Nobody loves playfully messing around with the average scientist more than Gary Larson and The Far Side. While our most brilliant scientists work tirelessly to discover our world’s mysteries, Larson’s creative version of the scientific community isn’t as intellectually stoic as ours. Whether their inventions are dangerously imaginative or their methods confusingly unconventional, these Far Side scientists may shake your faith in scientists altogether.

Gary Larson’s The Far Side often employs an ensemble of scientist characters as a recurring pattern to both satirize and humanize the classic interpretation of the academically trained intellectual. By placing his scientists, paragons of rational thinking, in absurd and often juvenile scenarios, Larson playfully exposes the disconnect between the stoic perception of a scientist and the relatable human person behind the stereotype. These quick, slapstick jokes don’t just entertain but also offer a nuanced critique of scientific culture and the esteemed reverence society has given them all these years.

10 Even Brainiacs Love Ice Cream

Scientists Have An Inner-Child Too

In this comic, a group of scientists, previously immersed in what must have been a deeply complex discussion of mathematical equations, suddenly abandon their life’s work upon hearing the nostalgic song of the ice cream truck. The juxtaposition of the scientist’s obvious high intellect with their childlike excitement humanizes these brainiacs, appealing to a culturally shared simple pleasure. Here, Larson suggests that age doesn’t have to define our enjoyment of these pleasures, nor does our perceived intellect.

Scientists are often characterized as being above such trivialities, but in this comic Larson reminds readers that even the most brilliant of us are not immune to the joys of pleasure. The Far Side to criticize the scientific community, but his respect for their endeavors shows in comics like these. Realistically, it’s better that we see scientists as humans first, because, as Larson shows, that is exactly what they are - human.

9 Playful Rocket Scientists

One Joke Away From Disastrous Consequences

This features a pair of scientists who are on the verge of completing the construction of a dangerous missile. As one scientist must carefully hammer in the missile’s last nail, his partner stands by, ready to pop a paper bag with an audible bang. Like the last entry, this comic seeks to humanize scientists as being as juvenile as any of us can be. However, in situations like this, those juvenile tendencies could lead to serious negative consequences.

Yet, even more absurd than the practical joker’s actions is the very premise that these men of science must nail a missile together. These pinnacles of science that our society has achieved are all built on wildly dangerous experiments by people who had no clue what could happen next. Both men are playing with powers far more dangerous than them and move throughout this potentially catastrophic work with an enormous sense of confidence that Gary Larson often pokes fun at.

8 The Lab Practical Joker

Hydrochloric Acid Is Highly Corrosive

In this scene, a group of scientists is diligently at work when the group’s “practical joker” places a drop of hydrochloric acid on their colleague’s neck, leading to a loud yelp from the burned scientist. Playing with the trope of the “mad scientist,” this comic blends the literary concept with Gary Larson’s brand of schoolyard jokes. Larson once again humanizes these scientists by painting them in a humorous light, even if their actions are absurdly difficult.

On the other hand, this practical joker isn’t too far off from many of history’s most notorious scientists. Many of our world’s greatest scientific achievements, especially in the realms of biology and chemistry, were built on the backs of cruel scientific acts, similar to the one featured in this comic. However, times have changed, and now cruel science has somewhat faded, and modern scientists aren’t so keen on immoral testing, especially against each other.

7 Don’t Choke!

One Of Gary Larson's Few Sports-Themed Jokes

While Gary Larson didn’t often create The Far Side comics about sports, this single- comic takes Larson’s characterization of scientists and marries them with the classic antics of the average sports fan. In this comic, a team of scientific scholars cheer on one of their colleagues attempting to write out a complicated mathematical formula. Phrases like “good hands” or “don’t choke” are often used in competitive or athletic competitions, which clearly shows this team of scientists’ ion for their work.

As Gary Larson and The Far Side are often quick to criticize, academic scientists are difficult for the average person to relate to. For years, scientists have possessed a looming atmosphere of intellectual superiority, thus leading to the disconnect between the average citizen and scientific academia. However, this comic seeks to show that scientists have the same excitable feelings about their ions just as sports fans do about their favorite team.

6 Do Animals Kiss?

Humans Have To Anthropomorphize Everything Apparently

In this Far Side comic, a group of scientists huddles around a chalkboard as one scientist kisses an animal on the lips and another is socked in the face by a cow in an attempt to see whether or not animals “kiss.” The absurdity of the situation is immediate and layered, as The Far Side comics frequently are. Rather than objectively observing these animals from a distance, the researchers themselves have ed the experiment, transforming their experiment into one of subjective pleasure.

