U.S. Acres
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| U.S. Acres | |
|---|---|
 U.S. Acres logo featuring Orson | |
| Author(s) | Jim Davis Brett Koth |
| Website | www.garfield.com |
| Current status/schedule | Currently in reruns as a webcomic |
| Launch date | March 3, 1986 |
| End date | Original print run ended May 7, 1989. Reruns began appearing on garfield.com on August 1, 2010. |
| Alternate name(s) | Orson's Farm (outside of the United States) |
| Syndicate(s) | United Features Syndicate |
| Genre(s) | Humor |
| Preceded by | Garfield |
| Followed by | Mr. Potato Head (comic strip) |
U.S. Acres (known as Orson's Farm outside the United States) is a comic strip that originally ran from 1986 to 1989 created by Jim Davis, author of the popular comic strip Garfield. The comic was launched on March 3, 1986 in a then-unprecedented 505 newspapers by United Feature Syndicate. For most of the last year of the strip's existence Brett Koth, who had been assisting Davis on Garfield at that time, was given co-creator's credit in the strip and signed his name to the strips along with Davis. The strip was centered around a group of barnyard animals with the main character being Orson, a small pig who had been taken from his mother shortly after being born.
At the peak of the comic's popularity, there were children's books, plush animals (particularly of the characters Booker, Sheldon, and Orson), and posters of the main characters. Its animated adaptation was included in the TV show Garfield and Friends, and continued to be so for several years after the strip ended.
The final daily strip was printed on April 15, 1989, while the final Sunday, and the strip itself, appeared on May 7, 1989.
The strip was relaunched as an online webcomic on August 1, 2010. The relaunch was announced the day before in a question and answer column in USA Today.[1]
Comic strip collections
Five comic strip collections were published, by Topper Books of New York City.
- Davis, Jim (1987). U.S. Acres Goes Half Hog!. Topper Books. ISBN 0-345-34392-1. (1986-03-03 through 1986-10-04)
- Davis, Jim (1987). U.S. Acres Counts its Chickens. Topper Books. ISBN 0-345-34881-8. (1986-10-05 through (1987-05-09)
- Davis, Jim (1988). U.S. Acres Rules the Roost. Topper Books. ISBN 0-88687-341-X. (1987-05-10 through 1987-12-13)
- Davis, Jim (1989). U.S. Acres Runs Amuck. Topper Books. ISBN 0-88687-437-8. (1987-12-14 through 1988-07-17)
- Davis, Jim (1989). U.S. Acres Hams it Up. Topper Books. ISBN 0-88687-469-6. (1988-07-18 through 1989-02-18)
Also, at least six comic strip collections were published by Berkley Books of New York City. However, some of these books are missing months of the strip and / or have strips out of order.
- Davis, Jim (1989). U.S. Acres: I Wasn't Hatched Yesterday. Berkley Books.
- Davis, Jim (1989). U.S. Acres: It's a Pig's Life. Berkley Books. ISBN 0-425-11833-9. (1986-05-24 through 1987-08-16)
- Davis, Jim (1989). U.S. Acres: Hold that Duck!. Berkley Books. ISBN 0-425-11877-0. (1986-08-18 through 1986-11-03)
- Davis, Jim (1990). U.S. Acres: Rise and Shine!. Berkley Books.
- Davis, Jim (1990). U.S. Acres: Try Counting Sheep. Berkley Books.
- Davis, Jim (1990). U.S. Acres: Take This Rooster, Please!. Berkley Books. ISBN 0-425-12007-4. (1987-04-14 through 1987-05-09, 1987-12-14 through 1988-02-08)
It should be noted that the final two months of U.S. Acres were not published as part of an American collection. The last U.S. Acres collection was published in England as a mass-market paperback, titled Orson's Farm Cuts the Corn. The collection, which has since gone out of print along with the rest of the U.S. Acres books, contains fifty-nine of the final sixty strips (one Sunday strip was not printed) and is the rarest of any U.S. Acres/Orson's Farm collection.
