Garfield is a comic strip about a furry orange cat created by Jim Davis featuring Garfield the cat, Odie the dog, and their owner Jon Arbuckle. As of 2007, it is syndicated in roughly 2,570 newspapers and journals and it currently holds the Guinness World Record for being the world’s most widely syndicated comic strip. The popularity of the strip has led to an animated television series, several animated television specials and two theatrical feature-length live-action films, as well as a large amount of Garfield merchandise.

Garfield debuted on June 19, 1978, which is considered to be his birthday. The strip makes fun of pet owners and their relationship with their pets, often with the pet as the true master of the household. Garfield also struggles with human problems, such as diets, Mondays, apathy, boredom, and so on. By the middle of 1983, his familiar appearance—featuring oval-shaped eyes—had taken shape. By this time, Garfield was walking on two feet, and the strip emphasized sitcom situations such as Garfield making fun of Jon’s stupidity and his inability to date. Jon and Odie have also evolved quite a bit, from being thin and starkly colored to the cartoons they are today.

Like many comic strips, Garfield is not exclusively drawn by its creator. Jim Davis still writes and makes rough sketches for the strip, but his company, Paws, employs cartoonists and assistants who do most of the work of the finished drawing and inking, while Davis’s final job is usually confined to approving and signing the finished strip. Otherwise, Davis spends most of his time managing the business and merchandising of Garfield.

The characters and situations in Garfield have often been constant, with no change or development for the past several years. While this was not unique to Garfield, as Calvin in Calvin and Hobbes and the children of Peanuts never aged, other strips such as For Better or For Worse, Cathy, and Doonesbury maintain a continuity with characters who develop, age, and may even die as the strip proceeds. In one particular sequence, however, leading up to Garfield’s 25th birthday (which is always marked by Garfield complaining about his age along with the rest of the characters making subtle references to it), Davis brought back the Garfield from 1978, the one that waddled and always had a frown under his pinpoint eyes. The old and new Garfields talk and find that, although they look different, they are still both too greedy and territorial to stand even themselves.

The comic strip was turned into a cartoon special for television in 1982 called Here Comes Garfield. Actor Lorenzo Music, previously known as the voice of Carlton the doorman on the show Rhoda, was hired to portray the voice of Garfield. Soul singer Lou Rawls provided music. Twelve television specials were made (through 1991) as well as a Saturday morning television series, Garfield and Friends, which ran from 1988 to 1995 on CBS, and still runs occasionally in syndication today.

In 1984, Garfield was introduced to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade as a balloon. This is one of the most popular at the parade. In recent years, he has been holding Pooky.

A live-action film version of the comic strip, Garfield: The Movie had its debut in the United States on June 11, 2004. The film employed a computer-animated Garfield and real Odie. Lorenzo Music had died before filming began, and Bill Murray was cast as the voice of Garfield. Murray’s laid-back, deadpan delivery has often been compared to Music’s; indeed, Music provided the voice of Murray’s Peter Venkman character in The Real Ghostbusters, the cartoon version of Ghostbusters. Murray became the fourth actor to provide a voice for Garfield: Tommy Smothers voiced the role in a cat food commercial, and an unnamed Lorenzo Music sound-alike was used in another TV spot.

Garfield’s second live-action feature film, Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, was released on June 16, 2006.
 

Tom and Jerry is an Academy Award-winning animated cartoon series of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer theatrical shorts created, written and directed by animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (later of Hanna-Barbera fame). One hundred and fourteen Tom and Jerry cartoons were produced by the MGM cartoon studio in Hollywood from 1940 until 1957, when the animation unit was closed down. These shorts are notable for having won seven Academy Awards for Best Short Subject (Cartoons), tying it with Disney’s Silly Symphonies as the most-awarded theatrical animated series.

 The plots of each short usually center on Tom’s frustrated attempts to catch Jerry, and the mayhem and destruction that ensues. Since Tom rarely attempts to eat Jerry and because the pair actually seem to get along in some cartoon shorts (at least in the first minute or so), it is unclear why Tom chases Jerry so much. But some reasons given may include normal feline/mouse enmity, duty according to his owner, revenge, or competition with another cat, among other reasons.

Tom rarely succeeds in catching Jerry, mainly because of Jerry’s craftiness and cunning abilities, but sometimes because of Tom’s own stupidity. Tom usually beats Jerry when Jerry becomes the instigator or when he crosses some sort of line.

