Actually, IIRC, you are confusing two separate instances.
No 1) the DENNIS cartoon had mom chatting on the phone, while Dennis and friewnd ate a sandwich. Caption : We’dhave starved if I hadn’t learned to make peanut butter sandwiches.
The FAR SIDE cartoon had a snake family sit down to dinner, the kid complains “oh no, not hamsters again”
The newspaper got the captions switched. Larson comments that both strips were improved by the mistake.
No 2) The far side : A gypsy reads a caveman’s fortune: " I see your skull in a museum, admired by many visitors
Dennis’ cartoon I don’t remember. But the captions were swiched again, so that Dennis was saying those words to his father.
Larsen comments that the Dennis cartoon is improved, but thr Far side cartoon doesn’t make sense.
(this is from memory, it may not be the exact words, but I thnk conveys the general sense)
I know that’s supposed to be read as “food” but I always read it first as the acronym FUD “Fear, uncertainty, and doubt”. Amusingly enough, to me at least, “Cat FUD” still seems to work read that way.
This doesn’t seem to rank high on the popularity meter with anyone but me, but it sure as hell does tickle me.
A trench-coated elephant lurks in the darkened recesses of an apartment lobby, while the schlub enters, “Remember me, Mr. Schneider? Kenya, 1947. If you’re going to shoot at an elephant, Mr. Schneider, you’d better be prepared to finish the job.”
Greatest cartoonist ever? Probably not, I don’t think it’s really possible to pick one. Arguably the greatest cartoonist ever? Sure.
I still think Larson is the best because he reexamined everyday situations and objects and completly reimaged them.
Favorite? Two crows at home when the phone rings. One picks it up and says, “It’s for you Louis! Phone caw.”
One that cracks me up every time - The dog hanging out of the car telling his friend, “Yeah, we’re gonna go to the post office and then to the vet’s to get me tutored!”
And the line for all occasions, “Say Thag, wall of ice closer today?”
Three bears in a cave. Two little bears gaze adoringly at Papa bear as he plays with his human skull puppets, both wearing hunting caps:
“All right, one more time, then it’s off to bed. ‘Say, Bob, do you reckon there’s any bears in this cave?’”
Kid hiding in the wasp nest while the wasp detectives come to the realization that the hole in the wall of the nest was caused by a rock being thrown from inside the nest. Caption:
Artist: G. Larson; Media: Ink on Paper; Title: It Was Late and I Was Tired
Two sailors sitting in a sailor bar, one with a wooden peg for a leg, the other with a wooden peg for a head. Peg-leg points to his peg . . . leg, and speaks:
“Well, that’s a pretty good story, I guess, but lemme tell you about the time I lost this.”
No, he wasn’t the greatest ever, but he is not to be disrespected.
A dead wooly mammoth with an arrow sticking into its groin. One caveman says to the other, “Do you think we should write that spot down.”
Or the slumbering cavemen around an animal carcass, a small lizard has crawled up on the carcass and a caveman eyes it up to the caption, “the origins of dessert.”
Not sure why, but the cavemen always stick in my mind more.
“Will you go to bed now, or do I knock three times and summon the Floating Head of Death ?”; a floor below through the window you see that the wife has a balloon on a string with a scary face drawn on it.
Teacher : “And for his Show and Tell little Jimmy wants to show us something he found on the beach last summer !”; a kid is walking in with a large jar with a smooshed-up human head inside.
Before the wheel : The game of Barrow; a bunch of cavemen holding other cavemen by the legs and shoving them through the dirt face first.
A boy with a tiny head holds up his hand in class; “Mrs Smith ? Can I be excused ? My brain is full.”
A Old Western saloon, with a man flying through the window. Hitched in front are two horses, and a bear with a saddle.
A big lumpy guy in a trenchcoat and hat going into a store labeled Unnatural Foods.
An Old West sherriff to a bunch of outlaws who are fruitlessly trying to get their horses to run; “I took the liberty of removin’ your horse’s brains.”
Unless I missed it upthread, “Run Fifi, faster Fifi!”
The point of view is from in the house where the woman has nailed shut the doggy door. The dog is excitedly running up the driveway. . .tongue hanging out, seconds away from a broken neck. Sick and funny.
Or the sherif who spies some bank robbers escaping and tells his men not to worry, they’ll take the “big horse.” Tied up beside him are two ordinary horses and another horse so big its out of the frame of the picture
I also liked the one where God was shown with a big white beard stirring earth in a pot and then while sprinkling some “Jerks” from a box, he says, “And now to make it interesting.”
Or the sheriff who stops the torch-bearing lynch mob as they approach the jail: “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves! This guy’s entitled to a fair trial just as much as any of you would be.” Pause as the mob looks at its feet, ashamed. Then the sheriff picks up his keys and says, “Oh, all right. But this is the last time!”
Two Air Force guys sitting in front of control panels at NORAD. “Oh, so you’re going to touch my buttons? Well, maybe I’ll just touch some of YOUR buttons!”
Washington crossing the street.
Birds of prey know they’re cool.
A nanny reads her book in the park, and two birds sit on edge of a stroller as an adorable baby beams at them. One bird says to the other, “I’ve been stuffing worms into it all morning, and it’s STILL hungry!”
God at his computer, watching a guy walk underneath a piano suspended above the street. The Lord reaches for the SMITE button.
