WEBVTT - A Tribute To The Far Side 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:07.680 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:14.000 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck. 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:16.040 Jerry's here too. She has had to step away for 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:18.680 a second, but she'll be back, we imagined, and when 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.159 she gets here, it'll really be stuff you should Know. 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:25.119 That's right. I'm excited about this one because this is 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:28.880 sort of filed under our tribute series the Things We. 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:30.760 Love Tribute to your Taste. 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:33.239 I don't know how you feel because we didn't even 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:37.560 talk about this, but the cartoon from the Funny Pages 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:41.920 and the books and more, The Far Side by Gary Larson. Yeah, 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.320 it spanned from like fifth or sixth grade to me 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:48.040 through the end of college, which is just kind of 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:52.960 crystallizes to me the perfect time to be awakened to 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:55.320 something like Gary Larson's sense of humor. 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:58.680 Yeah, for sure. He definitely The Far Side, I should say, 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.920 definitely helps shape my sense of humor, just from being 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:05.040 exposed to that and finding it funny. You have to 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:07.840 kind of find it funny to begin with, but once 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:11.160 you do, it definitely can especially during formative your help 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:14.640 shape your humor. And if you go back and look 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:18.840 at them now, they're still great, but there's something that's 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:23.120 just it just had something before that. It's not like 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:27.200 it lost it now, but it's just diluted now. And 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:28.880 I was looking around and trying to figure out what 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.600 the deal is, and the best explanation I could come 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:34.759 up with is that it had such an impact on 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:41.039 culture that it actually normalized and spread that sort of 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:46.479 humor so far and wide that it became less I guess, 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:50.040 humorous in and of itself, because it made it well 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:52.639 normal to be funny in that way that people weren't. 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:56.120 Really nobody was doing anything like Gary Larson was when 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:58.720 The Far Side came out, but it was so popular 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:00.520 he made it a thing. 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:03.040 Yeah. The only thing you need to add about that 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:07.680 statement is to me, because I still think it's amazing, 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:10.240 and I have had the best time of the past 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:11.880 couple of days just reading these over and over. 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.200 Oh good, Yes, No, I like them too. But yeah, 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:17.720 there's just something I guess it's I don't know what 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:19.120 it is. I think I already said it. 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:23.079 Yeah, but we're talking about one of the best cartoons ever. 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:27.960 The difference between a cartoon and a comic generally, I mean, 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.480 they're kind of interchangeable in a way, but a comic 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:32.600 is generally a strip of several panels that tell a 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.200 story and have a bit of an arc. A cartoon 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:38.960 is a single panel thing that tells all you need 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:43.440 to know in one picture, sometimes with words, sometimes without words. 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:46.400 It's kind of like comparing a book to a poem, 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:50.280 Like a good poem is really really hard to write 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.280 compared to pros because it has to be more efficient 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:56.800 and economical, and so a one panel cartoon has to 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.200 have the same impact, or in the case of Farsight, 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.640 a far far greater impact than a strip, because you 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:05.120 have to figure out how to get things across, like 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:08.560 the movement of time or what's like cause and effect 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:11.480 in just one single image. So when you take that 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:14.359 into account too, it just makes it even more impressive. 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:17.239 What he did, I think, Yeah, for sure, it's a 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:20.680 cartoon that ran for fifteen years. It's been gone for 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:24.520 about thirty years, but it is still one of the 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:28.000 most Like just his style is so instantly recognizable as 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.480 Gary Larson. He's not a guy that used you know, characters, 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.600 that wasn't like family circus where you know, you knew 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:36.760 these people. But he had certain a certain way of 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:38.720 drawing and he had certain sort of stock characters he 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:41.760 would bring in, like the beehive lady with the cat 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:46.040 eye glasses and the little freckle faced glasses kid with 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:49.800 the crew cut. Lots of animals, So he would kind 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.040 of bring in these, you know, kind of characters in 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:55.520 and out. But they were never like named characters with 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:56.480 any kind of story. 0:03:57.360 --> 0:03:59.600 No, And sometimes they would have names, but it was 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:03.160 totally inconsequential. It would be somebody addressing them and just 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:05.440 using a right like you wouldn't point to that person 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:08.520 be like, oh, there's Barry or something like that. Like 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:12.720 they were just interchangeable archetypes that he created. 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:16.440 Yeah, and as we'll see, you know, toward the end, 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:21.839 a great intersection of comedy and art and science because 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:25.040 Gary Larson was a bit of a science nerd. He 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:27.800 was born in nineteen fifty and raised in Tacoma, Washington, 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:30.760 and got his sense of humor apparently from his family. 