10 Funniest Far Side Comics That Somehow Make School Funny (Including Larson's Single Best Comic)

Gary Larson's The Far Side has a lot of recurring themes and subjects, from cows to cowboys to life on other planets. However, perhaps Larson's favorite setting of all time for his gags was the humble classroom, taking his characters back to school in various bizarre ways.

Here are 13 hilarious comics set in schools from The Far Side's 1980-1994 run, including what many fans consider Larson's greatest comic of all time (which we're of course saving until #1.) There were so many classroom gags, not all of them made the cut for the best of the best.

Be sure to vote in our end-of-article poll for which of Larson's schoolyard comics you think is funniest... but #1 is so overwhelmingly popular, we think we already know the winner.

Related 13 Funniest Far Side Comics That Somehow Found the Funny Side of... Children Being Eaten?! The Far Side may be seen as family fun, but Gary Larson's morbid sense of humor is unavoidable in these strips where kids are eaten alive.

13 Metal Shop

This Far Side Comic Stars a Secret Recurring Character

Custom Image by Robert Wood (from Gary Larson)

In The Prehistory of The Far Side, Larson reveals that some of his gags come from short stories he writes to explore ideas. Larson's story sees shop teacher Mr. Rockford getting a little too lazy while teaching his shop class, leaving the kids to their own devices. A robot meant to help mankind quickly becomes deadly when one of the kids suggests adding a death ray, with the class receiving an F for the resultant chaos. The comic version simplifies the narrative, turning the deadly robot into a deliberate invention by a kid who wants revenge on his shop teacher.

That kid likely looks familiar to fans of Larson's comic, as the 'Nerdy Little Kid' is a character archetype that the creator uses again and again across The Far Side's run. The Nerdy Kid has been attacked by animal crackers, chased by wolves, and tormented by the elves who send people nightmares, so it's only fair he gets a little revenge in the strip above.

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In a metahumor nod to his habit of reusing certain characters, Larson published one strip which introduced "The Far Side cast." This comic 'reveals' that the Nerdy Little Kid is played by Jerry Miller, who almost got the role of Sluggo in Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy comic.

12 Attention-Getting Device

Every Class Has That One Kid...

It's an everyday issue that teachers deal with that some students may act out to get attention. Of course, in the world of Far Side, that involves a complex machine that's about to blow the socks off everyone in the room. Larson perfectly sets his joke in the moments before the device is activated, creating a hilarious situation where Russell has somehow sneaked this gigantic doodad into the classroom without anyone noticing.

11 Dog School

Larson's Take on a Classic Cliché

It's a famous cliché that kids who haven't done their homework will try and claim that while they did complete the assignment, the family dog ate it, making it impossible to hand in. Larson takes that concept to the next level when every student is the family dog, with the added gag of blackboard arithmetic using bones instead of numerals.

Related 13 Funniest Far Side Comics That Somehow Make Frogs Hilarious The Far Side loves animals, and these hilarious comics confirm that extends to frogs - including 2 of Gary Larson's funniest wordless comics.

10 Young Neanderthals

Larson's Cavemen Comics Made a Genuine Contribution to Science

In this strip, a group of young Neanderthals pranks their teacher by draping a stegosaurus' tail over her chair, ready to spike her when she sits down. The gag is a perfect example of how Larson's comic creates a single perfect 'moment' that wouldn't make sense in any other medium. After all, the spikes are so huge the teacher can't fail to notice them - and that's if she doesn't spot the conveniently placed stegosaurus standing just off-panel.

In The Prehistory of The Far Side, Larson admits to a slight amount of guilt for drawing so many comics where dinosaurs and cavepeople live side-by-side, given the two occupied Earth arounjd 65 million years apart. However, he made it up to the world of science by inventing a brand new term that's still in use today.

In this other 'caveman classroom and stegosaurus' strip, Larson humorously names the spiked end of a stegosaurus' tail after the cavemen presumably killed by it. However, it turned out that this trait didn't actually have an official name, and with so many scientists being fans of The Far Side, archaeologists welcomed the word 'thagomizer' into their official vocabulary. A pretty major achievment for a strip that Larson feels like he should apologize for!

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9 Wrong Room

Larson Loves Pushing Turns of Phrase to Ridiculous Extremes

In another everyday occurrence, a visitor accidentally steps into the wrong classroom before realizing their mistake. Of course, in Larson's world, that visitor isn't just in the wrong room - they're on the wrong planet. Far Side smartly never settled on a single alien design, allowing Larson to invent whatever extraterrestrial life was funniest for each strip.

