The Far Side: Difference between revisions

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As an additional note regarding the strip's presence on [[All The Tropes]]: Due to [[All The Tropes:Copyrights |copyright law]], the vast majority of ''Far Side'' strips cannot be used for page images. Also, Mr. Larson [[All The Tropes:FAQ for Creators|has requested]] that his work not be displayed online.

 

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* [[Cow Tools]]

* [[Far Side Island]]

* [[Tethercat Principle]]

 

* [[And You Were There]]: The final newspaper strip had [[Gary Larson]] wake up in bed next to all his family and friends, who happen to resemble a lot of the strip's more popular subjects. Of course, given that this is [[The Far Side]] [[Widget Series|this probably came as a surprise to nobody]]

* [[Animated Adaptation]]: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109873/ Really]! Unsurprisingly, it was shown on [[Cartoon Network]] [[Nightmare Fuel|late night on Halloween]].

* [[Anticipatory Breath Spray]]

* [[Art Evolution]]: The art started out a bit more grotesque. Larson also had a habit of not filling in all of the backgrounds in earlier strips (like a bulls-eye patterned rug that mysteriously vanished halfway across the panel) - he admitted that he preferred to "touch up" older strips to fill in half-completed background elements when they were published in collections.

* [[Bad Humor Truck]]: One strip shows neighborhood kids hiding from a "Liver and Onions" truck, and another features the "Vaccination Van" making its rounds. Also, the failed marketing ploy "I Cuss, You Cuss, We All Cuss For Asparagus".

* [[Beach Bury]]: One strip has a kid burying his father with the following (paraphrased) caption: "Billy, the tide's coming in... Billy, unbury Daddy now... You don't want Daddy to get angry..."

* [[Black Comedy]]: Used extremely frequently.

* [[Captain Obvious]]: A cartoon depicts two Bedouin on camels in the middle of the desert, and the caption is "Hold still, Omar. Now look up. Yep, you've got something in your eye all right. [[Captain Obvious|Could be sand]]."

* [[Chekhov's Gag]]: In ''Tales From The Far Side I'', there is a 15-second "Meanwhile... back in Egypt" segment that consists of a desert marketplace full of locals who eventually stop and wave at the viewer before going about their business. Unlike the rest of the special, there's no weirdness whatsoever. But in the sequel, there's a segment with amoebas at a party that's abruptly interrupted when their "world" goes sideways. The camera cuts to a man putting down a mostly-empty water glass... then pulls back to him and his family exiting the same exact Egypt scene (sans waving) from the first special.

* [[Closer Than They Appear]]: In one cartoon, the rear-view mirror shows the angry eye of an unspecified but huge creature.

* [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch]]: Larson apologized for the "Hell's Video Store" comic after actually ''watching'' the movie ''[[Ishtar]]'', because he had not seen it at the time he did the comic and had only used it because of its reputation. He later admitted that the movie was funny.

* [[Crazy Cultural Comparison]]: In one strip, a farmer unwittingly dooms humanity when he tries to shake hands with an alien visitor whose head has an unfortunate resemblance to a human hand.

* [[Crazy Enough to Work]]: Real life example. It's almost impossible to find pirated copies of Far Side books online, partly because Garry Larson put out an [http://www.portmann.com/farside/home.html open letter] asking people not to distribute it illegally.

* [[Creator Breakdown]]: Played for laughs with at least two strips that basically went "It was late and I was tired."

** "Toby vs. [[Godzilla]]"

** [[God]] trouncing someone in a game show. The other man hadn't even scored once.

** The aftermath of a fight between a chicken and a [[Cowboy]]. The chicken was shot, but the cowboy got nothing except some egg on his face

** Had it going on on occasion, but in ''Prehistory of the Far Side'' Larson notes a couple of incidents where newspapers mixed up captions or edited the image which made no sense. A particularly funny one shows a ''[[Dennis the Menace US|Dennis the Menace]]'' comic where Dennis tells his mother that he sees her "tiny, petrified skull, labeled and resting on a shelf somewhere" (the caption coming from a ''Far Side'' with a caveman visiting a psychic. After the mix-up, the psychic was shown telling her client, "If I grow up to be as big as Dad, won't my skin be too tight?").

