10 Funniest Far Side Comics That Somehow Found the Funny Side of Broken Marriages

Summary

• Far Side
  manages to make marital strife funny (especially when it’s happening to fish, rabbits and robots.)
• Larson wanted readers to exclaim “What the?” at
  Far Side
  ‘s surreal situations.
• Sending Tarzan to marriage counseling and introducing a traitorous woman/bear affair certainly met the brief.

Gary Larson’s The Far Side loves to take everyday moments and make them bizarre, and that even goes for marital strife. While broken marriages don’t exactly sound like the perfect setting for cartoon conflict, adding aliens, robots, fish and sentient chocolate somehow makes them hilarious, especially with a dose of Gary Larson’s dark humor.

Here are the 10 funniest Far Side comics about broken marriages, from desert island debauchery to Tarzan’s marriage counseling. Make sure to vote in our end-of-article poll for your favorite of the bunch, and to see which strip other readers think deserves the number 1 spot.

10 Whose Eye Is That?

Far Side’s Alien Designs Are One of Larson’s Best Decisions

The beleagured husband returning home and spotting a telltale sign of infidelity is a well-worn trope, but Larson makes it new again by replacing an errant pair of shoes with a lingering eye stalk. Larson makes the alien/human comparison funnier by adding mundane details such as a framed photo, alarm clock, and the alien wife’s nightgown, while also stressing the bizarre situation by having an alien planetscape visible outside the window. This gag hinges on the aliens’ very specific design, tapping into one of Larson’s best decisions about his Far Side comics – constantly changing the design of his aliens.

Larson’s minimalist drawing style makes use of a lot of archetypes, with character ‘types’ like the recurring Nerdy Little Kid allowing him to quickly set the scene. However, unlike pretty much every other type of character, Larson keeps his aliens fluid, always using a different design. This decision allows The Far Side to pull off a lot of gags involving alien morphology – a landing-craft-shaped alien gets romantic with two astronauts’ ride home, giant aliens trap humans in a jar like kids torturing insects, and long-snouted, goggle-eyed aliens make for a freaky Mount Rushmore. Had Larson settled on a single, recurring design for his alien life, gags like these wouldn’t have been possible.

9 Child Support

Far Side’s Animals Have Difficult Lives, But At Least They Get to Drown Their Sorrows

In this early Far Side strip, a rabbit laments the child-support he owes his wife to an only partially sympathetic moose bartender. Rabbits usually give birth to anywhere from 1 to 12 kits at a time, and have 3 to 5 litters each year, meaning this rabbit could be on the hook for hundreds of children. The idea of animals bemoaning their lot in bars continued throughout The Far Side, though Larson quickly decided that it was funnier for an incongruous animal to complain to humans than to be at an all-animal bar.

This down on his luck rabbit is a perfect example of Larson hinging his jokes on some pre-existing knowledge of the natural world – the reader needs to know that rabbits are famous for their breeding habits to get the gag. This love of nature exists throughout The Far Side, which Larson originally intended to title Nature’s Way until his editors had their say.

8 The Greystokes

Tarzan’s Adventures Get a Less Than Happy Ending

In another gag that hinges on the reader’s pre-existing knowledging, the Greystokes – aka Tarzan and Jane – go to marriage counseling, where the Lord of the Jungle’s gorilla-like behavior is finally starting to get old. However, while they may have their issues, the Greystokes should consider themselves lucky that they’re getting counselling – Far Side‘s version of Superman and Lois Lane aren’t so lucky.

The Tarzan and Superman references are a prime example of Larson tapping iconic pop culture for joke ideas, as well as an indicator of his great instincts in doing so.

Almost all Far Side‘s pop culture jokes are still great today because of Larson’s fantastic eye for what would stand the test of time, with films like Jaws, The Sound of Music and The Godfather all inspiring Far Side jokes. Larson also loved taking pot shots at Disney, where the existence of well-known, inherently innocent characters created the perfect conditions for Far Side subversion.

7 “Bozo?”

Far Side Loves the Marriage Counseling Set-Up

This is an incredibly simple gag, drawing humor from the fact that despite the main character’s anger at being branded a “bozo,” he’s clearly the absolute definition of the term. As a family-friendly comic, Larson was limited with the insults his characters could wield, but he turned this into a strength by leaning into “bozo,” “bimbo,” “nerd” and “clown” as his go-to namecalling – words which probably carry more weight in a world so packed with literal clowns.

