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Garfield is the titular main protagonist from the comic strip of the same name, created by Jim Davis. The comic strip centers on Garfield, portrayed as a fat, lazy, and cynical orange cat. Garfield is noted for his love of lasagna and sleeping, and his hatred of Mondays, exercise and fellow cat Nermal.

Early Life[]

Garfield was born on June 19, 1978, in the kitchen of Mamma Leoni's Italian Restaurant to his mother and his unnamed father, weighing 5 lbs and 6 ounces at birth. Lasagna has been Garfield's favorite food throughout his life, unlike the majority of his family, who were more into mice. The restaurant owner of Mamma Leoni's Italian Restaurant had to choose between keeping Garfield or closing down his restaurant due to a lack of pasta, so Garfield was sold to a pet shop. On the same day as his birth, Jon Arbuckle came to the pet store and had to choose between Garfield, an iguana, and a pet rock.

Physical appearance[]

Over the years, Garfield's appearance has changed greatly. In the first couple of years of the strip, he looked more like a real Exotic Shorthair cat and was fatter. Over time, Garfield started to get smaller and less morbidly obese. He also started gaining more human tendencies such as walking on two feet (previously he walked on all fours) but has remained silent for the rest of the strip. He also has four toes on his feet. Despite the changes, Garfield has always remained an orange tabby over the years.

Personality[]

Garfield is an overweight, bipedal orange tabby cat noted for his laziness, sarcasm, arrogance, selfishness, and intense passion for food—particularly lasagna and most other foods made from flour. He dislikes raisins and (sometimes) anchovy pizza.

Throughout the course of the strip, Garfield's weight has been made an object of ridicule, frequently by the electronic scale which he uses to weigh himself. Garfield usually does not handle insults or commands from the talking scale RX-2 (or anybody else) very well, and will normally respond to such remarks with either a saucy comeback or some sort of threat of violence, in spite of the fact that the character solely communicates through thought bubbles.

Garfield lives with his nerdy, socially awkward owner Jon Arbuckle and Jon's dimwitted pet dog Odie, and derives pleasure from satirically mocking the stupid actions performed by the two. Garfield seems to abhor Odie, and derives joy from causing him physical harm or insulting him, such as kicking him off tables, seldom showing empathy for the beagle. Odie shows Garfield no belligerence of any kind and never deliberately causes him harm (though Odie does occasionally prank Garfield and has made fun of his weight and, more recently, his age.) Garfield despises him nonetheless and is apt to make rude and sassy comments based on Odie's apparent lack of intelligence. Garfield also frequently insults and pokes fun at Jon Arbuckle for his nerdy behavior and unpopularity with women, along with his unconventional and eccentric fashion sense.

Despite his sometimes selfishness and sheer laziness, Garfield loves both Odie and Jon, as well as his beloved teddy bear Pooky, who is frequently seen in his Garfield's arms or close to him.

In The Garfield Live action Film duology, he acts the same as he does in the comics, but has more of a passion towards dancing and listening to music.

In The Garfield Show, while Garfield still retains his signature traits, he is considerably more compassionate towards his friends.

Trivia[]

  • According to Jim Davis in a Denver Comic-Con interview, Jack Nicholson was considered as the voice of Garfield in the 2004 live-action film. He was the only one besides Bill Murray considered for the role; he was never contacted as Murray was immediately accepted.

External link[]

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