Jon Arbuckle

Jon Arbuckle (born as Jonathan Quentin Arbuckle; July 28, 1950) is a main human character from the Garfield comic strip by Jim Davis. He is presented in all branches of the Garfield franchise except a few video games. He is the secondary protagonist in the comic strip and is rarely absent. He and Garfield provide most of the dialogue on a regular basis, though he is the only one whose dialogue is in speech bubbles. He has a very large family, especially consisting of uncles and aunts. Jim Davis based much of himself onto Jon Arbuckle, such as that Jon has the same birthday as Jim Davis.

Personality
A nerdy and clumsy man, Jon is the owner of Garfield and Odie. He has been portrayed as being extremely pathetic in the world of dating and coolness, constantly striking out when trying to get dates with women. This has been partly due to his ridiculous pick-up lines (said to a woman in the grocery store: "You must be today's special, 'cause you're making me hungry!" This explained the genosha salami in his ear.) and loud flashy outfits. Jon is the primary fodder and conversation partner to Garfield and is often the victim of his jokes. In Garfield and Friends, he was frequently portrayed as being incredibly gullible when faced with unscrupulous salesmen and extraordinarily dumb in general. He was (possibly still is, due to it never being contradicted) a cartoonist, but this reference has not been seen, since the early days of the comic strip. Whatever his occupation is, Jon still manages to make enough money to keep Garfield in lasagna -- no easy feat. Often, Jon, as well as Garfield, gets bored, and comes up with "fun" ways to cure boredom, as he was speaking (such as buying new socks, clipping his toenails, or playing "Guess the Burp" with Garfield). He first appeared on June 19, 1978 in the first ever Garfield comic strip. His birthday has been revealed to be July 28 (which is the same as that of Jim Davis). On December 23, 1980, Jon tells Garfield that he is 30 years old (he makes a joke about only being 29, because he was sick a year). This would make Jon's birth date July 28, 1950, and his current age is almost 62 years old. Jon can be mean and he always forces Garfield to go on a diet. Jon cares about Garfield.

To Garfield, Jon is an easy target for pranks (stealing food, zings, practical jokes, etc.); one such instance in an 1991 strip:

Garfield: Pudding!

Jon: I made some for you Garfield! There was no need to steal mine.

Garfield: Of course there was, you idiot! (swipes the other pudding from Jon) Now I have mine and yours! Sometimes I wonder about you.

Dating
Jon has had numerous dates over the following years, like Bertha, Ellen, Kimmy, Loretta Gnish, Cindy Krovitz, Annie Axelrod, Gertie, Greta, and Bob, and Suki.

His biggest crush is Dr. Liz Wilson, Garfield and Odie's vet. Over the years, Jon had asked her out on dates numerous times. She usually turned him down but sometimes agreed, however those dates were usually disastrous, often due to Garfield insisting on accompanying them. In the live action films, Garfield: The Movie and Garfield's A Tale of Two Kitties he became Dr. Liz Wilson's boyfriend. This later became the case in the comic strip too, from July 2006 onwards.

Trivia

 * Jon had a cousin named Leonard who claimed to be kidnapped by aliens. Jon says "The aliens, of course, denied everything." to which Garfield replies, "Okay, now I'm frightened. Are you frightened?"
 * Jon also had a dog as a child named "Scraps" who chased a stick into a thresher. Garfield says that he lived up to his name.
 * Other known relatives include:
 * Great-uncle Norbert, a color-blind electrician (who had trouble with red and black wires and an interesting hairstyle).
 * Great-uncle Floyd, who drove a dynamite truck that was apparently blown up.
 * Uncle Buford, a lifelong bachelor due to the fact that he had three arms.
 * Uncle Enos, the state champion apple corer. Garfield remarks that he has six fingers, probably from an apple core.
 * Uncle Ed, a very gluttonous and rude uncle who had a bigger appetite than Garfield and was the main antagonist of the Garfield and Friends episode The Thing That Stayed Forever.
 * Aunt Edna, who is the strict wife of Uncle Ed. Edna felt sympathy for Jon being treated miserably by Uncle Ed and took him away at the end of The Thing That Stayed Forever.
 * Shannon, Jon's teenage niece who speak's "valley".
 * Kenny, another one of Jon´s nieces, who had a facelift.
 * Other relatives that little is known about include cousins Oscar, Zoroaster, Phadrig, Isaac, Norman, Henry, Emmanuel, Ambrose, Denny, and great-great-aunts Veronica and Relda, and aunts Sabrina and Daphne.
 * The most common meal that Jon is seen eating is mashed potatoes, peas, and meatloaf. Garfield almost always steals it from him because he seems to enjoy it more or as much as cat food, which is usually the only thing Jon feeds him.
 * He was played by Philip Mitchell, Thom Huge, and Breckin Meyer. He is currently voiced by Wally Wingert.
 * There is an ongoing comic strip beginning in 2008 entitled "Garfield Minus Garfield" in which Jon is the main character featured and most of the other characters have been removed. In the strip Garfield is depicted as Jon's imaginary friend who only he can see. A running gag has Jon appearing to be talking to himself or having sudden mood swings making him appear insane, or sometimes depressed and seemingly suicidal. Jim Davis is a fan of the strip and sometimes contributes to the site.
 * In "Here Comes Garfield" Jon was played by the late Sandy Kenyon.

Nicknames

 * Zit
 * Bean Brain
 * Clown
 * Carp Face
 * Geek Boy
 * Dork Boy

In other media

 * Jon was voiced by Sandy Kenyon in the first animated television special (Here Comes Garfield), and by Thom Huge in all later specials and in Garfield and Friends. Breckin Meyer portrayed Jon in the live-action films. In Garfield Gets Real, Garfield's Fun Fest and Garfield's Pet Force he was voiced by Wally Wingert. Wally also provides Jon's voice for The Garfield Show.
 * In both live-action films, Jon has a powerful right hook which he uses to knock out the main antagonist.
 * In an episode of Futurama, the forehead of a giant "Jon" balloon from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade becomes a hot air balloon to raise Fry, Leela, and Bender to the surface world.
 * Arbuckle: Garfield through Jon's eyes is a daily webcomic in which fans send a redrawing of a Garfield strip with Garfield's thought bubbles removed.
 * Similarly, Garfield Minus Garfield removes all the other characters completely and simply features Jon talking to himself. Fans connected with Jon's "loneliness and desperation" and found his "crazy antics" humorous; Jim Davis himself called Walsh's strips an "inspired thing to do" and said that "some of the strips work better than the originals".
 * An Arbuckle Thanksgiving and An Arbuckle Christmas have taken the two holiday video specials and digitally removed Garfield and Odie, leaving Jon as the lead.