I love the one where an alien trips on the stairs as he descends from his spaceship, while humans look on. Another alien, looking out from the door of the ship says, “So much for instilling them with a sense of awe.”
To this very day, every time I push on a door that says pull I always proclaim to whomever I'm with, "I went to the school for the gifted". Thanks, Gary!
While there aren’t any new Gary Larson cartoons, it’s still possible to buy his books and annual page-a-day calendars online. The good news is, they never get old!
One favourite I’ve never forgotten, a beggar on the street asking passers by if they have a ‘spare armadillo?’ Walking towards him along the sidewalk is a guy with two armadillos tucked underneath his arm. He’s thinking to himself, ‘Dang, how am I gonna get past this guy’. So funny, cracks me up.
I don’t remember ever seeing that one but somehow based on how you described it, I feel like I can picture it exactly in my mind in his style and it is funny as hell
I loved me some Far Side and had all the books as a young person. The one that never failed to make me hoot and cackle was the image of two spiders who've just finished spinning a web at the bottom of a playground slide. One says to the other, "If we pull this off, we'll eat like kings."
Damn right!! My mom bought them for me. She love dthem too. 4he best!! Wnet to the dentist today: trivia:" just for fun, let's see if w ecan fit this tennis ball in there ". Recognize that ?
I love that one too. And it encompasses a "What If" mentality I like to apply to life. . . briefly thought about getting it as a tattoo. . . It parallels the Princess Bride Quote: Buttercup : We'll never survive. Westley : Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has. The good bits are the unbridled optimism these two things contain.
I liked the one where in a courtroom, a defense lawyer is asking the jury "does this look like the face of a killer?" While pointing to the classic smiley face.
Most amazing thing is that they CAN be described with a few words, and still cash in the laugh... I don't know any others that systematically can. Most times the joke is destroyed.
A reporter interviewed Gary’s mother and asked “When did you first notice his odd sense of humor?” Without skipping a beat she answered “When I woke him for his second day of kindergarten. He said “What? Again?”😂😂
I came here to mention Doris. My parents knew the Larsons (I just met them a few times) and one of the highlights of the holidays every year was getting Doris' Christmas letter. Gary got it all from his folks-both valued humor and intelligence and didn't mind laughing at themselves and their family...and humoring the occasional nosy child asking far too many questions about their decor. 😏
The first of the three complaint letters that flash by was regarding the one where the female chimp is grooming the male, finds a blond hair, and says accusingly, "Well, well...another blond hair...Conducting a little more 'research' with that Jane Goodall tramp?" The director of the Goodall Institute (at the time) threw a long-winded self-righteous fit, saying it was "inexcusable to refer to Dr. Goodall as a tramp," "obscene," etc. It's worth a read, if you pause the video! Here's the kicker: My ex-wife used to work for Jane Goodall. The director's tirade must have come before Jane Goodall had ever seen the cartoon, because she was tickled by it when she did finally see it! The original drawing of that Larson cartoon now hangs proudly in the lobby of the Goodall Institute headquarters, and has for years! BTW, I cannot accept Garfield in the same category as The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, or Peanuts. I have always thought Garfield banal and stupid, and compared to those other masterpieces, it is like margarine to butter.
Yes, I paused it to read those letters, holy cow there are some uptight people in the world, and my eyes nearly popped out when I saw that one was from the Goodall Institute, that an idiot! The joke relies *entirely* on the reader knowing who Jane Goodall is/was and her work, so to call it an 'atrocity' and an 'obscenity' is astonishing.
@@grantm6514 Yeah, and the cartoon doesn't imply that Jane Goodall is a tramp! To me, the cartoon was playing on the idea of the female's unfounded jealousy and lack of faith in her mate, like a wife accusing her husband of carry on with his secretary, when he really IS just working late! Some people just go out of their way to be offended.
Gary wrote about the controversy in a book I read. After the controversy, the Goodall institute asked Gary for permission to use the cartoon as part of a fundraiser.
My favorite is one that shows 2 gigantic polar bears hovering over an igloo. One says to the other, "Oh, I love these. Crunchy outside with a chewy center."
I can't believe your comment since I was going to reference it as the first Larson cartoon I'd seen! It was posted on a lab door where I worked back in 1981 and I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen!!
Just reading descriptions of Larson's work in the comments here is making me laugh almost as hard as seeing the cartoons themselves, which goes to show that although the pictures are funny, it's the conceptual core that matters. Gary Larson is a master of ideas.
I liked the Far Side cartoon of two sabretooth tigers walking away from a club and bearskin on the ground. One is licking his chops. The other says, "I've heard all kinds of sounds from these things, but 'yabba dabba doo' was a new one on me."
TH-cam only showed me to “I’ve heard all kinds of sounds from these things…”, and I instantly thought “but Yabba Dabba Doo is a new one.” The Far Side is awesome.
Interesting fact, as part of my outpatient rehabilitation after severe nervous system/brain injury I was told to spend at minimum 1 hour per day reading humorous things, I asked if I could read a book of Farside comics, and it was not only approved, but highly recommended!
@timq6224 well, if the goal was to overcome depression it definitely helped....like all cures that are part of a larger regime. I told my daughter that a piece of candy would cause weight loss when part of a guaranteed weight-loss diet (I think reading the farside books daily sorta molded my perspective on all things). 😃
My favorite one is a guy in an orchestra who is supposed to have two cymbals to crash together but he only has one. There’s a thought bubble that appears above his head that says “This time I won’t screw up. I won’t I won’t I won’t I won’t…” but then the caption at the bottom reads “Roger screws up.”
The farmer carrying a basket full of eggs out of the chicken coop while a chicken carries a basket of babies out of the farmers house. So. Hilariously. Twisted.
Fish, standing on a river bank, holding a rod, a pouch slung on his shoulder, says to another, who's sitting on the riverbank and who's affixing a piece of a sandwich onto a hook, "People biting?" To which the other fish replied, "Just a baby. I threw it back."
Iconically twisted and demented: The Red Baron is standing in front of his plane showing the silhouettes of his "kills", one of which is Snoopy sitting on top of his dog house.
One of my favs..........Two cavemen next to a huge mammoth they felled with a single tiny arrow to its rump. One says to the other......"Maybe we should write that spot down"
The 'accidents waiting to happen' cartoons are the ones I like best. Like the parachuting school located next to an alligator farm. Or the Large Birds of Prey training club located right next to a miniature dog show in the next field.
Wasn't there another one where two mammoths are grazing, and a bunch of cavemen had stuck several little spears in the rear of one of them. The mammoth looked thoughtful, and said to the other mammoth, "That's odd, my neck suddenly feels better".
My absolute favorite of his, is a big group of lemmings heading down a hill into the water, all are blank-faced looking ahead except for one who is looking at you, with a little cheeky grin and wearing a floating ring. Cracks me up every time 🤣
My late dad was a high school art teacher. His fave was God makes the snake, rolling long bits of clay though his hands and saying, "These things are a cinch". Dad said that was pretty much what every student did the first time they held a lump of clay. My own fave is "Cow Tools", just because it's hilarious unless you try to analyze it. Back in the day the best part of every morning was getting the paper, ignoring the page one headlines and turning first to the Far Side. That little bit of insanity made dealing with real world insanity a little bit easier.
In his book he said that his mistake was making one of the tools look a little too much like a saw. Therefore people wanted to make sense of the other tools. It drove people nuts!
The '80s had some really good, cutting-edge, groundbreaking envelope-pushing and genre-redefining funny pages comics that made everything else in that section of the daily paper seem dull, boring, stale, uninspired, formulaic, and superficially funny, at-best (insulting to one's intelligence, at-worst) -- the golf-clap of humor, if you will. In addition to The Farside, other such comics that appeared within the same handful of years in the early-mid '80s include: Bloom County*¹; Calvin & Hobbes*²; Herman; For Better Or Worse*³; and Zippy The Pinhead (*¹which morphed into Outland, then Opus; *²referenced in this video; *³while not always intentionally funny, what made this strip revolutionary is that it was effectively 4-dimensional in a 2D format in how its creator made us follow the evolution of its protagonist family as those characters aged over time with the children eventually going off to college rather than being eternal primary school kids or adolescents for decades on-end)
I remember as a kid laughing extra hard at the lion in the elevator joke, because it wasn't just that the doors with going to startle the lion, but that it was also closing them all in a confined space with him. The thing that would send the lion into murder mode was the same thing that would ensure there was no escape. It could have just been someone walking by about to step on the lion's tail at an outdoor party, but the fact it was the doors of an elevator put it way over the top. Also, where we're positioned makes it funnier, because you can imagine two seconds later, all the muffled roaring and screaming coming from behind the now-closed doors, and imagine it rising up the shaft, with all the screams fading into the distance. It's all so tight and brilliant.
Now I wonder if the reason some people don't "get" the Far Side is that their imagination won't go to the places that The Far Side takes us. Hmmmm...I never thought of it that way, but I think you hit on the reason right there.
Two researchers in a lab. The one in back holding an empty glass having just drank its contents. The one in front holding a full glass and saying, "wait a minute, this is lemonade, what happened to my culture of amoebic dysentery?"
It takes a special kind of surrealist sense of humor to imagine "The Far Side" into existence. Two of my favorites are: The dog showing another dog around his trophy room and pointing to a hand mounted on the wall and says, "And that's the hand that fed me." A panel depicting a man in a store with impossibly high shelves and an inattentive clerk captioned ",Inconvenience Store"
Scurvy Knave, I like your perceptive remark about Larson's sense of humor. The video is great; but I felt it over-analyzed Larson's motives. Good humor always has some of the elements that were mentioned, however, funny is funny. Just watch the Marx Bros. movies. They basically turned things upside down and backwards but it came out wonderful. Sometimes it's just good to laugh and appreciate the surrealist parts of life, like Gary Larson!
