On two separate occasions a newspaper switched the captions for The Far Side and Dennis the Menace, resulting in a whole new interpretation of the comic strips that left some readers appreciating the dark twist that surprisingly added a lot to the series.
The Far Side and Dennis the Menace couldn't be more different. One is a biting satire of the human condition, while the other is a light-hearted look at childhood antics. Gary Larson's The Far Side ran from 1979 to 1995 and is known for playing on surrealistic comedy based on uncomfortable social situations, an anthropomorphic view of the world, logical fallacies, impending weird disasters, and often twisted references to proverbs or the search for significance in life. On the other hand, Dennis the Menace is a newspaper comic strip created in 1951 by Hank Ketcham. The central character, Dennis Mitchell, is an impish but lovable child who often gets into mischief without meaning to do so. However, his parents are always understanding and forgive him for everything he does.
In the 1989 anthology Prehistory of The Far Side: A 10th Anniversary Exhibit, Larson details how these two vastly different comics collided in the strangest and funniest way. On two occasions in 1981 and 1983, the Dayton Daily News accidentally switched the captions for The Far Side and Dennis the Menace, which ran next to each other on the paper's Comics page. The results were... interesting, to say the least. The very first switch was more lighthearted, with both s featuring sandwiches. Far Side's original caption read, "Oh, brother!...Not hamsters again!" while Dennis the Menace's was, "Lucky thing I learned to make peanut butter sandwiches or we woulda starved to death by now." But because of the switch, it seems to imply the snakes are eating peanut butter and Dennis is eating hamsters. The second switch took a much darker turn with Dennis sitting at the dinner table captioned as saying, "I see your little, petrified skull...labeled and resting on a shelf somewhere," and The Far Side showed a prehistoric fortune teller predicting to another cave person, "If I get as big as Dad, won't my skin be too TIGHT?" Some even found the caption switching humorous, while others were deeply disturbed. Either way, the Dayton Daily News later issued apologies for the errors.
The Far Side is no stranger to dark premises both in and out of the . In the early days of the internet, a number of urban legends and hoaxes circulated that Larson had died in a car accident, and his final strip (showing a hearse crashing into a tree) was actually his suicide note. Hence, it is not unusual to see some dark themes. Dennis the Menace has no such darkness, which really solidifies these moments as comedic gold. Gary Larson was so fond of these mix-ups that he included them in his anthology, loving the moment that the wholesome and all-American Dennis paired with threatening skull imagery.
The comic strips The Far Side and Dennis the Menace are juggernauts in their own right. Their differences in subject matter and audiences make the supposedly accidental caption swaps the stuff of comedy gold. Larson himself said in his reflective anthology Prehistory of The Far Side: A 10th Anniversary Exhibit that it was hilariously embarrassing how both comic strips were improved by the change. Rarely does a printing mistake get so much love from readers, but in this case with The Far Side and Dennis the Menace, it ended up creating surrealist genius.