The shorts are famous for some of the most violent gags ever devised in theatrical animation: Jerry slicing Tom in half, shutting his head in a window or a door, Tom using everything from axes, pistols, explosives, traps and poison to try to murder Jerry, Jerry stuffing Tom’s tail in a waffle iron, kicking him into a refrigerator, plugging his tail into an electric socket, pounding him with a mace, club or mallet, causing a tree to drive him into the ground and so on. Despite the frequent violence, there is no blood or gore in any scenes. A recurring gag involves Jerry hitting Tom when he’s preoccupied, with Tom initially oblivious to the pain–and only feeling the effects moments later, and vice versa; and another involves Jerry stopping Tom in midchase (as if calling for a time-out), before he does something, usually putting the hurt on Tom.

The cartoon is also noteworthy for its reliance on stereotypes, such as the blackening of characters following explosions and the use of heavy and enlarged shadows (e.g., “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse”). Resemblance to everyday objects and occurrences is arguably the main appeal of visual humor in the series. The characters themselves regularly transform into ridiculous but strongly associative shapes, most of the time involuntarily, in masked but gruesome ways (see also Cartoon physics).

Music plays a very important part in the shorts, emphasizing the action, filling in for traditional sound effects, and lending emotion to the scenes. Musical director Scott Bradley created complex scores that combined elements of jazz, classical, and pop music; Bradley often reprised contemporary pop songs, as well as songs from MGM films, including The Wizard of Oz and Meet Me In St. Louis.
Tom is a bluish-grey cat, depending on the short (Tom’s fur color is close to that of the Russian Blue breed of cats), who lives a pampered life, while Jerry is a small brown mouse who always lives in proximity to him. Tom is very quick-tempered and thin-skinned, while Jerry is independent and opportunistic. Despite being very energetic and determined, Tom is no match for Jerry’s brains and wits. By the iris-out of each cartoon, Jerry usually emerges triumphant, while Tom is shown as the loser. However, other results may be reached; on rare occasions, Tom triumphs. Sometimes, usually ironically, they both lose or they both end up being friends. Both characters display sadistic tendencies, in that they are equally likely to take pleasure in tormenting each other. However, depending on the cartoon, whenever one character appears to be in mortal danger (in a dangerous situation or by an enemy), the other will develop a conscience and save him. Sometimes they bond over a mutual sentiment towards an unpleasant experience. 
Although many supporting and minor characters speak, Tom and Jerry rarely do so. Tom, most famously, sings while wooing female cats; for example, Tom sings Louis Jordan’s “Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby” in the 1946 short Solid Serenade. Co-director Bill Hanna provided most of the squeaks, gasps, and other vocal effects for the pair, including the most famous sound effect from the series, Tom’s leather-lunged scream (created by recording Hanna’s scream and eliminating the beginning and ending of the recording, leaving only the strongest part of the scream on the soundtrack). The only other reasonably common vocalisation is made by Tom when some external reference claims a certain scenario or eventuality to be impossible, which inevitably, ironically happens to thwart Tom’s plans – at which point, a bedraggled and battered Tom appears and says in a haunting, echoing voice “Don’t you believe it!”. One short, 1956′s Blue Cat Blues, is narrated by Jerry in voiceover. Also, the episode The Lonesome Mouse has significant bits of talk, with Jerry muttering, “Why, that dirty, double-crossin, good-for-nothin, two timin…” in the end.

In his attempts to catch Jerry, Tom often has to deal with the intrusions of Butch, a scruffy black alley cat who also wants to catch and eat Jerry, Spike (sometimes billed as “Killer” or “Butch”), an angry, vicious guard bulldog who tries to attack Tom for bothering his son Tyke while trying to get Jerry. 
Nibbles, the little orphan mouse, later named Tuffy.In the late 1940s, Jerry adopted a little gray mouse foundling named Nibbles (also later known as Tuffy), coming from a certain “Mrs. Bide-a-Wee Mouse Home.” In the years of Nibbles’ debut, he is depicted as a constantly hungry little mouse (as told by Mrs. Bide-a-Wee Mouse Home herself, and his open-mouth-pointing, lip-licking, lip-smacking, tummy-rubbing gesture). In later years Nibbles got rid of his hungry personality and was given a voice, but usually in a foreign language in keeping with the theme and setting of the short (if it’s English, it’s usually in a British accent). During the 1950s, Spike is shown to have a son of his own named Tyke; an addition that led to both a slight softening of Spike’s character (that of a proud father and his son) and a short-lived spin-off theatrical series (Spike and Tyke). Spike spoke occasionally, using a voice and expressions modeled after comedian Jimmy Durante. Another recurring character in the series was Quacker the duckling, who was later adapted into the Hanna-Barbera character Yakky Doodle.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

