returns" in the season 7 episode "The Feline Philosopher", which became his last episode in the show.
* Herman Post (Voiced by Gregg Berger): A mailman who loves delivering the mail, despite being the victim of Garfield's booby traps. As with Binky, he rarely appears after season 3.
* Dr. Elizabeth "Liz" Wilson (Voiced by Julie Payne): Garfield and Odie's sarcastic veterinarian and Jon's main love interest. She occasionally dates him, but these outings always become disasters often due to Garfield's actions. She only appears for the show's first two seasons, except for one appearance in the season 4 episode *Frankenstein Feline.*
* Floyd (Voice by Gregg Berger): Garfield's mouse friend who takes place of his mouse friend Squeak from the comic. He originally appears as an antagonist in the season 1 episode "Good Mousekeeping", when he and his fellow mice stay at Jon's house after discovering that Garfield does not eat mice; they are eventually driven out of the house. He becomes friends with Garfield in his second appearance, the season 1 episode "Identity Crisis". He appears in every season of the show only in one or few episodes each. He has a friend named Tyrone in the season 3 episode "Rodent Rampage" and a wife named April in the season 6 episode "The Floyd Story".

#### 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. Garfield adopts his alter ego "The Caped Avenger" after temporarily losing Pooky.
* Cactus Jake (Voiced by Pat Buttram): 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. He also has a massive extended family. His appearances include "Polecat Flats", "Cactus Jake Rides Again", "Cactus Makes Perfect", "How the West Was Lost", "Urban Arbuckle", "The Cactus Saga" and "The Legend of Cactus Jupiter".
* Al G. Swindler (Voiced by Carl Ballantine): A car salesman with a large nose. As his name suggests, he is a businessman and con artist who constantly swindles the perennially gullible Jon, only to be eventually outwitted by Garfield. In the episode *Lemon Aid* his name was given as Al J. Swindler. He also always incorrectly pronounces Jon's last name; for example, "Mr. Arborday" or "Mr. Arbarnacle". His other episodes were "Skyway Robbery", "Wonderful World" and "Home Sweet Swindler".
* The Buddy Bears (Voiced by Gregg Berger (Billy), Thom Huge (Bobby) and Lorenzo Music (Bertie)): Their names are Billy, Bobby and Bertie (In "The Garfield Opera", they introduced themselves by their formal names William, Robert and Bertram). 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 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. Garfield tends to get the last laugh with them, at one point bringing an argument between the three bears over pizza toppings. In one episode, there is a fourth female Buddy Bear, their sister Betty.
* Penelope (Voiced by Victoria Jackson): Known as Lola in "Beach Blanket Bonzo" (Voice of Desirée Goyette) and Gwendelin in "The Idol of ID" (Voice of June Foray) (both are identical). Penelope is Garfield's girlfriend who takes the place of his love interest Arlene from the comics. Evanier recently explained that the reason Arlene only appeared once in the series was that Davis had a very specific idea of how the Arlene character should be and told the writers that if they could not be faithful to it, they should not use her.[*citation needed*]
* Lola: (voiced by Julie Bennett)
* Brick: Brick (or Bonzo from "Beach Blanket Bonzo") is the ex-boyfriend to most of Garfield's love interests. They usually dump him because of Garfield. He usually is sensitive about his girlfriends, so he usually pounds Garfield, but still does not win their hearts. He was first seen in Beach Blanket Bonzo as Lola's boyfriend (he appeared in a different color). He later appeared in The Idol of ID trying to convince Gwendelin to dump Garfield and go back to him. In "The Perils of Penelope", he appeared as Bonzo for the first time, as dating Penelope and after he chase Garfield to a truck he was last seen in the back of a truck to Mexico. He made cameos in The Garfield Rap playing the guitar in one scene, and "Cutie and the Beast" who was then unnamed.
* The Singing Ants (Voiced by Ed Bogas): 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 first appeared 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.
* Ludlow (Voiced by Don Messick): An adolescent crow who appeared in two episodes. His father always beats up Garfield when he thinks he has eaten his son. The episodes in which he appeared are "Sweet Tweet Treat" and "Catch As Cats Can't".
* Irving Burnside (Voiced by Gregg Berger): A next door neighbor to Jon in which Garfield invades (generally stealing his barbecue). Whenever this happens, he threatens to beat up Jon. He appeared on six episodes which are "Frankenstein Feline", "Bad Neighbor Policy", "Next Door Nuisance", "How to Drive Humans Crazy", "A Matter of Conscience" and "Fair Exchange".
* Rudy (Voiced by Gregg Berger): A dog who beats up Garfield every time he hosts a television program and says something bad about dogs. His name was first revealed in "Dogmother 2". He also appeared in "Reigning Cats and Dogs", "Annoying Things", and "It Must Be True". Rudy also once victimized Nermal for insults about dogs.
* Mice: The Mice appeared in two episodes. The episodes were "Good Mousekeeping" and "The pie-eyed piper." The mice do not include Floyd.
* Moe the Cat Burglar (Voiced by Gregg Berger): A burglar who appeared in three episodes: "Mistakes Will Happen", "Safe at Home" and "Top Ten". He made two attempts to steal from Jon's home.
* Madman Murray (Voiced by Gregg Berger): A second-hand junk salesman (proclaimed to be insane). Similar to Mr. Swindler, He tries to get Jon to buy some cheap junk. He appeared in "Guaranteed Trouble, "Rolling Romance," and "Madman Meets His Match." He makes a cameo in "Jumping Jon".
* J.D. (a.k.a. Jim Davis, voiced by himself): The cartoons' director who had six "appearances": "Mystic Manor" (as himself wearing a Garfield suit drawing a comic strip), "Flat Tired", "The Garfield Workout", "Star Struck", "Fill In Feline" and the U.S. Acres (Orson's Farm) episode "What's It All About Wade?"
* Dr. Garbanzo Bean (Voiced by Frank Welker): A mad scientist from "Robodie" and "Robodie II".
* The Feline Philosopher (Voiced by Eddie Lawrence): A feline philosopher that talked Garfield into stealing pie. This character was a parody of Lawrence's "Old Philosopher" routine. His appearances are "The Feline Philosopher" and "The Farmyard Feline Philosopher"; he made a cameo appearance in "The Man Who Hated Cats".
* Icabod: A cricket that was Garfield's conscience. He appeared in "A Matter of Conscience" and "Half Baked Alaska".