I always loved the one with a group of dogs in lab coats working feverishly in a laboratory, several are consulting with each other about equations on a blackboard, another is carefully studying something through a microscope, another is using a pointer to show details to some younger scientist dogs, etc... the caption was, "Knowing it would change their world forever, the dog scientists worked diligently to understand the "doorknob principle"..." Friggin' hilarious! OL J R :)
Being a country person & former horse trainer & pet-sitter - the Farside animal cartoons are on target ! They could always be seen on the bulletin boards in barns & vets' offices & stuck on fridge doors , usually w/ a personal note attached saying " that's my horse / dog / cat " ! My favorite is a very happy dog in a car leaving his house excitedly yelling out to a neighbor dog : " I'm going to the vet's to get tutored ! " 🐎🐕🐈🤣🤣🤣
I confess I’ve never felt confident I understood the tutored joke…. Is it just because it rhymes with neutered? Or is it that the dog believes he’s going to become a vet so he can, I don’t know, eat the cats people bring in?
I'm a carpenter. I have a far side cartoon hanging in my shop. It's the one where people are looking at a famous painting in an art gallery and a woman says "My son made the frame"
That’s great! I’m a plumber and at my shop we have one hanging up as well of a caveman plumber looking at a hole in the ground and saying to the couple “oooo...this not be cheap”
It definitely worthy of it's content and delivery. I've probably experienced all of these before, BUT they still made me laugh out loud due to the "surprise" of the unexpected power of the "joke" even now. True inspired genius !
There are sermons I have forgotten. There are songs I have forgotten. There are promises I have forgotten. There are Far Side cartoons that seem stuck in my head forever. Like the one where in his retirement years the Lone Ranger is reading an old Indian dictionary that defines the word kee-mo-sa-bee - it says the rear end of a horse. I still laugh every time I think of it.
Airline pilots over the intercom: " Looks like we have some turbulence ahead. Whoo Hoop! Woo! Oh, I guess we made it through. Wait, I think there's MORE!"
I understand people not thinking it's funny (humor is subjective), but to actively 'hate' it seems absurd. I have several of the books and calendars. Whenever I run across them from time to time, I am compelled to re-read them. The 'in medias res' style of comedy is very powerful because it makes the reader an active participant, drawing them into that world. And it's a glorious world. The truly amazing thing is how prolific Gary Larson was. He was able to produce these works at break-neck speed for 15 years. He's the hero we don't deserve, and we are in his debt... :)
Dog standing outside the house with the hose in his mouth. Wife standing on the steps with her paws on her hips - 'So, going out with the boys again, tonight?"
My wife got me the 365 calendar for many years for my desk at work. I *never* looked ahead. On Monday morning, I'd look at Saturday and Sunday. Same with vacations. He is brilliant.
My fav. An open box from a pogo stick company lies on the apartment floor of a high rise. A few dots on the carpet and a smashed window with sky scrapers outside. This one just sends the whole story of the pogo stick owner who couldn’t wait to try it out.
The in question scene did also contribute (slightly) to the story though. It was showing that Woody has fallen from his lofty "favorite toy" to being relegated to the toy box, where even the less prominent toys were poking fun at him, now that he's been brought down to their level. The fact that they were working in a Far Side reference made it a bit weaker on the story-driven side, but it still wasn't just a throwaway gag.
Deer hiding behind a tree, searching hunter in the background. Deer: “He wants to kill me alright. Do I know this guy? I’ve got to THINK!” -priceless. The very best we can muster, thrown at a situation, and it’s completely pointless. It’s the human condition. 🤣
One of my all-time favourites is the one I saw in a ceramic tile shop I was making a delivery. Big cathedral, few Italian guys laying floor tiles. Caption was; "Although largely forgotten by history, Gandini and Sons were responsible for the floor of the Sistine Chapel."
My father was an avid fisherman his entire life. On the wall of his garage were stapled photos of all the best catches he'd had with 1 far side that he loved. It was a drawing of 2 guys in a boat fishing together and they are watching as nukes are going off in the distance. One fisherman is saying to the other: "I'll tell you what this means Norm. No size restrictions and screw the limit". After my dad died I took the cartoon down and put it in a scrapbook of things celebrating his life.
Oh, that's exquisite. I've just read a comment that Larson's cartoons often show the moment just before or just after a catastrophe, but clearly he could find other moments of humour too. These floor-laying guys: the humour must be the humbleness of their occupation, which literally everyone looks away from, and the changing of a single word in the familiar phrase "The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel".
I first saw a far side book, in a bookstore in Boulder CO, 30 years ago, when i was on holiday there, from the UK. I read it in the store, and laughed so much, i nearly got thrown out. I bought 2 Far Side T-Shirts and the book, on the spot. I've bought many books and calendars since. It just suits my twisted sense of humour.
@@palewriter1856 It'a "the minD reELs", sir. Spelling!! And, being a proctologist, that is a worthy and useful occupation, which deserves respect. That it seldom gets....
@@surgeonmd729 Ha ha ha ha ha! With all DEW respect, as a wordsmith with an extraordinarily rare need of a dictionary, you can believe that I said PRECISELY what I meant to say. If you'd pull YOU'RE head out of your own work more often, perhaps you'd recognize a sick sense of humerus when ewe encountered one!
Two spiders on a leaf, one is wearing a paper bag saying, "did I scare you?" The other on the edge of the leaf has a long line of web coming from it. Priceless!!
You missed one of Larson's talents, ...his artistry. Not only unique but eye-catchingly odd and off beat. The subtlety of expression is a huge talent, ....a simple line for eyes, or out of porportion body parts, or just landscapes are just genius level.
He made a whole world of snakes. Reading a newspaper at the table, driving a car... As much as I loved the cows, deer, and squids, it was the lives of snakes that sparked my imagination. How did they cook dinner? How did they open the door? 😂
Good explanation of why the one-panel format works. Takes a very clever artist to create that snapshot humor and we all get it. It does take a bit more cognitive work on the part of the reader. This is how jokes should be constructed.
Here's an image: A family of ghouls preparing to pour a cauldron of (presumably) frying-hot oil over a mansion parapet onto a small choir of carolers. Here's another: The driver of a flivver waving a late-model (for the time) Buick Roadmaster (count the portholes) to pass on a blind curve with a sheer cliff to the right and a sheer drop to the left, and there's an oncoming truck. Here's a third: A man on a ski slope looking in disbelief at a schussing skier whose tracks pass on both sides of a large tree. And the fourth: A panel divided into nine squares with a single poorly drawn microbe in each and a caption referencing the opening theme of an insipid 1970s sit-com. And yet another: A smiling lady, apparenty a housewife, lounging in an overstuffed armchair in a nicely furnished parlor, a smoking revolver in one hand and a telephone handset in the other, a pair of feet from a body just outside the panel alongside on the floor, the caption reads "Oh, not much, Agnes. How are things with you?" Charles Addams, perhaps the greatest practitioner in the history of the single panel cartoon, set a very high bar. Gary Larson made some good attempts, a few even outstanding, but never quite managed to clear it.
Father and son looking over a fence at the neighbor's house, wolves running all over the yard and in the house. "I know you miss the Johnsons, Bobby, but they were weak and stupid people. That's why we have wolves and other large predators."
One of my faves is the one of the birds eye view of everyday life and EVERYTHING has a target on it,I for one can testify that birds see us us as targets.....
When I got my first Little League baseball cap I was so proud of that. The very first time I went to bat with my brand new cap a fucking tweet bombed it, and that started me and my BB gun on a killing spree. No bird was safe after that.
I was a Mounted cop in NYC and I loved the one where it said: "Never park your horse in the wrong part of town." It showed a horse that was hitched to a post resting on cinder blocks missing a couple of legs and had graffiti scrawled on it's side.
I used to clip "The Far Side" comics from my daily newspaper, and show them to my late Dad - he and I shared the same sense of humor and laughed like hell. Miss you Dad! Thank you Mr. Larson!!
The "Beware of Doug" sign on the tree almost killed me...and the Peter Pan unconscious in the bushes.."My, that bird hit the window awfully hard" Took me several days to get over that one as well...But my favorite is "Marvin doomed the earth when he grabbed the Martian leader by the head and shook him vigorously!!!!" (that one made me drool a bit) LOL
My Daughter bought me a “Far Side” calendar. She knew how much I loved Gary Larsen’s humor. One that comes to mind is A Mother Goldfish in a Goldfish Bowl. Two baby Goldfish laying in their beds. One of the children said “Hey Mom, I’ll say Louis, because I can’t remember the bevy Goldfish’s’ Bowl. anyway, the fish then said “Mom, Louie dried his bed again” How Creative was this guy??
My favorite was all the knights charging a castle and as they cross the moat, weapons raised, one looks down into the water and points "goldfish!" he says excitedly
I loved the one with the elephant confronting a man who tried to shoot him ("If you’re going to shoot an elephant...you better be prepared to finish the job"). 🐘
The cockroaches waiting for their eggs to hatch. There are hundreds of eggs stacked against one wall of the room to the height of the ceiling. The mother is knitting. Dad is watching TV. Mother cockroach says "when I think of how this room is going to look in a few days, it really gives me the creeps."
My favorite was always the one where the bee detectives are trying to figure out who threw a rock through the hive which had been tossed from the inside and there was just a full sized human kid in it because the caption is a full admission that Gary knew the joke was absolutely stupid but he had to hit his deadline. “Cartoonist: G Larson. Title: it was late and I was tired.” I really felt a connection to him.
"And here's Higgin's last entry: " Having gained the trust of these mighty gorillas I have decided to test their sense of humor with a simple joy-buzzer hand shake."
Not Larson, mine, but Larsonesque; Young scorpion at the Docs, head bandaged. Mother scorpion, to the doc, 'He has no coordination, doctor. That's the third time this month he's stung himself in the back of the head.'
I love The Far Side comics, I bought I believe almost all the available comics they had out at the time. Its still amazing that they were almost all single panel comics, with a very few words used to help convey the humor to the reader. They were bloody brilliant in their simplicity and I loved them.
Luposlipophobia- The fear of being pursued by timber wolves around a kitchen table while wearing socks on a newly waxed floor. This one got me too. Probably because there are actual named phobias out there that are only slightly less ridiculous than these!
Here's a companion piece: Two schoolkids, one offering the other some Cheetos, the other reacting in horror. The caption reads, "He's acinonxphobic. He's also dyslexic."