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:34.200 He said, my older brother and his parents, whose dad 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:38.039 was a car salesman, his mother was a secretary, and 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:40.520 they just had a really wacky sense of humor. But 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:42.920 he's he hasn't done a ton of interviews over the years, 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.280 but in the interviews he's given. He said, I just 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:47.000 that was just my family sense of humor, and I 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:50.159 didn't hear things like wacky and left of center until 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:50.680 much later. 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:54.880 Right yeah, like people would describe as family like that. 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:56.680 It's not like the family was like, look at how 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:00.800 wacky we are, right yeah. Yeah. So one of those 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:04.000 big influences, in addition to like his just his mom 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.360 and his dad, was his older brother. I think he 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:08.520 called out, but I saw that one of the things 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:10.680 his older brother did was introduce him to like a 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:14.839 love of nature. They would go around the beaches of 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.960 Puget Sound and collect live animals when they could, and 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:22.159 then bring them home and put them in cages or 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.800 terrariums or aquariums, And later on he was like, I 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:27.680 don't think you're supposed to do that. I don't think 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.520 you should keep animals captive. But growing up as a kid, 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:34.279 he had a real interest in animals and developed a 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:38.320 real love of biology. But his brother had a dual 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:41.719 influence on him. I saw a quote where he said 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:44.760 his brother introduced him to like the beauty of a jellyfish, 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:47.400 and then also used that same jellyfish to smack me 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:51.000 in the face with which I think it's a that's 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:52.280 a good big brother right there. 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:55.559 Yeah, he sounded like kind of the classic tormenting big brother, 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:59.160 but in a loving way, is what I gathered at least. Yeah, 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:01.040 But yeah, he's always he's been in animals. He's very 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:05.479 much into nature and animal the treatment of animals in conservation. 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:07.919 Now since his retirement, he's gotten really into that. But 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:12.400 he went to school at Washington State in nineteen seventy 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:17.000 two Cougars and was initially a biology student. But he 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:18.720 realized he didn't want to go to school for more 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:20.520 than four years and he wasn't sure what he could 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.640 do with a biology degree, so he switched to communications. 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:27.919 But apparently always regretted that switch and feels like he 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:29.359 should have stayed a biology major. 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:31.480 Yeah, he said, it's one of the most idiotic things 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:34.320 I ever did. Yeah, we should all be pretty grateful though, 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:37.240 that he did switch, because it's not clear that he 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.120 would have still made the far Side. One of the 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:42.000 reasons he did make far Sites because he had a 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:44.680 lot of time on his hands. So after he graduated 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:48.800 with a communications degree, he got jobs like playing banjo 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:52.440 or working in a music store. I think, very coolly, 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:58.520 he became a Humane Society investigator, and that's what he 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.600 was doing when he created a strip called Nature's Way, 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:05.360 which if you look at the original Nature's Way cartoons, 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:09.240 it's just early Farside without with a different name. 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.280 Essentially, Yeah, it was the far Side. The San Francisco 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:15.520 Chronicle changed the name, which you know that they've asked 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:18.080 him about that, because I remember Charles Schultz was very 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:21.320 particular about naming it Peanuts and keeping it that, and 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:24.680 Gary Larson did not mind the name change, but he sold. 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:28.720 He got a few days off from work apparently and realized, like, boy, 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.760 I don't like my job, so I'm gonna try something else. 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.480 And he didn't have any formal art training at all. 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.520 And I love his his his style, but none of 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:42.040 that was like from art class or anything like that, right, 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:46.920 And in nineteen seventy six, sold six cartoons to Pacific Search, 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:51.800 a regional science magazine, for ninety bucks, sold another handful 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.520 to another local magazine for you know, three to five 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.760 bucks each, and then eventually got in nineteen seventy nine, 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:02.520 got a weekly gig at the Seattle Times for Nature's 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:04.240 Way at fifteen dollars. 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:08.880 A week, right, which is I think eighty five bucks 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:09.840 something like that. 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:13.360 Now, yeah, so not money to live on, but he 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:13.960 did have. 