The Far Side: 10 Strips With Punchlines That Are Easy to Miss

While many comic strips in the funny papers were geared towards a younger readership, The Far Side was a welcome reprieve for adults who enjoy comedic cartoons. That’s not to say The Far Side was inappropriate by any means, but the jokes were certainly more subtle than those in an average comic strip, and required a more mature mind to understand the punchline (or appreciate the sheer absurdity of what they were seeing).

For those who are unfamiliar, The Far Side is a series of single-panel comics created by cartoonist Gary Larson, and was published from 1979 to 1995. While Larson would come out of retirement in 2020 to continue The Far Side as a web comic, the bulk of the series ran through the ‘80s and early to mid ‘90s. With every strip, readers got a dose of surrealistic humor that poked fun at social situations, experimented with ironic absurdities, and constantly questioned the meaning of life – oftentimes from an ‘afterlife’ perspective.

From humans to anthropomorphic animals to even inanimate objects come to life, The Far Side takes full advantage of the comic strip medium to get its point across, and it does so in the funniest ways possible, even if some of those jokes are easier to miss than others. Obviously, with a catalog as extensive as that of The Far Side, there are a plethora of strips with punchlines that can fall into the ‘easy to miss’ category – here are 10 of the funniest!

10
The Far Side’s “Cow Tools” is Randomly Absurd Yet Visually Hilarious

Published 1982

This Far Side comic strip is probably the most difficult to try to find a punchline in, and that’s because there really isn’t one. The comic shows a cow with an unamused and borderline angry look on their face, standing before an array of useless tools sitting in front of them on a table. That’s it. There’s no explanation as to where those tools came from, who made them, or what they’re used for, they are just simply “Cow Tools”.

Are they tools made by a cow, and since cows can’t make tools, they’re made incorrectly? Are they tools made for a cow to use, and the cow is unamused by the fact that they’re useless? Honestly, anyone’s guess for this strip is as good as any other, making the punchline incredibly easy to miss – since it doesn’t seem like there is one. However, what’s unmistakable about “Cow Tools” is how absurdly hilarious it is, just based on the visual alone.

9
The Far Side Takes One Obscure Saying Far Too Literally

Published 1987

The Far Side is no stranger to depictions of the afterlife, especially when it involves the eternal souls of the deceased trapped in uncomfortable or inconvenient situations forever – and this one is no exception. The poor soul in this comic finds himself in a literal ‘hog heaven’, that being a paradise specifically for pigs. The caption attributes this to a ‘celestial error’, as it seems the divine powers of the universe took one common saying a bit too literally. The phrase ‘hog heaven’ is said to convey one’s extremely satisfying state or situation.

In practice – that is, in terms of an afterlife – ‘hog heaven’ for this person should be the normal understanding of paradise without anything to do with actual pigs. However, as readers can see, that’s not how things turned out for this guy. Obviously, to understand this joke, one has to be familiar with the phrase ‘hog heaven’, which is a bit outdated in modern conversational language. So, if someone isn’t familiar with that phrase, then this joke will go over their head.

8
The Far Side Gives Anthropomorphic Utensils a Dark Yet Clever Story

Published 1987

A spoon and a knife are sitting together at a round table, playing cards and smoking cigarettes in a dingy room while a fork plays the piano behind them. The caption reveals that, while all three of them had dreams of making it out of there, only the knife found success – and the knife’s name is Mack. The visual of this strip alone is unnecessarily dark, as it forces one to empathize with the struggles of utensils as they strive to find better lives for themselves. But aside from that, this comic has a clever punchline that’s easy for fans to miss.

There’s a reason Mack the Knife became famous, as that’s the title of a popular song from the 1920s, telling the story of an infamous knife-wielding criminal. This Far Side panel is a clever reference to that song while also telling the story of one of three impoverished utensils who made a better life for themselves – a story that, based on the main characters involved, had no reason to be as dark as it was (and that’s why it’s hilarious).

7
The Far Side Merges a Light-Hearted ‘80s Comedy with a Real-World Conflict

Published 1987

The Far Side didn’t just create hilarious original scenes spawned from the creative mind of Gary Larson, it also made a number of references to and parodies of popular television series, including The Love Boat. The Love Boat is a classic comedy series from the 1980s that anyone who lived in that era will remember fondly, though Larson thought it’d be funny if the titular ship stumbled into a real-world conflict that was happening at that time in the Strait of Hormuz.

In the ‘80s, the Strait of Hormuz was a point of political tensions during the Iran-Iraq War (which spanned from 1980 to 1988). During that conflict, a number of merchant ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz fell victim to military attacks. In other words, it’s the last place the Love Boat would want to travel in the ‘80s, but unless readers are familiar with both The Love Boat and the intricacies of the Iran-Iraq War, this joke isn’t likely to land.

6
The Far Side Gives a Popular Song a Subtle Courtroom Twist

Published 1982

This comic features a man sitting on the stand in a courtroom being questioned by an attorney who’s holding a banjo as evidence for a specific crime that he’s trying to prove the man on the stand committed. The attorney exclaims that the man confessed that the banjo was, in fact, his, while pointing out that it’s odd that the man would then deny being “in the kitchen with Dinah”. This entire joke hinges on readers being familiar with the lyrics to the popular tune “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”, referencing the verse “someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah”.