8 Four Apples

Larson Break's The Far Side's Format for this Gag

The Far Side breaks its usual single-panel format for this gag, which plays on the 'counting horse' trick. The most famous example was a horse named 'Clever Hans' whose owner (ironically on this list, a math teacher) toured it around showcasing its ability to solve simple arithmetic. Later studies suggested that, of course, the horse couldn't actually do math, but was instead responding to cues from its handler. Indeed, the habit of trained animals taking accidental cues from their handler has been known as the 'Clever Hans effect' ever since.

7 Karate School

One of Larson's Most Feel-Good Comics

Not every school teaches kids - in this case, The Far Side's Karate School trains its students to break boards and bricks. As mentioned earlier, Larson's decision never to design a set 'Far Side alien' pays off here, as the city comes under attack by aliens that the class are weirdly well-equipped to fight off. It's rare that humans get a win in a Larson comic, making this a rarity.

6 Anderson's Sky Diving School

Larson Turned Withholding the Punchline into an Art Form

In another unusual school, students learning to sky dive are given just a couple of feet between landing safely and plunging into the middle of a crocodile farm. Any other comic creator would show the students actually landing in this sticky situation, but Larson's genius is setting up such a funny situation and allowing the reader to imagine the outcome.

5 Beginning Duck

Far Side Finally Unites Its Avian Obsessions

Ducks and chickens appear a lot in The Far Side, and in this strip they finally bridge the gap, as a class of poultry attempt to learn to speak a new language. Despite their commonalities, ducks and chickens are very different in the world of The Far Side. Chickens tend to be unlucky losers who know their life ends on the chopping blocks, while Larson treats ducks more like supervillains.

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Related Far Side's 10 Final Comics Were the Perfect Ending to Gary Larson's Genius Series Gary Larson's iconic The Far Side ran from 1980 to 1994, with these final 10 comics acting as the beloved strip's victory lap.

4 Sandwich Mafia

Larson Combines School and Organized Crime

Larson loves looking at everyday situations from a different perspective, here turning a school cafeteria into a death trap for the latest victim of the sandwich mafia. A play on sending a mob victim to 'sleep with the fishes,' Larson often chooses to turn mobsters into figures of fun, but never as surreally as depicting them as deadly sandwiche who feed their victims to fourth graders.

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3 A Question in the Back

The Far Side Universe REALLY Needs Its Schools

In this strip, Far Side pokes fun at an adult student who has a question about what's clearly the most basic lesson possible. Of course when reaching for a random subject for the classic, Larson would choose The Far Side's ubiquitous cows. From the very beginning to the end, Far Side has dozens of cow comics, with the animals effectively becoming the franchise's mascots.

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In a 1998 interview with The New York Times, Larson explained that he uses cows so often because they perfectly combine humor and pathos, saying:

I've always thought the word cow was funny, and cows are sort of tragic figures. Cows blur the line between tragedy and humor.

2 Obedience School

Far Side's Teacher Loses Control of Her Class

In another unusual school - this time Ms. Gibson's Canine Obedience School - the canine students rise up. In a hilarious image, balaclava-clad dogs take control of the class, brandishing a tennis ball as a symbol of resistance.

Related 10 Funniest Far Side Comics That Just Turned 40 (Including Gary Larson's Best Wordless Comic) Here are the ten funniest Far Side comics from August 1984 that just turned 40, including one single-panel gag that's among his best wordless strips.

1 Midvale School for the Gifted

Is This Far Side's Funniest Comic?

Custom Image by Robert Wood (from Gary Larson)

In arguably The Far Side's best comic - and easily one of its most beloved - the Nerdy Kid returns, this time attending a school dedicated to educating the most intellectually gifted children. Of course, even the best of us aren't always operating at 100%, and the kid has failed to notice that he's pushing as hard as he can at a "Pull" door. This Larson gag is one of the most widely shared and enjoyed of all time, topping our own reader-vote list of comics starring the Nerdy Kid with a mind-blowing 42% of the vote (the next closest has 9%.)

Perhaps it's that readers like seeing a supposedly genius character cut down to size, or the way the joke offers a second layer - first the immediately funny image of someone pushing with all their might at a 'pull' door, second the sign revealing that they're the last person who should be stymied by this situation. Whatever the reason, Far Side acheives its funniest school comic with a gag showing someone desperately trying to get inside the building.

But is this Larson's funniest school comic? Let us know in the poll below, and vote for which of The Far Side's school-based gags deserves the gold medal.

Source: The New York Times