Gary Larson's Far Side is famously surreal and a little morbid, but the comic also has a serious love for groan-worthy dad jokes. Corny, punny and family friendly, dad jokes may not be the wittiest form of humor, but they have a major place in Gary Larson's heart, and the hearts of his readers.

Here are the 10 funniest dad jokes in Far Side history - be sure to vote in our end-of-article poll to decide the official number #1, and to see which comics other readers consider the best of the best.

10 Potato Salad

A Simple Dual-Meaning Gag Gets the Far Side Treatment

In a definitive dad joke, Larson puns on the two meanings of 'gone bad' - describing both food spoilage and someone who has morally declined. While the gag is pure wordplay, Larson does add some extra flair by having his human character accidentally stumbled on a food-mugging in progress, living up to Far Side's standard for visual humor.

9 Sketchy Customers

The Far Side Breaks the Fourth Wall

Some of Far Side's funniest comics break the fourth wall, acknowledging the series' nature as a comic. In this dad joke, 'sketchy customers' refers not to suspicious individuals, but rather poorly drawn characters entering a store. Larson messed with the 'rules' of comics, with jokes where characters can see each other's thought balloons and even end up physically blocking the punchline.

Far Side was one of the world's favorite comics for 14 years, so it makes sense that Larson began playing with the form, using concepts like unfinished art and characters knowing they're fictional to add a meta edge to his gags. However, Larson didn't stop at the comics medium - jokes like the cowboy scene (in the image gallery above) lampoon film tropes, suggesting that the menacing music played on a bad guy's entrance is still in-world, it's just being played slightly off-screen.

8 Seasonings Greetings

Far Side Comics Made for Some Great Christmas Cards

In this dad joke, the festive phrase 'Seasons Greetings' becomes a harmless little pun about nutmeg and paprika being on good . It's rare for Larson to create such a harmless comic, though it makes a lot of sense considering Far Side has a successful line of Christmas cards. Larson's Christmas cards include various Christmas gags as well as some classic comics with edits to give them a festive theme - for example, a goldfish going to plug in a Christmas tree rather than a radio (in the image gallery below.)

Santa, Christmas morning and the Nativity were all fair game for Larson, who turned Santa in a reindeer-eating tyrant and has Joseph and Mary's donkey towed for illegal parking.

7 The La Brea Carpets

Larson's Love of Paleontology Gets a Dark Twist

This comic is a pun on the La Brea Tar Pits - ancient tar pits in Los Angeles which have been swallowing and preserving various animals for tens of thousands of years, with the specimens now retrieved and studied by paleontologists. The Far Side loves to crash the truly surreal into the undeniably mundane, with two innocent people swallowed to their deaths after stepping on the wrong carpet. Disturbingly, their hosts must have known about the risks, yet didn't offer any kind of warning.

6 Clown vs Clown

Larson Considers This "The Worst Cartoon I Ever Drew"

Larson called this comic the worst he ever drew, and it's definitely cornier than his usual output. In The Complete Far Side, Larson notes, "Above is my own nominee for the worst cartoon I ever drew. (I still cringe.)" The joke is pure pun, with one clown warning another that he has "friends in pie places" in order to intimidate him. It's definitely among Larson's least witty entries, but that makes it prime dad joke material.

Clowns appear throughout The Far Side, with Larson using them as pathetic yet somehow insidious figures. When asked about his many cow comics in a 1998 interview with The New York Times, Larson explained that "cows blur the line between tragedy and humor." It's clear that clowns occupy the same niche.

5 One of the Great Masters

Far Side Always Takes the Animal's Side

In another dual-meaning gag, Leonardo da Vinci's dog objects to his owner being considered one of the 'great masters,' with the phrase playing as both 'dog owner' and a specific era of European artist. Making the joke even funnier, da Vinci is shown working on the Mona Lisa - a project which surely justifies his pet waiting a little longer for its dinner.

4 A Word of Warning About Mueller

Far Side Always Takes Common Sayings as Literal as Possible

The Far Side has a lot of comics where Larson takes an idiom and renders it literally. In this case, the good head on a worker's shoulders isn't congratulations for being sensible, but rather a tiny mutant doppelgänger.

3 Runaway Trains

Will This Comic Even Make Sense to Future Readers?

In this groanworthy joke, out-of-control trains are equated to children who have left home without their parents' permission. The gag hinges on the 1980s-1990s practice of publicizing missing children by including their pictures and details on milk cartons - an item that was in every household, and so therefore would theoretically reach a lot of people.

2 Chicken Feed

Far Side's Chickens Can't Catch a Break

In this strip, a boss boasts about his new workforce - an army of chickens who are literally willing to work for chicken feed. Chickens are often the losers in the world of Far Side, with Larson referencing the fact that his poultry characters exist to be eaten and - in a world where animals have human intelligence - can't help but know it.

1 The Maestro

Larson Knew This Comic Would Never Be Approved

This dad joke is at least somewhat grisly, and one of the only Far Side comics featuring an actual decomposing body. In The Prehistory of The Far Side, Larson reveals that he never even submitted the comic to his editors, as it had no chance of seeing syndication in daily newspapers. Thankfully, it has appeared in various collections, letting fans see the fine line Larson had to walk in regard to taste.

While rules slackened towards the comic's later years, Larson's early career came with a lot of strings, including a ban on any form of scatological humor. Larson was banned from even depicting an outhouse, and was never allowed to create a comic starring dung beetles (something he remedied in his more recent online-only work.) Violence was a little less strictly controlled, and there are plenty of Far Side comics where it's at least strongly implied that no-one is going to survive.

Larson has credited his morbid sense of humor to growing up during the Cold War and especially the Cuban Missile Crisis - a time when his carefree childhood ran alongside the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation. In a 1987 interview with 20/20, Larson stated:

It was going from Leave It To Beaver to bomb shelters. I sitting in my seventh-grade English class thinking that the world was going to end during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It made you look at the world a little bit askew.

Those are the 10 funniest Far Side comics where Gary Larson tells dad jokes - be sure to vote for your #1 in our reader poll, and comment your own favorite dad jokes below.

Source: The New York Times