 

  The central character, Top Cat — called T.C. by close friends — is the leader of a gang of Manhattan alley cats: Fancy Fancy, Spook, Benny the Ball, The Brain, and Choo Choo. Top Cat and his gang were inspired by characters from the popular situation comedy The Phil Silvers Show. It has also been said that the Bowery Boys influenced the show. Maurice Gosfield, who played Private Duane Doberman on The Phil Silvers Show, also provided the voice for Benny the Ball in Top Cat (Benny’s rotund appearance was based on Gosfield too). Arnold Stang’s voicing of Top Cat strongly resembled Phil Silvers’ voice as well.

A frequent plotline revolved around the local policeman, Officer Charlie Dibble, and his ineffective attempts to evict the gang from the city. The only reason that he wanted to be rid of them was that Top Cat and his gang were constantly attempting to earn a quick dollar—usually through an illegal scam. Dibble’s appearance was modelled on Allen Jenkins who did his voice. The name Dibble has passed into the vernacular as slang for police officers.
In 1985, Top Cat appeared on Yogi’s Treasure Hunt with all the other Hanna-Barbera characters and then in 1987, Hanna-Barbera Studios created and produced a feature-length telefilm based on the show titled Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats (part of the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 film series), in which the gang helps a young girl claim her inheritance. In 1991 he became a teenage cat (but he still lived in a trash can) on NBC’s Yo Yogi!.
In the United Kingdom, the show was renamed Boss Cat shortly after it premiered in 1962 (by means of a crudely substituted title card) when it was first aired on BBC television (now called BBC One) because Top Cat was also the name of a brand of cat food. The dialogue and theme tune still referred to the character by his original name. The altered name was last used for a repeat run in 1989, and by the next repeat run in 1999 the cat food had long since disappeared and the original title was used, and this continues on Boomerang and on BBC Two.

 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 Felix the Cat is a cartoon character from the silent-film era. His black body, white eyes, and giant grin, coupled with the surrealism of the situations in which his cartoons place him, combined to make Felix one of the most recognizable cartoon characters in the world. Felix was the first character from animation to attain a level of popularity sufficient to draw movie audiences based solely on his star power.

Felix’s origins remain disputed. Australian émigré, cartoonist, and film entrepreneur Pat Sullivan and American animator Otto Messmer have both claimed to be his creator, and evidence seems to back up both claims. Many historians, including John Canemaker, argue it was Messmer who ghosted for Sullivan. What is certain is that the cat emerged from Sullivan’s studio, and cartoons featuring the character enjoyed unprecedented success and popularity in the 1920s.

From 1922, Felix enjoyed sudden, enormous popularity in international popular culture. He got his own comic strip (drawn by Messmer) and his image soon adorned all sorts of merchandise from ceramics to toys to postcards. There were several manufacturers who made stuffed Felix toys. Jazz bands such as Paul Whiteman’s played songs about him. The most popular song of 1923 was “Felix Kept On Walking”, and further songs followed.

Nevertheless, Felix’s success was fading by the late 1920s with the arrival of sound cartoons. These new shorts, particularly those of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse, had made the silent offerings of Sullivan and Messmer, who were then unwilling to move to sound production, seem outdated. In 1929, Sullivan decided to finally make the transition and began distributing Felix sound cartoons through Copley Pictures. The sound Felix shorts proved to be a failure and the operation ended in 1930 with Sullivan himself passing away in 1933. Felix saw a brief three cartoon resurrection in 1936 by the Van Beuren Studios, but the glory of the old days had disappeared during the cat’s short-lived stint in color and sound.

Television would prove the cat’s savior. Felix cartoons began airing on American TV in 1953. Meanwhile,Joe Oriolo, who was now directing the Felix comic strips, introduced a redesigned, “long-legged” Felix in a new animated series for TV. Oriolo also added new characters, and gave Felix a “Magic Bag of Tricks”, which could assume an infinite variety of shapes at Felix’s behest. The cat has since starred in other television programs and in a feature_film. Felix is still featured on a wide variety of merchandise from clothing to toys. Oriolo’s son, now controls creative work on Felix movies.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.