Jon Arbuckle

Jon Arbuckle was born to farm-owners Mr. and Mrs. Arbuckle. He also has a brother whom he always calls Doc Boy, much to his brother's annoyance.

When he attended high school, he was nicknamed "Carpface" by the other students. He was once college roommates with Lyman. On June 19, 1978, he adopted Garfield in a pet shop.[3]

Garfield and Jon play an odd pair who are comedic or unusual. Garfield is often, but not always, normal. Jon, meanwhile, has very awkward habits, usually related to curing his boredom, speaking random aspects of philosophy, ruining or complaining about his chances of getting a date, or complaining about unfortunate events. In most comics, Garfield will provide a punchline that is usually supposed to be the primary sentence of the comic. Jon sometimes delivers the primary sentence in strips more about Garfield performing a solo act.

Jon manages to make enough money to keep Garfield with food, which is no easy feat. Jon, as well as Garfield, frequently get bored, normally coming up with "fun" ways to cure boredom, such as buying new socks, clipping toenails, or playing "Guess the Burp" with Garfield.

Jon is an easy prank target for Garfield, either played when he is awake or asleep. A recurring gag in The Garfield Show is Jon being afraid of mice usually screaming at the sight of them. In the comic strip, he chases mice and urges Garfield to catch them.

Garfield cannot a speak, he can only talk to Odie with his mind, Odie can't talk, only being able to talk in barks and pants. Garfield is talkative but when he speaks he uses , nobody can understand him being a cat of course. Garfield is an overweight, bipedal orange tabby cat known for his laziness, sarcasm, arrogance, selfishness, and love for food, especially lasagna and other flour-based dishes. He dislikes raisins and sometimes anchovy pizza. [6] [7]

Garfield's weight is often joked about in the comic strip, particularly by an electronic scale he uses. He does not handle insults or commands from the talking scale RX-2 (or anyone else) well, usually responding with a witty comeback or a threat, even though he only communicates through thought bubbles.

Garfield lives with his nerdy and socially awkward owner Jon Arbuckle and Jon's not-so-bright pet dog Odie. Garfield enjoys mocking Jon and Odie for their actions. He seems to dislike Odie, often causing him physical harm or insulting him, like kicking him off tables. Despite Odie's occasional pranks and jokes about Garfield's weight and age, Odie never intentionally harms Garfield. Garfield frequently makes fun of Jon for his nerdy behavior, lack of success with women, and strange fashion sense.

Despite his selfishness and laziness, Garfield loves both Odie and Jon, as well as his teddy bear Pooky, who is often seen in his arms or nearby.

Garfield does not like Nermal, who often claims to be cuter than Garfield. He also dislikes how Jon gives Nermal more attention during his visits.

Jon is a tall and skinny adult man with light skin and curly, messy brown hair with a black mullet. While he wears shirts of different colors, he is most frequently seen in his signature powder blue polo top. He also wears dark blue pants (in older appearances, he wore black pants) and brown shoes. In Garfield and Friends, he often wore brown pants with a darker blue shirt.

In the November 22, 1985 comic strip, RX-2 states that Jon weighs 175 pounds and is 6 feet tall.

He is often seen wearing suits when he goes on dates. The suits are often composed of clothing items with patterns such as polka dots, plaid, and stripes, and usually have bright, clashing colors.

In the May 18, 1992 comic strip, it is revealed that Jon owns contact lenses, but it is unclear how often he wears them or why he needs them. In the April 29, 2017 comic strip, Jon's eyes are shown to be green.

Over the years, Jon Arbuckle has been portrayed as a nerdy, clumsy, and very pathetic man.

Prior to 2006 (when Jon and Liz finally became a couple), Jon constantly struck out when trying to get dates with women. This has been partly due to ridiculous pick-up lines, lack of social skills, and his entire wardrobe of incredibly ugly, flashy outfits. On Friday nights, when unable to get a date, he would invite Garfield to partake in his ridiculous Friday night "festivities" like "Connect the Freckles". Other times, he would merely stare at his phone, desperately waiting in vain for a woman to call him.

