Garfield's Opening Lines

Boy, a lot's happened since I last updated this blog! People may know me as the Nickelodeon guy now, but there's still a little Garfield in me. Last night, I was thinking about Garfield's opening lines at the end of the show as a Garfield and Friends tape was digitizing, and I realized that Garfield's lines in the syndication package are inconsistent across the map and don't match up with the CBS broadcasts or international syndication. 

As I discovered in 2022, some of Garfield's "teaser" lines didn't even make it to the international package but are retained in syndication.

The folks at the Garfield Wiki have cobbled up a good list of these opening lines, but it doesn't make note of any of the inconsistencies I've spotted. So, I thought this would be a good reason to bring back the Garfield Restored blog, at least for this one post.

As I've discovered, several of Garfield's opening lines in the syndication package were borrowed from later episodes that otherwise weren't syndicated. Some were shuffled around, while others were only aired once or never syndicated at all. It's a crazy mess, but I've tried to make sense of it all in this spreadsheet below. Opening lines that were not used in international prints/DVD/9Story's restorations are written in bold text. 

I'll update it as new discoveries are made. And no, it won't take five years.

Lots of Updates, Big and Small

As promised, here's an update sure to please everyone. Blog reader Trader tipped me off about some additional missing quickies from various Season 2 and 3 episodes, so I pulled out my DVDs and went through the entire seasons to see what else was missing. The result... unless Mark Evanier's guide is missing some, a total of 15 quickies from those two seasons are missing on the DVDs!

Bolded titles indicate quickies in my collection.

14/15- Garfield: "Asleep"
16/17- None
18/19- Garfield: "Little House"
20/21- Garfield: "Wide Awake"
22/23- Garfield: "Hungry"
24/25- Garfield: "Human Relic"
26/27- Screaming With Binky: "Baseball"
28/29- Garfield: "Balloon", Screaming With Binky: "Mountains"
30/31- Garfield: "Dresser Fun"
32/33- U.S. Acres: "Too Fat", U.S. Acres "Let's Play"
34/35- Screaming with Binky: "Ballerina"
36/37- None
38/39- None
40/41- None
42/43- Garfield: "Leftovers"
44/45- None
46/47- None
48/49- None

50/51- Screaming With Binky: "Pizza"
52/53- None
54/55- None
56/57- U.S. Acres: "Bouquets"

As you can see, 2/3 of the quickies are still missing. I've got a lead on Show 14/15's "Asleep" quickie, so hopefully that'll turn up soon. Regarding the quickies I have found, I'm meaning to post videos here, but unfortunately due to time code errors in the videos, I'm limited to just pictures for the time being. I know I've kept y'all waiting on the "Baseball" Screaming With Binky short, so I've posted a couple screenshots from it for everyone.

Another quick little update on Mark Evanier's episode guide also. Going through Seasons 2 and 3, I noticed a few quickies misnamed as Garfield Quickies when they were really either Screaming With Binky or U.S. Acres Quickies. Here's the true list of every Screaming With Binky segment:

Show 24 - Diamond Cutter
Show 26 - Baseball
Show 28 - Surgeons
Show 29 - Mountains
Show 30 - Circus
Show 32 - Building
Show 34 - Ballerina
Show 36 - Golf Pro
Show 38 - Laryngitis
Show 45 - Underwater
Show 46 - Clown Convention
Show 48 - Sand
Show 49 - Ear Plugs
Show 51 - Pizza
Show 52 - Wade
Show 57 - Cartoonist

And finally, I have a big update to announce. Previously the plan was to recreate the Garfield and Friends series following the originally intended half hour blocks as listed on Mark Evanier's episode guide. However, because the actual ordering of the segments in each episode is unspecified (which would make these recreations near impossible without the studio masters), I have decided to instead recreate the hour long version of the show. That way we can still view the series as it was originally meant to be seen, missing quickies and all.

And soon, we'll go over something I've discovered about the Season 7 quickies...

My Collection

Here's the list of everything I have. Will update it as my collection expands.


CBS Airings (55/121)
Show 1
Show 3 (U.S. Acres quickie & title card only)
Show 6 (U.S. Acres quickie & title card only)
Show 12
Show 22-27
Show 34-35
Show 38 (incomplete, ends during U.S. Acres title card)
Show 40-45
Show 64
Show 68-69
Show 74-75
Show 78-79
Show 82-88
Show 90
Show 92-93
Show 95-104 (Show 98 and 103 are incomplete)
Show 106-117

Syndication Airings (50/73)

Cartoon Network (3/73)
Show 59-61 (missing quickies and credits)

Local TV (30/73)
Show 15-17
Show 19-20
Show 23
Show 27-37
Show 40-53

Nickelodeon (1/73) -- [Show 81 is listed in some papers]
Show 60

Toon Disney (31/73)
Show 1-5 (Show 1 is missing U.S. Acres title card)
Show 10
Show 15-16
Show 19-27
Show 29-36 (36 is incomplete, ends after U.S. Acres title card)
Show 75-78
Show 80
Show 82-83

The REAL Correct Episode Guide: A Work in Progress

For a while, it seemed like this was the correct episode guide. Having come from show writer Mark Evanier itself, it seems like it'd be darn near perfect right?

Unfortunately, as it turns out, recent research shows that even this episode guide has some inaccuracies. At least 3 quickies are missing from the episode guide. Because I want this project to be as complete as it possibly can, I'll need to obtain CBS airings (preferably premieres) for every episode. And thus, the project is just a smidgen more ambitious than I had planned.

Nevertheless, I'm going to finish what I started and seek the aid of collectors and traders to help me track down what I need and add corrections to Mark's episode guide as I go through the series. As for what I need, I'm working on a list of my current collection holdings and what I'm missing which should be posted shortly.