Children's books
- Davis, Jim. Story written by Jim Kraft, illustrated by Paws, Inc. (1988). U.S. Acres: The Great Christmas Contest. Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-05807-X.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Kraft, Jim. Illustrated by Paws, Inc. (1989). U.S. Acres: Let's Play Ball. Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-34627-X.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Kraft, Jim. Designed and Illustrated by Brett Koth, Betsy Brackett, Thomas Howard, Dwight Ferris, and Dan Hasket (1989). U.S. Acres: Sir Orson to the Rescue. Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-34765-9.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Kraft, Jim. Designed and Illustrated by Brett Koth, Betsy Brackett, Thomas Howard, Dwight Ferris, and Dan Hasket (1989). U.S. Acres: Beware! Rooster at Work. Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-34766-7.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Kraft, Jim. Designed by Brett Koth. Illustrated by Brett Koth, Dwight Ferris, and Thomas Howard. (1990). U.S. Acres: Booker Meets the Easter Bunny. ISBN 0-553-34831-0.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Kraft, Jim, designed and illustrated by Betsy Brackett, Larry Fentz, Dwight Ferris, Dan Haskett and Brett Koth. (1989). U.S. Acres: The Big Camp-Out. Bantam Books.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Wade Dives In
- Kraft, Jim, illustrated by Paws, Inc. (1989). A Most Special Easter Egg. Bantam Books.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Wade's Haunted Halloween
Characters
The primary traits of the cartoon's main characters were established during the run of the comic strip, even down to such visual gags as the head on Wade's inner tube having the same facial expression as Wade.
Primary Characters
Orson Pig
Orson Pig (voiced by Gregg Berger in the animated series): A kindhearted but often naïve bibliophile whose work ethic makes him the functional leader. His good humor being tested is one of the common gags in the cartoons. He tends to avoid conflicts. Being the runt of his litter, Orson's original owner intended to get rid of him. Orson fell from the pick-up taking him away from his birthplace and was later found by a farm girl who persuaded Orson to follow her to her father's farm. Orson sometimes becomes a costumed superhero named Power Pig, which more often than not causes his friends or adversaries to fall down laughing at him.
Roy Rooster
Roy Rooster (voiced by Thom Huge): A loud, greedy rooster who endlessly enjoys practical jokes. Except for a few instances, he is tolerated because his job (waking up everyone and 'tending' to chickens) is important, although he does his best to avoid labor whenever possible. He has a special delight in tormenting the easy target of Wade.
Wade Duck
Wade Duck (voiced by the late Howard Morris): Wade is the "cowardly craven duck" of the farm. His good nature is sometimes shadowed by his overwhelming hypochondria and phobia of everything. He constantly wears a kiddie pool inner tube (which, as a recurring joke, has a head like his on the front that always imitates his facial expression and what direction he's looking to match his own).
Booker
Booker (voiced by Frank Welker): A chick named by Orson for the pig's love of books. Booker and Sheldon were still eggs when Orson found them abandoned and decided to hatch them. Booker is extremely adventurous and (over) confident despite his size. He often chases worms, but can never seem to catch them. In the comic, he often called Orson "Mom."
Sheldon
Sheldon (voiced by Frank Welker): Booker's brother, who refused to hatch completely and appears as a walking egg with chicken feet sticking out of him. A recurring gag is to portray his shell as the perfect living space within, without ever showing it. In one episode, the shell finally hatched, only to reveal another shell underneath.
Bo Sheep
Bo Sheep (also voiced by Frank Welker): Lanolin's brother. In the comics, he was depicted as being unintelligent, but in the TV series, his personality was closer to that of a stereotypical "surfer dude." In the television show he is not particularly bright sometimes, but always cool, collected, and dependable.
Lanolin Sheep
Lanolin Sheep (voiced by Julie Payne): Usually shown as a hard worker but with a personality the polar opposite of her brother: loud and disagreeable. Her name is that of the grease produced by wool-bearing animals, particularly sheep.) In the comic strip she was much more abrasive than she was made to be in the television series and was the only one who could put Roy in his place.
Secondary characters
- Cody: A dog who took pleasure in chasing the barnyard's animals and trying to maul them. He was eventually removed from the strip towards its end without any explanation and never appeared on television. His final appearance was on September 13, 1988.
- Blue: A blue cat who was friends with Cody and kept him in line. Like Cody, she disappeared from the strip without explanation and wasn't used on television.
- Mort, Gort, & Wart (voiced by Frank Welker, Thom Huge, and Howard Morris, respectively): Orson's three larger, meaner brothers who played a much bigger role in the cartoon than they ever did in the comic strip, where they were unnamed. They stopped appearing in the strip after Orson was taken away from his mother, but began appearing as tormentors to Orson in the cartoon.
- Weasel (voiced by Gregg Berger): A television-exclusive character who often tries to kidnap the chickens so that he can eat them, but is usually stopped by Roy. The only other regularly recurring antagonist (even though he never appeared in the strip), he occasionally attempts to catch and eat Sheldon as well.
References
External links
- U.S. Acres at Garfield.com
- Incomplete list of U.S. Acres books at Michigan State University Libraries - Special Collections Division - Reading Room Index to the Comic Art Collection - "U.S.A." to "U Zemlji"
- Garfield.com Homepage