** Another example involving ''[[Dennis the Menace US|Dennis the Menace]]'': the ''Far Side'' panel showed a family of snakes at the dinner table with a bowl full of rodents with one saying "It's a good thing I learned to make peanut butter sandwiches or we would've starved to death by now," and the ''Dennis the Menace'' panel showed Dennis and a friend eating sandwiches and saying "Not hamsters ''again''!" Larson maintains that both were vastly improved by the error.

* [[Darkest Africa]]: Essentially presented a la Tarzan movies.

** In ''The Prehistory of the Far Side'', there was a strip that had a snake inside a baby's crib, and a gigantic bulge in the middle of the snake (presumably the baby) rendering the creature unable to exit the crib, with the snake looking rather annoyed. Immediately following, Larson says "You didn't see this. Turn the page."

** Another example from ''Prehistory of the Far Side'' was a strip of crocodiles 'Bobbing for poodles' (with that as the caption, and the inside of the bucket thankfully obscured). Larson's comment for it was along the lines of "Thank goodness I didn't go with my original caption of 'Bobbing for babies'.".

** The strip with a mother having just given birth. The doctor cuts the umbilical cord and the baby deflates and flies all over the room like a balloon. Larson mentions that he didn't even try to submit this one after he had finished it, and that he was originally going to add written sound effects before his sanity prevailed.

** One that ''did'' get published had ants carrying a (live) baby. According to Larson, he originally submitted a version where the ants were carrying an adult, but ''that'' was rejected, and the baby version was published.

** Another has a pair of spiders who built a web at the bottom of a playground slide.

* [[Dead Guy Puppet]]: In one strip, a bear entertains his cubs by making two human skulls ask each other if there are bears in the cave.

* [[Desert Skull]]: One uncaptioned cartoon shows a pair of oxen pulling a covered wagon across the desert, turning their heads as they pass a bovine skull.

* [[Directionless Driver]]: One comic had an elderly couple driving on the surface of the moon. The wife exclaims "Oh, for heaven's sake - NOW look where the Earth is! Move over and let ''me'' drive!"

* [[The Dog Was the Mastermind]]: Parodied in one strip when a cow suddenly leaps up in a courtroom and proclaims, "All right, I confess! I did it! That's right! The cow! Ha ha! And I feel great!"

* [[Don't Explain the Joke]]: The infamous "Cow Tools" cartoon.

* [[Door Dumb]]: Provides the page image.

* [[Executive Meddling]]:

** Arguably a [[Tropes Are Not Bad|positive example]]. Part of his commemorative book, "The Prehistory of the Far Side", consists of him saying how grateful he is that his editors kept him in line and prevented certain risky cartoons from making it to the newspapers. He even credits one case of this as saving his career.

** [[Tropes Are Not Good|However]], in the same book, he expresses his displeasure whenever strips were altered without telling him first.

** "Would you like inferno or non-inferno? Just kidding, it's all inferno."

** "''HEY!'' Who keeps turning down the thermostat?!?"

* [[Fluffy Cloud Heaven]]: "Wish I'd brought a magazine."

** There's even one for dogs, where, every hour on the hour, a truck made entirely of ham lumbers its way through the clouds... and the dogs can choose whether or not to join in the chase.

* [[Follow the Leader]]: Since the early 1990s, plenty of one-panel, gag-a-day strips have cropped up, including ''The Dinette Set'', ''Bizarro'', ''Close to Home'', ''Argyle Sweater'', ''Real Life Adventures'', etc. Some are pretty good in their own right; others aren't.

* [[Freudian Couch]]: Used often, sometimes with cows on them.

