Gary Larson The Far Side has many obsessions, from delinquent cows to creative cavemen, but somehow eggs have become one of the funniest recurring ideas in all 14 years of his comic book run. Maybe it’s because they sit at the exact crossroads of Larson’s love of animals and silly pranks, but his gemstone humor is so good that we couldn’t limit this list to just ten.
Here are the 15 funniest Far Side comics who somehow found a way to make eggs funny, from misbehaving chickens to poor Humpty Dumpty. Be sure to vote in our end-of-article poll for your favorite egg Far SideBut be warned: the choice will be more difficult than ever.
15
There goes another batch
Small reactions to major problems are the other side’s bread and butter
In this strip, Larson somehow makes a fun joke by combining eggs with a joke about the real estate market. As with many of Larson’s best jokes, the joke isn’t just something unusual happening – it’s that it already happened once and that it somehow didn’t change the behavior of the characters in question. The Far SideThe characters are often slow to catch on, but somehow these birds haven’t yet realized that they’re sitting at a full ninety-degree angle.
14
Ham and Eggs
How can a single comic panel look weird?
In a world populated by intelligent animals, some types of social faux pas are inevitable, but in this case the main character manages to insult an entire restaurant with an incredibly simple food order. The looks on the animals’ faces are pure Far Sideas Larson goes for the same stop-a-whole-room sensation that real-world mistakes often lead to.
13
Fountain of Youth
Larson’s mythical reference shows how he trusted readers’ intelligence
One of The Far SideThe strength of is how it often creates space for the reader to finish the joke for themselves. Many of Larson’s contemporaries would have felt the need to make it even clearer that the birds are being reduced to eggs by unconsciously drinking from the Fountain of Youth, but The Far Side allows your readers to take the final step themselves. The Fountain of Youth appears in several Far Side strips, showing how Larson trusts his readers’ intelligence: Not every comic expects its readers to catch a reference to Ponce de León.
12
Doris Griswold
Not every Far Side Gag is trying to laugh
In The complete other side, Gary Larson admits he knew he couldn’t always make readers laughbut he it could always make them exclaim “What…?” on the breakfast table. In this sickening strip, that’s definitely the case, as although the idea of lice giving their ‘owners’ an address is funny, the visual is definitely more gross than laugh-out-loud.
11
Cake Mix
Far Side is as obsessed with chickens as it is with eggs
In this strip, a chicken involved in baking considers using her own eggs in the recipe rather than going to the store. Next to the eggs, chickens appear The Far Sidegenerally acting like the underdogs of Larson’s world.
Although most of Larson’s chickens have to struggle with the knowledge that they will soon be eaten by humans, he also uses birds in his more bizarre comics, with the strangest of all time being a Nightmare on Elm Street parody (above) this implies that a family was tricked into eating their own dog.
10
Vikings
The Far Side uses true history to create surreal jokes
Far Side is full of comics about real-world history, but this one is among the funniest, as Larson unearths the little-known era of Viking invasions. The added detail of the egg on the candle is a genius touch, making it clear how committed these Vikings are to their annoying form of attack.
9
Egg exchange
A darker version of this joke is coming soon
In a genius, wordless comic strip, Larson presents the idea that if humans are going to steal chicken eggs, sooner or later the birds will repay us in kind. The expression on the woman’s face is perfect, showing Larson’s tendency to have his characters react to major emergencies in the most insignificant ways, while the complete lack of malice on the chicken’s face makes the strip significantly stranger (and therefore much more funny). , the implication of chickens eating the baby is not very visible. While this decision may seem like common sense, Larson hasn’t held back elsewhere.
The Far Side There are a surprising number of comics that feature children being eaten by everything from bears and crocodiles to an ant colony. The strip above, showing a baby being carried to an anthill, originally depicted an old man, with Larson revealing in Prehistory on the other side that was rejected by his editor with a two-word sentence “No thanks!” Strangely, Larson’s instinct to swap out the old man for a baby paid off, as the comic was instantly approved.
8
Scrambled
This strip was too dark to be published
This strip once again features humans and chickens switching places, but this time Larson is path more explicit with the dark implications. Although this comic has appeared in several Far Side compendiums, was not distributed in national newspapers, with Larson knowing from the beginning that this would be nothing more than his editor. In Prehistory on the other sidehe writes:
I knew scrambled babies wouldn’t fly with most of the civilized world, let alone my editor, even though I tried to make them look cute.