I have a B.S. in Zoology, so I got a lot of the humor he put in. During my Animal Behavior class there was a series of Far Sides that dealt with the subjects in the class. I'd cut them out and give them to the Prof., got extra points for a solid week. Thanks Gary! My favorite is the one with the two deer talking in the forest, one says to the other "Bummer of a birth mark, Hal." Hal had a bullseye marking on his belly.
yeah I remember that one... he almost always gave names to his characters. I have a mug that reads "Boneless Chicken Ranch". on it is a ranch with chickens flopped around everywhere.. of course they can't stand up... no bones. The date on the mug is 1983. I mean WHERE did he get his ideas from? And how about the harlequin glasses he put on the females? never the males only the females. Tell you what he drew no lines in the sand.
@@leecowell8165 I have a "Boneless chicken ranch" tee shirt. When I'm wearing it, and someone stares or asks about it, I suddenly collapse. So far, 40% laugh, 60% are pissed off.
@@leecowell8165 The Boneless Chicken Ranch might have come from an episode of The Odd Couple of the early 70s. Oscar saves Felix's life and Felix makes Oscar's life a living hell by being nice to him and doing everything for him ("I saved his life and for that he's trying to kill me"). So Oscar tries to feign dying so that Felix can "save" him to make things even. At one point Felix serves up a chicken casserole and Oscar makes out that he is choking on a chicken bone. When Felix says that it is boneless chicken Oscar says "How did it walk?"
I’m happy for him that he could retire so young but sorry for us that we didn’t get to enjoy more of his work. I can only imagine the burnout you would experience having to come up with, and execute new ideas all the time.
But he IS back. The big reason he quit before? He was fed up with the pen he used. He's back and posts his comics online since he found the joy of drawing digitally. It hasn't lost its look or hilarity either.
Guy pulls open his chute and an anvil comes out..."it was at this time that murray started feeling the first pangs of panic"
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A pair of aliens stand in the panel foreground. They are short and wear suits that resemble fire hydrants. In the background, a dumb dog sits watching them. One of the aliens is dripping wet. He is speaking to his partner: "Take me to your leader, I said . . . and then the most hideous thing happened."
My favorite one, there's a noticeably irritated, disgruntled clown standing in a gun shop looking at guns under the glass counter and on the wall. He's thinking to himself "laugh at me will they?" 👌
I remember when I was a kid, my dad had The Far Side book (with the bull on the front). I was fascinated because I started reading it like expecting it to be a story but nothing was connecting. I thought maybe some of the previous characters would come back later. It took my little underdeveloped brain a while to realize that one image was an entire individual story... so then I'd end up staring for a really long time at like each picture. I had to read with a dictionary beside me to learn some new words, because I really wanted to know what was going on hahaha
Actually, many cartoons are a study in drawing. I'm not at artist, but am amazed at what lines connect, and what lines don't connect; what shapes actually close, and what remain open; what few details are included, and how sparse they are.
I remember he had watched a live show. I don't remember what the show was about. But Gary Larson was gushing about the possible frames that he could use in his cartoons from the show.
One September Sunday in the fall (really late summer by the calendar but this far North it's fall) of 1991 I was at my grandparents house in an attached garage going through a stack of newspapers looking for the comics when I found a Sunday issue from a few weeks prior on August 26th, 1991 showing a small flying saucer float down and land in front of a man, an alien creature gets out, bonks the guy on the head, and then gets back in and flies away. The caption reads "Henry never knew what hit him". My favorite Far Side joke.
I can say the funniest cartoon I ever saw Gary write was in a caveman cave a bird was sitting in a cage above a caveman and his wife. The parrot was saying, "grunt grunt snort".
in 1985, the California Academy of Science had an exhibition of The Far Side. It was delightful to watch people just lose it they were laughing so hard, then a couple of minutes later another person looked at the same cartoon, tilts their head like a puzzled puppy, and then walk away.
A few us of from High school got to see that exhibit Because our Photography teacher was a huge Fan... We were so fortunate to have Such interesting and Dedicated Educators who treated as if we were Adults...
In San Francisco, yep! I was a year out of H.S. & webt with some friends...it was a huge exhibit & some really great times!! Thx, I can't believe I totally forgot all about that, Duh!
Years ago I went to a Far Side exhibition in San Francisco. I was amazed at people's responses to the cartoons -- some would be laughing out loud, while others obviously didn't get it (while looking at the same cartoon). Personally, I LOVED all of them.
I bought everything Far Side related out there, but when I hear "Far Side", I always think of the 3-4 cows huddled around a picture of their owner with an outline of the farmer with dotted lines showing how he should be butchered with a note next to his head, "Throw away". The farmer and cows are visibly shocked when he walks in on them and sees their plans. Crazy!
Two bears standing on a street corner. One bear says to the other,” Well, we’re lost and it’s just a matter of time before someone shoots us.” Two bears come upon two hikers sleeping in sleeping bags. One bear exclaims, “Look, sandwiches!”
That cartoon reminded me wheh I in the AF I was helping my boss hook up some rather large batteries that always gave off a huge spark. When he had his head inches from the batteries, that were located under a table, he needed a flashlight. I got one and banged it a few times on the table trying to get it to work. My boss shout out from underneath the table and after that I always had to hook up the batteries.
0:22 I know this isn't the topic of your video, but this scene does have story value because at this point in the movie, they are still establishing Woody's background and rank within the 'toy society' of Andy's room. The toy chest toys know and respect Woody, but have become more cynical and willing to take some pleasure in seeing him suddenly knocked from his top position, down to their level.
My fave has gotta be the one with Noah on the deck of the Ark with various different animals standing around listening to him talk. There are two dead animals on their backs with their hooves in the air and a couple of sheepish looking lions standing there. Noah says “well that about does it for the unicorns, but from now on all carnivores are confined to C deck!”
One of my favorite Far Side cartoons is the one with the cowboys having race numbers on their chests, and the caption reads “The 100 meter mosey.” KILLS ME every time!
Har! I love the wild west ones. "Well, hell, Jake! That ain't no rattler! That's just one of them maracas players. And it looks like he's more scared a you, than you are of him!" (They're pulling the sleeping bag up, to reveal a startled looking maracas player.)
The far side and xkcd are my favorites. Both have the same sense of humor, and one is genius in it's brevity, while the other is genius in it's taking things too far. Both are gold!
The "Midvale School for the Gifted" was my late Father's favorite Far Side. It was under the glass on his desk at work for years. He was his biggest fan, I would buy his books and a calendar every year for him at Christmas. Thanks Gary.
The company I worked for had just opened a “Learning Center” campus when that one was published. I changed the sign to mimic the new facility, it stayed displayed in the various locations I worked at that company until I retired 2 years ago. Your pop had very good taste in humor R.I.P.
I miss his cartoons. Always started my day off with a good laugh. Sometimes I giggled all day thinking about it. My absolute favorite was 2 unicorns on a cliff overlooking the animals entering Noah’s Ark 2 by 2. One unicorn looks at the other and says “I’m not waiting in that line, let’s get out of here”
I saved the last Far Side strip printed in the new paper. It featured Gary's far side version of himself waking up in bed as if its the end of The Wizard of Oz. And he's pointing at his family members and saying "And you were there... and you..." It was as if the entire run of the strip was some sort of Oz like dream. I can even remember when the strip first appeared and most everyone was not getting it because it was a different style of humor.
ive been reading farside ever since 1st or second grade, i didnt understand all of the panels, but enough of them that it was worth reading. my favorite panel to this day, is the pet shop one where the snake is trying to go for the hampster while it tries escaping on its wheel. the words bonk, bonk, bonk, always elicits a fit of giggles.
My fav was role call in a lumberjack camp. The foreman shouts, hey that short guy with the bucked teeth is making the rest of you look like wimps! (The short guy being a beaver)🤣
I worked on Toy Story 2, and originally Woody's hat did have major importance to the story. The original story was that Woody was a collector doll, but had no value without his hat. There was a scene (only in storyboard) where he's escaping with Jessie and Prospector, but his hat falls off and the other toys reject him because he's no longer a collector item. The story was massively reworked when A Bug's Life wrapped and Lassiter moved his team across the street to the other building, fired all the (Disney appointed) story writers, and installed his team to take over. The entire movie was rebuilt from the ground up, salvaging as much finaled animation as possible. Vestigial animation about Woody's hat is still sprinkled throughtout the finished movie.
There was so much that went wrong on TS2. It was originally to be a made-for-TV DVD and Disney sent some TV writers to write the story. Like most made-for-TV productions, the story was terrible. But Pixar really believed in the original idea: that Al from Al's Toy Barn would want to sell Woody as a collector doll, and Woody goes on a self-discovery journey, rediscovering his purpose as a doll to be played with. Pixar pushed Disney to give it more funds for a theatrical release. Disney agreed. But this had repercussions no one fully understood. First, the animation was animated at 30fps, and sometimes key frames fell on the frames to be cut. It was also animated at 4:3 aspect ratio and moving to 16:9 meant adding characters and animation that had been off camera. So all of the finished animation had to be revisited and corrected. The real problem, though, was that the Pixar team was green at the time. When I moved from Bugs to TS2, I asked a friend why things were going so poorly. She said, "we all knew we were on a trainwreck, that those in charge kept asking for changes we didn't have time to complete, that we were slipping our timeline. We were on a trainwreck and no one knew how to stop it." So many stories to tell about all that. I remember one (mandatory Saturday) production meeting, where the manager said they'd talked to Disney about borrowing their rendering computers. Disney said, "you don't understand. We're rendering 180 (edit: feet - don't know how I wrote that wrong! Lol) per week and need our computers. 90 feet per week is a lot for them, so this was a lot." The manager's look became intense. "Last week, our team rendered 600 feet." We were all working so hard that many of us got injured with RSI - I was one of them. It ended my career after only 3 years. My best friend still suffers from RSI today, and she saved me by making me go to a doctor for treatment before my body broke. I heard one manager was unable to sit up in bed and read due to Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. No one talks about this because we're not really supposed to, a part of our severance agreement. It's been almost 25 years for me, so, I don't care anymore. I think it's better there now, at least RSI-wise, but the industry as a whole is dangerous. Check out "Life AFTER Pi" for the demise of Rhythm & Hues, a similar story to ours.