** Parrot mimicking, "Shut up boid! Shut up boid!" to a gangster loading a gun.

** With [[Sapient Cetaceans|dolphins]]:

'''Blackboard''': ''Kay pasa, say hab-lah ess-pan-yoll'' }}

* [[Funny Animal]]: Not to mention funny plants and funny protozoa ("Humor at its lowest form").

* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: An unintentional example; Larson once sent out a cartoon showing a dog sitting on an overturned car and howling titled, "What dogs dream of". Much to his and his editor's surprise, a ton of people thought that it looked like the dog was humping the car.

** Portrayed as [[Grandpa God|a big guy with long white hair, robes and a beard]]. [[King of All Cosmos|Has a good sense of humor]]. According to Mr. Larson, this is "the way most of us are pretty sure he looks."

** In one strip he has the Earth in a pot and is holding a jar on it that says "Jerks" and is thinking, "...and to make it interesting..."

** "I love making these things (snakes)! They're so easy!"

** Another has him thoroughly trouncing the current champion of a game show, on which Larsen noted that he was careful to make it clear that the champion had never once beaten God to the buzzer, as someone doubtlessly would have gotten upset.

* [[Hall of Mirrors]]: "But which of us is the ''real'' duck, Mr. Frischberg, and not just an illusion?"

* [[Horny Vikings]]

* [[Inventional Wisdom]]

* [[Invisible Anatomy]]: The "Down at the Eat 'n Slither" strip, with snakes sitting at a bar, eating breakfast and reading the news. Larson himself brought up the [[Fridge Logic]] in ''The Prehistory of the Far Side'':

** Satan leading a symphony conductor to a room full of hick-looking types holding banjos.

** [[Jazz]] musician [[Charlie Parker]] being forced to listen to New Age music for eternity.

** In one of the Far Side of Science strips, a physicist is led into a room full of astrologers.

* [[Kangaroo Pouch Ride]]: Hannibal's first attempt at crossing the Alps involves riding kangaroos along the narrow ledges. It is implied to not have worked very well.

** One time a bear had a "Shoot Me" sign on his back.

** Another featured a flower with a "Weed me" sign on its back.

** Night of the living dead chipmunks.

* [[Large Ham Title]]: "The Names We Give Dogs/The Names They Give Themselves" implies this.

** A chicken being served chicken soup by his wife when he has the flu. "It's nobody we know!"

** A chicken baking a cake takes a long hard look at her eggs...

** Non-food variant: a calf wearing leather. According to his parents, he's only doing it for the shock value.

** A more subtle example is one strip with a dolphin busy canning tuna in her kitchen while another in a police uniform is saying "Just a few more questions about your husband's disappearance and then you can get back to your canning."

** The "Wimpodites" and their ferocious pillow-fighting tactics. A common prey to vikings.

** A mobster, to a guy he's trying to get information from:

* [[Lightning Reveal]]: Subverted in Gary Larson's Tales from the Far Side (a one off animated adaption). The dangerous animals surrounding the dancing couple turn out to be stuffed... as does the male partner when the police drag the woman out of 'Bob's Taxidermy'.

* [[Mad Scientist]]: Lots.

* [[Medusa]]: In "Medusa Starts Her Day" featuring one of his dowdy, bespectacled women showering, wearing a shower-cap through which a snake has poked its head.

** Oh, god, the Moral Guardians. Larson faced opposition from several conservatively minded groups who just couldn't let his "unique" brand of satire slide, especially if religion or torture was involved; several newspapers were sent letters from upset readers threatening to cancel their subscriptions. Fortunately for Larson, they rarely caved.

** Interestingly, Larson himself conceded that some of these groups, such as Amnesty International, made very good points in their criticism and complaints. Also, he himself said that people's misinterpretation of the infamous "When car chasers dream" cartoon was his own fault.

* [[Mouse World]]: A setting for many cartoons, ranging from rats and goldfish all the way to amoebae living in a miniature environment not unlike human civilisation.

