I'm sure you all have been enjoying reliving Saturday mornings of 1988/89 with the new DVD release of Garfield and Friends, which includes the original opening theme song and end credits, as well as some of the shorts that were hacked out when the show went into syndication on ABC Family. If you were really astute and were watching Saturday morning cartoons in the United States in 1988, you might have noticed something odd about the second 6-1/2 minute cartoon and short of each half-hour, specifically that they are not US Acres cartoons. Sure, they are the same cartoons we saw in 1988 under the title US Acres, but the title cards have them named Orson's Farm.
Fortunately, ME wrote most of the G&F cartoons, (and in later seasons to be covered in future G&F DVDs, was a producer). Over at this News From ME entry, he explains the title change (short version: that was how the shows were released outside the US). I'm not just plugging that link because the "question a number of folks have sent me" is verbatim from an email I personally sent him. Sure, that's part of the reason, but it is also an interesting examination of how American cartoons took care to avoid being labeled as American cartoons in overseas release.
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