Sorry to go off on a long rant on your sweet TH-cam channel. I'm so grateful the movie was so good in the end. It would have sucked to go through all that with the story how it was at first.
@@kikijewell2967 Those are some remarkable insights into the production process and the creative tug-of-war that was _Toy Story 2_ in particular, thank you for sharing! So sorry to hear about the RSI and how it ended your career in that field and had such a lasting effect on your friends and colleagues, however.
@@Somnogenesis thx! I have great hope from the sidelines that the recent strikes in the Industry will be a better life for everyone. ❤️ I'm eyeing the game industry right now, since I'm much more recovered. But then three major companies are being sued for general toxic culture. Three. It's kinda scary.
Nicely done. Gary Larson's work is one of my favorite things about living. Whenever my dad was feeling down, he would go to the book store and peruse The Far Side to cheer him up.
A great one: Group of cavemen around campfire - all but one have scorched hands - one sees caveman cooking his meat using a stick and says "Hey! Look what Grog do!" 😁
Reading all your favorite cartoons is like seeing them all over again. My brain has all of the sketches roped off in its own corner, lest they be disturbed by random, daily-life thoughts like sleeping, eating and working. Thank you everyone for posting your memories to help me maintain mine!
a little chihuahua with his little tail vibrating, standing on tip-toes on a stool in the kitchen reaching for a coffee cup above the espresso machine, "how nervous little dogs start their days"
My favorite is the one with a woman, sitting on a bench in the park. Her baby is in a carriage parked a few feet away. She doesn't notice but there are two crows sitting on the handle bar looking a a very happy baby and the caption reads; "I've been stuffing worms into it all day long and it is still hungry!" The Far Side is still one of the greatest cartoons of all time.
I'm an animal lover, but one of my faves was where we're in a kitchen with an elderly woman, and she's yelling out the window "Come on, fi fi!" and we see her little yappy dog outside happily running towards the door. We also see the woman has nailed the doggy-door shut.
Great tribute. What's amazing is that the comments are a joy to read, unlike the rest of the Internet. My favorite: Objects in mirror are larger than they appear.
This was my favourite thing in the newspaper sharing Gary Larsens latest toon withbmy family. Usually it'd startvwith me busting out laughing and mum dad or brother saying ok what is so funny?
I thought it was interesting that your two video clips were related to Pixar and had a character named Woody. Since Ratzenberger did many voices for Pixar. I loved the Far Side and it was probably one of the things I read most as a kid. Great video.
Larson was basically making memes from scratch, which is way harder than taking an existing image, but the image + caption = humor, there’s a similarity in the art-forms.
Gotta give it to the writer of that scene. A scene highlighting a wity character using a double-entendre integrating a comic that was well-known for its wity double-entendres is the ultimate tribute.
That was funny because his character was always a bit dim-witted. For him to get upset at that when they often went over a lot of peoples heads seems really out of character for him.
I love the one where an alien trips on the stairs as he descends from his spaceship, while humans look on. Another alien, looking out from the door of the ship says, “So much for instilling them with a sense of awe.”
This is the second day of April 2021 and we should really think of Joe Biden in a Foreside humor. But then Biden is humor
@@dalehall2067 Thanks for turning it political, Dale.
@@dalehall2067 anything can be turned into something to laugh at, including you.
@@jeannefoster5594 I can see you speak from personal experience.
Readin comments it became clear that... we~all be trippin...
To this very day, every time I push on a door that says pull I always proclaim to whomever I'm with, "I went to the school for the gifted".
Thanks, Gary!
Isn't that honkey~door~ie
I say that whenever I do anything stupid.
Me too. That image is indelibly etched in my brain. It's so deliciously clever. 😊
@@petcatznz Along with, "bummer of a birthmark, Hal" and "She's looking good, Vern"
While there aren’t any new Gary Larson cartoons, it’s still possible to buy his books and annual page-a-day calendars online. The good news is, they never get old!
One favourite I’ve never forgotten, a beggar on the street asking passers by if they have a ‘spare armadillo?’ Walking towards him along the sidewalk is a guy with two armadillos tucked underneath his arm. He’s thinking to himself, ‘Dang, how am I gonna get past this guy’. So funny, cracks me up.
I don’t remember ever seeing that one but somehow based on how you described it, I feel like I can picture it exactly in my mind in his style and it is funny as hell
My favorite was 2 aliens sitting outside of a crashed spaceship and one remarks to the other, "One bee gets inside and you just freak out!"
Oh boy, two armadillos? That's twice the chance of catching lepracy, yay!
@@peterpeterson4800 I don’t know about the armadillo-lepracy connection. Sounds creepy though 😳😶🌫️
@@Tommo44 Armadillos are one of the few creatures other than humans that can get leprosy.
I loved me some Far Side and had all the books as a young person. The one that never failed to make me hoot and cackle was the image of two spiders who've just finished spinning a web at the bottom of a playground slide. One says to the other, "If we pull this off, we'll eat like kings."
Damn right!! My mom bought them for me. She love dthem too. 4he best!! Wnet to the dentist today: trivia:" just for fun, let's see if w ecan fit this tennis ball in there ". Recognize that ?
THAT was one of my favs, and have used it many times in my life.😂
I love that one too. And it encompasses a "What If" mentality I like to apply to life. . . briefly thought about getting it as a tattoo. . .
It parallels the Princess Bride Quote:
Buttercup : We'll never survive.
Westley : Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has.
The good bits are the unbridled optimism these two things contain.
I liked the one where in a courtroom, a defense lawyer is asking the jury "does this look like the face of a killer?" While pointing to the classic smiley face.
I tell that one to people every so often, especially if they say, "No, I never heard of 'The Far Side'." It always cracks them up!
It's amazing how just reading the verbal descriptions of many Far Side cartoons, without ever having seen them, makes me laugh out loud!
It's SUPPOSED to be a rat hole!
SAME ;D
So true. And in the same way, it is amazing is how easy it is for me to relate a Gary Larson cartoon without the picture and get a laugh.
Most amazing thing is that they CAN be described with a few words, and still cash in the laugh...
I don't know any others that systematically can.
Most times the joke is destroyed.
As the three astronauts reenter the atmosphere in their capsule, one of them exclaims "Aw nuts, I forgot to get the rocks out of the lander!"
A reporter interviewed Gary’s mother and asked “When did you first notice his odd sense of humor?” Without skipping a beat she answered “When I woke him for his second day of kindergarten. He said “What? Again?”😂😂
I came here to mention Doris. My parents knew the Larsons (I just met them a few times) and one of the highlights of the holidays every year was getting Doris' Christmas letter. Gary got it all from his folks-both valued humor and intelligence and didn't mind laughing at themselves and their family...and humoring the occasional nosy child asking far too many questions about their decor. 😏
That was my son's reaction to his first week.
That's hilarious!
Lol, according to my mom, after my first day of school, I also was not at all thrilled that I'd have to go there again the next day.
I thought that every day until the last day in high school, and i miss none of it.
The first of the three complaint letters that flash by was regarding the one where the female chimp is grooming the male, finds a blond hair, and says accusingly, "Well, well...another blond hair...Conducting a little more 'research' with that Jane Goodall tramp?"
The director of the Goodall Institute (at the time) threw a long-winded self-righteous fit, saying it was "inexcusable to refer to Dr. Goodall as a tramp," "obscene," etc. It's worth a read, if you pause the video!
Here's the kicker: My ex-wife used to work for Jane Goodall. The director's tirade must have come before Jane Goodall had ever seen the cartoon, because she was tickled by it when she did finally see it! The original drawing of that Larson cartoon now hangs proudly in the lobby of the Goodall Institute headquarters, and has for years!
BTW, I cannot accept Garfield in the same category as The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, or Peanuts. I have always thought Garfield banal and stupid, and compared to those other masterpieces, it is like margarine to butter.
Yes, I paused it to read those letters, holy cow there are some uptight people in the world, and my eyes nearly popped out when I saw that one was from the Goodall Institute, that an idiot! The joke relies *entirely* on the reader knowing who Jane Goodall is/was and her work, so to call it an 'atrocity' and an 'obscenity' is astonishing.
@@grantm6514 Yeah, and the cartoon doesn't imply that Jane Goodall is a tramp! To me, the cartoon was playing on the idea of the female's unfounded jealousy and lack of faith in her mate, like a wife accusing her husband of carry on with his secretary, when he really IS just working late! Some people just go out of their way to be offended.
I read that Jane Goodall thought it was a hoot!
@@elizabethpiccolo5534 Yep. Verified. She has a great sense of humor.
Gary wrote about the controversy in a book I read. After the controversy, the Goodall institute asked Gary for permission to use the cartoon as part of a fundraiser.
My favorite is one that shows 2 gigantic polar bears hovering over an igloo. One says to the other, "Oh, I love these. Crunchy outside with a chewy center."
Yes,that's the one I remember.
I lift you grab! Was that such a hard concept!?
@@ecec6852 Excellent. Should be Part 2 of that cartoon. Is this Gary Larson?
I can't believe your comment since I was going to reference it as the first Larson cartoon I'd seen! It was posted on a lab door where I worked back in 1981 and I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen!!
@@chrislong3938 Chris, there's a series of 4 books. I think it's simply The Far Side, Part
1,2,3 & 4. It's great.
Just reading descriptions of Larson's work in the comments here is making me laugh almost as hard as seeing the cartoons themselves, which goes to show that although the pictures are funny, it's the conceptual core that matters. Gary Larson is a master of ideas.
Even the newspaper complaint letter descriptions of them are hilarious.
I liked the Far Side cartoon of two sabretooth tigers walking away from a club and bearskin on the ground. One is licking his chops. The other says, "I've heard all kinds of sounds from these things, but 'yabba dabba doo' was a new one on me."
Lmao, never saw that one.
TH-cam only showed me to “I’ve heard all kinds of sounds from these things…”, and I instantly thought “but Yabba Dabba Doo is a new one.” The Far Side is awesome.
