My personal favorite is one that used to hang in the Veterinary Science office at UK. (Maybe it’s still there. It is in the Equine Research Center, after all.) It shows an earnest veterinary student studying, and the caption says something about how equine medicine was the easiest part of vet school. The textbook is a table of illnesses and treatments. The illnesses range from broken legs to the sniffles, and the treatments are all “Shoot.”
The boogey man is at the door - giant, hunch-backed, scar running dow the back of his neck.
At the window, a boy and a girl are staring out at him in surprised horror.
The mother, answering the door, is saying, “Why yes - we do have two children here who won’t eat their vegetables.”
Regards,
Shodan
Another “alien” one: Creatures looking like disembodied arms - with hand-shaped heads - are coming down the steps of their spaceship, and one of them is being jerked around violently by a harmless-looking guy.
Caption (paraphrased): He was just trying to be polite…
Sergio Aragones once did “A MAD Look At Aliens.” Some of the ones I remember:[ul][li]A couple of kids find a frisbee in the grass and have fun playing with it. They drop it in the grass and leave, following which a couple of small aliens with a severe case of motion sickness come out dizzy and gagging.[/li][li]A small spaceship lands in a field and gets kicked around by an enraged bull, so the aliens leave in a huff and vaporize the planet.[/li]An alien spaceship copilot is laughed at by his colleagues for claiming that he saw an “unidentified flying object” - an airplane.[/ul]
View of an urban street corner – the reader is looking straight at the corner-edge of a building and can see both sides of it. Coming down one sidewalk, a Larson nerd is roller-skating towards the intersection while listening to a Walkman, all in a very carefree manner. Coming down the other sidewalk are Tarzan and a herd of charging elephants. Caption: “Brian has a rendezvous with destiny.”
Flying saucer has just crashed into the Statue of Liberty’s torch. One ET says to the other, “Is this close enough for you, Znarg?”
Herd of cows grazing in a pasture. One suddenly stops and says, “Hey, wait a minute! This stuff is grass! We’ve been eating grass!”
Jurassic scene. In the background, a time machine. In the foreground, a scientist is coming up on a brontosaurus from behind carrying what appears to be a giant thermometer. Caption: “A few minutes later both Professor Gordon and his time machine were destroyed, leaving the warm-blooded/cold-blooded dinosaur debate unresolved.”
Two crocodiles reclining on a riverbank, next to what appear to be a caveman’s club and a hide-garment with a recognizable pattern. One says, “I’ve heard a lot of funny noises out of those things, but that’s the first one who ever went, ‘Yabba dabba doo!’”
An earlier poster mentioned Kliban as a possible influence on Larson. (Kliban toon: Scene in the formal gardens of the palace at Versaille. Two ladies in elegant eighteenth-century dress are walking down a vast sweeping staircase; a walrus peeks out from behind a balustrade. One lady says to the other, “Did you ever have the feeling you were about to be raped by a walrus?”)
But Gahan Wilson did it before either of them, and better!
Typical Wilson cartoon: Living room, old lady and two workers staring at the fireplace, in which is a skeletal corpse with a long white beard wearing a Santa suit. Caption: “Well, Mrs. Harris, we found out what’s been blocking your chimney since last December.”
Ice cream parlor. Man at the counter is holding up his hands with a big wierd smile on his face. Lady behind the counter, holding an ice-cream scoop, says, “In your bare hands as usual, Mr. McReady?”
Psychiatrist’s office. Patient is lying on couch; psychiatrist is in chair, beckoning over his shoulder with a crooked finger; two grinning men in trench coats, carrying wavy daggers, are tiptoeing in through the door. Caption: “And when did you first become aware of this imagined ‘plot to get you,’ Mr. Thompson?”
Outdoor scene. Rainbow ends at a big pot of gold. Hiker is coming over the horizon, following the rainbow with an eager look. Next to the pot are two leprechauns and a huge pile of human skulls and bones. One leprechaun says to the other, “Here comes another one!”
As for Mad, the things that stuck with me the longest were the parody song lyrics. E.g.,
You’re a fat old hag, you’re an unsightly bag,
Though you’re still my true love, Emmy Lou!
You’re the emblem of the land I love!
Your complexion is red, white and blue!
Overweight and big in your ill-fitting wig,
Though forever in peace may it wag!
But should auld acquaintance be forgot,
I’ll escape from that fat old hag!
One of my favorite caption-less:
In the distance is a herd of some sort on antelope-like creature. There’s a leopard sitting on a rock lacing up running shoes and staring at them.
Here’s my personal favorite:
Mom is holding the hand of her child, and they’re in a big crowd of people. Boy reaches out for this floating head.
“Don’t touch it honey, it’s just a face in the crowd!”
My all time favorite Far Side I saw on one of those tear-away daily calendars. An accompanying quote to the right of the panel said:
1930 - When Pluto was discovered by Lowell Observatory, Arizona, the Chief Astronomer was asked however did they spot such a dim, distant object. “We squinted”, he said.
The caption of the panel: “In God’s den.”
The drawing: The corner of a living room with a cuckoo clock on the wall. The door of the clock is open, but instead of a cuckoo bird springing out of it, there is a little Earth.
I think that single one pretty much sums up what The Far Side is all about.
Three of my favorites:
-
A gathering of vultures standing around a roadkill on the road and one vulture tells the rest of them with a deadpan demeanor, “Looks like there’s not enough to go around; good thing I brought a box of ‘Hamster Helper’”.
-
In a men’s bathroom with all of the stall doors closed, you see the feet of two guys in adjacent stalls, but one of them is wrapped in gauze and the other is pulling on a strip of that gauze to use for his wipe, and the caption reads, “It was an innocent mistake, but nevertheless, a moment later Maurice found himself receiving the full brunt of the mummy’s wrath.”
