| U.S. Acres | |
|---|---|
 U.S. Acres logo featuring the strip's main character Orson | |
| Author(s) | Jim Davis Brett Koth |
| Owner | Paws, Inc. (Paramount Skydance) |
| Current status/schedule | Concluded |
| Launch date | March 3, 1986; 39 years ago |
| End date | Original print run ended May 7, 1989; 36 years ago. Reruns ran on Garfield.com from 2010 to 2020. |
| Alternate name(s) | Orson's Place(Canada) Orson's Farm(outside the U.S) |
| Syndicate(s) | United Feature Syndicate |
| Genre | Humor |
| Preceded by | Garfield(1978–present) |
U.S. Acres (known asOrson's Farm outside the United States and asOrson's Place inCanada) is an Americancomic strip that ran in newspapers from 1986 to 1989, created byJim Davis, author of the comic stripGarfield. The strip was centered on 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.
U.S. Acres was launched on March 3, 1986, in a then-unprecedented 505 newspapers byUnited Feature Syndicate.[1] Most papers only ran the Sunday strip, usually on the same page asGarfield. For most of the last year of the strip's existence, Brett Koth, who had been assisting Davis onGarfield at that time, was given co-creator's credit in the strip, and signed his name to the strips along with Davis.
At the peak of the comic's popularity, there were children's books, plush animals (particularly of the characters Orson, Roy, Wade, Booker, Sheldon, and Cody), and posters of the main characters. Shirts, mugs, mousepads, and keychains of the characters would later be available.[2][3][4] An animated adaptation was included in the TV showGarfield and Friends (1988-1994) as a spin-off segment, 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 appeared on May 7, 1989.
The strip was relaunched as an onlinewebcomic on October 1, 2010, and was announced the day before in a question and answer column inUSA Today.[5] Later, in celebration of the strip's twenty-fourth anniversary, theU.S. Acres strips prior to August 1, 1986 were released on Garfield.com.[6] On August 7, 2016, aGarfield comic strip showed theU.S. Acres gang (sans Bo and Blue) in its logo box, featuring Garfield eating a bag of chicken feed.
In August 2019, Jim Davis sold the rights toU.S. Acres toParamount Global (formerly ViacomCBS) as part of its acquisition ofPaws, Inc.[7]
The primary traits of the strip'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 himself.
Orson Pig: A good-natured yet naïve pig whose work ethic makes him the functional leader. His good humor being tested is one of the common gags in the cartoons. Originally, Orson had long eyelashes (to represent him as a young piglet); they disappeared on December 31, 1987[8] (permanently on January 3, 1988). Booker and Sheldon called him Mom (though it was inconsistent because at other times they just call him Orson). 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 moved to an unnamed farm, where he was later found by a farm girl who persuaded Orson to follow her to her father's farm. Orson's alter-ego is a costumed superhero namedPower Pig, which more often than not causes his friends or adversaries to fall down laughing at him. Orson loves books, but is very influenced by them, by sometimes doing what's in the book. Sometimes when Orson reads a book, particularly a scary one, the stuff he reads about usually appears behind him and scares the others away. While Orson has a mixed relationship with Roy in the strip, in the cartoon series he has a somewhat strong bond with him and is a lot more forgiving of his pranks.
Roy Rooster: A loud, wisecracking rooster who endlessly enjoys practical jokes with Orson and Wade being his favorite targets. With a few exceptions, he is tolerated because his job of waking up everyone and 'tending' to the chickens is important, but he does his best to avoid labor whenever possible. In thecartoon, he is far kinder, friendlier and more well-liked by the others and is often the one to defeat the series' antagonists such as Orson's brothers. In spite of his lazy nature, Roy has proven to be a very capable protector of the chickens, coolly outsmarting and defeating the predators, such as the Weasel and the Fox (both of whom try to kidnap them) with a series of practical jokes and gags. He is also serious about being a cartoon star and does whatever he can to remain in the spotlight. Even though he is a jerk and insults everyone, Roy is not a bully and doesn’t really mean any harm. He is allergic to flowers, a fact that was first established in a strip published on July 2, 1986.[9]
Booker: A chick named by Orson for his 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 small size. He often chases worms but can never seem to catch them. In the comic, he often addressed Orson as "Mom".
Sheldon: Booker's twin brother, who decided not to hatch. He becomes very philosophical and introspective over the course of the strip, and begins musing on his "Sanctum Sanctorum" (a small mound of grass). A recurring gag has him describe his shell as the perfect living space, which is never shown.
Wade Duck: The "cowardly craven duck" of the farm. His good nature is sometimes shadowed by his overwhelminghypochondria andpanphobia. He is always seen wearing a kiddie pool flotation inner tube, which (as part of a continuous running gag) has a duck head in front of it that shares the same facial expressions as Wade – even down to the direction in which he is looking. He lost his fears as part of his final appearance on April 12, 1989.[10]
Bo Sheep: A sheep who is unintelligent and perky. In the TV series, he is not usually bright but always calm, cool, collected, dependable, and a skillfulcook who speaks with aSouthern Californian dialect. A common gag in the television series involves Bo and Lanolin constantly arguing, sometimes even about the fact that they are arguing.
Lanolin Sheep: Bo's twin sister, who is usually shown as a hard worker, but with a personality the polar opposite of her brother: loud and disagreeable. She is named after thegrease produced by wool-bearing animals, such as sheep. While she is quite abrasive in the television series, especially towards Bo, in that she is nearly always arguing with him, but also towards Roy for his laziness, in the comic strip, she is much more abrasive towards everyone else in general.
Five comic strip collections were published, by Topper Books of New York City.
Also, at least six comic strip collections were published byBerkley Books of New York City. However, some of these books are missing months of the strip and / or have strips out of order.
The final two months ofU.S. Acres were not published as part of an American collection. The lastU.S. Acres collection was published in England as a mass-market paperback, titledOrson's Farm Cuts the Corn. The collection, which has since gone out of print along with the rest of theU.S. Acres books, contains fifty-nine of the final sixty strips (one Sunday strip was not printed) and is the rarest of anyU.S. Acres/Orson's Farm collection.
Wow, Steven B. If I didn't know better I'd say you were a plant. Starting on Friday we're going to start running a U.S. Acres web comic on Garfield.com.