Thanks for sharing😄
Sounds like one I would love. I used to love reading the Far Side in the funnies in the newspaper. I really miss that. 😢❤
How about the lions saying "I like these things, crunchy on the outside chewy in the middle".
Interesting fact, as part of my outpatient rehabilitation after severe nervous system/brain injury I was told to spend at minimum 1 hour per day reading humorous things, I asked if I could read a book of Farside comics, and it was not only approved, but highly recommended!
something to make you think...did it work? =)
@timq6224 well, if the goal was to overcome depression it definitely helped....like all cures that are part of a larger regime. I told my daughter that a piece of candy would cause weight loss when part of a guaranteed weight-loss diet (I think reading the farside books daily sorta molded my perspective on all things). 😃
They asked you to laugh, if that made you laugh they would say yes. It does not mean the quality of the work. Just laugh.
@@Lppt87
Stttttaaaahhhpp
@melissahdawn Secondary progressive MS here-- thanks for this new idea! 💡 I shall begin posthaste with the humor/laughter/funny therapy.
My favorite one is a guy in an orchestra who is supposed to have two cymbals to crash together but he only has one. There’s a thought bubble that appears above his head that says “This time I won’t screw up. I won’t I won’t I won’t I won’t…” but then the caption at the bottom reads “Roger screws up.”
That was one of his few "cymbolic" cartoons. Lol.
That's cymbalism
The farmer carrying a basket full of eggs out of the chicken coop while a chicken carries a basket of babies out of the farmers house.
So. Hilariously. Twisted.
Clever.
School for the gifted.
@@mrmark8603
LOL! "PULL"
Fish, standing on a river bank, holding a rod, a pouch slung on his shoulder, says to another, who's sitting on the riverbank and who's affixing a piece of a sandwich onto a hook, "People biting?" To which the other fish replied, "Just a baby. I threw it back."
Iconically twisted and demented: The Red Baron is standing in front of his plane showing the silhouettes of his "kills", one of which is Snoopy sitting on top of his dog house.
One of my favs..........Two cavemen next to a huge mammoth they felled with a single tiny arrow to its rump. One says to the other......"Maybe we should write that spot down"
The 'accidents waiting to happen' cartoons are the ones I like best. Like the parachuting school located next to an alligator farm. Or the Large Birds of Prey training club located right next to a miniature dog show in the next field.
"Uh, let's see. I'll try the mammoth, please."
Dogs in a laboratory looking out at the cat in a tree. "For years the dog scientists struggled to solve the mystery of the doorknob."
Wasn't there another one where two mammoths are grazing, and a bunch of cavemen had stuck several little spears in the rear of one of them. The mammoth looked thoughtful, and said to the other mammoth, "That's odd, my neck suddenly feels better".
@@spikespa5208 I thought they believed it would change their lives forever? 🤣
My absolute favorite of his, is a big group of lemmings heading down a hill into the water, all are blank-faced looking ahead except for one who is looking at you, with a little cheeky grin and wearing a floating ring.
Cracks me up every time 🤣
He's got his tube!!
God I remember that panel
I remember a different version. It’s one mid-jump shouting, “Cannonball!”
Wasn't there another lemming themed cartoon with the caption, "Why can't we ever go to the beach?" Or mountains, some-such.
@@RErnie-gv1hv not in the same book, but yeah, the lemmings return in another
My late dad was a high school art teacher. His fave was God makes the snake, rolling long bits of clay though his hands and saying, "These things are a cinch". Dad said that was pretty much what every student did the first time they held a lump of clay. My own fave is "Cow Tools", just because it's hilarious unless you try to analyze it. Back in the day the best part of every morning was getting the paper, ignoring the page one headlines and turning first to the Far Side. That little bit of insanity made dealing with real world insanity a little bit easier.
In his book he said that his mistake was making one of the tools look a little too much like a saw. Therefore people wanted to make sense of the other tools. It drove people nuts!
When Larson left I stopped buying papers
Athefumen ✅ ✅ ✅
@@mayorb3366 especially on saw~turd~day...
The '80s had some really good, cutting-edge, groundbreaking envelope-pushing and genre-redefining funny pages comics that made everything else in that section of the daily paper seem dull, boring, stale, uninspired, formulaic, and superficially funny, at-best (insulting to one's intelligence, at-worst) -- the golf-clap of humor, if you will. In addition to The Farside, other such comics that appeared within the same handful of years in the early-mid '80s include: Bloom County*¹; Calvin & Hobbes*²; Herman; For Better Or Worse*³; and Zippy The Pinhead
(*¹which morphed into Outland, then Opus; *²referenced in this video; *³while not always intentionally funny, what made this strip revolutionary is that it was effectively 4-dimensional in a 2D format in how its creator made us follow the evolution of its protagonist family as those characters aged over time with the children eventually going off to college rather than being eternal primary school kids or adolescents for decades on-end)
A deer with a target on his belly: "Bummer of a birthmark, Hal."
My favorite one!!!
I still have the t-shirt.
Still have the faded coffee cup from my hunting partner way, way back when.
Got the t-shirt also 😂
@@bc30cal99 I have the coffee cup too...use it all the time!
I remember as a kid laughing extra hard at the lion in the elevator joke, because it wasn't just that the doors with going to startle the lion, but that it was also closing them all in a confined space with him. The thing that would send the lion into murder mode was the same thing that would ensure there was no escape. It could have just been someone walking by about to step on the lion's tail at an outdoor party, but the fact it was the doors of an elevator put it way over the top. Also, where we're positioned makes it funnier, because you can imagine two seconds later, all the muffled roaring and screaming coming from behind the now-closed doors, and imagine it rising up the shaft, with all the screams fading into the distance. It's all so tight and brilliant.
Congratulations: You made a far side cartoon scary.
@@mariaeugenia9387It's always been that 😆
Now I wonder if the reason some people don't "get" the Far Side is that their imagination won't go to the places that The Far Side takes us. Hmmmm...I never thought of it that way, but I think you hit on the reason right there.
@@WhiteTiger333 In an elevator?? 😂🤣😂🤣
Two researchers in a lab. The one in back holding an empty glass having just drank its contents. The one in front holding a full glass and saying, "wait a minute, this is lemonade, what happened to my culture of amoebic dysentery?"
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Yikes
this is why labs have separate freezers......
.....but how did he realise it was lemonade?
It takes a special kind of surrealist sense of humor to imagine "The Far Side" into existence.
Two of my favorites are:
The dog showing another dog around his trophy room and pointing to a hand mounted on the wall and says, "And that's the hand that fed me."
A panel depicting a man in a store with impossibly high shelves and an inattentive clerk captioned ",Inconvenience Store"
This is fabulous
@John Barber anyone with a dog knows that they do shit like this to us lol
Okay Ginger that's it! Stay out of the garbage or else!
Scurvy Knave, I like your perceptive remark about Larson's sense of humor. The video is great; but I felt it over-analyzed Larson's motives. Good humor always has some of the elements that were mentioned, however, funny is funny. Just watch the Marx Bros. movies. They basically turned things upside down and backwards but it came out wonderful. Sometimes it's just good to laugh and appreciate the surrealist parts of life, like Gary Larson!
I always loved the one with a group of dogs in lab coats working feverishly in a laboratory, several are consulting with each other about equations on a blackboard, another is carefully studying something through a microscope, another is using a pointer to show details to some younger scientist dogs, etc... the caption was, "Knowing it would change their world forever, the dog scientists worked diligently to understand the "doorknob principle"..." Friggin' hilarious! OL J R :)
Being a country person & former horse trainer & pet-sitter - the Farside animal cartoons are on target ! They could always be seen on the bulletin boards in barns & vets' offices & stuck on fridge doors , usually w/ a personal note attached saying " that's my horse / dog / cat " ! My favorite is a very happy dog in a car leaving his house excitedly yelling out to a neighbor dog : " I'm going to the vet's to get tutored ! " 🐎🐕🐈🤣🤣🤣
Your happy dog description made me giggle, then snort. Well done!
The boneless chicken farm cracks me up.
Our family's is the famous "you look wonderful & whatever you rolled in sure does stink" as the suitor meets his doggy date at the door.
I confess I’ve never felt confident I understood the tutored joke…. Is it just because it rhymes with neutered? Or is it that the dog believes he’s going to become a vet so he can, I don’t know, eat the cats people bring in?
@@truthsmiles tutored rhymes w/ neutered 🐕🤣
I'm a carpenter. I have a far side cartoon hanging in my shop. It's the one where people are looking at a famous painting in an art gallery and a woman says "My son made the frame"
That’s great! I’m a plumber and at my shop we have one hanging up as well of a caveman plumber looking at a hole in the ground and saying to the couple “oooo...this not be cheap”
@@spacecruisers Thanks for sharing that.. I guess great craftsman must think alike.😀
It definitely worthy of it's content and delivery.
I've probably experienced all of these before, BUT they still made me laugh out loud due to the "surprise" of the unexpected power of the "joke" even now.
True inspired genius !
🤣🤣🤣
My fav is the kid at the gifted school that is pushing the pull door
There are sermons I have forgotten.
There are songs I have forgotten.
There are promises I have forgotten.
There are Far Side cartoons that seem stuck in my head forever.
Like the one where in his retirement years the Lone Ranger
is reading an old Indian dictionary that defines the word kee-mo-sa-bee -
it says the rear end of a horse.
I still laugh every time I think of it.
Thanks for the giggle!!!
BONELESS CHICKEN RANCH
Actually, "Tonto" basically means "stupid" in Spanish.
@@TampaDave I looked it up and confirmed what you said. So I guess Tonto got his revenge !
Airline pilots over the intercom: " Looks like we have some turbulence ahead. Whoo Hoop! Woo! Oh, I guess we made it through. Wait, I think there's MORE!"
I understand people not thinking it's funny (humor is subjective), but to actively 'hate' it seems absurd.
I have several of the books and calendars. Whenever I run across them from time to time, I am compelled to re-read them. The 'in medias res' style of comedy is very powerful because it makes the reader an active participant, drawing them into that world. And it's a glorious world.
