[QUOTE=SaharaTea]
Nothing comes close to CAT FUD though. All-time favorite.
[/QUOTE]
I now find myself unable to spell it any other way on the shopping list.
I can’t seem to find it in any of my Far Side books but I swear I remember a Far Side with a view over the shoulder of Abraham Lincoln with a speech in front of him, and written on the page you can see:
"So then the bartender says, ‘Hey wait, that’s not a duck!’
(wait for applause)
Four score and seven years ago…"
IIRC, the bony spikes on a Stegosaurus tail are now known as the “Thagomizers” after a Far Side Cartoon.
[QUOTE=Biffy the Elephant Shrew]
Two words: CAT FUD.
[/QUOTE]
Not only did you beat me to the cartoon, you beat me to the exact way I was going to word my post! 
Little Billy and Susie, who look in horror at the boogie man, who is at the door.
The mother: “Why yes - we do have two children here who won’t eat their vegetables.”
Regards,
Shodan
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
Man standing on the sidewalk, leaning against a wall in surgical scrubs as he reads a newspaper. The sign on his storefront says something like, “Bob’s Discount Brain Surgery. Ask about our daily special!”
A shipwreck victim stands warily in the surf of a tiny island as a man already there, with a ventriloquist’s dummy on his hand, talks to him.
Man: “So where you from, stranger?”
Dummy: “Don’t talk to him, man! Swim away as fast as you can!”
Man: “Heh heh heh. My little friend here is just joking.”
Dummmy: “No joke! He ate the guy who landed her last week!”
[/QUOTE]
Man: “Shut up Gus!” [the dummy] “So what’s your name friend?”
Gus: “He’s mad! Mad, I tell you!”
That, like a lot of his best stuff, works on so many levels at once.
[QUOTE=Zeldar]
Not meant as a hijack at all, but this reminds me of one where St. Peter is interviewing three guys at the gates and asks them progressively more difficult questions. It seems there may have been an ethnic tone involved. All I can remember of the third question is the punchline to the joke: “Name them.”
Did it have to do with the survivors of the Holocaust? Maybe the Supreme Court Chief Justices? In any case, the first two questions were much simpler.
[/QUOTE]
As I remember the joke, the progressively-more-difficult questions were, “What ship hit an iceberg and sank in 1912?” “How many people died?” and “Name them.”
(And a nitpick: it would be “Chief Justices of the United States.” See 28 U.S. Code 1.)
[QUOTE=plnnr]
IIRC, the bony spikes on a Stegosaurus tail are now known as the “Thagomizers” after a Far Side Cartoon.
[/QUOTE]
Yup. See post 23.
[QUOTE=Lord Ashtar]
Nitpick - It was Dennis the Menace, not Peanuts.
[/QUOTE]
And it was at dinner. The Far Side’s caveman, who was seeing a caveman gypsy psychic, was being told “Oh no – meatloaf AGAIN!”
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
As I remember the joke, the progressively-more-difficult questions were, “What ship hit an iceberg and sank in 1912?” “How many people died?” and “Name them.”
(And a nitpick: it would be “Chief Justices of the United States.” See 28 U.S. Code 1.)
[/QUOTE]
That’s it! Thanks. The Supreme Court thing was just a teaser.
Most of my favorites involve dogs.
All-time #1: No caption. Several dogs are terrorizing a mail carrier in the front yard of the house. In the front window, we see a sad-faced dog holding a violin.
Runners-up:
Two dogs looking in the window at Sofaworld. One says, “Ooh ooh! I’d get up on that big brown fuzzy one!”
CAT FUD. (“Oh please, oh please . . .”)
Dog sitting on couch next to his date, discreetly spraying “Dog Breath” in his mouth.
The setting: Hell. Angry demon is pointing to a doorway over which is painted “999.” A workman in overalls, next to his ladder and paint bucket, is studying a piece of paper: “What the – ? I musta been holding the dang work order like THIS!”
I know I’m forgetting a bunch, but those are pretty high on the list.
God is standing behind a table rolling what looks like playdough. God says something like, “Dang, these are easy.” At the bottom it says, “God makes snakes.”
The first Far Side I saw is still one of my favourites: Turbulence
Best cartoonist ever? Um, no, why would you think so?
He had some good cartoons, but the vast majority were just meh.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Not quite. That would be Gahan Wilson. He did it first and he did it better and he’s still doing it. View samples here.
[/QUOTE]
Most of those cartoons are pretty lame, dude.
My choice would be Bill Watterson, but Larson was right up there.
“He was king of the sheep.”
A great cartoonist…or the greatest cartoonist? :dubious:
Gary Larson’s Far Side was one of the best ever. Certainly in the top-5.
However, Calvin and Hobbes was much better, simply because it made you think even more. Larson was strange and, at times, incomprehensible. Watterson was simply spot on, as anyone who has raised kids knows.
I drool over being able to buy the complete Calvin and Hobbes. The complete Far Side? Only at the right price (hell, I probably have had it over the years in calendars!!) 
One of my favorite Far Side cartoons: The car with two tourists in it in a deep jungle, populated by huge insects, etc., with a caption saying, essentially, that the driver doesn’t think they are on I-95 any more…
Oh, and on a more personal level, there was “Beware of the Doug” :eek:
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
My understanding is that Larson didn’t want to keep producing after the well of inspiration dried up. He wouldn’t have been the first to do that by any means. But that being the case, I wonder why he couldn’t find a venue where he would only have to do one occasionaly? Like the New Yorker? He’s ten times as funny as Gahan Wilson.
[/QUOTE]
Larson did about a dozen cartoons for the science section of The New York Times after he officially retired. They- along with all of Larson’s other cartoons- are reprinted in The Complete Far Side, which Amazon has for about 85 bucks (cover price is 135.) Larson also had to do a couple cartoons for his final strip collection, Last Chapter and Worse, since there weren’t enough for a whole book. And he apparently draws a new cartoon each year for a licensed Christmas card.
Larson hasn’t really done much since his retirement other than the book There’s A Hair in My Dirt!- although he did give an interview to USA Today about his environmentalism (he revived the Far Side desk calendar this year, with all proceeds going to wildlife conservation.) He has no real Internet presence- other than his official website, which sells VHS copies of the TV specials he wrote and directed, and a request not to use his cartoons on the Web without permission.
As for my favorite? I’ll have to get back to you on that.
[QUOTE=mobo85]
a request not to use his cartoons on the Web without permission.
[/QUOTE]
I always thought that was very classy.
Bummer of a Birthmark, Hal.
I confess, I love the cavemen ones, but I love when I can’t figure out what is happening.
I don’t think it is possible for me to pull on a push door or push on a pull door without thinking about The Far Side.