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:16.280 A place in the local paper. I mean, Seattle Times 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.960 is big time, right, yeah, I think that same year 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:23.280 in nineteen seventy nine, he said, I think I can 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:25.160 do bigger, I can do better, and he took a 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:28.160 trip to San Francisco and he took his portfolio with him, 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:31.320 just one copy of his portfolio. He managed to get 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:35.000 it to the right people at the San Francisco Chronicle 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:37.600 and they said, hey, we really love your stuff. Apparently 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:41.040 the same day they got in touch with him and said, hey, 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:42.960 come in here, we want to talk to you. And 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:45.920 they said, not only do we want to run Nature's Way, 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:50.120 which we're going to change to the far side, we 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:53.360 have a syndication company so we can get you in 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:57.800 thirty different papers across the country automatically. This is like 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:02.840 beyond life change. And Laura Clauston helped us with this, 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:05.839 and she went on to really kind of, I think, 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:10.760 point out just how nuts it was that this happened 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:14.400 to him, not just because he had no experience, no 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.720 art training, that he'd only made, you know, a handful 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:20.800 of cartoons. To this point, but just the way that 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:25.480 comics pages are and how stodgy and rooted in non 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.400 change they tend to be. That that really it's just 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.040 crazy that he got this chance. It just all fell 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:33.600 together for him like this. 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.760 Yeah, absolutely it was. And it's still an industry where 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:40.720 it's hard to get in, you know that the comics 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:43.880 section is only so big. It's like it's real estate, 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.040 you know, and there's just not room and the classics 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:52.000 just don't go away seemingly. There's an artist, a cartoonist 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.920 named Georgia Dunn who does breaking cat news. She and 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:57.480 this is you know, sort of a point about women 0:09:57.480 --> 0:09:59.000 in the industry, but she said there are more dead 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.320 men than live women in the funny pages, but also 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:05.040 just sort of illustrates how how hard it is to 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:07.840 break in to the funny pages. So the fact that 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:13.280 he got his chance with such a weird cartoon, like 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:16.800 the person that would take it out to the different 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:19.320 newspapers to syndicate it and try and you know, sell 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:22.520 it to him has some pretty great stories on like 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:24.679 the re actions he got because Farside is one of 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:26.640 the things that you kind of get or you don't. 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:29.040 Earlier said, you know, you have to to really grow 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.000 to love, you know, love it, but some people never do. 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:32.880 Some people hate the Far Side still. 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.360 Yeah. One of the comments that the salesman got when 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:39.520 he was out beating the pavement was this is not 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.360 a Buffalo product. Yeah. 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:45.439 I could just see that scene, like the whatever the 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.440 Buffalo newspaper is the guy, it's just like, this is 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:51.840 not a Buffalo product, like, very sternly, please leave, sir. 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:56.200 And apparently he said the initial response has been quite 0:10:56.280 --> 0:11:00.120 funny and uneditor like, and he was basically like the 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:02.520 they were so diverse and unpredictable, like he even from 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:04.800 people he knew really well, from editors, he really knew. 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:06.400 He's like, I never knew if they were going to 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:08.960 offer me, like to stay and have a cup of coffee, 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:11.160 or did like say get out of my office. 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.920 Yeah, because people would have a visceral response to it. 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:18.360 Either they thought it was great, they didn't like it. 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:21.200 The idea that the Far Side was ever divisive is 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:25.040 just hilarious to me. But it just really kind of 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:29.480 goes to show how much Gary Larson changed the culture 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:32.600 with the Far Side, that it was just totally far 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:36.880 out off the wall offensive to some people. And now 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.480 because he kind of laid the groundwork and launched that 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:44.280 kind of humor and made it far and wide in 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:49.120 the United States especially. It's just it's that much funnier 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:50.959 now when you look back and think, like people were 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:52.160 offended by the Far Side. 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:55.079 Yeah, there's another good quote here from one of the editors. 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:57.640 I don't know what this is, but it's not for us. 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.880 But other people say, like, what a mind this man has. Yeah, 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:02.679 he's brilliant. 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.240 Yeah. Yeah, again, it's just one of those things. It's 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:09.760 very divisive cartoon. Should we take a break, Yeah, all right, 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:13.080 we'll be right back with more on the brilliant Gary Larson. 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:46.160 Stoftly jawsh so. 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:49.160 So one other thing happened to Gary Larson that week 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:51.840 that he went down to the Chronicle. He got news 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.600 from the Seattle Times that they were dropping him. Yeah, 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:57.360 and he went on to blame the placement in the paper. 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:00.080 Apparently they put it next to a kid's crossword puzz 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.200 that's not the place for the Far Side. Of course 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:07.280 you're gonna get complaints, right, But he also said that 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:11.520 had the Seattle Times fired him a week before, he 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:13.760 never would have gone to San Francisco or to the Chronicle. 