Odie is the tritagonist in the Garfield franchise. Odie is also one of the main characters from the Garfield comic strips. Unlike most animal characters, he does not talk and only communicates in barks. He along with Garfield are the pets of Jon Arbuckle.
Appearance
Odie is a beagle with very large brown ears and eyes, yellowish fur with black spots. Just like Garfield, Odie older appearance was more realistic in terms of anatomy, looking like a real-life beagle than he is now. However, his neck is overly long for his breed. He is always seen with his tongue out which is elastic and very long.
Personality and traits
Odie is portrayed as a dumb dog but he is lovable and he considers Garfield as his best friend, even though Garfield's dislike for dogs. He is pretty oblivious to Garfield's abuse such as kicking him and the cat calling him a moron. However, he will strike back once he is fed up with Garfield's antics. This is clearly seen in Garfield and Friends. Another example of this was a comic striped dated back on July 30, 1989. In the strip, Garfield is stuck in a tree branch and asks Odie for help. However, little does the cat knows that the dog tosses him a bowling ball, causing him to fall. While is seen as a dumb dog in the spotlight, there are instances where Odie shows signs of intelligence and is underestimated.
History
The name came from a car dealership commercial written by Jim Davis, which featured Odie the Village Idiot. Davis liked the name Odie and decided to use it again. When Garfield was first submitted, Davis called Odie "Spot". He then visited cartoonist Mort Walker to show him his strips, and Walker told Davis "I had a dog named Spot". When Davis asked "Really?", Walker replied "Yes, in Boner's Ark, one of my comic strips". Davis changed Spot's name to Odie.
Odie first appeared in the strip on August 8, 1978; the date is considered his birthday. He was originally a pet to Jon Arbuckle's friend and roommate, Lyman, but Lyman disappeared from the series after about five years with no explanation, after which ownership of Odie transferred to Jon instead. However there was a four part episode from The Garfield Show which explained what happened to Lyman and how they found him.
Like Garfield, Odie used to be presented as a quadrupedal but now stands mostly bipedal.
Behind the scenes
- Odie was going to be named Spot until Jim Davis found out this name was being used for another character. This was shown in the original Jon comics and referenced in the August 15th 1978 strip, when Lyman swats Odie for what he "did on the floor". Garfield looks on in amusement and says "They should have named him Spot".
- In his earliest appearances, Odie had black ears. They were recolored to brown on September 27, 1979, supposedly to avoid confusion with Snoopy from Peanuts ("Hint: The pooch works for 'peanuts', but doesn't work cheap").
- In animated media, Odie's appearance is usually announced by the sound of the cavalry's bugling.
- Despite being established as a primary character, Odie has been absent for as long as months in the comic strip. Jim Davis admitted in 30 Years of Laughs and Lasagna that Odie is very hard to write for because he has no dialogue and has less personality compared to Garfield or Jon.
- He once had dialogue on June 15, 1980.
- Odie is the only character to have had the same voice actor in animated form since 1982.
- Odie has 1705 appearances in the comics as of the 31st of December 2016, the 3rd most.
- From 1978 to late 1981, Odie had three toes on each paw, which was soon revised to two toes. Some strips show him with four toes.
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