10 Near-Perfect Far Side Comics About Movies

Nearly a dozen comic strips movie-goers and Far Side readers will love.

For most of us, going to the movies is meant to be an escape; a chance for us to separate from reality, munch on some snacks, and watch a journey amongst the stars, a battle between elves and orcs, or whatever other spectacle happens to be unfolding on the silver screen. Even then, the theater experience is rarely perfect. Someone might sit directly in front of you at the worst possible moment, or a particularly gruesome scene can hit a little too close to home. Those little interruptions are usually nothing more than minor annoyances, but they also happen to be exactly the kind of everyday situations Gary Larson loved to twist into something absurd via his beloved comic strip The Far Side.

Throughout Larson's run on The Far Side from 1979 to 1995, movie theaters became gathering places for dogs, horses, hummingbirds, members of the Vatican's upper echelon, hummingbirds, and even Death himself. Sometimes Larson spoofed classics like The Godfather or Honey, I Shrunk the Kids; other times, he simply took familiar parts of moviegoing and pushed them to ridiculous extremes.

1 Tall hats

"Down in front" is a notion the perfectly encapsulates one of the most frustrating moments one can endure while sitting in the cinema. Few groups are safe from the reach of Larson's absurdist humor, including those at the Vatican and their papal regalia.

2 Taller gods

The blink-and-you'll-miss-it frustrations are something Larson touched on numerous times over the years, including the time he visited a multiplex in Olympus, where gods were worried the world-holding titan Atlas was about to sit down in front of them.

3 The Big Itch

In a world where dogs could watch films at the theaters, the highest-grossing horror franchise would likely star fleas. In this case, the flick to see is The Big Itch.

4 Fast Forward

Again, with the absurdist humor, hummingbirds apparently need their nature documentaries speed up quite a bit to stay interested. It's a tiny biological joke stretched into a perfectly absurd moviegoing gag.

5 Honey, I Ate the Kids

Larson tweaks Honey, I Shrunk the Kids into something much darker — and surprisingly sinister — for a theater full of praying mantises. One changed word later, and this panel might end up being some of Larson's darkest work with The Far Side.

6 Ketchup Carnage

In a warning to parents taking their kids to movies well above their age range, Larson steps into a Lynchian tale starring an audience full of ketchup bottles. In this panel, a parent reassures their child that what they're watching is, in fact, fictional. A quick glimpse at the screen shows a broken bottle spilling its contents across the street.

7 Nature's Rejects

Sometimes Disney's best movies are those you never expected — films with plots on the more unconventional side like Inside Out or a classic like The Black Cauldron. Larson explores this idea in a truly absurd panel in which he suggests rejected Disney film ideas include pictures like Floyd: The story of a Live Fluke and the Boy Who Loved Him.

8 Death Date

Even Death can be left speechless at the movies. In this case, the Grim Reaper spots his girlfriend with Dr. Jack Kevorkian — the late doctor who said he assisted with the physician-assisted suicides of over 130 patients.

9 Down in Front

Circling back to the idea of having your line of sight blocked in a theater, we chose this one for the top of the list because it's one of the few non-absurdist panels that the vast majority of us have dealt with. Comically tall people sitting in front of us as we were kids, prohibiting us from seeing the legendary Small Soldiers.

10 Horse Trauma

And the funniest Far Side comic about the movies is another surprisingly dark tale. A horse walks out of the cinema distraught, having just seen The Godfather and its infamous decapitated horse scene.