The Garfield Show episode "Neighbor Nathan" features Odie in perhaps one of his most incompetent roles. In the episode, Garfield finds a hollowed-out television and brings it home, deciding to use it as part of a prank to frighten Odie. To do this, he stages a fake news report stating the city's mayor has banned dogs and ordered for all the dogs in town to be arrested and imprisoned. Garfield's plan works flawlessly due to Odie missing, or otherwise disregarding, numerous blatantly obvious clues that it is a prank:
- The TV has been swapped out with a different one which, noticeably, has no innards.
- The news reporter, barring a fake mustache and slightly different "voice", is a dead ringer for Garfield.
- The reporter interrupts his report to speak directly to Odie, breaking whatever illusion there was.
- He informs Odie that he has dropped his bone, but he would not have been able to see either it or Odie if he were not in the same room.
- There is no context given as to why the mayor has suddenly decided to ban all dogs.
- Garfield steps out from behind the TV and drops his reporter persona in order to urge Odie to hide, without ever leaving Odie's field of vision or removing his mustache.
- The "officer" who subsequently arrives to arrest Odie is clearly also Garfield.