Okay. Maybe I’m a moron, or maybe the gag employs a colloquialism that’s before my time, but I just never got it and it’s nagged at me for years.
Two officers are interrogating some mob guy, and the one turns to the other and says, “Don’t write that down! His name ain’t Puddin’ Tame!”
Um … 
It’s from a kid’s game:
“What’s your name?”
“Puddin Tame, ask me again and I’ll tell you the same.”
The Far Side cop keeps asking the guy his name and…
Can I ask about one, as well?
Caption “The heartbreak of remoras”. A shark looking into a mirror, in which it sees two of the aforementioned parasitic fish clinging to it, although there’s nothing actually attached to the shark’s real body.
The heartbreak of psoriasis?
Since the remoras aren’t on a shark but are merely on an image they are heartbroken. “The heartbreak of remorse.”
I always thought that the remoras were there, it’s just that the angle of the cartoon meant they were only visible in the mirror!
(Larson is the first to admit he wasn’t the best artist in the world.)
A Far Side cartoon that was too subtle for me? The shame!!
The “Puddentane” or “Puddin’ Tame” rhyme is apparently attested in the Opies’ Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, but I don’t know anything about its history. Except that the version I learned went like this:
“What’s your name?” “Puddin’ tame.”
“Where do you live?” “Down the lane.”
“What’s your trade?” “Lemonade.”
Ah, so it is a gag that goes a ways before my time. Sounds like a 30s-type kids game. Now I get why I didn’t get it. 
and wtf are “cow tools”?
(just kidding)
Fox Mulder uses the line in the X-Files episode Triangle. He’s mysteriously found himself on a cruise ship in 1940, being interrogatred by suspicious Germans.
Interrogator: What is your name?
Mulder: Puddin’ Tame. Ask me again and I’ll tell you the same.
I: I said, what is your name?
M: Charlie Brown. Ask me again and I’ll knock you down.
::: Rick starts to type an anwer to WTF are cow tools.:::
::: Reads second line:::
never mind
Woah woah woah…the “heartbreak of psoriasis” answer is correct to that one. It’s a reference to an infamously over-the-top ad for medication.
What Smeghead said. I remember those commercials. Almost as much angst as ring around the collar, with a little fake pain thrown in.
The third line I learned 60 years ago was
What do you eat? Pig’s feet.
A slight hijack, but this thread reminded me of a story one of my coworkers told. At his old job, he overheard one of his coworkers complain that he “didn’t get the Far Side.” Doug decided to be helpful, so he grabbed the paper and took it to the coworker and started explaining it to him. Coworker glared at him and said, “No, I understand it, I just don’t get it because it doesn’t run in my town’s paper.”
For Puddin Tane, I’ve also heard
Although I thought “Raw Umber” made more sense, rhyme-wise.
Somebody stole that story from Cheers, in which Woody claims he doesn’t “get” a Far Side cartoon. From the (unnecessary) explanation given by another character, the specific strip is the one where cows are in a field standing on their hind legs, resuming the “normal” four-legged stance only when a lookout yells “Car!”
Then again, it’s possible Cheers just swiped it from someone else.
This is from an episode of Cheers.
Norm explains the cartoon to Woddy who then delivers the payoff. I think he caps it by saying “but thanks for making me feel like an idiot!”
It’s “whoa.”
Carry on.
–Cliffy, pedant
My local paper left the caption off that one. They had to run a correction the next day. There were angry letters to the editor.