(My name is Maurice btw…) -
MY FAVORITE! (Right there with “Kat Fud”): A woman walks in through the front door with her mouth agape because on the floor was explosives, caps and a plunger with a wire running up to the bird cage, which is completely blown apart and feathers (sans bird) are scattered everywhere on the floor. Also she sees her cat rolled up in a ball laying on the couch and just staring off in the distance with a little “thought bubble” (what else would you call it?) that read “I know nothing.”
My favourite remains the dog hiding behind the mashing machine, CAT FUD ------> written all over to entice the cat into the dryer. Mrs. RickJay and I still call it “Cat Fud” when we have to put it on the grocery list.
Let’s see…
Scene: 2 cowboys stand at the doorway of a bar. One of them is wearing an incredibly frilly hat, with a swan and everything, and he says (paraphrased): “Now, I can’t go in there! One of them is wearing my hat.” And sure enough, playing cards, is a tough looking bloke wearing the exact same ultra feminine swan hat! Ha!
Scene: A group of scientist. One scientist pounds relentlessly on the others back, while two gaze on.
Caption: “And notice, gentlemen, the faster I go, the more Simmons sounds like a motorboat”
Scene: We are looking through the scope of a hunters rifle. We see two bears, one of whom, the central target, is pointing and grinning weakly at the other, obviously trying to make him the target. Excellent!
Scene: A lighthouse, at night. Flying around the light is a superhero. The lighthouseman’s caption: “Dang it! He’s back again!”
Several cavemen are gathered round a fire, their faces contorted in pain as they use their bare hands to hold small animals in the flames for cooking. In the foreground is one caveman, a Larson nerd with blank-eye glasses, coolly smiling and roasting his rat on the end of a stick. One caveman says, “Look! Look what Zog do!”
A caveman is standing atop a boulder holding out a flint knife. On the ground around him is a group of troglodytes with whole dead animals – bear, deer – draped over their shoulders. Caption: “Yes, with the amazing new ‘knife,’ you only have to wear the skin of those dead animals!”
An elephant on crutches, one of his rear legs missing and the stump bandaged, is making a call from a telephone book that just happens to be standing there on the veldt. Caption: “What? They turned it into a WASTEbasket?!”
Tonto knocking on the half-moon door of an outhouse: “Kemosabe! The music’s starting! The music’s starting!”
Caption: “Tensions rise on the Lewis and Clark expedition.” One of the two, let’s say Lewis, is marching ahead singing out, “. . . a knapsack on my back! Valdereeee, valderaaaah, valdereeee, valderahahahahahahah . . .” The other’s thought-balloon: “This is it. I’m definitely going to kill him.”
Another fave: bottom caption reads-the Blob Family at Home. Mrs. Blob, with harlequin glasses, is looking out the front window, and seeing the formally dressed couple approaching the front door, says, “Jehovahs Witnesses! Everybody act like bean-bag chairs!”
Bingo! Our family also writes “cat fud”. I have a mug with the cartoon.
Is Gary Larsen likely to resume any time?
A museum guard, between two display cases.
He has collapsed on the floor, with his arms and legs twisted in crazy pretzel shapes, wrapped around his head.
In the display cases are snakes.
The caption: After 20 years of calmly watching the herpetology room, Oscar suffers a cumulative case of the willies."
(and who cares if this is a zombie thread. The Far Side never dies!)
Clown looking to buy a gun: “Laugh at me, will they?”
Farmer milking cow that’s standing on its hind legs: “Man, it bugs me when they do that!”
Far Side ---- “Birds of prey know they’re cool”
MAD ----- the Fink Along With MAD record of “She Lets Me Watch Her Mom and Pop Fight” right down to the suggestion of using a .45 to open the hole if its too small for your record player. I just basically sang the whole damn thing now/here and I haven’t even thought about it in a couple years. I consider it “my American Pie”.
After 10 years, I have another favorite, discovered in the Complete Far Side. My father-in-law and I both die laughing every time we see it, but my wife and his both just look at us and shrug. So, maybe the visual is only funny to guys, I don’t know. Anyway:
It’s morning on the savannah. The scene is grassy hills. In the foreground, there is a tree. Beneath the tree, there is a monkey-like creature, clearly having just fallen out of the tree and flat onto his face. He has a very surprised and stunned expression.
The caption reads, “The Dawn of Man”.
I am seriously laughing right now just thinking about it.
An underwater scene. One fish is above the others, head down with square shapes on his tail fins.
Caption: “Simon was put in Styrofoam shoes and sent to sleep with the humans…”
No one in a decade mentioned the eye that completely filled the rearview mirror with ‘Objects may be closer than they appear.’ prominently displayed?
Some of my favorite Far Sides:
Dog Hell - Some dogs are in Hell dressed as postmen and delivering mail. The rest are carrying pooper scoopers.
An ant is standing sentry duty atop an anthill. An anteater approaches. The ant yells, “Alert! Alert! It’s the Sucking Death!”
A scientist is looking through a microscope at a slide. A small speech balloon is coming from the slide. “The Eye! The Eye!”
Popeye is on the witness stand in court. The prosecuting attorney is questioning him: “You denied committing the murder, yet your pipe was found at the crime scene. What kind of monster are you?” Popeye: “Eye yam whut eye yam!”
The scene: A trashed-up bar, with busted up furniture and glassware everywhere. The barmaid is giving a policeman her statement:
“Well, first this runty sailor pulls a can of spinach from his shirt; then this crazy music starts playing, and…well, just look at this place!”