Every clown knows the value of a well-placed banana peel, but Gary Larson's of course plenty of gorillas.
Here are the funniest Far Side comics that use bananas for humor - be sure to vote in our end-of-article poll for your #1, and to find out which banana comic our readers voted the best of the best.
10 Banana Daiquiris
Good Luck Finding a Far Side Bar That's Not Full of Animals
In this strip, Tarzan and some ape friends are getting rowdy in a bar, with the punchline being that of course the primate group are indulging in banana-themed drinks. Tarzan appears pretty often in The Far Side, but so do animals enjoying a drink alongside humans. Kangaroos, peacocks and snakes are all heavy drinkers in the world of Far Side - open the image gallery below for more Far Side strips where animals hang out in bars.
One of the only consistent rules in The Far Side is that animals tend to have human-level intelligence, so it makes sense that they'd enjoy the same amenities. Generally, the humor comes from the animals having human troubles - a rabbit complaining about child or a kangaroo getting into an argument with a know-it-all drinker - but every so often the joke hinges on nature encroaching on a human situation, like two zebras who are being stalked by lions at their 'watering hole.'
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9 I Know You're Scared, Ramone
Gary Larson Isn't Scared of Dad Jokes
The Far Side is known for its surreal, sometimes morbid sense of humor, but Gary Larson's love of language is a huge part of his comic's success. In this strip, Larson sets up the conceit of a bunch of bananas preparing to rob a bank, all to get to a pun that equates their yellow color with cowardly behavior. Larson is the master of adding little details that enhance a comic without complicating the joke - in this case, the bananas are wearing excessive disguises, including bandanas and shades.
8 Nothing More Than Peelings
Far Side Is Smart, But It's Built on a Bedrock of Puns
In another punny gag, a group of gorillas sing a version of Morris Albert's Feelings. Of course, being apes, their version of the lyrics lament that they've run out of bananas, rather than mourning a lost love. The image of a gorilla deep in the jungle playing a piano is a fun detail, and Larson improves the gag by giving the listening gorillas cocktails. Plenty of Far Side comics play around with popular lyrics, either showing Larson's love of twisting meaning whenever possible or just playing around with the visual of animals belting out classics.
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7 That Does It, Sid!
Gorillas Are Recurring Stars in The Far Side
This comic hinges on the horrifying fact that tarantulas sometimes nestle inside bunches of bananas, with Larson imagining this as a major inconvenience to the apes who just want to get at the fruit. In The Complete Far Side, Larson explains that he comes from a family of pranksters, noting that his family possessed "a deep, sincere appreciation for the many uses of a good gorilla mask." No-one pranked Larson harder than his brother, who would trap him in the basement while claiming a monster was coming to eat him. It makes sense that when dealing with gorillas, Larson would even imagine apes pranking each other.
Perhaps because of the gorilla mask that hung in the Larson family's pantry, the great apes appear frequently in The Far Side. Open the image gallery below for more Far Side comics starring gorillas.
Larson explores every possible aspect of gorilla humor, from gorilla costumes to King Kong to the idiomatic 500-pound gorilla. Indeed, this isn't the last time gorillas feature on this list, as their association with bananas gives them a simple but relatively difficult-to-retrieve thing to want - an easy setup for all kinds of gags.
6 Forbidden Fruit
Another Pun Rears Its Head
The puns return, as easily Larson's meanest banana refuses a mango entry to 'Club Citrus,' all for a wordplay joke on the concept of "forbidden fruit" - which is actually meant to be more desirable, not less. Bananas aren't the only fruit that Larson uses in his comics, with everything from cyclops-blinding grapefruit to a Newton-inspiring apple appearing in The Far Side.
One recurring idea in The Far Side is the Garden of Eden, where Larson finds multiple ways to joke about the dire importance of a single apple. Above, Larson imagines Eden being full of different animals, all offering their own unique type of fruit, but other Far Side gags revisit the iconic image of Eve and the Serpent in different ways.
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5 Big Bob's Ballbearings, Bananas, Roller Skates & Floor Wax Inc.
Not Every Far Side Comic Needs a Caption
One of Gary Larson's best tricks is presenting a situation where the reader has to take a second to figure out what's going on. That's the case in this strip, where a bunch of people are uncontrollably sliding around their workplace. The door to the boss' office explains what's going on, as they all work for Big Bob's Ballbearings, Bananas, Roller Skates & Floor Wax Inc. The company's various wares have set up a Rube Goldberg machine of slippiness, with floor wax causing employees to drop ball bearings, bananas, etc., leading to further disaster. It's a concept that wouldn't be out of place in Tim Robinson's I Think You Should Leave.
