It’s been a while since Gary Larson hung 'em up, but The Far Side continues on calendars, mugs, T-shirts etc. Seemed like folks either loved it or hated it.
So…what’s your favorite Far Side?
Mine? The elephant with the squished native on his butt while the other elephant says: “Ewww, look what you sat in.”
I’ll never forget this one because I had just been wondering what the poor guy did if he couldn’t think of anything that day…
It was a mishmash of his usual characters, sort of a messy collage of snakes, cows, weird looking people and stuff. And on the front of it he drew a sign saying “Far Side Out of Order”.
A bedraggled castaway washes up on a beach of a desert island. He looks up and sees a chicken. The chicken says something like “Ah, Dr. Farbman. We meet again. But this time, the advantage is MINE!”
Fenris
Oh my god…how do I choose just one?! The Far Side is my favorite comic ever.
I couldn’t possibly name just one, so here are a few that kill me every time:
A man who is obviously God is in the kitchen, with what appears to be Earth in a cooking pot. Assorted jars and boxes are sitting around, with labels like “Trees”, “Birds”, “Dark skinned People”, “Light skinned people”, etc. God is pouring a jar labeled “Jerks” into the pot, and is thinking to himself, “And just to make it interesting…”
hee hee hee!
Another one: An Eskimo is standing outside his igloo and his wife is poking her head out the entrance. He’s looking back at her and says, “Well, it’s cold again.”
Another: There’s a group of Native American Indians standing around and it is raining down old fashioned egg beaters. They all look very puzzled. One indian is holding a book called “101 Rain Dances” and he is saying, “Oh! Four steps to the left and then three to the right!..What kind of dance was I doing?”
Ok, last one: There’s a building and the sign on the building indicates it is a school for the gifted and talented. There’s a little kid at the door, holding his books and pushing with all his might to get the door open. There’s a little sign on the door that says “Pull”
LOL! Good topic, drollman! I could talk about The Far Side all day long!
Mine would have to be “The Four Personality Types”, because it summed up me and my college roommates perfectly.
In case you don’t recall, it was 4 different people looking at a glass of water, with 4 different reactions:
- “The glass if half full!” - Jen, The Optimist
- “The glass if half empty.” - Jadis, The Pessimist (or the realist, which I prefer.
) - “Half full!! No, wait! Half empty!” - Jackie, The Indecisive One
- “Hey, I ordered a sandwich!” - Lauren, The Flake
This was also truly funny, because I had four roommates, not three…but Vicky was The Absentee Roommate, and therefore not illustrated in the toon. 
P.S. Fenris, it’s a duck, not a chicken. (That’s why it has the advantage, because its’ natural habitat is water.)
Two bears, riding a motorcycle with sidecar around the ring in a circus. The male bear says, “Looks like a trap, I said. Nonsense, you said. Who’d put a trap way out here in the woods, you said.”
Yep, this one’s GOT to be one of my favorites!
The other: A guy standing in hell, the Devil at his back with the pitchfork. The guy is standing in front of two doors, one says “DAMNED if you do” the other “DAMNED if you don’t” The caption: “C’mon, c’mon - it’s either one or the other.” It just sums up my life so perfectly! 
he, he, he. My work mug is the “Midvale School for the Gifted” one with the kid pushing on the door that says “pull”
But, if I had to pick one…
The guy in the electric chair, all wired up, shaking like a leaf, the two guards next to the switch on the wall, one says to the other “I don’t know, the contact points must be dirty, just click it up and down again a few times”.
There it is, my guilty secret. and I’m against C/P, too. I have a sense of humor, it’s just a sick one.
I really liked the one where Satan is looking out over the tortured souls and he asks his wife, “Ethel, am I a butthead?”
My fave has a bunch of googly-eyed, tentacled aliens about to disembark from their flying saucer. The first one out has tripped and fallen flat on it’s “face” at the bottom of the stairs and one of the others says “So much for instilling them with a sense of awe.”
I’m also fond of one called something like “Little Jimmy Frankenstein and his dog,” just because the dog is so goofy.
“Pink Shadow rides again.”
The scene: a cowboy, riding, with a herd of cattle. On the bluff above his head you see a pig, rearing majestically. I almost peed my pants the first time I saw that.
My other favorite is the one with a game show. The contestants are a nebbish-looking man with O points, and God, with several thousand. The irritated look on God’s opponent’s face is hysterical.
That, and the fact that it can fly.
I don’t know that I can pick a favorite–I just tried, and a dozen sprang to mind (followed moments later by another dozen when they figured out the “Pull” sign). The first one in, though, was the elephant with the trench coat standing in the alley making an intimidating speech to the guy that had once shot him. “Kenya, 1947…” is how I think the caption started. That one brings to mind the hit-elephant being hired by the dog–“Remember, it has to look like an accident.”
The “generic tribesman” who stole the suburbanites “idol” (the TV) is another favorite.
So many cartoons to choose from, but my winner is…
Three cavemen sitting around in a circle, each with a cleched fist held in front of him. One caveman says “One, two, three. Dang, tied again.” The caption: Before Paper and Scissors.
Let’s see… it’s somewhere on my wall here…
AH!
A bunch of cowboys on a track, the gun has just been fired, the cowboys aren’t exactly running…
the title:
“The Hundred-Meter Mosey”
The “Boneless Chicken Ranch”, definitely.
Always wondered where that stuff came from…
…And then there was that one where the parents come home to the babysitter, who is evidently a witch (tall pointy hat, broom, hunchback, etc.) and the father is testily saying “We hired you to watch the kids for the night and you cooked and ate them BOTH?!?”
I also love the one in which two more parents come home to find their son in a perilous position; somehow he has lifted a grand piano to the ceiling directly over his head and is keeping it propped up by a broom. “Well Jimmy,” says the peeved father, “Let’s see you talk your way out of THIS one!”
And any of the many “cow” panels. They seemed to be particularly favorite animals of Mr. Larson’s. The best IMHO was the cows rummaging around the kitchen, one of them looking in the freezer with a horrified face. The caption reads “While farmer Bob was on vacation, the cows had the run of the house. They were having the time of their lives, until Bessie’s unwitting surprise.”
I remember 2 that made me laugh out loud:
A woman inside a house is calling frantically for her poodle out the window. The poodle is running as fast as it can for the dog door. The woman has nailed the dog door shut. HA!
The classic cow one where the cows are standing around in a field talking and one yells “CAR” and they all get down on all fours and act like cows until the car passes.
And… Can anyone explain this one to me, which I never got:
A hunter out in the woods. A deer disguised as a human hunter comes up to him and says “yeah buddy, the vacuum cleaner is hot tonite” or something. Huh?
It would seem to me that the deer is a spy and using spy lingo to communicate with the hunter.
Another good deer one is the deer with the bullseye on his gut and his friend says “Gee, bummer of a birthmark.”
Okay, since the Midvale School for the Gifted was already mentioned, I’ll add my other favorite. I’m not sure it ever was a regular strip, but it was one of his Christmas cards.
Three men in robes standing at a bar. Bartender says something to the effect of, “Oh yeah? More like the 3 wise guys!”
That kills me.