The Far Side turned ten in 1990, the year which is considered to mark the start of the third and final act of Gary Larson’s career as a cartoonist. This list collects the funniest Far Side panels from the summer of that year, all of which are about to celebrate their 30th anniversaries over the next several months.
Larson’s eclectic style of humor is on full display across these cartoons, which contain appearances by cowboys, careless custodians, nerds hiding in plain sight, and sharks. There are several classic Far Side metahumor jokes, and overall, these comics give a sense of their creator firing on all cylinders.
Overall, the 1990s contained some of Gary Larson’s best work, but at times, cartoons from the latter stages of his career don’t get enough credit for pushing the boundaries of what a Far Side comic could be, something the selections here all playfully embody.
10
Gary Larson Reverses A Classic Rock Chorus With This Far Side Comic, To Predictably Hilarious Results
First Published: June 27, 1990
In this hilarious Far Side cowboy comic, Gary Larson riffs on the chorus of the classic track “Wild Horses,” originally recorded by the Flying Burrito Brothers, and subsequently made famous by the Rolling Stones. As the singer declares in the song, the eponymous animals “couldn’t drag [them] away” from their love; the same can’t be said for “Sam,” the unfortunate cowpoke in this comic.
“With nostrils flaring and manes flying, wild horses dragged Sam away,” the caption explains, accompanied by the image of a terrified-looking man being pulled through the door of a saloon by madly-grinning equine characters. It is a perfectly executed Far Side joke, almost-certain to get a laugh based on Larson’s absurd use of detail and keen eye for composition, as put on full display by this panel.
9
The Far Side’s Layered Humor Is On Full Display In This Visually Inventive Comic
First Published: July 3, 1990
“Suddenly, two bystanders stuck their heads inside the frame,” the caption of this Far Side comic explains, “and ruined one of the funniest cartoons ever,” as two goofy-looking guys are depicted “photobombing” a panel in progress. This is one of several brilliant examples of Gary Larson dabbling in metahumor from the summer of 1990, and it remains among The Far Side’s most instantly recognizable cartoons.
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The joke here is that the joke has been interrupted; that is, Larson plays with the dimensions of a Far Side cartoon in a way that stands out among his extensive body of work, by having simultaneous “action” happening in the background of the comic, where the humor is “meant” to be happening, and also the foreground, where the reader’s attention is “inadvertently” drawn by the two interlopers.
8
“The Greens”: Gary Larson Drew On His Real Life Experience For This Far Side Punchline
First Published: July 5, 1990
This classic Far Side frog joke derives its humor from Gary Larson asking what the amphibian equivalent of the blues would be; the answer, of course, is “the greens,” and Larson ingeniously depicts a toad strumming a hollow-bodied guitar, accompanied by a stand-up bass and a piano, also played by frogs, and singing “I got the greens real bad.”
What makes this Far Side panel so great is the way that it highlights Larson’s personal familiarity with intimate music venues, small smoke-filled rooms where the greatest musicians often toil in obscurity. Larson himself as a jazz guitarist, and massive music aficionado, and so he had experience on both sides of this equation, as a performer, and also an audience member, something he offered a hilariously warped take on here.
7
The Far Side Plays Matchmaker With An Unusual Couple In This Classic Barroom Gag
First Published: July 6, 1990
Another setting Gary Larson was surprisingly familiar with? Bars, which The Far Side frequently found the funny side of. In this laugh-out-loud ridiculous example, a literal rat chats up at human woman over drinks, but as they consider taking their flirtation to the next level, the rodent stresses the fact that he’s “serious when [he] says it’s just a hole in the wall.”
Larson hilariously captures a sense of self-consciousness here, the kind which can be ruinous on the dating scene. As funny as this note of relatability might be, what elevates this Far Side comic are the details; the way the woman looks down at the rat, and how the rat is smaller than the bottle of beer it is nursing on the bar in front of it. All of this adds up to an iconically outrageous Far Side punchline.
First Published: July 19, 1990
This panel is the second memorable Far Side metahumor joke that Gary Larson produced in the summer of 1990, and truthfully, it is one of the most unusual punchlines Larson ever published, in the best possible sense. Captioned “how to draw cartoons,” the panel features tongue-in-cheek advice on the process of illustration, which involves drawing characters starting with their skeletons and progressing through layers of muscle, and flesh, and then finally clothes.
