Fans of The Far Side will recognize the living room as one of the most ubiquitous locations in Gary Larson's infamous comic strip – including many classics in which it became a dangerous place. Yes, a lot of Far Side jokes hinged on turning living rooms into literal death traps, proving no place was safe in Larson's warped world.

Larson's living room humor is perhaps the best example of his technique of comedic defamiliarization; that is, many of The Far Side's funniest moments were born out of the author's impulse to take things readers recognized and twist, turn, or flip them to make them new and surprising.

Throughout The Far Side's run, Gary Larson frequently put this technique to work in the living room setting, giving readers something to immediately connect with, all in the service of Larson taking them someplace unexpected.

10 The Living Room Was The Setting For The Far Side's Most Colorful Death Scene

First Published: February 10, 1992

In this cartoon, Gary Larson hilariously riffs on crime thrillers, as The Far Side's recurring detective character leads a police contingent into a man's apartment, where they find him in his living room, hanging upside down, covered in Christmas lights, flippers on his feet, and what appears to be a frog stuff in his mouth, with his head stuffed in a fish bowl.

With this absurd imagery, Larson lampoons the gruesome crime scene details of lurid fiction and non-fiction about crime, which is brilliantly punctuated by the caption, which captures the detective's musing over whether the crime is "the work of our guy, or a copycat." It is a truly over-the-top, colorful – in multiple senses of the word – twist on familiar tropes, set in a familiar location.

9 The Far Side Hilariously Pokes Fun At How The Phone Always Seems To Ring At Dinner Time

First Published: January 13, 1992

During The Far Side's tenure in publication, cell phones were the exception, not the norm; instead, land lines were ubiquitous, and a common phenomenon during the landline era was the feeling that every time one sat down for a meal, the phone would ring. Gary Larson offers a perfect swerve on that idea with this comic, in which a snake gets a phone call just as it has sat down in a recliner in front of the television and stuffed a whole pig in its mouth.

The Far Side represented a Far Side comic that doesn't need a caption to tell readers exactly what the artist is saying with it.

8 The Far Side Reveals The Truth Behind The Death Of A Magic Icon

First Published: March 8, 1991

Captioned "Houdini's final undoing," this Far Side comic envisions an inglorious alternate fate for the famous magician Harry Houdini, in which he dies and subsequently wastes away to a skeleton in the corner of a living room, all because he can't escape the "Chinese handcuffs" on his index fingers, which all his prowess and skills fails to extract him from.

The possibly apocryphal of Houdini's "undoing" is that he died of abdominal swelling after being punched in the stomach; Larson's version instead ensares Houdini in a tragically ironic ending, as despite his reputation as an escape artist, he ultimately meets his doom at the hands, or fingers, of a childrens' toy. Houdini was not the only famous figure The Far Side reimagined the death of, but his is perhaps the most well-executed punchline of them all.

7 The Far Side Turned Tragedy Into Comedy In This Genius Strip

First Published: May 28, 1990​​​​​​​

In this Far Side cartoon, Gary Larson once more uses irony to transmute tragedy into comedy. The depicts a tree that has fallen, smashing through the side of a suburban home and crushing a woman in her own living room – as she follows along with a Bob Ross-esque painting program on TV, in which she was learning how to paint "happy trees."

The woman's fate is bleak – made all the worse by Larson's subtle manipulation of the details, as he has the victim's poodle sitting sadly by her feet, looking at her body – but the juxtaposition between the jarring, abrut nature of her death and the serenity of the painting show she was watching right up until it happened is undeniably funny, as dark as it is.

6 Gary Larson Flips The Script On Hunting In This Memorable Far Side Cartoon

First Published: February 21, 1990​​​​​​​

Gary Larson routinely used Far Side comics to take jabs at hunters, as he was clearly opposed to the practice as a matter of principle. This comic represents what is possibly Larson's greatest argument against hunting, as he depicts a duck living in a human house being ambushed by a hunter hiding in the corner of the living room as it returns from the kitchen with "a midnight snack."

