Garfield in his first appearance in 1976, on the strip JonGarfield in 1980, as portrayed on the back cover of Garfield at Large
Garfield is an orange cat belonging to Jon Arbuckle.[2] He was born on (1978-06-19)June 19, 1978 (the day the first Garfield strip was published), in the kitchen of Mamma Leoni's Italian Restaurant.[3][4][5]Jim Davis named Garfield after his grandfather, James Garfield Davis.[6] As a kitten, he develops a taste for lasagna, which would become his favorite food.[7] 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".[8] It was revealed on October 27, 1979, that he does not like raisins.[9]
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.[10] There was an earlier Blondie crossover on the Garfield strip published April 1, 1997, and vice versa, as part of the comic strip switcheroo.[11]
Character traits
Among Garfield's character traits are laziness, cynicism, and sarcasm. He hates Mondays, the cat Nermal, and he loves lasagna.[2] He also has a tendency to be annoyed by Jon's dog Odie.[12]
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.[12] However, Davis later clarified that Garfield is, in fact, male.[1]
Voice-over timeline
Scott Beach (1980; segment on The Fantastic Funnies)
Garfield was licensed to the Dakin Company for the creation of plush toys c. 1988.
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.[30]
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 favor 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.