Apparently, Dinah was the victim of a heinous crime, with no other evidence left at the scene besides the banjo, which would otherwise be used to play “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”. On the surface, this just seems like a random joke with little to no context, but upon applying the logic that it’s all one absurd reference to a classic song, the punchline suddenly becomes obvious – and hilarious.

5
The Far Side Features a Heartbroken Shark… & Doesn’t Explain Why

Published 1986

This Far Side comic features a shark looking in the mirror with remoras (suckerfish) on his belly, and his face makes it clear that the shark is distraught. The caption reads, “The heartbreak of remoras”, and then doesn’t elaborate any further than that. Perhaps the remoras are dead, yet still stuck to the shark’s underbelly, indicating that the shark accidentally crushed them while sleeping on his belly (since it seems as though he’s looking in the mirror for the first time that day) – though that presumed explanation isn’t any better than another one given the abstract nature of the comic.

Sharks and remoras do have a symbiotic relationship in the wild, so if this shark did accidentally kill his suckerfish, there would be reason to have remorse. However, aside from that particular line of logic, there’s no reason to assume the remoras are dead at all, which only brings one back to the beginning in terms of trying to understand the joke – making this Far Side punchline not just easy to miss, but seemingly impossible to find.

4
The Far Side Takes ‘The Butler Did It’ Trope to Absurd New Heights

Published 1983

‘The Butler Did It’ is a popular trope found in the mystery genre that lays the blame of any particular murder in a contained setting (think Agatha Christie novel) on the butler. This has been played out across a number of mediums, though it’s really found a home in comedy and parody stories that use the trope to land a joke – and The Far Side is no exception.

The comic features a room full of people – and one elephant – being hounded by a detective who is trying to solve the murder of someone who was evidently gored by a tusk, and then trampled to death. And still, even with a guilty-looking elephant sitting right there, the detective still thinks the butler did it. Even in the face of an obvious suspect, nothing can match the power of this mystery genre trope, though for those who are unfamiliar with said trope, they might initially be confused by the entire absurd situation.

3
The Far Side Calls Upon Classic Literature to Seal the Fate of 1 Character

Published 1983

Obscure and unfounded references are The Far Side’s bread and butter, but this one takes the cake as being perhaps the most delightfully random and utterly ridiculous. A grandmother takes her grandson to a pet store to buy him a fish. As the boy is looking into the tank, which is filled with black fish and just one white fish, his grandmother asks, “Okay, okay, little Ahab… Which one is it going to be?”.

Based on his line of sight and mischievous grin (not to mention the look of worry on the face of the fish-in-question), it’s pretty obvious that Ahab is going to choose the white fish – though that’s not the only reason why he’s picking that particular one. The Far Side‘s Ahab is a reference to the lead character in the novel Moby Dick, who spends his life obsessing over ‘the great white whale’. And now, this ‘Ahab’ has finally caught his. Although the reference is so outlandish, it’d be easy to miss entirely.

2
The Far Side’s In-Jokes About Giant Squids Becomes a Bit Too Obscure

Published 1984

Throughout The Far Side’s publication history, Gary Larson regularly used squids as punchlines, oftentimes depicting them as house pets for the sake of a weird gag. However, this particular panel out of context doesn’t immediately relay that in-joke within The Far Side series, and instead gives readers a confusing (and strangely terrifying) mini-story featuring a man looking for a giant squid to beat it with a stick, with the giant squid he’s looking for cowering behind a building.

When looking at this comic from the perspective that the giant squid is supposed to be this man’s pet that’s notorious for escaping the yard – akin to a dog or cat – the joke becomes a bit more clear. However, not understanding that The Far Side regularly presents giant squids as house pets makes this comic quite confusing, with its punchline very easy to miss.

1
The Far Side Depicts a Diver Facing His Horrific Death… By Scissor-Fish?

Published 1980

The Far Side is no stranger to absurdity, but this comic easily stands above the rest as being the most ridiculous. It features a diver exploring sunken treasure, wearing a diving suit with a direct line of oxygen to the surface. Above them swims a school of fish, but not just any fish, fish that are seemingly just giant scissors that have come to life, swimming through the ocean. Obviously, these scissors threaten the life of the diver, as they are about to cut their line of oxygen and leave them trapped beneath the surface without air. What’s not obvious, however, is why.

The Far Side has shown inanimate objects coming to life before, but usually in a self-contained comic where the entire world is populated by, say, sentient utensils. Therefore, it’s strange to see a human not only interacting with living scissors, but being put in a situation where their life is threatened by them.

This punchline is definitely hard to miss because, like so many other Far Side comics, it seems like there really isn’t one, just a cartoon of random nonsense. However, that’s why it’s so funny, with a humor that seems elevated to the point of pure absurdity in a way that forces one to chuckle upon seeing it. That’s why this panel of The Far Side is one of the top 10 with punchlines that are easy to miss, while still being insanely funny.