Even after forming a relationship with Liz, Jon still behaves pathetically. Under some unusual circumstances, Jon frequently embarrasses himself, and Liz, while out on dates: this often results in Jon getting permanently kicked out of the restaurant. Jon will often present Liz with a ridiculous idea of some sorts, or offer to play a tune on his accordion. Garfield will frequently turn to Liz and encourage her to "escape" while she still can. Jon does many other unintelligent activities, such as looking in an auto parts store for Liz's Christmas present.[4]

Jon is also quite incompetent, such as by forcing both shoes onto one foot out of boredom, falling down the basement stairs after mistaking the basement door for the front door, and trying to use the electric can opener during a power outage. Once, Garfield ate Jon’s new fish and placed a potato in the fishbowl. Jon fed the “fish” for two weeks after that, before finally noticing it had been replaced with a potato. In Garfield and Friends, he is often gullible, usually when faced with unscrupulous salesmen, no matter how obvious the scams may be.

Jon is also considered to have bad taste in music. Despite the genre being "dead," he still likes to dance to disco music.[5] He is also quite fond of polka and accordion music. Despite playing for years, Jon has proven himself to be a terrible accordion player. He is bad at singing, often getting his mouth forced and sealed closed by others, especially when out caroling around Christmas time.[6]

Jon has a yearly tradition wherein at the end of winter, he dresses up in a daisy costume to perform his interpretive dance titled "Dance to Spring". Sometimes, this includes a song. He often states that this performance is dedicated to "Mister Spring" or "Mister Springtime". In the March 22nd, 2015 comic strip, it is revealed that Jon also owns a bee costume in case something prevents him from finding or wearing his daisy outfit.

Jon tends to be immature at times. According to Garfield, he whines a lot, which is sometimes demonstrated. He reads pop-up books (calling them “fascinating”), wears bunny footie pajamas (even when he goes out to get the mail and/or newspaper), and owns teddy bear boxers. In numerous strips he tends to be wishy-washy and has a hard time making simple decisions, such as deciding what ice cream flavor to get. Every year at Christmas time, he and Doc Boy still enjoy being read “Binky, the Clown Who Saved Christmas” by their father.[7]

Jon has had occasional moments of brilliance, such as putting out decoy Christmas presents, taking out the kitchen light bulb, nailing Garfield into bed, spraying Garfield with a shaken soda can (which was shaken by Garfield), sawing a hole in a table and Garfield's bed to trick Garfield.

In The Garfield Show, Jon is a little more intelligent than his other incarnations, although he can still be easily duped at times. He can often be spiteful towards Garfield and Odie when he punishes them. Notably when they seem to be picking on Nermal, who is oblivious towards his true nature, when they are trying to get back at him for something that is offensive to them. While he mostly defends Nermal, it is shown that Jon also has his limits with him. In "Family Picture", Jon ended up tying Nermal (and his neighbor) with rope after the cat photobombed their picture too many times. Most of his punishments involve giving Garfield and/or Odie cat/dog food instead of food humans eat. When this happens, Jon will sometimes torment them by teasing them with his food. Jon does not seem to stop Drusilla and Minerva from playing dress up with Garfield and Odie, as he believes they enjoy it. In "Very Very Long Night", he forbids them from doing it, mainly because he was annoyed and trying to sleep.

Jon likes Writing comics, Cooking and baking, Going on dates with women (Liz exclusively since 2006), PolkaDancing and singing, Garfield, Odie, Nermal, Ordering Garfield to do chores and to not touch food he is not supposed to eat, Sudoku puzzles, Terrible costumes, Games, Calling Garfield "fat", Putting Garfield on a strict diet. Taking Garfield to the vet, Drusilla and Minerva, Liz, Wilson, Training Garfield to get rid of mice, Calling his brother Doc Boy, Disco music, Accordions, And his sock collection.

Liz is Jon's date, she works at the vet. He usually likes to talk to Liz a lot when Garfield is being tame for two seconds. In this story, you are Lyman (Jon's best friend and pre-owner of Odie.)

Jon is the proud owner of the one, the only, Garfield. Okay maybe not so proud but who cares.