The truly amazing thing is how prolific Gary Larson was. He was able to produce these works at break-neck speed for 15 years. He's the hero we don't deserve, and we are in his debt... :)
Active Thinking is required to appreciate Mr. Larson. The "Under-Thinkers" have a problem with "Far Side" Humor. 🤔 🤣
His cartoons tickle the brain!🤭
“Harold! The dog’s trying to blow up the house again! Catch him in the act or he’ll never learn”.
Rex takes out her flower garden once and for all!
Lol.
Dog standing outside the house with the hose in his mouth. Wife standing on the steps with her paws on her hips - 'So, going out with the boys again, tonight?"
Man washing car. Bird on wire above him thinking "You're mine, all mine"! Wonderful.
My wife got me the 365 calendar for many years for my desk at work. I *never* looked ahead. On Monday morning, I'd look at Saturday and Sunday. Same with vacations. He is brilliant.
I admire your self control.
You made Mondays something to look forward to, a rare accomplishment
I did exactly the same! It would be irreverent to do otherwise!
I think i looked it through after I got it.
Then, being of short memory, I laughed again every day and never looked ahead 😆
My fav. An open box from a pogo stick company lies on the apartment floor of a high rise. A few dots on the carpet and a smashed window with sky scrapers outside. This one just sends the whole story of the pogo stick owner who couldn’t wait to try it out.
The in question scene did also contribute (slightly) to the story though. It was showing that Woody has fallen from his lofty "favorite toy" to being relegated to the toy box, where even the less prominent toys were poking fun at him, now that he's been brought down to their level. The fact that they were working in a Far Side reference made it a bit weaker on the story-driven side, but it still wasn't just a throwaway gag.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Deer hiding behind a tree, searching hunter in the background.
Deer: “He wants to kill me alright. Do I know this guy? I’ve got to THINK!”
-priceless. The very best we can muster, thrown at a situation, and it’s completely pointless. It’s the human condition. 🤣
The futility of self reference. Yes my fave too
The deer with a target .... "bummer of a birthmark, Hal."
One of my all-time favourites is the one I saw in a ceramic tile shop I was making a delivery. Big cathedral, few Italian guys laying floor tiles. Caption was;
"Although largely forgotten by history, Gandini and Sons were responsible for the floor of the Sistine Chapel."
My father was an avid fisherman his entire life. On the wall of his garage were stapled photos of all the best catches he'd had with 1 far side that he loved. It was a drawing of 2 guys in a boat fishing together and they are watching as nukes are going off in the distance. One fisherman is saying to the other: "I'll tell you what this means Norm. No size restrictions and screw the limit". After my dad died I took the cartoon down and put it in a scrapbook of things celebrating his life.
Nice! 👍
Oh, that's exquisite. I've just read a comment that Larson's cartoons often show the moment just before or just after a catastrophe, but clearly he could find other moments of humour too. These floor-laying guys: the humour must be the humbleness of their occupation, which literally everyone looks away from, and the changing of a single word in the familiar phrase "The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel".
@@stephenfennell Oh thank you, I didn't quite get that one. I think seeing the actual cartoon would have helped.
I read it as _Ghandi_ and sons 😁
As a musician, "Gary's last day as sound man" is my favorite. You see a wide-eyed 👀 band dodging beer bottles as the sound man cranks the "suck" knob.
It must be remembered that Gary Larsen retired to escape the constant deadlines to spend more time playing jazz!
I first saw a far side book, in a bookstore in Boulder CO, 30 years ago, when i was on holiday there, from the UK. I read it in the store, and laughed so much, i nearly got thrown out. I bought 2 Far Side T-Shirts and the book, on the spot. I've bought many books and calendars since. It just suits my twisted sense of humour.
I always kept a book of the far side am I waiting room. I always thought the people needed a little humor in their life
@@dalehall2067 Proctologist, right?
Why on EARTH would a Brit of such OBVIOUS GENIUS come all the way across the pond, only to visit Boulder, CO?
The mine REALS!
@@palewriter1856 It'a "the minD reELs", sir. Spelling!! And, being a proctologist, that is a worthy and useful occupation, which deserves respect. That it seldom gets....
@@surgeonmd729 Ha ha ha ha ha!
With all DEW respect, as a wordsmith with an extraordinarily rare need of a dictionary, you can believe that I said PRECISELY what I meant to say. If you'd pull YOU'RE head out of your own work more often, perhaps you'd recognize a sick sense of humerus when ewe encountered one!
Two spiders on a leaf, one is wearing a paper bag saying, "did I scare you?" The other on the edge of the leaf has a long line of web coming from it. Priceless!!
That was one of my favorites! I howled with laughter then, and I just did again reading your post! Thanks!
My absolute favorite. That pile of web just makes me laugh.
I've been scrolling to find that one! my fav too
That's the one!!
I first saw that back in high school and I laughed so long and loud I'm fairly certain everyone thought I was nuts.
You missed one of Larson's talents, ...his artistry. Not only unique but eye-catchingly odd and off beat. The subtlety of expression is a huge talent, ....a simple line for eyes, or out of porportion body parts, or just landscapes are just genius level.
He made a whole world of snakes. Reading a newspaper at the table, driving a car... As much as I loved the cows, deer, and squids, it was the lives of snakes that sparked my imagination. How did they cook dinner? How did they open the door? 😂
The eyes dog in a boat after they've drawn straws on who gets eaten and someone else lost m
Well said. Genius !
Goofy buck teeth---even on fish. His window curtains.
YES agree ;D
Good explanation of why the one-panel format works. Takes a very clever artist to create that snapshot humor and we all get it. It does take a bit more cognitive work on the part of the reader. This is how jokes should be constructed.
Here's an image: A family of ghouls preparing to pour a cauldron of (presumably) frying-hot oil over a mansion parapet onto a small choir of carolers.
Here's another: The driver of a flivver waving a late-model (for the time) Buick Roadmaster (count the portholes) to pass on a blind curve with a sheer cliff to the right and a sheer drop to the left, and there's an oncoming truck.
Here's a third: A man on a ski slope looking in disbelief at a schussing skier whose tracks pass on both sides of a large tree.
And the fourth: A panel divided into nine squares with a single poorly drawn microbe in each and a caption referencing the opening theme of an insipid 1970s sit-com.
And yet another: A smiling lady, apparenty a housewife, lounging in an overstuffed armchair in a nicely furnished parlor, a smoking revolver in one hand and a telephone handset in the other, a pair of feet from a body just outside the panel alongside on the floor, the caption reads "Oh, not much, Agnes. How are things with you?"
Charles Addams, perhaps the greatest practitioner in the history of the single panel cartoon, set a very high bar.
Gary Larson made some good attempts, a few even outstanding, but never quite managed to clear it.
Implication is as precise as it needs to be.
Father and son looking over a fence at the neighbor's house, wolves running all over the yard and in the house. "I know you miss the Johnsons, Bobby, but they were weak and stupid people. That's why we have wolves and other large predators."
One of my faves is the one of the birds eye view of everyday life and EVERYTHING has a target on it,I for one can testify that birds see us us as targets.....
When I got my first Little League baseball cap I was so proud of that. The very first time I went to bat with my brand new cap a fucking tweet bombed it, and that started me and my BB gun on a killing spree. No bird was safe after that.
My favorite was Albert Einstein looking at a chalkboard with formulas and such. “After much research He discovers that time = money. “.
@jorlaxe Thanks for including this one. My favorite, too. 😀
"Yep. Everything's squaaaaared away."
A = πr2~E-mc2~π ∞x ∞+=$
well all be, he was right! lol
The daycare center directly next to the alligator farm. "Trouble brewing."
There was sort of series of those. Teacup Poodle show next to Falconry Range... Parachute school next to alligator farm...
Chucke Cheese between the liquor store and gun store?
Oh wait that was real.
I was a Mounted cop in NYC and I loved the one where it said: "Never park your horse in the wrong part of town." It showed a horse that was hitched to a post resting on cinder blocks missing a couple of legs and had graffiti scrawled on it's side.
Cat looking out the picture window at a two-truck collision. Bob's Assorted Rodents, and Al's Small Flightless Birds.
I used to clip "The Far Side" comics from my daily newspaper, and show them to my late Dad - he and I shared the same sense of humor and laughed like hell. Miss you Dad! Thank you Mr. Larson!!
The "Beware of Doug" sign on the tree almost killed me...and the Peter Pan unconscious in the bushes.."My, that bird hit the window awfully hard" Took me several days to get over that one as well...But my favorite is "Marvin doomed the earth when he grabbed the Martian leader by the head and shook him vigorously!!!!" (that one made me drool a bit) LOL
Did he think the Martian was a snow globe or a castanet?😂
Marvin's head looked like a hand.
My Daughter bought me a “Far Side” calendar. She knew how much I loved Gary Larsen’s humor. One that comes to mind is A Mother Goldfish in a Goldfish Bowl. Two baby Goldfish laying in their beds. One of the children said “Hey Mom, I’ll say Louis, because I can’t remember the bevy Goldfish’s’ Bowl. anyway, the fish then said “Mom, Louie dried his bed again” How Creative was this guy??
🤣🤣🤣
The one where the fish escape a fire in their bowl:
"Well we're safe, course now we're equally screwed."
Or the fish couple looking into their basement w/a flashlight saying:' We gotta call someone; it's completely dry!'
My favorite was all the knights charging a castle and as they cross the moat, weapons raised, one looks down into the water and points "goldfish!" he says excitedly
For those that loved the Far Side Calendars, he brought them back this year.
Best news I have heard in a long while!
Great, I used to get one every year until he stopped which was some time ago.
Haven’t seen it around.
Yay!
Yeeeeeessssssss!
The Boneless Chicken Ranch, with the chickens flat on the ground, draped over the fence rails....
Another of my all-time favourite cartoons!
Stackable livestock?
@@ecec6852 pourable livestock!
I loved the one with the elephant confronting a man who tried to shoot him ("If you’re going to shoot an elephant...you better be prepared to finish the job").
🐘
Da Vinci painting a picture while his dog, lying on the floor, looks forlornly at his empty food dish while thinking: “Great Master indeed”.
When you get on Larson’s wave length with far side, you are hooked for the entire Saturday morning, and for life.