Along the way, Larson delivers brilliantly absurd observations, such as:
Note that the brain is kept small, which ensures that your cartoon character will always get into zaney situations.
As smart as The Far Side’s humor actually was, it featured some notoriously dumb characters, and its creator openly lampoons that here, as Larson offers a self-aware look under the “skin” of his characters.
5
Gary Larson Knew What It Was Like Being The “Secret Nerd” At A Party, And This Far Side Joke Proves It
First Published: July 24, 1990
The Far Side featured some wild parties over the years, to the point where the cops occasionally had to break things up, such as in this memorable comic, which also pokes fun at the familiar experience of feeling like an outsider while trying to blend in with a crowd. It does this in hysterical fashion by capturing the moment “the police arrived with nerd-sniffing dogs,” which promptly make a B-line for one particular character, “to Rodney’s horror.”
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That is, the gag here is that “Rodney” has been successfully able to hide his nerdiness, mingling and engaging in small talk as if it is the most natural thing in the world, until the cops bring in their canines to blow up his spot. It is a highly silly Far Side cartoon, yet one that still manages to evoke a recognizable, relatable feeling in Gary Larson’s more socially awkward readers.
4
Gary Larson Delivered An All-Time Great Far Side “Oops” Joke With This Panel
First Published: July 26, 1990
When it comes to The Far Side’s greatest captionless cartoons, this one is certainly in the running. The joke is subtle at first, but obvious once readers “get” it; the punchline is patently absurd, yet also contains a dash of Gary Larson’s macabre sense of humor. In short, it is a certified Far Side classic.
The comic features an employee from “Bob’s Janitorial Services” doing maintenance at “Frozen Friends Cryogenic Enterprises,” who unwittingly gets tangled in a loose wire and pulls the poorly-placed plug on the freezer full of preserved bodies. Again, the details are essential here, as the reader’s attention is in turn drawn to the bodies cold storage in the background, then the context clues of the custodian’s shirt, and the name of the business on the door, before finally realizing the horrifying implications of this tragicomic “whoopsie” moment.
3
Far Side Readers Have Been Asking What The Purpose Of This Chair Is For 3 1/2 Decades
First Published: August 20, 1990
This iconic Far Side cartoon features one of Gary Larson’s most hilariously deadly contraptions, an ordinary armchair that has been converted by adding a bear-trap to the seat, spikes to the back, and a (presumably venomous) snake dangling from a thread suspended over top of it.
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Larson absurdly depicts one of his characters about to plop down in the chair, to her doom, before being saved by the chair’s owner, who advises her that it is “just not safe.” Of course, this panel will leave Far Side readers screaming for answers about why anyone would have such a dangerous device in their living room in the first place. Naturally, no answers are forthcoming, and that is a good thing, because the incredulity of the lack of a good reason is key to the humor of this Far Side panel.
2
Gary Larson Reveals What Fast Food For Sharks Looks Like; Spoilers, It Is Human
First Published: August 23, 1990
Sharks popped up frequently throughout The Far Side’s run, and this cartoon about great whites also doubles as an example of Gary Larson’s knack for turning living rooms into death traps, at least for the unfortunate scuba diver in the cartoon. “That was fast,” a shark remarks as she opens up her front door to find a uniformed delivery-shark clutching wet-suit-clad human, whose terror is evident from the way Larson illustrates his bulging eyes.
“The Diver Delivery guy is here,” the shark shouts to her razor-sharp-toothed husband, as The Far Side’s readers laugh at the diver’s doom, reveling in the surreal glory of this punchline. The blue haze of the comic’s colorization, also stands out here, giving it a distinct feel from Larson’s standard under-sea fare.
First Published: August 27, 1990
In this uproarious Far Side twist on a familiar phrase, a man sitting at his desk juggles with his left hand, blissfully unaware of the fact that the right hand is writing a note that reads, “Tonight I strike. Death to the left hand! Death! Death!”
Gary Larson had a unique ability to take figurative sayings and embody them in a literal form, in the process highlighting their inherent fault-lines of absurdity. That is, the idea of a person lacking coordination between their hands is a potent metaphor when applied to say, branches of government, or divisions of a corporation, but that coherence breaks down when it is applied to the subject of the metaphor itself, i.e. human physiology. This is just one of countless examples of how The Far Side toed the like between smart and silly humor, incorporating the best aspects of both.
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Gary Larson
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Gary Larson