The funniest part of the comic - and one that doesn't immediately present itself to the reader - is the incredibly nervous intern down in the bottom right, who is gritting his teeth while carrying a tray full of steaming hot coffee. In a hilarious detail, Big Bob's employees haven't adjusted to their circumstances, and despite knowing the risk, the intern is carrying several open cups that definitely aren't making their way to their intended destination.
4 The Origin of Poodles
Far Side Loves Making Dogs Ridiculous
The tarantula/banana connection returns, and we regret to inform you that, yes, spiders have made international trips as part of banana deliveries. In this strip, Larson replaces the small, easy-to-miss insects with poodles, making the idea inherently ridiculous, even before his fantastic visual. Larson is well aware that poodles are a breed created by deliberate selective breeding, but it makes for a way funnier world to imagine them as a separate species who spread across the world thanks to their skill at hiding among fruit.
Dogs often appear in The Far Side, but Larson doesn't necessarily depict them as man's best friend. Far Side's dogs tend to be slow-witted and obsessed with their most basic needs. However, every so often the dogs rebel, leading to some truly bizarre behavior. Open the image gallery below for more Far Side comics starring dogs.
Far Side's sense of humor doesn't really show anyone in a good light, but Larson did have a soft spot for dogs. Asked if he preferred animals to humans in a 1987 interview with 20/20, Larson denied the charge, but did add that "I never met a red setter I didn't like."
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3 I Really Like Bananas
Far Side Combines a Surreal Perspective with Observational Humor
Far Side isn't exactly known as observational humor, but there's something about this strip that captures a certain kind of late-night, meaningless conversation. One gorilla pontificates on their love of bananas, with a big enough ego that they truly believe their love of the fruit goes beyond what other gorillas experience. While a lot of Larson's comics show extreme circumstances, other strips are just windows onto odd little characters that make Larson chuckle.
In The Prehistory of The Far Side, Larson describes how he sometimes begins drawing a comic before he knows the punchline, his attention grabbed by a compelling image or situation. It's easy to imagine that the image of two gorillas hanging out in the jungle and enjoying a pointless conversation would inspire this comic.
2 Penguin vs Banana
Penguins Are Some of Far Side's Most Versatile Subjects
In one of Far Side's greatest comics, a penguin slips on a banana peel. In a comic series that usually only uses a single , Larson mastered choosing the perfect 'moment' to tell a joke. Often, Larson's gags are hilarious because of what is about to happen or what has to have just happened to set up the moment readers see. In this case, the gag is how impossible this moment is - where did a banana peel come from in Antarctica, and how could the penguin not spot a bright yellow hazard against all that snow? It's a ridiculous situation presented wordlessly, showing Larson's instincts for a killer image.
Penguins appear a lot in The Far Side, often with the joke that they know they live in a totally inhospitable place and are desperate to get out. Larson also enjoys the gags of their identical appearances, including a strip where a penguin murder investigation has essentially nothing to go on. Open the image gallery below for more Far Side comics starring penguins.
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1 Primate Research Lab
Far Side Asks More of Its Readers
This hilarious strip shows the aftermath of a study on monkeys that has left a banana suspended from the ceiling. An experiment that was surely conducted by a group of geniuses to make the world better or earn crucial knowledge, but now an irritating practical problem for the lab's custodian. The comic appears to play on the (fictional) 'Monkey Ladder Experiment,' showing how Far Side asks a little more from its readers than many of its contemporaries - or at least rewards outside knowledge.
In the apocryphal scientific study, a group of monkeys are put in a room with a banana suspended from the ceiling and a ladder leading to it, but sprayed with water whenever they try to climb the ladder. This treatment is repeated until the monkeys know better than to try and climb the ladder, at which point a monkey is replaced, with the other monkeys stopping the newcomer if it tries to climb the ladder. Each monkey is replaced one after the other until the group is entirely made up of new monkeys who refuse to climb the ladder - and will stop any new monkey from doing so - despite never having experienced the punishment.
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The world of Gary Larson's Far Side is full of bizarre creatures, so it's no surprise that elves, fairies, leprechauns and gnomes feature heavily.
While the experiment is a parable that never took place, it makes the strip above even more hilarious, as the banana that the scientists were determined to dissuade the monkeys from claiming has now become a very human problem.
Those are the 10 funniest Far Side comics where Gary Larson uses bananas for humor - don't forget to vote in our poll below to find out which of these comics is readers' number one.
