A Look Back at "Garfield and Friends"

This is a bit emotional for me. One of my earliest memories of watching anything animated was tuning in to Garfield and Friends every Saturday morning. I was only five years old when I first learned about Garfield. Even now, 34 years later, I have such fond memories of enjoying that show for the entire hour it was on. Here's how this phenomenon began.

As we know, Garfield made his debut on the newspapers on June 19, 1978, and it only took four years for the iconic feline to hit the TV screen. Here Comes Garfield premiered on CBS on October 25, 1982, and it was the first of twelve Garfield TV specials that aired on CBS. The specials gained a lot of attention and acclaim, and that ended up leading to the aforementioned TV series.

Garfield and Friends premiered on CBS on September 17, 1988, just over a decade after the character debuted. Regarding the voice cast, Garfield's voice and thoughts were provided by the late, great Lorenzo Music, who also voiced Garfield in the TV specials that aired prior to and during the series' run. Thom Huge provided the voices of Jon Arbuckle (Garfield's owner) and Binky the Clown, and Gregg Berger voiced Odie, the dimwitted dog who served (mostly) as a friend for Garfield. Berger also voiced Herman Post, a postal worker who often served as a victim of Garfield's pranks, and Floyd, a gray mouse who is also friends with Garfield. Julie Payne voiced veterinarian Liz Wilson, who also served as a bit of a love interest for Jon, and Desirée Goyette voiced Nermal, an annoyingly cute kitten who Garfield always tried to mail to Abu Dhabi.

The show also featured a group of characters known as U.S. Acres, a group of barnyard characters also created by Jim Davis. The voice cast included Gregg Berger as the voice of Orson, a pig who serves as the leader of the group and is known for his fondness for books. Thom Huge voiced Roy, a rooster who thinks he's the literal cock of the walk, and always plays pranks on the other characters (so much so that in any and all fantasy sequences involving the group, Roy's usually the antagonist). Howard Morris voiced Wade, a cowardly duck who is, by his own admission, afraid of everything under the sun--including the sun. Frank Welker voiced three of the characters in the group; Bo, a sheep who speaks in a cool, California surfer accent, and Booker & Sheldon, a pair of chick brothers. Booker is the older brother, which is obvious because Sheldon, technically, hasn't been born yet. Finally, Julie Payne voiced Lanolin, Bo's often foul-tempered sister, and usually the catalyst of their bickering. I mentioned the fantasy sequences; when Roy isn't the antagonist in them, Lanolin takes that spot.

The group dealt with their share of antagonists; it actually reached a point where one episode actually had a "guest villain alarm." The Weasel was one, voiced by Gregg Berger. Earlier episodes had the group dealing with the Fox, voiced by Howard Morris, but the most frequent baddies were Orson's older brothers: Gort (Thom Huge), Mort (Frank Welker), and Wart (Howard Morris).

Season One (1988) consisted of 13 half hour episodes, and featured two Garfield episodes with a U.S. Acres episode in between. The show also featured these:

Every episode featured short segments known as Quickies, and I learned very recently that the Quickies were the Sunday comic strips played out on the show, lasting less than a minute. Thanks to syndication (more on that later) we only know the Garfield Quickies, but there were also U.S. Acres Quickies as well. For the first two seasons, a Garfield Quickie served as a cold open for the entire episode. As I mentioned before, Season One's episodes were a half hour long, but for Season Two (1989), the episode length doubled to a full hour. Each episode now had four Garfield episodes, two U.S. Acres episodes, and more Quickies, along with these:

Season Two also featured a special set of Quickies titled, "Screaming with Binky." One of the show's many running gags was Binky the Clown's immense annoyance factor, so Mark Evanier, a writer on the show, decided to create these segments based solely on that attribute. The segments were hosted by Garfield, and they always involved the most sensitive of situations that included precise concentration, careful precision, and most of all, absolute silence. And just when the mission's about to be completed, Binky gives his loud greeting and mucks it up.

16 segments were produced and aired during Seasons Two and Three. Only one made it to syndication (the one featuring Wade Duck). Of the 16, only 12 made it to the DVD sets.

Speaking of Season Three (1990), the show underwent a big change once the show entered the 90s: the theme song changed. For the first two seasons, the theme song for the series was "Friends Are There." Beginning with Season Three onward, the theme was "We're Ready to Party," the song with the samba beat that every fan is familiar with, because syndication didn't include the "Friends Are There" intro for the first two seasons' worth of episodes until very, very recently.

