Larson's obsession with snakes is evident to anyone who spends even a brief time studying the creator's work. The high volume of appearances given to the legless reptiles, in one role or another, was evident in no era in Far Side's history more than the year 1986 – which featured serpents in eleven s, or nearly one-per-month. As was most often the case with the series, snakes appeared equally in some of Far Side's darkest installments, and some of its silliest, with the snake-s from 1986 falling all along this spectrum.

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11 At Least Give Them Some Doublemint Instead

First Published: March 15, 1986

This is an example of Far Side operating at peak silliness, in as close to lightheartedness as the strip tended to get. It features several snakes surrounding a gumball machine, each of them having tried to ingest the candy, only to find themselves unable to crawl away. Here, Gary Larson lampoons the commonly held notion that it is difficult to walk and chew gum at the same time, by depicting the unwieldy combination of a creature that doesn't walk, but slithers, and the most notoriously difficult-to-consume type of gum.

10 It's Unclear How These Snakes Got In The House Themselves

First Published: April 7, 1986

In another strip that emphasizes the goofy over the macabre, Larson leans into his creative habit of substituting animals in familiar human contexts by depicting a group of snakes, who seemingly live inside a house, yet are completely unable to work a doorknob. "Hey, Bob wants in," one of the indoor snakes says standing by the front door, as "Bob" peers through the window, "does any know how to work this thing?" Like many Far Side strips, the hilarity comes from the discrepancy between what human actions these anthropomorphized animals can and cannot achieve.

9 Unfortunately, That Is Not Angela

First Published: May 10, 1986

Different from the prior two entries, this strip depicts a snake in its natural animal context, menacing an unwitting human. The human character in this is – for reasons unknown to the reader – sleeping in a loosely sealed tent in the middle of a jungle. Though he's having a pleasant enough dream, in which a female acquaintance nuzzles his ear, the poor fellow is in for a shock when he wakes up, as it is in fact a huge snake that has breached his tent and is slithering around him.

8 This Snake Must've Zigged When It Should've Zagged

First Published: May 18, 1986

Curiously, Gary Larson delivers this featuring a group of snakes at a ski lodge in the middle of May, at a time when much of his North American audience would have been transitioning into springtime activities. Nevertheless, the anthropomorphic snakes of The Far Side are apparently avid skiers, as many can be viewed through the windows of the cabin hitting the slopes – while one unfortunate serpent is propped up by the fire, in a full body cast, apparently having wiped out and been seriously injured.

7 That Parrot Better Hope Someone Shows Up Soon

First Published: June 15, 1986

More than one Far Side character was eaten by a large snake during the comic's tenure, though this stands out as one of the most amusing, given the replay of the Pet World employee's last words as he is consumed by the massive python that escaped its enclosure, courtesy of the store's resident parrot. "Get it off me, get it off me!" the bird squawks, while hope of saving the python's victim steadily decreases, as the snake's stomach bulges with hapless employee.

6 Gary Larson Had Puns Coursing Through His Bloodstream

First Published: July 7, 1986

The Far Side was at times a vehicle for the most shameless of puns, a comedic mode which Gary Larson was unabashedly a er of. This snake is a perfect example, as it substitutes snakes for humans at a bar, with a male snake sitting at the far right end of the bar, leering over at two female snakes, with suspicious looks on their faces.. One of the females leans in and tells the other: "Stay away from that character down there, Barb – he's poison for sure."

5 Leave The Dogs At Home & Let The Snakes Of War Handle This

First Published: August 14, 1986

This features another snake pun, though the joke is a bit more extended than often found in Far Side strips. Captioned, "the Snakes of War," it features the reptiles in the place of World War I era trench warfare soldiers, with the commanding officer telling his snake subordinates: "If we're gonna take that hill, we'll have to do it inch-by-inch, flat on our bellies, wriggling through the mud." The joke, of course, is that this is what a human sargeant might have said to his soldiers, in the kind of desperation characteristic of war, while this is a more natural state for snakes.

4 The Most Infamous Snake Pirate Doesn't Get Around Very Easily Anymore

First Published: September 18, 1986

It's an understatement to say The Far Side was almost always weird, but this ranks as one of its most truly inexplicable s. Sitting around a table are a group of snakes, whom the caption informs the reader are also pirates, when "Captain Monet – unmistakable with his one eye and pegbody," enters the room. Solely designed to imagine what it would look like if a pirate's peg-leg took up their entire body, this features Gary Larson stretching his patented absurdism almost to the point of inanity.

3 Don't Tell Impressionable Young Snakes Stories Like This

First Published: October 28, 1986

At least as far as the year 1986 went, Gary Larson's Far Side featured snakes in some of its most innocuous installments. That tendency is radically upended in this particularly dark entry, which features "snake horror stories," as one snake sits in an armchair and tells a scary tale to what appear to be adolescent snakes. Larson illustrates the story, rather than giving it through dialogue; it appears to involve a snake that has been killed and turned into the light switch for a closet – though it is safe to say readers are left with many more questions than answers by this unsettling imagery.

2 Didn't The Crib Come In A Box?

First Published: November 11, 1986

This returns to the more gently amusing depiction of snakes that dominated most of their Far Side appearances in 1986. "I tell you, a crib is just plain worthless," a snake father says to a snake mother, as their mass of offspring wriggle around the room, unimpeded by the wide-set bars of their play-pen. "What we need around here is a good cardboard box," the father says, something that will be familiar to anyone who has dealt with reptilian reproduction, for one reason or another.