With this comic, Larson attempts to raise a philosophical point about projection. In this case, the projection of human affection onto the simpler-minded, non-consenting, animals. These scientists, overly invested in their scientific endeavors, have completely abandoned common sense, as Larson underscores how intellectual curiosity can devolve into ridiculous acts under the guise of their research. Unlike many of the previous entries, this comic criticizes the universal human tendency to perceive life through our perspective and the thin line in which scientific experimentation can transform into thoughtless absurdity.

5 Not Exactly Rocket Scientists

Rocket Scientists May Not Exist At All

This scene shows a group of scientists confusedly peering up at a crudely misshapen rocket as one of the intellectuals looks at his colleagues and says “It’s time we face reality, my friends… We’re not exactly rocket scientists.” Gary Larson cleverly adapts the cliché phrase by poking fun at the evident incompetence of the scientists. The phrase, often used to describe someone’s lack of intelligence, is flipped to highlight the greater dangers of general incompetence.

Here, Larson highlights how complex endeavors in the hands of misplaced confidence and overzealous ambitions could result in dangerous results. This is a danger that not only affects the field of science but also affects all forms of society. From a different perspective, the cartoon criticizes society’s over-reliance on titles and credentials instead of learned expertise and practical experience, a criticism that Gary Larson often makes with his comics about intellect and science.

4 Testing Whether Fish Have Feelings

That Poor, Poor Fish

Here, a duo of scientists has meticulously set up a series of microphones and an audio-recording device to see whether a pet fish would react to being heavily insulted. Similar to “Do Animals Kiss?”, this comic once again sees a pair of supposed intellectuals attempting to anthropomorphize animals through the lens of human experiences. The humor, which ittedly caused a few laughs before writing this, springs from the immediate silliness of the scientists’ string of crude insults and the visible disconnect in the fish’s blank expression.

Combined with the basal humor and the critique on human projection, this highlights the laughable disconnect between hard science and human expression and emotion. Ultimately, Larson satirizes these scientists’ human egotism as their entire work is designed to see if other life meets our standards of emotion or, rather, our standards of existence. Of course, to the rigorously minded scientist, emotion can be both a hindrance to scientific progress and the subject of focus, as shown here.

3 Canine Decoder

Some Mysteries Are Better Left Unanswered

If anyone has ever wondered what your furry friend talks about, this Far Side scientist has the answer, and it's incredibly underwhelming. After creating an invention that translates dog barks into the English language, this scientist discovers that the entire canine language boils down to a single expression: “Hey!” Larson’s mundane punchline slashes through one of humanity’s most asked, yet silliest, questions with an answer that is ultimately and disappointingly boring.

In addition to the acknowledgment that answers eventually demystify wonder, this cartoon reflects another problem in modern society - the dependency on the belief that technology can bridge the gap of expression. While modern technology has certainly proved useful in removing things like language barriers, Larson critiques our over-reliance on developing technology to replace traditional expression. Little did the cartoonist know at the time, that now society faces a new threat to expression in the prevalent use of AI in the modern world, instead of these fantastical inventions.

2 Early Microscope

Humans Are Far Too Analytical For Our Own Good

In this cartoon, a caveman attentively peers through a bizarrely large microscope to examine what is an unmistakable wooly mammoth. The joke is rooted in the absurdity of using advanced equipment, one’s time, and one’s mind to investigate something that is blatantly obvious. Gary Larson’s use of irony crafts a criticism of the scientific community that he seems to believe wastes effort in proving the obvious instead of applying that knowledge to mysteries that would move society forward.

This comic also satirizes humanity’s obsession with over-analyzing trivial phenomena that may not need to be proverbially dissected at all. Another common critique that Larson poises here is that science is a double-edged sword that can be used as a tool to amplify our understanding of the world, but only if it is done so thoughtfully. To quote Jurassic Park’s Ian Malcolm, “[the] scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

1 Everything’s Squared Away

Inspiration Can Come From The Wildest Of Places

This comic portrays Albert Einstein, as the prolific physicist is in the process of deg his theory of relativity. As he struggles to finish the equation e=mc??, a woman has finished cleaning Einstein’s desk, saying “Everything’s squared away,” thus giving Einstein the inspiration he needed to finalize his magnum opus. The cartoon seems to expound that inspiration isn’t always found in the practical means by which the average intellectual may look.

From both Einstein and the woman’s perspective, these mundane acts of expression and simple victories can be just as meaningful as Eureka-worthy, theoretical breakthroughs. Here, Gary Larson celebrates practical accomplishment, reminding us that there is value in all forms of work, not just the work that happens on the chalkboard. While this notion, as The Far Side presents it in this comic, is comical, Larson frequently wished with his work to highlight the potential magnificence of the average mind, even if that person doesn’t carry the same accolades as a scientist like Einstein.