6 Chocolate Bar and Chocolate Bar

M&M’s Sentient Candies Confront Their Issues

M&M’s iconic “spokescandies” go back further than you may think, first appearing in black and white cartoon adverts in 1954. That’s a long time to work and live together, but Far Side helped the pair stay on track with some much-needed marriage counseling. Larson often found ways for inanimate objects to have their own problems, but it’s particularly fun seeing them exist in their own entire world, complete with chocolate bar therapists.

“M&M” stands for ‘Mars & Murrie,” taking its name from Forrest Mars Sr. and Bruce Murrie, who were responsible for creating the beloved candy.

5 Bomb Squad

Larson’s Love of Explosives Comes from a Dark Place

In this strip, marital strife promises some major consequences, as the bomb squad member defusing a missile is distracted by trouble at home. Larson often used missiles as the stakes for his jokes, with one of Far Side‘s most iconic strips showing a scientist about to accidentally set off a giant missile due to a prank.

While high explosives have always had their place in cartoon humor, Larson’s use of missiles and nuclear bombs has a real-world inspiration. Larson has talked before about how growing up during the Cold War – and especially going to school during the Cuban Missile crisis – inspired his sense of humor. Larson’s childhood was full of idealized Americana, but always with the possibility of total thermonuclear destruction lurking in the background. It’s no surprise that Far Side often features the threat of similar explosions, however the influence always goes deeper, inspiring a fun, goofy world with an undeniable dark side.

4 Robot Marriage Counseling

The Far Side Never Passes Up a Great Pun

This strip may be a simple pun, but Larson makes sure to sell it, giving the robots retro designs and goofy details like the robotic wife having lipstick on her sheet-metal mouth. In The Complete Far Side, Larson says that while he enjoys wordplay, he never worried about “wit” when creating The Far Side, but rather creating comics that were instinctually funny at first flance, giving readers an immediate belly laugh. The image of two robots sitting on a couch, discussing their marriage woes, definitely does that, while also serving Larson’s other big goal – to make readers exclaim “What the—” with every comic.

3 More Worms?

Far Side’s Marriage Woes Turn Deadly

A lot The Far Side‘s best comics are funny because of what the reader can’t see – the implied moment before or after the gag, or the plain fact that the world of the joke couldn’t possibly function beyond this one snapshot. This strip sees a fish-wife trying to off her fish-husband with a plateful of bait – a fun gag by itself – but hinges on the implication of someone far above sitting with a fishing rod and waiting for the plan to play out. The Far Side actually has a lot of jokes that combine fishing and death, since Larson’s habit of seeing the world from the animals’ perspective makes the dark meaning of a baited hook unavoidable.

2 “It’s Not What’s-His-Name, Is It?”

Even The Far Side Island Isn’t Safe from Martial Issues

This gag is a two-fer, as the woman in this strip has seemingly been able to carry out an affair without her husband noticing, while the husband himself has apparently been able to go a significant amount of time without learning the name of the only other guy on their tiny island. Larson adds extra humor by drawing What’s-His-Name as noticeably handsome, making the husband’s incredulity even funnier. Far Side is famous for its desert island gags, though sadly being marooned at sea doesn’t protect its characters from suffering everyday problems.

Larson’s tiny desert island with its single coconut tree became so iconic that even today, it’s referred to as a “Far Side island” by professional cartoonists. These gags often exemplify Larson’s sense of humor, as everyday concerns play out in bizarre conditions, mocking (but also celebrating) the fact that even in the weirdest possible circumstances, life goes on.

1 “I Should Have Known”

Larson Packs a Whole Murdery Mystery into One Image

Larson is the master of telling an entire story in a single comic panel, and that’s the case here, as a hunter finds out too late that the bear he’s been pursuing is having an affair with his wife. The signed photograph and bear costume are great touches, playing up the surreal nature of the situation, but the detail that makes this truly hilarious is the bear’s non-plussed expression. It would have been an understandable instinct to make it so the bear was ‘in on it’ and helped plan the hunter’s demise, but the way Larson draws this moment, it’s easy to assume that the woodland animal has no real idea what’s going on, and this drama is really only playing out between Margaret and her husband.

Those are our favorite Far Side strips about broken marriages, from minor issues to cold-blooded murder – be sure to vote for your favorite below, and let us know if we chose the right strip for our #1 pick.