U.S. Acres - Season 1 (Original Title Cards!)

Today's post is a special one -- for the first time since Boomerang briefly aired Garfield and Friends in 2006, here are all of the original title cards from Season 1--almost. Unfortunately I don't have actual English copies of four of these originals, but thanks to the German dub (which mysteriously uses the U.S. Acres logo for the first 12 episodes), I've been able to make recreations that accurately show how the original title card looked.

Ladies and gentlemen... the originals!



Image Credit:
MySpleen: Wade, You're Afraid
Me: Banana Nose, Shell Shocked Sheldon, Wanted: Wade, Unidentified Flying Orson
YouTube: The Bad Sport
Big Cartoon Database: The Worm Turns, National Tapioca Pudding Day, Shy Fly Guy
German/English Mixes: Return of Power Pig, Keeping Cool, Short Story, I Like Having You Around!

Title Card Oddities

Here is a typical U.S. Acres title card. The design seen here and in many other establishing episodes of the first season set the groundwork for future title cards. Aside from the obvious differences in artwork, everything remained the same for each episode... or did it?



Here for the first time in over 20 years, we can see that in Season 6 (starting with this episode), the logo used in the title cards was modified to remove the characters, leaving just the U.S. Acres name. Notably, the stripes on the letter S are switched around. As this image comes from the original premiere, I can't say whether or not this was corrected during any reruns until I get a copy of one.

Of course, with the syndicated episodes all using the better known logo variant, it makes sense that fans who hadn't seen the unsyndicated ones would have made mistakes.



And now, here's the actual original title card, taken again from the premiere.



The title cards continued to use this characterless logo throughout the rest of Season 6. But when Season 7 rolled around, the characters were added back in.



Strangely though, towards the end of the series, at least one episode returned to the Season 6 variant. Unfortunately, I do not have any premieres beyond this episode, so I can't say whether this was just an exception or if the last 4 episodes also used the character-less logo.



Perhaps the most interesting title card oddity comes from Season 5's "Who Done It" in which the original U.S. Acres logo is overlaid on top of the international Orson's Farm logo! Anybody have any theories on how this might have occurred? Once again, I have no way of knowing whether it was corrected or not until a rerun copy shows up.



Image Credits:
Me: Banana Nose title card
Mimitchi33: A Little Time Off recreation
Peter Paltridge/Platypus Comix: All other images

My Mission

Here's the episode guide I'm using for this project, courtesy of Mark Evanier (one of the show's key writers).

Although Garfield and Friends originally premiered in an hour long format for the majority of its run, my goal is to maintain the half hour length as that is how they were produced and thus how they would appear on a proper DVD set.

So what is proper?

The DVDs, while excellent sets, utilize the international masters. As a result, the U.S. Acres segments and quickies go by their international rename, "Orson's Farm," and two Screaming With Binky segments are missing. Additionally, instead of using the less popular rap-styled theme song, Season 7 uses the more universally liked "Ready to Party" theme song which was originally used from Season 3-6.

While some fans may be satisfied with what we got, I believe that these episodes were made exactly how we were meant to see them, and thus I started this project in September 2013 to recreate the episodes as they were originally produced. Over the past year, I have obtained over 90 original U.S. Acres title cards and more than 15 U.S. Acres quickies thanks to my own personal recordings, eBay hauls, and the generous donations of traders. It is my hope that through this project, Garfield and Friends will once again see the light of day in its originally intended format.



Until then, I'll continue my efforts and keep track of them here.

(Images in this post are courtesy of Peter Paltridge, aka Platypus Comix)