7
Here’s your problem
Larson loves adding goofy twists to kitchen sink drama
The Far Side Loves nothing more than adding a bizarre touch to everyday life. Here, two women sit down for what appears to be a serious and emotionally raw discussion, only for the fact that they are both chickens, resulting in a silly joke when the refrigerator is opened.
6
Humpty Dumpty
Far Side often took on characters from children’s songs
The Far Side loves any type of setup that comes with a lot of pre-existing assumptions on the part of the reader, allowing the joke to adopt a more involved narrative, drawing on details that fans already know. For this reason, Larson often parodied popular fiction and especially nursery rhymes, but even in this context, Humpty Dumpty was a favorite character to bring back again and again.
Larson picks apart each part of Humpty Dumpty’s story, from asking why the king’s men would allow the horses to try to fix him to exploring what came next for the deceased egg. However, we selected Humpty Dumpty’s hatching as the best of the bunch, answering the unasked but logical question of what put Humpty Dumpty in the first place. However, it was a difficult choice, and both the comic strip of the king’s horses and the image of the wall falling on Humpty after he survives the fall unscathed are classics. Far Side.
5
Egg fight
Far Side exposes the secret lives of chickens
In a strip that imagines never-before-seen moments inside chicken coops, hens engage in a pitched fight using their own eggs – at least until they are interrupted by the stern farmer. With subtle details, Larson draws the farmer in the pose of a frustrated father, with his hands on his hips.
4
Accident
Larson’s command of poses and expressions shines
In a complete reversal of the “egg fight” joke, the chickens in this strip react with outrage when a farmer’s careless accident erases all of their “hard work.” As always, Larson’s character’s poses are perfect, with the chickens’ clear body language and expressionless faces conveying an awkward silence.
3
Cowboy vs Chicken
One of Far Side’s most iconic comics
Larson often found the funniest version of a situation by exploring its lead-up or aftermath, and that’s definitely the case in this comic, where a cowboy and a chicken get into a shootout. Larson asks a bunch of hilarious questions – how did the chicken piss off the cowboy? Did he really throw an egg at her face from so far away? – while it creates such an immediately understandable situation, it’s hilarious that someone would ask what happened.
The icing on the cake is the sheriff ignoring the egg-faced cowboy as if he too had been killed, appealing to the crowd for some sort of explanation when a combatant is surely still capable of giving his own account.
2
This does it
Simplicity makes this track shine on the other side
Although chickens rarely succeed in the world of The Far SideThat doesn’t mean they don’t try. In this strip, it turns out that not only are the chickens vehemently opposed to the theft of their eggs, but they have also reached the point where they are willing to take lethal revenge. The chicken stating its plan so bluntly makes a funny premise even better, just as Larson doesn’t even draw the farmer’s face, emphasizing the size difference between the chickens and their intended victim.
Several of Larson’s strips feature chickens turning against humanity, with one about ‘the revolution’ (above) acting as the perfect sequel to ‘That Does It’.
1
Posted yesterday
Birds Aren’t Far Side’s Only Egg Layers
Of course, it’s not just birds that lay eggs, and this iconic Far Side strip sees a mother T-Rex return to the nest, only to find two unlucky archaeologists ransacking it. The dinosaur’s shadow is a Perfect use of Larson’s single-panel styleadding an extra dimension to what readers can ‘see’. This is probably Gary Larson’s funniest dinosaur comic, but there’s some stiff competition for that title.
Dinosaurs are one of the The Far Sidemost frequent returning themes, despite the fact that in Prehistory of the Far SideLarson admits he feels a little guilty about so often drawing them coexisting with cave people. Despite this, it was through dinosaurs that Larson received some of his most significant honors – his smoking dinosaur comic was hidden in a Simpsons episode to honor the cartoonist, while his name for the tips of a stegosaurus’s tail was adopted by archaeologists, naming this part of the body now and forever as the ‘Tagomizer’.
These are the 15 funniest Far Side comics that somehow made eggs funny – Don’t forget to vote in our poll below to let us know what you think is Gary Larson’s funniest ‘egg’ comic of all time.