* [[Noble Savage]]

* [[Noodle Incident]]: [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by Larson about a particular strip:

** Also, an elephant wearing a jacket and hiding in an alley:

** And an old man who somehow managed to survive having his head removed from his body:

** Including a caveman's parrot... saying "Grunt, snort... Grunt, grunt, snort."

** The leader of a group of gangsters insists on having his mob repeat the address of their new safehouse aloud a hundred times so as to not forget. Said gangsters are hiding out in a room full of parrots.

* [[Parodic Table of the Elements]]: One comic has the caveman table, consisting only of the element "Dert" (De).

* [[Public Domain Character]]: Pretty much ''everyone'' listed on that page has shown up at least once.

** Played with in one of Larson's very early strips, with a hugely fat and rather ugly couple looking at a small snake, and the woman screaming, "Egad, it's ''hideous!''"

** Another has a boy chasing his sister around with a snake with the caption, "And for the rest of its life, the young reptile suffered deep emotional scars".

* [[Scandalgate]]: In one cartoon, a caveman impresses the rest of his tribe with his invention of fire—except the fire in question is just a wooden cutout, painted to look like flames. The caption notes that he was exiled from the tribe over "the Firegate incident".

* [[Serious Business]]: The aforementioned Jane Goodall strip drew an angry letter from the Goodall Society, upset at someone making a joke at the expense of their founder. Larson did some asking and learned that Goodall herself was amused by the strip, and things were sorted out. Larson lent the cartoon to t-shirts that supported the Goodall Society; Goodall invited Larson to visit her Chimpanzee preserve and even wrote the foreword to a collection of ''Far Side'' strips. In this forward, Goodall implied that she fired the representative who sent the initial angry letter.

* [[Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying]]

** Another quip from ''The Prehistory of the Far Side'': "There should be a special confessional where cartoonists can go and say things like 'Bless me, Father, for I have sinned -- I have drawn dinosaurs and hominids together in the same cartoon.'"

** A farmer dooms the Earth when he encounters aliens with heads that resemble human hands. In an effort to be friendly, he ''grabs their leader's head and shakes vigorously''.

* [[Stopped Clock]]: In one cartoon, police are investigating a shooting at a clock store. The place has been shot to pieces, all clocks are reading the same time as each other, and the detective is wondering "Now if only we could determine the time of death...."

* [[Talking Animal]]: Every now and then.

* [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill]]: Several, but one notable example of two ancient Chinese warriors standing upon the newly completed Great Wall; one of them boastfully states "NOW we'll see if that dog can get in here!"

* [[Time Travel]]: An occasional theme, i.e. "Disaster befalls Dr. Fitzgibbon's cleaning lady when she mistakes his Time Machine for a new dryer."

** Another one had a scientist travel back to the age of the dinosaurs and gets stuck there because his machine just ran out of gasoline.

** Or when two scientists get stranded in the past by setting their time machines to the exact same coordinates.

* [[Totem Pole Trench]]: In a strip three dogs do this to make an attempt to catch a cat they were chasing who went up a tree. The dogs disguise themselves as a woman and have the fire department get the cat down for them.

* [[Torture Technician]]: "You know, Sven, you're great at your job... You can make a guy beg for mercy in nothing flat... but I'll be darned if you don't make a really lousy cup of coffee." Every time Larson set a strip in a torture chamber, he would get letters from Amnesty International a few days later.

* [[Understatement]]: A nerd says "hot enough for you?" to a fellow prisoner in hell.

* [[Useless Spleen]]: "Having explored the heart of the jungle, the intrepid explorers now entered the spleen."

* [[Wallpaper Camouflage]]

* [[William Telling]]: Another one that got Larson in trouble, it depicted William's less fortunate son Warren, who is shown to have a ludicrously large head; the trouble came when some assumed he was making fun of hydrocephalus.

* [[Write What You Know]]: Averted, according to ''A Prehistory of The Far Side'' the only cartoon that comes from personal experience is the one where a guy knocks himself unconscious by installing an extending bar in his doorway and doing a pull-up.

* [[Wrong Parachute Gag]]: One cartoon shows a skydiver with a piano and an anchor coming out of his backpack.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Newspaper Comics]]