The cockroaches waiting for their eggs to hatch. There are hundreds of eggs stacked against one wall of the room to the height of the ceiling. The mother is knitting. Dad is watching TV. Mother cockroach says "when I think of how this room is going to look in a few days, it really gives me the creeps."
"How nervous little dogs start their day", whilst the little dog makes coffee.
The Far Side defined my childhood.
What I think about whenever I see a wiener dog.
My favorite was always the one where the bee detectives are trying to figure out who threw a rock through the hive which had been tossed from the inside and there was just a full sized human kid in it because the caption is a full admission that Gary knew the joke was absolutely stupid but he had to hit his deadline. “Cartoonist: G Larson. Title: it was late and I was tired.” I really felt a connection to him.
The sad thing is, there probably WAS a good joke in there somewhere. He just needed more time to develop it but ran into a deadline...
@@RadicalCaveman Like his sister / worker bee saying "mom told me you were adopted"
"And here's Higgin's last entry: " Having gained the trust of these mighty gorillas I have decided to test their sense of humor with a simple joy-buzzer hand shake."
Berke Breathed: "Man, those Samoans are a surly bunch . . ."
Not Larson, mine, but Larsonesque; Young scorpion at the Docs, head bandaged. Mother scorpion, to the doc, 'He has no coordination, doctor. That's the third time this month he's stung himself in the back of the head.'
I always marveled at the way Larson could get maximum laughs with such an economy of words. He's the best.
Well said! 😂
"That's the way we became the bacteria bunch!"?
Really?
I love The Far Side comics, I bought I believe almost all the available comics they had out at the time. Its still amazing that they were almost all single panel comics, with a very few words used to help convey the humor to the reader. They were bloody brilliant in their simplicity and I loved them.
My favourite, for many reasons: Anatidaephobia - the fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you
And that could actually exist!
Luposlipophobia- The fear of being pursued by timber wolves around a kitchen table while wearing socks on a newly waxed floor.
This one got me too. Probably because there are actual named phobias out there that are only slightly less ridiculous than these!
Here's a companion piece: Two schoolkids, one offering the other some Cheetos, the other reacting in horror. The caption reads, "He's acinonxphobic. He's also dyslexic."
@@DanieltheTruebadour CHEETAH-Errz HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULEZZZZ!!
@FreshCOOKIES 21 NICE🕺😍 PLEAZ UPLOADED SOME OF YOUR FAV CARTOONZ..SIR@21😻
I have a B.S. in Zoology, so I got a lot of the humor he put in. During my Animal Behavior class there was a series of Far Sides that dealt with the subjects in the class. I'd cut them out and give them to the Prof., got extra points for a solid week. Thanks Gary!
My favorite is the one with the two deer talking in the forest, one says to the other "Bummer of a birth mark, Hal." Hal had a bullseye marking on his belly.
yeah I remember that one... he almost always gave names to his characters. I have a mug that reads "Boneless Chicken Ranch". on it is a ranch with chickens flopped around everywhere.. of course they can't stand up... no bones. The date on the mug is 1983. I mean WHERE did he get his ideas from? And how about the harlequin glasses he put on the females? never the males only the females. Tell you what he drew no lines in the sand.
@@leecowell8165
I have a "Boneless chicken ranch" tee shirt.
When I'm wearing it, and someone stares or
asks about it, I suddenly collapse.
So far, 40% laugh, 60% are pissed off.
@@leecowell8165 The Boneless Chicken Ranch might have come from an episode of The Odd Couple of the early 70s. Oscar saves Felix's life and Felix makes Oscar's life a living hell by being nice to him and doing everything for him ("I saved his life and for that he's trying to kill me"). So Oscar tries to feign dying so that Felix can "save" him to make things even. At one point Felix serves up a chicken casserole and Oscar makes out that he is choking on a chicken bone. When Felix says that it is boneless chicken Oscar says "How did it walk?"
I’m happy for him that he could retire so young but sorry for us that we didn’t get to enjoy more of his work. I can only imagine the burnout you would experience having to come up with, and execute new ideas all the time.
But he IS back. The big reason he quit before? He was fed up with the pen he used. He's back and posts his comics online since he found the joy of drawing digitally. It hasn't lost its look or hilarity either.
In an interview years ago Larson said he quit because of being worn out trying to meet the never ending deadlines.
It's amazing he made 4.500 or so before he retired!
I've always been wondering what on earth he was smoking 😆
When Gary Larsen retired he was also able to spend more time playing jazz which was his other passion!
Guy pulls open his chute and an anvil comes out..."it was at this time that murray started feeling the first pangs of panic"
A pair of aliens stand in the panel foreground. They are short and wear suits that resemble fire hydrants. In the background, a dumb dog sits watching them. One of the aliens is dripping wet. He is speaking to his partner: "Take me to your leader, I said . . . and then the most hideous thing happened."
@ Yup! I remember that one. Cracked up :-).
My favorite one, there's a noticeably irritated, disgruntled clown standing in a gun shop looking at guns under the glass counter and on the wall. He's thinking to himself "laugh at me will they?" 👌
And then they made "Joker", and Joaquin Phoenix won his second Oscar.
I remember when I was a kid, my dad had The Far Side book (with the bull on the front). I was fascinated because I started reading it like expecting it to be a story but nothing was connecting. I thought maybe some of the previous characters would come back later. It took my little underdeveloped brain a while to realize that one image was an entire individual story... so then I'd end up staring for a really long time at like each picture. I had to read with a dictionary beside me to learn some new words, because I really wanted to know what was going on hahaha
Funneh
Yeah, I didn't get it for the longest time, thought they were dumb. Then one day, one just clicked, and suddenly a whole new world opened up. 😂🤩
Hound of the Far Side, perhaps?
Actually, many cartoons are a study in drawing. I'm not at artist, but am amazed at what lines connect, and what lines don't connect; what shapes actually close, and what remain open; what few details are included, and how sparse they are.
Gary Larson, the best cartoonist ever.
Right up there with Murray Ball.
I don't deny that entirely but ....Gahan Wilson?
Gahan Wilson was I'm sure an influence at sometime in Larson's life.
I remember he had watched a live show. I don't remember what the show was about. But Gary Larson was gushing about the possible frames that he could use in his cartoons from the show.
Don't forget Charles Addams. He too was a master.
One September Sunday in the fall (really late summer by the calendar but this far North it's fall) of 1991 I was at my grandparents house in an attached garage going through a stack of newspapers looking for the comics when I found a Sunday issue from a few weeks prior on August 26th, 1991 showing a small flying saucer float down and land in front of a man, an alien creature gets out, bonks the guy on the head, and then gets back in and flies away. The caption reads "Henry never knew what hit him". My favorite Far Side joke.
I can say the funniest cartoon I ever saw Gary write was in a caveman cave a bird was sitting in a cage above a caveman and his wife. The parrot was saying, "grunt grunt snort".
I never saw that one, but your description made me laugh out loud! I can just picture it.
Ha!
I had to read your description 3 times before I really got it. Duh...
in 1985, the California Academy of Science had an exhibition of The Far Side. It was delightful to watch people just lose it they were laughing so hard, then a couple of minutes later another person looked at the same cartoon, tilts their head like a puzzled puppy, and then walk away.
A few us of from High school got to see that exhibit Because our Photography teacher was a huge Fan... We were so fortunate to have Such interesting and Dedicated Educators who treated as if we were Adults...
Like when dogs try to understand quantum mechanics
In San Francisco, yep! I was a year out of H.S. & webt with some friends...it was a huge exhibit & some really great times!! Thx, I can't believe I totally forgot all about that, Duh!
@@hoosierfatha, Extremely and extraordinarily RARE !! FACT.
Years ago I went to a Far Side exhibition in San Francisco. I was amazed at people's responses to the cartoons -- some would be laughing out loud, while others obviously didn't get it (while looking at the same cartoon). Personally, I LOVED all of them.
I bought everything Far Side related out there, but when I hear "Far Side", I always think of the 3-4 cows huddled around a picture of their owner with an outline of the farmer with dotted lines showing how he should be butchered with a note next to his head, "Throw away". The farmer and cows are visibly shocked when he walks in on them and sees their plans. Crazy!
2 Bears in the woods, looking at 2 folks riding past in the distance on bicycles. One says to the other: "Hey, Meals on wheels!"
'Nuff said :-).
Two bears standing on a street corner. One bear says to the other,” Well, we’re lost and it’s just a matter of time before someone shoots us.”
Two bears come upon two hikers sleeping in sleeping bags. One bear exclaims, “Look, sandwiches!”
A scientist is tinkering with an immense bomb.
His lab-mate is behind him, about to burst an inflated paper bag.
I have a coffee cup with that cartoon!!
I had that one hanging on my refrigerator for a long time.
That cartoon reminded me wheh I in the AF I was helping my boss hook up some rather large batteries that always gave off a huge spark. When he had his head inches from the batteries, that were located under a table, he needed a flashlight. I got one and banged it a few times on the table trying to get it to work. My boss shout out from underneath the table and after that I always had to hook up the batteries.
@@catherinesegovia3255 good one.
@@61rampy65 coffee mug envy.
0:22 I know this isn't the topic of your video, but this scene does have story value because at this point in the movie, they are still establishing Woody's background and rank within the 'toy society' of Andy's room. The toy chest toys know and respect Woody, but have become more cynical and willing to take some pleasure in seeing him suddenly knocked from his top position, down to their level.
My fave has gotta be the one with Noah on the deck of the Ark with various different animals standing around listening to him talk. There are two dead animals on their backs with their hooves in the air and a couple of sheepish looking lions standing there. Noah says “well that about does it for the unicorns, but from now on all carnivores are confined to C deck!”
Another was a graffiti on the Ark saying, "Tell the Cicadas to shut up".
One of my favorite Far Side cartoons is the one with the cowboys having race numbers on their chests, and the caption reads “The 100 meter mosey.” KILLS ME every time!
😂😂😂😂😂
That's possibly itself a tribute to Monty Pythons "100 yardvdash for people with no sense of direction"
Har! I love the wild west ones.
