Garfield (character)

Garfield is an American fictional cat and the protagonist of the comic strip of the same name, created by Jim Davis. Garfield is portrayed as a lazy, fat, cynical and self-absorbed orange tabby Persian cat. He is noted for his love of lasagna and pizza, coffee, and sleeping, and his hatred of Mondays, Nermal, the vet, and exercise.

Character

Fictional biography

Garfield is an orange cat belonging to Jon Arbuckle. He was born on (the day the first ''Garfield'' strip was published), in the kitchen of Mamma Leoni's Italian Restaurant. Jim Davis named Garfield after his grandfather, James Garfield Davis. As a kitten, he develops a taste for lasagna, which would become his favorite food. Because of his large appetite, the owner of Mamma Leoni's has to choose between giving away Garfield or closing down his restaurant; so Garfield is sold to a pet shop. Garfield is adopted from the store by Jon Arbuckle on August 19, 1978.

Garfield frequently gets into many adventures, such as getting stuck in roll-up shades, sparring with mice, and getting locked up in animal shelters.

It is also given that Garfield uses the "sandbox" on occasion, such as in one 1978 strip; he says he hates commercials because they are "too long to sit through and too short for a trip to the sandbox". It was revealed on October 27, 1979, that he does not like raisins.

On Garfield's 25th anniversary in 2003, several strips were featured in which he interacted with his 1978 version. In 2005, Garfield and Jon appeared in several comic strips of '' Blondie'' in honor of their 75th anniversary. There was an earlier Blondie crossover on the Garfield strip published April 1, 1997, and vice versa, as part of the comic strip switcheroo.

Character traits

Among Garfield's character traits are laziness, cynicism, and sarcasm. He hates Mondays, the cat Nermal, and he loves lasagna. He also has a tendency to be annoyed by Jon's dog Odie.

Garfield's physical appearance has evolved over time. Originally, Garfield had an obese physique with small facial features that required him to stand on all four legs, which caused difficulties when the character was adapted to television and made it more difficult to animate Garfield dancing; Davis credited Charles M. Schulz with redesigning Garfield so that he could stand on his hind legs. Further transformations came in response to shrinkage on newspaper comics pages, as Davis increased the size of Garfield's features (especially his eyes) so that the strip could be printed at smaller sizes without gags becoming too small to see.

Gender

In February 2017, a dispute arose on the talk page of the character's Wikipedia page as to the character's gender. Although other characters have persistently referred to Garfield with male pronouns, owing to comments that the character's creator, Jim Davis, made in 2014 to ''Mental Floss'', in which he said, "Garfield is very universal. By virtue of being a cat, really, he's not really male or female or any particular race or nationality, young or old. It gives me a lot more latitude for the humor for the situations." Davis explained that although Garfield is neither male nor female, he does use male pronouns. However, Davis later clarified that Garfield is, in fact, male.

Voice-over timeline

* Scott Beach (1980; segment on ''The Fantastic Funnies'')
* Lorenzo Music (1982–2001; TV specials, ''Garfield and Friends'', ''Garfield’s Mad About Cats'')
* Lou Rawls (1982–1991, occasional singing voice, TV specials)
* Tom Smothers (1991; Alpo commercials)
* Bill Murray (2004–2006; '' Garfield: The Movie'', '' Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties'')
* Jeff Bergman (2004; Boomerang UK bumper)
* Jon Barnard (2004–2016; '' Garfield's Nightmare'', ''Garfield'', ''Garfield: Saving Arlene'', ''Garfield: Lasagna Tour'', ''The Garfield Show: Threat of the Space Lasagna'', Garfield Cat Litter commercial, ''Garfield Pinball'')
* Frank Welker (2007–present; ''Garfield Gets Real'', ''Garfield's Fun Fest'', ''Garfield's Pet Force'', ''The Garfield Show'', '' Mad'', ''Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl'', ''Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis'', '' Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway'', ''Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2'')
*Chris Pratt (2024; ''The Garfield Movie'')

Voiced by in unofficial material:
* Fred Tatasciore (2006; ''Robot Chicken'')
* Seth Green (2011–2012; ''Robot Chicken'')
* Kevin Shinick (2011–2012; ''Mad'')
* Dan Castellaneta (2017; ''The Simpsons'')
* Dan Milano (2020; ''Robot Chicken'')

Other media

* Garfield was licensed to the Dakin Company for the creation of plush toys .
* Garfield has been a mascot of Kennywood, a traditional amusement park in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh since the 1990s. A ride at Kennywood, "Garfield's Nightmare", was created with the exclusive input of Garfield creator, Jim Davis.
* In the first two ''Garfield'' films, '' Garfield: The Movie'' and '' Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties'', Garfield was created using computer animation, though the movies were otherwise primarily live-action. In these films, Garfield's design has been altered to more closely resemble a real cat in both looks and motion, though his facial features remain exaggerated and expressive, bearing a slight resemblance to his voice actor Bill Murray. The fully animated films ''Garfield Gets Real'', ''Garfield's Fun Fest'' and ''Garfield's Pet Force'' also depict Garfield with computer animation, however the design used in them is much closer to his original comic strip design than in the first two films.
* Garfield was one of numerous cartoon characters featured in the 1990 animated special ''Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue''.

References

External links

''Garfield.com''
– "The Official Site of Garfield"

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Garfield characters
Animated characters
Anthropomorphic cats
Comics characters introduced in 1976
Fictional characters from Indiana
Male characters in comics
Male characters in animation
Fictional cats