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The Far Side had bite because it mixed relatable and outrageous humor in a way that no other newspaper cartoon could quite match. No other recurring Far Side "character" represents that better than the canine, the household dog. Gary Larson found endless ways to make dogs into perfect comedic foils for humanity over the years, leading to some of The Far Side's most memorable comics.
Readers familiar with The Far Side know Gary Larson's dogs could talk, and also drive cars, and hold guns, and plot revenge. In other words, they were capable of doing anything, as long as it was funny. And because people are so familiar with dogs, these jokes come off as even more inexplicable and hilarious. It's fair to say that, other than cows and chickens, The Far Side's dog comics likely have the highest success rate of any animal, as far as getting laughs is concerned.
The cartoons below feature perfect Far Side pooches, who represent the wide range of jokes that Larson made over the years, owing to his love for domesticated dogs. Each one is a certified classic, certain to have readers howling with laughter. And if you don't find these Far Side cartoons funny, you're probably barking up the wrong tree. (In that case, try some of Screen Rant's Garfieldor Peanuts coverage, or maybe even some Doonesbury.)
The Barking Hose; A Wordless Far Side Masterpiece
First Published: September 27, 1982
It's a perfect wordless Far Side panel. The Far Side featured some great quotes (we'll look at a few shortly) over the years, but when people think of Gary Larson's work, it's often the imagery their minds go to first. Simple jokes like this that straddle the line between dumb and smart, high art and low.
I.e., a cartoon about a dog barking into one end of a hose, and a man raking leaves who hears the bark coming out the other end and thinks, "huh, why is that hose barking at me?" Gary Larson often said not to overthink The Far Side, that there was no deeper meaning to his art; that wasn't always true, but in this case, it 100% was. This Far Side cartoon is a total quick-hit gag.
And it's a memorable one. Larson was a master of composition, able to make a single panel feel expansive. That's the case here, that's to the spatial depth, if not intellectual depth, that Gary Larson gives this Far Side cartoon by making the distance between the dog and the man crucial to the punchline.
The Driving Dog; The Far Side At Peak Cartoonish Humor
First Published: June 20, 1988
Okay, talk about great Far Side quotes. This is an all-timer. "Sure, I let him drive once in a while," a man says to the cop who has pulled him over, about the dog driving while he, the human, sits in the passenger seat. Surely that's not the problem, though, right? Because the dog is "never, never off [its] leash, even for a second," even when operating a moving vehicle.
The whole scenario is glorious cartoon absurdity. The idea of the dog driving at all, of course, but then also that leash laws would still apply. Some Far Side comics were half-baked concepts, but others were full-blown scenarios. This is the latter, the type of joke that wouldn't feel out of place in The Simpsons.
Which, by the time this Far Side comic was published, had debuted over a year earlier as a sketch on The Tracy Ullman Show. In retrospect, it was a baton passing moment. Since 1980, The Far Side had been helping to cultivate an appetite for weirder, edgier humor in American audiences, including many teenagers and young adults who were primed to become the first generation of obsessive Simpsons fan when they got their own show on Fox in 1989.
The Not-So-Great Master; Da Vinci's Dog Files A Complaint
First Published: July 4, 1990
This panel contains a little bit of a lot of different things that make The Far Side iconic. It's a joke about dogs and their owners, but it's also a joke about history, and also a joke about artists. It's also a play on words, and a reference. In the cartoon, Leonardo da Vinci's dog waits to be fed, increasingly impatiently, while da Vinci works on the Mona Lisa.
"One of the Great Masters, indeed..." the dog thinks to itself, sarcastically referencing da Vinci's future status as one of the "Great Masters" of art, in the context of him being a not-so-great master to his pup. As far as Far Side jokes go, it's brilliantly dumb. The punchline is a product of Gary Larson mixing up his interests in history, art, and culture, with his observations of the banal tropes of modern life.
That sounds highbrow, but the end result is anything but. That's the beauty of The Far Side; only Gary Larson could have created it, with his idiosyncratic set of interests and personal POV, but anyone can enjoy comics like this one. Which makes it The Far Side at its best.
"Scratch Number 42"; The Far Side Takes Guide Dog Training Too Far
First Published: August 8, 1990
Guide dogs for visually impaired individuals are subject to rigorous training. That's totally true. But Gary Larson takes it to a hilariously hyperbolic place in this Far Side cartoon, as readers get a glimpse of the inner workings of "Anderson's School For Seeing-Eye Dogs" as its current class of canines is being put through a pivotal test.
That is, "the jet engine test," in which the dogs have to avoid bringing their human (in this case, a dummy on roller skates) up a ramp and directly into a jet engine. Thankfully, not a functional one. But still, "number 24" fails the test, which disappoints the trainers at Anderson's. "He did pretty good, though, right up until the jet engine test," one remarks to another, even as they have to "scratch" him.
This is a Far Side cartoon that contains a whole world. Or, more specifically, a business. A setting that could have recurred, if Larson had wanted to tell more jokes in this vein. Then again, could he have topped this one if he did? That's one of countless unanswerable questions The Far Side leaves fans with.
"Wiener Dog Distribution"; The Far Side's Most Absurd Industry
First Published: June 4, 1991
This is another Far Side cartoon set in a dog-based business. But whereas the last entry was an over-the-top take on a real thing, this is sheer Larsonian lunacy. A "Wiener dog distribution center," where a busy workforce stuffs dachshunds into tube mailers to be distributed across the country.
Which presupposes a mail-order Wiener dog industry. One that not only exists, and operates as a legal business (as far as we can tell from this single Far Side cartoon), and also is thriving. In the foreground, a man carries three tubes with shipping labels on them, presumably to be loaded into a truck. There are five more waiting to go on a nearby table, and three employees are hurriedly stuffing more dogs into more tubes, as a factory foreman looks down at them impatiently.
It's ridiculous. It's outrageous. But by today's standards, it is also recognizably surreal, and really kind of tame. In 1991, it was still a bit more on the edgy side of pop culture. That's because The Far Side helped make humor like this more mainstream. Gary Larson's comedy might hit different in 2026, but it still hits, and jokes like this are a prime example.
Why were dogs such perfect comedic characters for Gary Larson and The Far Side? What do you think?