"Well, hell, Jake! That ain't no rattler! That's just one of them maracas players. And it looks like he's more scared a you, than you are of him!" (They're pulling the sleeping bag up, to reveal a startled looking maracas player.)
@@MrScrofulous
Sponsored by the Ministry of Silly Walks, or is that the wrong dessert aisle?
I miss Monty Python.
Hand clutching a snow globe. Man inside panicking and running to his wife saying Look out Martha, storms a-coming.
There was a cartoon with this theme, except it was a moose inside.
I actually printed a copy of that one and had it hanging in my office.
Gary Larson is a fricking genius.
The far side and xkcd are my favorites. Both have the same sense of humor, and one is genius in it's brevity, while the other is genius in it's taking things too far. Both are gold!
The "Midvale School for the Gifted" was my late Father's favorite Far Side. It was under the glass on his desk at work for years. He was his biggest fan, I would buy his books and a calendar every year for him at Christmas. Thanks Gary.
I still quote that when I screw something up in an obvious way.
The company I worked for had just opened a “Learning Center” campus when that one was published. I changed the sign to mimic the new facility, it stayed displayed in the various locations I worked at that company until I retired 2 years ago. Your pop had very good taste in humor R.I.P.
I have the Midvale School coffee cup because it s describes me perfectly.
The guy trying to catch the squirrel that has made a nest in his wooden leg while his wife cusses him to leave it alone. A favorite amongst many
The first Gary Larson I saw was the classic “school for the gifted”. I was an instant fan!
My personal favorite is"the real reason dinosaurs became extinct"
Used that in smoking cessation talks
My father had that in his dental office until he stopped practicing. Far Side was his favorite cartoon.
Limp chickens laying all over a ranch...”Boneless chicken ranch”
Body slumped over a piano, and visitors at the door, and the butler says "Quiet, the master is decomposing"
Great one!
I miss his cartoons. Always started my day off with a good laugh. Sometimes I giggled all day thinking about it. My absolute favorite was 2 unicorns on a cliff overlooking the animals entering Noah’s Ark 2 by 2. One unicorn looks at the other and says “I’m not waiting in that line, let’s get out of here”
Or the one where a couple of dinosaurs watch the ark sail away and one says, "Was that today?"
Could have been two saber tooth tigers and "Lets eat in tonight"
I saved the last Far Side strip printed in the new paper. It featured Gary's far side version of himself waking up in bed as if its the end of The Wizard of Oz. And he's pointing at his family members and saying "And you were there... and you..." It was as if the entire run of the strip was some sort of Oz like dream. I can even remember when the strip first appeared and most everyone was not getting it because it was a different style of humor.
Funny can really be difficult to figure out at times....
Imma just say “like” for ALL your comments that quote/describe a scene because I can picture those images in my head😂😂😂. Best cartoon ever!
2 cows are sitting in their house, the phone rings and they both look at each other
'I don't have opposable thumbs so this is going to be hard'
ive been reading farside ever since 1st or second grade, i didnt understand all of the panels, but enough of them that it was worth reading. my favorite panel to this day, is the pet shop one where the snake is trying to go for the hampster while it tries escaping on its wheel. the words bonk, bonk, bonk, always elicits a fit of giggles.
My fav was role call in a lumberjack camp. The foreman shouts, hey that short guy with the bucked teeth is making the rest of you look like wimps! (The short guy being a beaver)🤣
😂😂😂😂
I worked on Toy Story 2, and originally Woody's hat did have major importance to the story.
The original story was that Woody was a collector doll, but had no value without his hat. There was a scene (only in storyboard) where he's escaping with Jessie and Prospector, but his hat falls off and the other toys reject him because he's no longer a collector item.
The story was massively reworked when A Bug's Life wrapped and Lassiter moved his team across the street to the other building, fired all the (Disney appointed) story writers, and installed his team to take over.
The entire movie was rebuilt from the ground up, salvaging as much finaled animation as possible.
Vestigial animation about Woody's hat is still sprinkled throughtout the finished movie.
There was so much that went wrong on TS2.
It was originally to be a made-for-TV DVD and Disney sent some TV writers to write the story. Like most made-for-TV productions, the story was terrible.
But Pixar really believed in the original idea: that Al from Al's Toy Barn would want to sell Woody as a collector doll, and Woody goes on a self-discovery journey, rediscovering his purpose as a doll to be played with.
Pixar pushed Disney to give it more funds for a theatrical release. Disney agreed.
But this had repercussions no one fully understood. First, the animation was animated at 30fps, and sometimes key frames fell on the frames to be cut. It was also animated at 4:3 aspect ratio and moving to 16:9 meant adding characters and animation that had been off camera. So all of the finished animation had to be revisited and corrected.
The real problem, though, was that the Pixar team was green at the time. When I moved from Bugs to TS2, I asked a friend why things were going so poorly. She said, "we all knew we were on a trainwreck, that those in charge kept asking for changes we didn't have time to complete, that we were slipping our timeline. We were on a trainwreck and no one knew how to stop it."
So many stories to tell about all that.
I remember one (mandatory Saturday) production meeting, where the manager said they'd talked to Disney about borrowing their rendering computers. Disney said, "you don't understand. We're rendering 180 (edit: feet - don't know how I wrote that wrong! Lol) per week and need our computers. 90 feet per week is a lot for them, so this was a lot." The manager's look became intense. "Last week, our team rendered 600 feet."
We were all working so hard that many of us got injured with RSI - I was one of them. It ended my career after only 3 years. My best friend still suffers from RSI today, and she saved me by making me go to a doctor for treatment before my body broke. I heard one manager was unable to sit up in bed and read due to Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.
No one talks about this because we're not really supposed to, a part of our severance agreement. It's been almost 25 years for me, so, I don't care anymore.
I think it's better there now, at least RSI-wise, but the industry as a whole is dangerous.
Check out "Life AFTER Pi" for the demise of Rhythm & Hues, a similar story to ours.
Sorry to go off on a long rant on your sweet TH-cam channel. I'm so grateful the movie was so good in the end.
It would have sucked to go through all that with the story how it was at first.
@@kikijewell2967 Those are some remarkable insights into the production process and the creative tug-of-war that was _Toy Story 2_ in particular, thank you for sharing! So sorry to hear about the RSI and how it ended your career in that field and had such a lasting effect on your friends and colleagues, however.
@@kikijewell2967, Tragic when People become relegated to just 'Cogs' in The Machine status !
@@Somnogenesis thx! I have great hope from the sidelines that the recent strikes in the Industry will be a better life for everyone. ❤️
I'm eyeing the game industry right now, since I'm much more recovered. But then three major companies are being sued for general toxic culture. Three. It's kinda scary.
Nicely done. Gary Larson's work is one of my favorite things about living. Whenever my dad was feeling down, he would go to the book store and peruse The Far Side to cheer him up.
One of my favorites is the 2 guys in the jungle with a can of "ON"
A great one: Group of cavemen around campfire - all but one have scorched hands - one sees caveman cooking his meat using a stick and says "Hey! Look what Grog do!" 😁
@@raybin6873 and he was wearing glasses!
I don't get it. What is a can of "on"?
@@aurelienyonrac It's a play on "Off" bug spray...
@@aroehrich thank you kind Sir.
Reading all your favorite cartoons is like seeing them all over again. My brain has all of the sketches roped off in its own corner, lest they be disturbed by random, daily-life thoughts like sleeping, eating and working.
Thank you everyone for posting your memories to help me maintain mine!
You are so right! It’s been nothing but laughter just reading the comments! 😁
Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side running at the same time. That was the golden age of comics.
a little chihuahua with his little tail vibrating, standing on tip-toes on a stool in the kitchen reaching for a coffee cup above the espresso machine, "how nervous little dogs start their days"
The best lesson in life:
Never play under the Anvil Tree.
Thank Gary
My favorite is the one with a woman, sitting on a bench in the park. Her baby is in a carriage parked a few feet away. She doesn't notice but there are two crows sitting on the handle bar looking a a very happy baby and the caption reads; "I've been stuffing worms into it all day long and it is still hungry!" The Far Side is still one of the greatest cartoons of all time.
If I had to pick a favorite comic, it’d be far and away The Far Side.
Far side, Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes. Nothing else comes remotely close to those three. Nothing.
A close second would "non sequiter"
I'm an animal lover, but one of my faves was where we're in a kitchen with an elderly woman, and she's yelling out the window "Come on, fi fi!" and we see her little yappy dog outside happily running towards the door. We also see the woman has nailed the doggy-door shut.
Great tribute. What's amazing is that the comments are a joy to read, unlike the rest of the Internet.
My favorite: Objects in mirror are larger than they appear.
The cow yelling "car" is my favorite. My brother always hated the far side.
I think Fifi and the cat-flap was my favorite.
What's wrong with your brother?
@@susanfudge1737 there's always the dim witted sibling. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
It was always my favorite too my brother sent me the "car" one from college for my 17th birthday and I never forget it.lol.
This was my favourite thing in the newspaper sharing Gary Larsens latest toon withbmy family.
Usually it'd startvwith me busting out laughing and mum dad or brother saying ok what is so funny?
I thought it was interesting that your two video clips were related to Pixar and had a character named Woody. Since Ratzenberger did many voices for Pixar. I loved the Far Side and it was probably one of the things I read most as a kid. Great video.
Larson was basically making memes from scratch, which is way harder than taking an existing image, but the image + caption = humor, there’s a similarity in the art-forms.
Woody Harrelson's line was priceless. A two'fer of sorts, combining the greatest cartoon creator ever in Larson and the wittiness of Cheers.
Gotta give it to the writer of that scene.
A scene highlighting a wity character using a double-entendre integrating a comic that was well-known for its wity double-entendres is the ultimate tribute.
That was funny because his character was always a bit dim-witted. For him to get upset at that when they often went over a lot of peoples heads seems really out of character for him.
The 80's, Far Side, Bloom County, and Calvin and Hobbes golden age of comic strips
A golden age of everything compared to what’s going on today. So sad so sad
Amen sir!
I wouldn't mind being 30 again
If like those you also checkout Paul Kirchner’s The Bus, very much in the Far Side vain