Season Four (1991) saw a lot of changes, and I mean a lot. For one, the U.S. Acres Quickies were gone, and that was because the U.S. Acres comic strip was discontinued. Secondly, Binky the Clown didn't appear at all, and his lack of appearances became a running joke on the show. In one episode, "Remote Possibilities," when Binky's show was about to air on TV, Garfield frantically told Odie to help him look for the remote so they could change the channel. Garfield's reason: "We promised the network that he'd never be on the show again." As a result, each hour long episode had four Garfield episodes, two U.S. Acres episodes, and two Garfield Quickies. That's it.

By the time Season Five (1992) began, Garfield and Friends made it to syndication. In syndication, the show was condensed to a half-hour format and left a lot of things out. None of the U.S. Acres Quickies aired on syndication, though that finally changed a few years ago. As mentioned before, "We're Ready to Party" served as the theme for all the episodes, even the ones from the first two seasons. And most of all, not all of the episodes made it to syndication. More on this later.

Season Six (1993) featured a lot of big named guest stars, though quite a few big names appeared on the series even prior to that season. Names such as Rod Roddy (who was serving as the announcer on The Price is Right at the time) and Buddy Hackett appeared in previous episodes, and regarding Season Six, one episode, "Safe at Home," featured the iconic Don Knotts as a salesman who manages to coerce Jon into buying his security system, which includes said salesman as the guard. The episode, "Sweet Tweet Treat," marked the debut of Ludlow, a blackbird who Garfield had designs on eating. Ludlow was voiced by Don Messick, who is best known and remembered for his decades of work with Hanna-Barbera.

Season Seven (1994) saw the show taken over by Paws, and also featured the series format change once more. By the middle of the season, episodes were a half hour long, and the second half was filled in with either past episodes from Seasons Five and Six, or with the past TV specials that aired between 1982 and 1991. The big names continued to join in, such as Tracy Scoggins, Imogene Coca, and Bill "Ray Jay Johnson" Saluga. The episode, "Food Fighter," actually featured boxing legend George Foreman, while a two-part episode, "The Horror Hostess," featured b-movie scream queen Brinke Stevens as main villainess Vivacia--a horror TV hostess who had her sinister designs on Jon. The seventh season ended up being the series' last, and the final episode aired on December 10, 1994. The final U.S. Acres episode on that day was "The Monster Who Couldn't Scare Anybody," and it was followed by the final Garfield episode, "The Ocean Blue."

On July 27, 2004, a month after the movie was released, Garfield and Friends finally was released on DVD. Volume One was released, and featured all of Season One and just under half of Season Two, and I bought it at around that time. Volume Two featured the rest of Season Two and the first half of Season Three, and was released on December 7, 2004, just in time for me to receive this set for Christmas. Volume Three was released on April 19, 2005, and I bought it on that day. The set featured the second half of Season Three and almost all of Season Four. Volume Four was released on August 30, 2005 (again, bought it that day), and featured the second half of Season Four's finale, all of Season Five, and almost half of Season Six. Finally, Volume Five was released on December 6, 2005, and featured the tail end of the series--the rest of Season Six and all of Season Seven. I bought Volume Five three days after it was released.

Among the many things I loved about the sets was that, because syndication didn't acquire all of the episodes, the DVD sets allowed me to watch a number of episodes for the first time since they aired on CBS. Also, I loved how the U.S. Acres were represented on the cover of each of the five box sets. Volume One featured Orson, Volume Two featured Roy, Volume Three featured Wade, Volume Four featured Booker and Sheldon, and Volume Five featured Bo and Lanolin.

To say I loved Garfield and Friends would be an understatement. Every Saturday morning at 10AM (7AM in later seasons), I would tune right in to CBS to watch that show, and I watched the episodes repeatedly on syndication. Having the DVDs was an absolute pleasure, as I got to watch a number of episodes that I hadn't seen in over a decade (at that time), and currently, Tubi and Peacock have all of the episodes. Cartoon Network gave us a bit of a continuation of the series with The Garfield Show, which featured Frank Welker as the voice of Garfield, as the original voice, Lorenzo Music, passed away in 2001. To say that Music was absolutely brilliant as Garfield would be another understatement; he truly gave his all in providing Garfield's sarcasm, rapier wit, and immensely funny one-liners.

My appreciation for Garfield and Friends is much like the titular cat's appetite: never-ending. I will continue to treasure those Saturday mornings that I spent watching the show, and I will definitely continue to enjoy those episodes repeatedly.