Odie - Speaking

Speaking

Odie is the only animal character in the Garfield series without a recurring voice bubble, as he is portrayed as a "normal" house dog. However, he was shown thinking "I'm hungry" on June 15, 1980. He also has said "Hi to the people, dummy" and sang "Lady of Spain, I adore you" while Garfield was using him as a ventriloquist's dummy. He also said "I don't know, I'm kinda scared," as a "mistake" in the cartoon episode Mistakes Will Happen, and said to Garfield, "No, you're beautiful" in the episode DJ Jon. More recently, he was seen actually speaking in one of Garfield's dream sequences. As mentioned before, he sometimes thinks like Garfield. On the cartoon, he speaks minor words such as "Ta-da!", "Huh?", or, more commonly, panting "Yeah, yeah, yeah!" He has said more intelligible sentences, such as "No horsey?" on the episode Dessert in the Desert, and on the first episode he even says "Right!" while agreeing with Jon. When he talks on the show, he speaks by actually moving his mouth, although other dogs have also been shown to do so. Odie speaks in a similar manner in Garfield Gets Real and its sequels, frequently saying "My bone!" In the Reading Ring game on the Professor Garfield site, if one manages to get the June 21, 2001 strip strip while facing Dr. Stripp, having the third panel will let the player hear Odie say "Uh-huh!" after Garfield's dialogue.

In the CGI Series, The Garfield Show, Odie is usually heard barking, but occasionally audible words are spoken. These usually consist of "uh-huh" (agreement), "uh-uh" (disagreement) and mm-mm (query), although "I don't know" is clearly heard in one episode. On episode Freaky Monday, Odie was seen speaking more frequently and fluently (because it is, in fact Garfield in Odie's body) as a result of being struck by an alien ray that swapped their bodies. In the same episode Garfield (Odie) gets kidnapped and boxed in by the local mailman as Odie is in Garfield's body and the mailman hates Garfield, and Odie (Garfield) jumps into the Mailman's vehicle to rescue his body. Because the vehicle is running wild, a box fell onto the road and Odie (Garfield) thought it might be the one containing (Garfield). To his disgust, he found a small computer and said "I risked my life for a laptop?" When Jon took Odie for a run down a street, Odie (Garfield) said tiringly "I had enough sport for a lifetime!" At times it's implied that due to his lack of intelligence, Odie can't speak. This is pointed out in Garfield's Judgment Day when Garfield asks him to "speak" and barks in reply.