### *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, one time making Wade comment, "Cleanest pig in the world." 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. 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 became closer friends later on in the seasons. It was even implied that Roy and Wade knew each other for fourteen years or so.[*citation needed*] His most common practical jokes include dropping food on Orson or taking advantage of Wade's excessive fear.
* Wade (Voiced by Howard Morris): A cowardly 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 became closer friends later on in the seasons.
* 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, he is almost impossible to get mad and acts as a guide for Orson when dealing with his three older brothers.
* 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. 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 an early episode, Sheldon actually hatches, with another shell subsequently appearing. Booker and Sheldon's parents are unseen in the show; Orson noted that their mother abandoned them.

#### Minor characters

* Mort (Voiced by Frank Welker), Gort (Voiced by Thom Huge) and Wart (Voiced by Howie Morris): Orson's cruel older triplet brothers (unnamed until "Hogcules") 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. Gort is seen alone in "Forget-Me-Not Newton" and "The Old Man of the Mountain" and Wart appeared on his own briefly in "Orson's Diner". None of them were seen in the sixth season, although they were mentioned in "How Now Stolen Cow?" Mort, Gort, and Wart are jealous of Orson.
* 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. He appeared on six episodes. His first appearance was in "Shy Fly Guy". He later appeared in "The Impractical Joker", "Mystery Guest", "Orson at the Bat" and "The Ugly Duckling". He also had a cameo appearance in "Orson in Wonderland".
* Worms (voiced by Howard Morris): 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. He first appeared on "Flop Goes the Weasel" and last appeared on "Deja Vu". His only appearance in the fifth season was a cameo appearance in "Badtime Story".
* The Fox (Voiced by Howard Morris): 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". He appeared on "Shell Shocked Sheldon" and "Little Red Riding Egg"; he later made a cameo appearance in "Hare Force".
* The Wolf (Voiced by Gregg Berger): An unnamed wolf from the fifth season who, like the weasel, tried to steal chickens. He appeared in "The Wolf Who Cried Boy", "Sooner or Later", "Gross Encounters" and "A Mildly Mental Mix-Up".
* Chloe: Roy's niece from the sixth season and a bookish chick. Roy likes her more than he will admit. She appeared in "Uncle Roy to the Rescue" and made her final two appearances in the two-part episode "Snow Wade and the 77 Dwarfs".
* Edward R. Furrow (Voiced by Frank Welker): The farm's local psychiatrist badger who is named after Edward R. Murrow. His appearances include "A Mildly Mental Mix-Up", "Daydream Doctor" (Where he was colored yellow) and a cameo in "Newsworthy Wade".
* Aloysius (Voiced by Kevin Meaney): A pig who appears in the segment's seventh season; he was originally intended to be a main character. He works as a studio accountant and as a television executive. He gives problems to Orson and his friends concerning their show (such as the "unwholesomeness" of nursery rhymes in "Kiddie Korner" and budget of the animators of the cartoon in "The Discount of Monte Cristo"). 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!"
* Plato (Voiced by Frank Welker): A sophisticated rooster who came to the farm to do Roy's job. Roy became jealous of him, although when Plato proved too cowardly to save the chickens from the weasel, he was thrown out of the farm. Plato first appeared in "The Bunny Rabbits Is Coming!" and again in "Cock-a-Doodle Duel". He later had a cameo appearance in "The Ugly Duckling".

### Additional actors

Additional voices were also provided by Gary Owens and Neil Ross.

There have been several celebrity guest stars who did voice acting on *Garfield & Friends* for both Garfield & US Acres portions, including Imogene Coca, Stan Freberg, George Foreman, Chick Hearn, James Earl Jones, Marvin Kaplan, Robin Leach, John Moschitta, Jr., Jack Riley, Rod Roddy, Will Ryan, Pat Buttram, Dick Beals, Paul Winchell, Don Knotts, Michael Bell, Arnold Stang and Greg Burson.