Apart from the occasional gag involving famous anthropologists, Gary Larson’s The Far Side wasn’t exactly known for being the edgiest daily newspaper comic (the edgiest clearly being Garfield, purely for that one comic in which Jon Arbuckle seemingly drinks dog semen). But that doesn’t mean that Larson didn’t face content restrictions during the early days of the strip, one of which was pretty laughable in retrospect.
In 1983, nearly four years after The Far Side debuted, Larson was profiled by The Washington Post. The interview contained several bizarre details about the artist, including the revelation that he previously worked for the Humane Society, and “ran over a dog” while driving to the job interview. “I recognize some irony in that,” Larson admitted.
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Less horrifically, but still on the subject of animals, the self-described “frustrated biologist” also talked about the time he owned a pet python that tried to eat him, prompting Larson to get rid of the snake. “I sold her to another fool,” he told The Post. Larson went into detail about his fascination with cows as well, which obviously became a recurring theme in his work.
“I particularly enjoy drawing cows,” Larson explained. “I’m not exactly sure why. They seem to be some kind of absurd, almost non sequitur animal to put into certain situations. I even find humor in the name. When I think of a certain situation in my mind, and when I think of a cow being in the midst of it, something happens to me and I find myself drawing.”
Since Larson’s strip was still relatively young, his editors insisted that some ideas were strictly off-limits. According to Larson, he wasn’t allowed to use the word “munch” (either because of possible sexual connotations, or the editors weren’t big fans of Norwegian modernist paintings), and he also wasn’t permitted to draw any exterior toilets. “I don’t quite understand why, but I can’t use an outhouse. It doesn’t matter how lightly it’s treated — the old crescent moon in the door, that’s off-limits,” Larson remarked.
Larson addressed the same issue years later in The Prehistory of the Far Side, noting that “any humor considered even remotely scatological is taboo to most editors,” adding, “I wasn’t even allowed to show an outhouse, regardless of how it was handled.”
As Larson’s success grew, the outhouse ban was eventually withdrawn. But even when he did begin introducing outhouses into his cartoons, Larson was still concerned that some strips might be going a little too far for his editor’s taste. One comic, featuring a neanderthal’s outhouse encased in ice, was self-censored by Larson. He drew it up, then rejected his own illustration and redid it. “I knew my editor would ponder the good-taste quotient of this cartoon,” Larson later wrote, “so I decided not to risk it and closed the door a few more inches.”
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Although even Larson never attempted to scandalize America by using the word “munch.”
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