Top 10+ Funniest The Far Side Comics with Cavemen

While Gary Larson's The Far Side has always been an absurdist gem amidst a sea of less subversive, more grounded comic strips, it has also leaned into a handful of recurring characters and tropes that have come to exemplify its specific stylings. Among these are familiar families, conniving chickens, and many highly intelligent bovines.

Of course, of all the recurring trappings in The Far Side's world, few have become the same kind of iconic figures as its instantly recognizable cavemen. Over the years, Larson has called upon his prehistoric humans to touch upon all manner of topics, though only a few stand out as truly unforgettable.

The Far Side's Prehistoric Buffets Leave a Lot to Be Desired

Even though restaurants are a relatively new invention compared to the entirety of human history, eating food in large groups is nothing of the sort. In fact, the idea of a buffet line predates even the earliest examples of premade food being sold for coin.

Unfortunately for the cavemen of The Far Side, their options were far more limited than their surprisingly cultured setup would imply. From the looks of things, visitors are free to make whatever request they would like, although the only thing actually being served is mammoth.

Parking Enforcement is a Story as Old as Time in The Far Side

The advent of the wheel was a moment in time that changed everything for prehistoric humans. Between its simplicity and wide range of uses, the wheel is an invention that has had no equal for thousands of years.

That is unless the wheel in question is developed by the prehistoric inhabitants of Gary Larson's The Far Side. In that case, every move that particular wheel makes is likely to be monitored, and any misstep on the part of its owner is sure to result in a hefty fine, whatever that may look like.

Early Advancements in Technology Changed Everything for The Far Side's Cavemen

For thousands of years, humans didn't have any way of successfully spinning loose fibers into threads that can be easily woven into all manner of clothing. As such, animal skins and leather were the best options to protect any given body from the elements.

As it turns out, prehistoric denizens of The Far Side were even more desperate for clothing than any casual observer could imagine. Whereas finding a sharp stone or shard of glass would otherwise be the obvious choice when skinning an animal, certain The Far Side cavemen opted to merely drape entire carcasses over themselves instead, presumably because they had never encountered any jagged rocks in their lifetimes.

The Far Side's Cavemen Did the Best They Could With What They Had

Play exists across the animal kingdom, but games within definitive rules or structures are something only a handful of species truly understand. When it comes to humankind, games are almost as old as the species, though they haven't always looked the way they are understood in the modern day.

In the case of "wheelbarrow," which is fairly common for children who are being introduced to physically developmental sorts of play, the cavemen of The Far Side were left to imagine it without the "wheel" part. As a result, anyone playing the role of the "barrow" would enjoy being pushed face-first across the ground, which is guaranteed to leave a trench at least as wide as whatever smile the experience conjures.

Early Games Were Too Evenly Matched for The Far Side's Cavemen

Whereas "wheelbarrow" is more of a form of play than it is a game unto itself, Rock, Paper, Scissors absolutely fits the description of a game in the most commonly understood sense of the word. And, like "wheelbarrow," it suffered from a lack of human developments in the prehistoric era of The Far Side.

In a time before wheels, there were no scissors, nor was there any paper that said scissors could cut. Instead, there was only rock, rock, and rock, none of which seemed to trump either of the others in a good (extremely) old-fashioned game of the same name.

Education Has Always Been Key for The Far Side

Like so many other everyday institutions that most people make little fuss of in their daily routines, school has only existed for a very short window in human history. At least, that is true in the real world, whereas in The Far Side, school has almost always existed in one form or another.

Of course, just because The Far Side's cavemen had school doesn't mean they were taking the same classes a modern student would expect to enroll in. Instead of woodshops, young cavemen from The Far Side had to deal with rockshops, where they would learn important skills such as chiseling and, apparently, decently informed geometry.

Schoolhouse Pranks Can Easily Become Lethal in The Far Side

While older students in the prehistoric land of The Far Side were learning about breaking points and cutting angles, their younger peers had more rudimentary lessons to attend. They also had a more jovial spirit, even if their schoolhouse pranks could occasionally result in a lethal scenario.

As malicious as thumbtacks on someone's seat are already, it is hard to imagine anything more cruel as a joke than setting up an unwitting subject to become the victim of an errant Thagomizer. Then again, the subject is one that these particular students probably know well, which surely informed at least part of their plan in the first place.

The Far Side's Earliest Scientists Didn't Have the Keenest of Eyes

Where school is of the utmost importance, science is sure to become the subject that many students and future professionals hone in on during their academic careers. That being said, Stone Age scientists certainly didn't have the most advanced equipment to rely on, although that didn't hamper their research.

Rather than giving up or attempting to refine a more streamlined version of the tools they needed, the prehistoric researchers of The Far Side made it their mission to scale things up as necessary. Obviously, this means a mammoth-sized microscope is needed to reach the consensus that the subject in question is indeed a mammoth—as expected.

The Far Side Has Always Been Full of Pioneers of Industry

Not long after the discovery of the wheel, humanity explored all the various ways in which wheels could be utilized. Unsurprisingly, vehicular applications were among the first options touched upon, yet the answer to the question of how wheels could move things or people from one place to another wasn't as obvious as it would seem.

Some would suggest getting inside the wheel and holding on tight. Others might consider a base or frame that could be mounted onto a set of wheels. On the other hand, the cavemen of The Far Side landed on the idea of strapping someone to the outside of the wheel before letting gravity take hold of them both.

The Thagomizer Helped Define The Far Side's Legacy

As much as the punchline of this specific edition of The Far Side is arguably what the strip should be known for, the truth is that not long after its publication, the Thagomizer took on a life of its own. Across numerous industries, the Thagomizer has entered common lexicons as a genuine piece of accepted if unofficial scientific terminology, including the world of paleontology.

When this cartoon was published in 1982, it was just another edition of Gary Larson's most popular comic. In 1993, paleontologist Kenneth Carpenter used the term to describe the distinct set of four spikes that appear on the tails of stegosaurian fossils. And, while Carpenter's remark could have gone down in history as a decent one-liner, it became the most common descriptor of the feature that so many professionals now know as the Thagomizer.