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:17.199 It would have just completely deflated his any self confidence 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:19.760 he had. So the timing of it was just amazing 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:22.360 when you put it all together. One other thing too, 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:26.680 Apparently one of the Chronicle syndication heads tried to talk 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:31.320 him into turning it into a comic strip with recurring characters. No, 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:34.960 and he was like, I think I'm just gonna hold 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:38.200 with this. So if you put all the components together, 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.640 the fact that we even have the far side is significant. 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:44.480 It also makes it seem like we're probably the only 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:48.760 version of the universe that has the far side. All 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:52.800 the other multiverses didn't get it because nothing fell into 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:53.800 place quite. 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:56.240 Right multiverse h M. 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:56.920 All right. 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:00.600 So, because it was so divisive, it wasn't like wildfire 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:03.200 out of the gate. It was in thirty papers initially, 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.959 I think three years later it was up to eighty. 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:09.880 And you might be thinking, like, hey, eighty newspapers is 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:14.400 pretty great, but for syndication's that's small beans. It really 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:16.920 just sort of took a very natural path to growing 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:19.320 in three years and went from thirty to eighty. Then 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:20.600 a couple of years later it was up to two 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:24.080 hundred and really kind of launched after that, and at 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:29.000 its peak was in nineteen hundred newspapers, which made Gary 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:32.400 Larson a very very rich guy because he started putting 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:35.440 out books and calendars. In eighty three, eighty four, and 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:38.120 eighty five, he had books on the New York Times 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:41.440 bestseller list, and eventually I believe all but one of 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:43.360 his twenty three books was on the New York Times 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:48.280 bestseller list and sold the combined forty one million copies 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:50.920 and almost eighty million calendars. 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:54.680 Yeah, those books were like when you had that book 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.520 in your hands at the time. Oh yeah, the greatest 0:14:57.520 --> 0:14:58.240 thing in the world. 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:00.320 Yeah, and those books were coming out. I was like 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.000 twelve and thirteen, so it was just Christmas morning at 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:05.800 the Brian House was I would just grab that thing 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:07.120 and basically run to my room. 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:07.680 Nice. 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:13.240 And it was also in seventeen different languages, which I 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:18.120 just I know, it's not even a terribly American thing, 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:21.760 but I'm just trying to imagine the far sides, weird 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:26.560 sensibilities going over in a foreign language country. I don't know, 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:27.600 it just sort of surprised me. 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.320 Yeah, you'd think way way more languages, right. 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:35.120 No, I'm just surprised it went over at all in 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:36.360 other countries. 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:39.280 So yeah, I gotcha. Yeah, I know, I could see 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:43.120 there being seventeen different languages that could find it humorous. 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:45.360 Oh you could, all right, yeah, because there's like two or. 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:46.760 Three million languages, you know. 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:47.800 Yeah. 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.960 So he was also very unsurprisingly an award winning artists 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:58.000 and cartoonists from the beginning of his peak. I think 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:01.240 around nineteen eighty five he won the first award for 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:04.120 Best Newspaper Panel all the way up till the end 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:08.640 in nineteen ninety four winning for our Outstanding Cartoonists of 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:12.760 the Year. And like you said, he was like the calendars, 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:15.280 the books, like he was making mad Bank, as he 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:19.280 puts it every time he's interviewed about it. But he 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:23.560 really kind of drew the line a lot of merchandising, 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:26.600 like they wanted to do everything, and he was like, 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:29.600 one of my rules is you can't take these things 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:31.640 out of context. Like you're never going to see a 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.760 T shirt with just a picture of the beehive Lady, 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:39.080 beehive hard Lady with Cadie glasses, Like that's out of context. 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:41.840 Doesn't make sense. I don't want to do that. No dolls, 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:44.240 nothing like that. But just as much as like kind 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.960 of protecting what he created, he also didn't want to 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.040 seem like he was making any kind of cash grab 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:52.920 to the fans of the Far Side. He was a 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:57.840 very sensitive person who was really probably from what I 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:02.240 can tell, overly aware of what people thought of him 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:04.040 or how they took his work. 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:06.440 Yeah, I mean, you could have a T shirt or 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:10.520 a mug or something, but it was just like a cartoon, right, 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:13.800 like a Far Side panel, which was pretty brilliant because 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:16.520 I mean that's where the humor is. And also since 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.159 they weren't characters, I think that kind of helped that 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.679 decision along, right, Although I got to say, like a, 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.520 if I had the doll of the little crew cut kid, 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:28.359 I wouldn't mind that, I'm sure, as he might be 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:30.920 ripping them off and doing something like that. So I'm 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:31.280 not sure. 