Gary Larson retired in 1995, but your dad is probably still laughing at a panel about a cow using a telephone. That’s the magic of The Far Side. It’s weird. It’s slightly dark. It’s mostly obsessed with the secret lives of laboratory rats and bears who wear spectacles.
Finding the funniest far side cartoons of all time is a bit like trying to pick a favorite child, if your child was a flightless bird with a penchant for existential dread. These panels didn’t just make people chuckle in their morning coffee; they changed how we look at the natural world. Larson didn't see a forest; he saw a place where a wolf might try to lure a sheep into a "wolf trap" that’s just a cardboard box with a sign. It’s a specific kind of genius.
The Cow That Knew Too Much
There is something inherently hilarious about cows. Larson knew this better than anyone. One of the most famous panels—often cited in any list of the funniest far side cartoons of all time—features a field of cows standing on two legs, chatting away like socialites at a cocktail party. Suddenly, one yells "Car!" and they all drop to all fours, chewing grass with vacant expressions.
It’s the timing. It’s the sheer absurdity of the bovine "lookout." You can’t help but look at a pasture differently after seeing it. People actually sent Larson letters about this stuff. Sometimes they were confused. Most of the time, they were just delighted that someone else suspected cows were secretly plotting something.
The brilliance isn't just in the drawing. It's the silence. Larson rarely needed a lot of dialogue. He let the weirdness breathe.
Why Science Nerds Love Gary Larson
If you go into any biology lab at a major university, you will see a Far Side comic taped to a centrifuge. Guaranteed. Scientists are obsessed with him because he understood the mundane drudgery of the lab.
Take the "Midvale School for the Gifted" comic. A kid is pushing with all his might against a door that clearly says "PULL." It’s iconic. It’s a two-second read that stays with you for forty years. It captures that specific moment of human fallibility that strikes even the smartest people.
Then there’s the "Thagomizer." This is a rare case where art actually influenced real-world science. In a 1982 cartoon, a caveman points to the spiked tail of a Stegosaurus and calls it the "thagomizer," named after the late Thag Simmons. Paleontologists realized they didn't actually have a formal name for that part of the anatomy. So, they started using Larson's word. Ken Carpenter at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science used it in a lecture, and now it’s a legitimate anatomical term. That is the kind of legacy you can’t buy.
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The Dark Humor of the Great Outdoors
Larson’s animals weren't Disney characters. They were often ruthless. Or just incredibly stupid.
Think about the two bears in the crosshairs of a hunter’s rifle. One bear points to the other, basically saying, "Take him, not me!" It’s cynical. It’s funny. It subverts the whole "majesty of nature" trope that we’re fed in documentaries.
The "Cow Tools" Incident
We have to talk about Cow Tools. It might be the most controversial comic in the history of the medium. In 1982, Larson drew a cow standing in front of a table of weird, misshapen objects. The caption? "Cow tools."
That’s it.
People lost their minds. The newspaper offices were flooded with calls. Readers demanded to know what the tools did. Was it a political statement? Was there a hidden code? Larson later explained that he just thought cows would make really crappy tools if they tried. They’d be lumpy and useless. The lack of a "joke" was the joke. It taught a whole generation of readers that sometimes, things are just weird for the sake of being weird.
Anatomy of a Classic Far Side Panel
What makes a panel stick?
- The Eyes: Larson’s characters almost always wear these thick, heavy glasses or have tiny, dot-like eyes that convey a state of permanent shock.
- The Proportion: Everyone is a bit lumpy. The humans are rarely "attractive" in the traditional sense. They look like potatoes in beehive hairdos.
- The Perspective: He loved the "god’s eye view" or the "ant’s eye view."
There’s a great one with two spiders who have built a web at the bottom of a playground slide. One says, "If we pull this off, we’ll eat like kings!" It’s horrifying if you’re a kid, but as an adult, you appreciate the ambition of those tiny arachnids.
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The Cultural Impact of 9-to-5 Monsters
Larson also excelled at bringing monsters into the domestic sphere. God making the Earth like a chef, or the Devil in an office—it humanized the mythological.
In one of the funniest far side cartoons of all time, the Devil is showing a new arrival to his room in Hell. It’s just a guy with a banjo, and the room is full of people who hate banjo music. It’s "Hell" personalized. This resonated because it tapped into that universal feeling that other people are the worst part of any situation.
The Far Side didn't rely on pop culture references. You don't need to know who the President was in 1987 to get why a dog accidentally driving a car into a cat show is funny. This timelessness is why the books—like The PreHistory of The Far Side—still sell.
The Weird Logic of "Bummer of a Birthmark, Hal"
Two deer are standing together. One has a bright white target-shaped birthmark on his chest. His friend says, "Bummer of a birthmark, Hal."
It’s a perfect joke. It sets up a tragic reality in five words.
Larson’s work often dealt with the inevitability of fate. Whether it was a dinosaur watching a "falling star" (the meteor) or a fish jumping into a frying pan because it looked like a nice pool, the humor came from the characters being totally unaware of their impending doom.
Why we still talk about these today
In the era of memes, Larson was the original "single-pane" king. He didn't have the luxury of a setup-setup-punchline structure like Peanuts or Garfield. He had one shot. He had to hit you with the visual and the text simultaneously.
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Most modern webcomics owe everything to him. From The Oatmeal to False Knees, the DNA of Gary Larson is everywhere. He proved that you could be smart, weird, and a little bit mean, and still be the most popular guy in the Sunday paper.
Honestly, the world is a bit weirder than we like to admit. Larson just pointed it out. He reminded us that if we weren't at the top of the food chain, we’d probably be the ones getting tricked by a wolf in a sheep costume.
How to Rediscover the Magic
If you're looking to dive back into the vault, don't just look for "best of" lists online.
- Check out the official website: Larson recently came out of retirement to do some digital work, and the official Far Side site archives panels daily.
- Look for the "Galleries": The massive hardcover collections are heavy enough to kill a burglar, but they contain every single panel ever published.
- Study the "The PreHistory": It’s a book where Larson explains his process and shows the ones that were censored by editors. It’s a masterclass in comedy.
The best way to enjoy the funniest far side cartoons of all time is to read them the way they were intended: one at a time, preferably while you should be doing something more productive.
Start by looking for the "Boneless Chicken Ranch" or the "Aunt Gretchen" panel. Once you fall down the rabbit hole, you'll realize that the world isn't just a place where things happen—it's a place where a giant squid might be waiting to answer the door.
Practical Next Steps:
To truly appreciate Larson's impact, track down a copy of The PreHistory of The Far Side. It provides the necessary context on why certain "failed" cartoons actually paved the way for the surrealist humor we see in modern memes. Alternatively, visit the official Far Side website to see his new digital experiments, which use a tablet rather than a pen but retain that same biting, observational wit.