Entertainment & Arts

The Fortieth Anniversary of The Worlds Coolest Cat: Garfield!

The Fortieth Anniversary of The Worlds Coolest Cat: Garfield!

June 19,1978 The most popular comic strip in the world debuts. In just 3 pictures we are introduced to Jon Arbuckle and his cat Garfield

The Fortieth Anniversary of The Worlds Coolest Cat: Garfield!

As you can see in the first comic Garfield looked slightly different. The characters would change over the years for sure. An interesting fact: Garfield was dropped by the Chicago Sun Times just weeks after it's debut, but readers complained so they brought it back. The day of it's debut it debuted in 41 Newspapers in the US alone.

The debut of Odie
The debut of Odie

Over the next few years Garfield and his friends would become a merchandising and media powerhouse. In the 1980's there was a ton of Garfield products like T shirts, toothbrushes, telephones, and the famous Window clinger dolls

In the 1980s Garfield would make his TV debut which would last well into the 1990's and 2000's

Later on through the years he would also get two big screen movies with Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield. Garfield was one of my favorite characters growing up, and the reason I wanted a cat. In Elementary School our library had several Garfield books for checkout. I think I actually checked out every one of them personally. I remember busting out in class with laughter at the hi-jinks Garfield and his friends endured.

Some Garfield Facts:

At first creation the strip was to be more about Jon and his career as a cartoonist

Garfield was named after the creator Jim Davis' grandfather James A Garfield Davis

The strip is set in Indiana

DAVIS MAINTAINS COMPLETE CONTROL OVER GARFIELD'S FINAL PRODUCT, BUT HE NO LONGER DRAWS THE DAILY COMIC STRIP.

Garfield holds the Guiness World Record for being the most syndicated comic strip in over 2500 newspapers across the world

Garfield has over 16 million fans on Facebook

In the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, they had published that their biggest balloon ever, by volume of gas, was Shamu the Whale with over 18,000 cubic feet," Davis says. "The fact is that the Garfield balloon was filled with 18,907 cubic feet of helium. So we just confirmed that the Garfield balloon, in fact, was the largest one by volume of gas

Garfield is named Gustav in Norway, Sweden, and Finland

All 11 Garfield Comic Strip Books have been Number 1 on the New York Times Bestseller list

Steven Spielberg and Stephen King both own original Garfield Comic Strips

Garfield merchandise brings in $750 million to $1 billion a year

One of the most famous pieces of Garfield merchandise is a stuffed version of the orange cat with suction cups on its legs, stuck in a car window. This was a massive fad in the mid-1980s. They were so popular that major cities reported thousands of car break-ins, with the suction-cup Garfield the only thing stolen

Garfield and his friends
Garfield and his friends

Garfield's Evolution
Garfield's Evolution

No doubt Garfield is the worlds most popular comic along with Peanuts. I'm sure Garfield will continue to eat Lasagna and kick Odie off the table for the next forty years. As long as it isn't on a Monday.

#Garfield

#Garfields40thbirthday

The Fortieth Anniversary of The Worlds Coolest Cat: Garfield!
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