Gary Larson’s love of film can only be inferred from his work, The Far Side; we assume he loved Westerns, but he could very well have been into the literary works of Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour. Larson was always a very private individual, and beyond his love of conservation and animals, he remained a bit of a cultural enigma throughout his career. While riffing on movies was not his bread and butter like dinosaurs, cows, or nerds, when he did approach the subject, he brought his eccentric and absurd twist to it. As a cinema fan first, I have always been drawn to these comics, and it is a subject I wish he played with more.
Still, there are a good number of strips that reference movies, and I tracked down the ten best. To do this, I dug through The Complete Far Side and weighed how funny they are and how connected they are to an iconic movie or movies. Of course, the biggest factor was how much they made me laugh.
Why You Should Trust Me: Gary Larson was a cornerstone of my early years and shaped a love of comedy I still carry decades later. I have amassed a large collection of his work that I revisit and reflect on often, and it’s become one of my roles at MovieWeb to curate his work for these lists.
Alien Table Etiquette
Domestic bliss as imagined through the lens of a sci-fi horror nightmare, Larson takes the iconic film franchise and boils it down to something mundane, a family gathering, to still deliver a delightfully dark gag. The chest-bursting scene from Alien is iconic, and moving it to a turkey dinner while using the idea that this species’ young are born already lethal works so well. I also like how simplified Larson’s aliens are, but perhaps going full phallic may have been too much for the comics and certainly not in Larson’s wheelhouse.
A Dead Giveaway Before Death
In an early strip by Larson, you can tell that, for the first year, his art had yet to really find its more recognizable style. This one is still visually appealing, using one of the most iconic horror movie posters of all time as a template. The joke is also easy to understand, as John Williams’s score as the shark approaches is instantly recognizable to fans of the film or through pop culture osmosis. Dread built for laughs, I know I would not be nearly as calm as the boat duo is here if the Jaws theme started coming from the deep.
You Will Know Him From His Sign
Another early strip from Larson, this one stopped me in my tracks while I was flipping through the book, as it took me a bit to realize why I found it so amusing. Firstly, the deer in the outfit, as Deero, is oddly adorable; taking a classic character and giving him a cervine equivalent. But like many a great Zorro story, one’s mind tends to wander towards larger tales of fighting injustice and romance. I want to know what adventure Deero is on and what Norm and his friends did; they certainly hunted the wrong prey to provoke Deero’s wrath!
After Godzilla Meets Bambi, There Was Toby
The short animated experiment, Bambi Meets Godzilla, is burned into my brain, a cult animated short that made its way onto the underground circuit playing before feature films, so this one gets points for evoking such a core memory of early cinematic exploration. Still, it is not all about obscure nostalgia for this writer, as the Godzilla films are beloved, and more importantly, Larson excels at capturing a dog’s nature, albeit in an exaggerated way. I have a Jack Russell that will challenge any other dog, regardless of size, with a bark. I love classic Kaiju cinema, but in this case, I am totally cheering for Toby; Godzilla should have paid attention to the “Beware of Dog” sign.
Love Hurts, Especially in C Minor
He was a fiddle, she was a saxophone, she couldn’t have him, and things got dangerous. This is one of Larson’s best bits of wordplay, changing a single thing to create not necessarily a whole new meaning, but to give him room to play with his art and craft a wonderfully absurd visual. The framing of this one also has a bit of a cinematic flair; you can imagine it cutting back and forth with the fiddle offering a light, lovely ode, while the saxophone’s madness is captured with some free-flow jazz.
The Dummies Walk
The original Night of the Living Dead remains one of the best horror movies ever made, and a personal favorite. Larson has actually used Romero’s classic a few times for visually heavy strips, and some fans might appreciate his “Night of the Squirrels” more. Both are visually great, using that wide frame, but I love the shadow play in this one and the scientist’s expressions of terror. An utterly grim way to go, and one of the darkest strips in both visuals and execution, while still maintaining that absurdist charm.
Comedy, Tragedy, or Documentary
Praying mantises are one of nature’s many jerks, while also being utterly fascinating insects. We all know their propensity for the female to cannibalize a male after mating, but what about the kids? In reality, a mantis won’t raise its young at all; it lays its eggs and leaves, and the hatchlings are left to fend for themselves (and frequently eat one another). Regardless, the praying mantis version of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids leaves a lot of questions as to what kind of movie it is.
Not in Kansas Anymore
The intersection between the picturesque fantasy of Oz and a cold cityscape is an amusing contrast, but it is the caption of stealing hearts and brains that makes this a knee-slapper. Kansas is hardly the crime capital anyone associates with a back-alley shakedown, so the gang really did wander a long way from the farm. If Dorothy and her crew are getting robbed, you have to imagine it is somewhere far from the little remote farmstead she called home.
Where Did They Get the Fuel?
I don’t want to say Larson was ever lazy, but he could certainly change just a few letters from something popular to make a strip that is laugh-out-loud hilarious. This one feels like a dad joke, something a father would say, pulling up to the theater to catch the latest in the long-running franchise, to the groans of a family. Yet, the phenomenal visuals give simple wordplay much more comedic impact. Also, why are the dinosaurs all human-sized, and where did all these cars come from? Funny questions, but ones that don’t matter in Larson’s playful humor.
The Old Bait and Fish
Closing on one of Larson’s finest horror riffs, he takes Psycho and turns it into a worm’s worst nightmare. Here, the danger should be even more obvious, as it is called the “Bait” motel instead of Bates. This seems like the last place anyone would want to stay, but when you are but a worm, you don’t always think things through. The art here has a wealth of fun little details, and it is one of his most striking black-and-white strips from The Far Side. The stormy night and that single lit window are pure Hitchcockian homage.
Larson clearly spent as much time at the movies as the rest of us, and these are my picks for the strips that best capture his love of film. But the man slipped enough cinematic nods into his work to fill a double feature, so let us know which Far Side movie reference is your favorite, or which one you’d have added to the list.
