Woolseyism/Newspaper Comics

In the eighties, there were two different Norwegian translations of Garfield: one in which he kept his original name, and one in which he was named Pusur. The former tried to stay close to the original text, while the latter sometimes altered the text completely, changing the content of entire storylines (a sequence where Jon and Garfield are watching a horror movie is changed to having them watch a crappy vaudeville show, complete with references to Norwegian celebrities). Sometimes the translators were even adding political commentary. Eventually, the former school of translation won out, but the name Pusur remained and became canon.
In The Pre-History of The Far Side, Gary Larsen discusses a change that was made in one of his cartoons before it was distributed to foreign markets. In the cartoon, a ship drops a microphone into the water to record whale songs, and a whale swims up to the microphone and sings "Louie Louie". In some foreign markets, the whale instead sings "Singing in the Rain". Larsen admits that Singing in the Rain was funny, and writes that the song change was probably due to Louie Louie being less well-known outside of the US.