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:34.760 I'll bet you're right, actually, and I know somebody's got 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:36.000 a Christmas coming up. 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.360 He was also very sensitive to offending people. Even though 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:41.000 he did that all the time, It's not something he 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.520 ever set out to do. You know. He very famously 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:48.720 always would feature God as a character. And it wasn't 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:50.919 even you know, like, oh let me make God some 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.080 like sort of wimpy weirdo like. It was this like 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:57.480 sort of big, all powerful god with long flowing hair, 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:02.120 and but religious people didn't like that. I guess, still 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:05.280 sort of some sort of craven image. Cat people definitely 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:07.600 didn't like them, because there was a lot of a 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.119 lot of dogs preying on cats in various ways. But 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:14.000 he just didn't want to ruffle feathers, he said, I 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:15.080 just ended up doing it. 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.960 Yeah, he was just being humorous. And one of the great, great, 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.080 great things about the Far Side is it's not making 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:26.080 a comment on anything. Yeah, it's just dropping in on 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:30.040 an absurd moment in life, somewhere in the universe or 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:33.680 somewhere on Earth, which is why those characters are all interchangeable. 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:36.720 They're not specific someone. It could be anyone who's having 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:40.560 an absurd moment, right. And the best description I saw 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:45.199 came from Carrie Soper, who's the biographer of not just 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:47.920 Gary Larson, but The Far Side. He said that the 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.400 point of Farside is that we're all just fools flailing 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.080 against the universe, and that the Far Side is just 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:58.280 basically a camera dropping in on those moments where it's 0:18:58.640 --> 0:18:59.520 most pronounced. 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:03.360 I guess, yeah, that's brilliant. Actually, that kind of says 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:07.879 it best. We should probably illustrate a couple of verbally 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.040 illustrate a couple of cartoons, just if you haven't seen 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:12.760 the Far Side so you kind of know we're going 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.040 for here. You should definitely look these up because these 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:19.080 are some classics. But one that really kind of crystallizes 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:24.000 what he does is Early Experiments and Transportation, and that 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:26.280 is a panel and at the bottom that's all it says, 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:30.760 Early Experiments and Transportation, and it features these cave dudes, 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:33.399 these three cave guys holding an early kind of stone 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:37.040 wheel with another cave guy strapped to the top of it, 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:40.680 just sort of sitting there with his legs out with Obviously, 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:42.760 the idea is it's going to be pushed down the 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.480 hill and they haven't thought it through, and this guy 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:48.879 is going to be rolled over, you know, with this 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.960 wheel crushing him. And that's sort of the brilliance of 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.639 the Far Side. It's just a single panel. He doesn't 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:56.800 have the next one showing the wheel rolling and the 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:00.400 guy going oh my bones, like you have to. It's 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.000 up to the viewer and the reader to put all 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:05.920 this together in your head and imagine what comes next. 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:07.600 And that was sort of the brilliance of it was 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.960 he tapped into your imagination. The other thing I think 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:14.200 was very larcen Esque is it could have just been 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:17.560 that these guys on the hill, but then about halfway 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:21.480 down the hill he adds a guy, a cave guy 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:26.200 looking up with a little stone tablet to record the results. 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:29.080 And it was those extra little bits in the frame 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:32.160 for me that just took farside over the top. 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:36.399 Yeah, for sure. Another good one is the Midvale School 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:39.920 for the Gifted, probably my favorite all time, the best known. Yeah, 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:45.360 it's just amazing. There's no quote, there's no anything, there's 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.200 no cut line or caption or anything like that. It's 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:52.720 just that little glasses, crew cut kid with freckles pushing 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:56.119 on a door to get into the Midvale School of 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:59.479 the Gifted where he ostensibly goes to school, and it 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:01.200 clearly on the door pull. 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:06.280 Yeah. Yeah, And if I may comment on this one, 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:08.840 the brilliance of that one to me like you could 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:10.199 do that. You could have a kid's hand on the 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:13.679 door pushing that says pull. But it's the way that 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:17.880 he's leaning in his whole body, right, and you get 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:19.280 just when you see it. I remember when I was 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:21.960 a kid seeing that, thinking it looks like that kid 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:25.000 has been standing there for an hour right with his 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:27.920 hand against that door, expecting it to open, right, And 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:30.359 how he conveys that with just the way he drew 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:32.600 that kid leaning in, I don't know. That's the magic 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:33.960