Though this might be an unnatural habitat for a duck, Larson's comic makes the point that hunters invade the equivalent of their targets' living rooms; a human with a shotgun lurking in the shadows of someone else's house waiting to strike would be a horrifying atrocity, but for hunters and their prey, it is something most people don't think twice about. Larson, however, does think about this issue in great detail, and in this case it manifested as a classic Far Side cartoon.

5 The Pinnacle Of The Far Side's Subversion Of Living Room Safety

First Published: February 15, 1990

To this day, this Far Side cartoon remains one of Gary Larson's most highly-regarded jokes. Captioned "and down they went: Bob and Francine – two more victims of the La Brea Carpets," this joke is rightly lauded for its top-shelf Larsonian wordplay, but also for the laugh-out-loud illustration, which perfectly encapsulates the punchline, while also adding another dimension to the experience of engaging with the .

The play on words is, understandably, the centerpiece of the comic, and few Far Side comics can be said to better subvert the expectations one has when entering a living room. It is also, in a way, Larson's own distinct version of the childhood game "the floor is lava," turned deadly serious for these two Far Side ​​​​​​​house guests.

4 The "Man's Best Friend" Relationship Turns Volatile In This Far Side

First Published: February 6, 1988

More than one Far Side cartoon featured the relationship between humans and canines getting out of hand, but this is certainly one of the most prominent examples. The comic features a dog that has been kicked by its owner one too many times standing up for itself in the most extreme way possible, with a dynamite vest strapped to its chest, as it provokes the owner into kicking him one more time, at which point the dog will blow them both up.

A sequel of sorts to an earlier Far Side comic, this is an example of Gary Larson's ability to take a premise to the next level, as it gives off a sense of heightened anxiety and tension, which somehow manages to add to the increased comedic effect of the cartoon.

3 The Far Side Turns Things Upside Down By Interrupting "The Deaths" In Their Own Living Room

First Published: May 7, 1986

The Far Side's characters often met their demise, but in some cases Death itself was a Far Side character – or in this case, the "Deaths," plural, a Grim Reaper husband and wife who are just settling in to a cozy night in their living room when a traveling salesperson interrupts them with a rap at their door.

Here, Larson smartly does more than just embody the phrase "knocking on death's door" – he adds another dimension to the joke by making it from the perspective of the Deaths, personifying them in a way that also allows him to once again play on a familiar cultural trope that would have been familiar at the time of this Far Side comic's release, that of the interrupting salesman.

2 A Classic "Wrong Place, Wrong Time, What Is Thar Even Doing Here?" Far Side Joke

First Published: January 28, 1985​​​​​​​

In another fan-favorite Far Side cartoon, a man is being suffocated by a giant squid that has inexplicably invaded his living room, prompting his wife to grab the phone and dial the number for "Harry's Squid-be-gone" – only for the call to go unanswered, as the proprietor of the shop has stepped away, leaving a sign hanging on the front door that reads "back in a jiffy."

Giant squid appeared often in The Far Side, and just as often as they were lurking in the depths of the ocean, they were found on the streets of The Far Side's cities, or in this case, infesting a suburban home. In this way, Gary Larson filled his characters' living rooms with more than just unexpected dangers, but absurd and fantastical ones.

1 A Literal Death Trap: These Far Side Mice Come Home To An Ominous Discovery

First Published: November 15, 1984​​​​​​​

In this Far Side anthropomorphized animal cartoon, a pair of mice come home from a night out to discover a freshly laid mousetrap waiting for them in their living room. This amusing premise is elevated by the caption, which makes it clear that the characters don't recognize the device, or the danger it poses – leading the mouse wife to tell her husband to "just get rid of it...but save the cheese first."

Of course, readers will know that this is almost certainly going to lead to a gruesome death for the mouse husband, once more adding the tension of tragicomic irony to the scenario, as readers laugh uneasily at the punchline, which requires them to know the character's dark fate moments before he does. It is layered jokes like this that gives The Far Side its well-earned reputation as a perfect hybrid of high and low comedy, as Gary Larson produced comics that were highly intelligent, while never making the mistake of taking them too seriously.