Content Warning: The following content may be triggering for those with a fear of heights. It includes dark humor and references to sensitive topics such as suicide, death, and more. Reader discretion is advised.
Fear and humor shouldn’t mix, yet Gary Larson’s Far Side comics have always thrived on subverting expectations. This is especially true when it comes to acrophobia, the irrational fear of heights. Some of Larson’s height-themed comics might trigger a jolt of anxiety, but the punchlines hit so well that even the most severe sufferers of acrophobia can’t help but laugh.
The comics ahead don’t all focus directly on the fear of heights, but they all have one thing in common: they involve dizzying elevations that would make just about anyone’s stomach drop. Whether the scenarios are genuinely dangerous or completely ridiculous, Larson finds the perfect balance between fear and absurdity, making us laugh at what we’d normally run from.
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Want to Make Your Acrophobia Worse? Add Snakes!
A Psychiatrist’s Treatment Plan Straight From Fear Factor
Extreme heights are bad enough on their own, but add snakes and a small, dark, enclosed box, and you have a nightmare in the making. Luckily, this is a scenario most of us will likely never encounter, unless we decide to participate in a game show like Fear Factor.
This Far Side character wasn’t as lucky, as it appears that his psychiatrist, Doctor Gallagher, has decided to implement exposure therapy into his client’s treatment plan. Granted, exposure therapy isn’t usually this extreme, but this is The Far Side after all, where if there’s a way to make something mundane absurd, Larson will surely find it.
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Acrophobia, But Add an Old Western Soundtrack
Secondhand Fear Meets Classic Western Tropes
Most people are familiar with the concept of secondhand embarrassment, the uncomfortable feeling you experience when watching someone else do something cringeworthy, even though you’re not directly involved. In a similar way, this Far Side comic is likely to incite some secondhand fear in anyone with acrophobia. Despite not being in this precarious situation, readers will likely feel fear for the two cowboys scrapping near a cliff’s edge.
What makes this comic particularly amusing, however, is that it features a piano player. Fans of classic Westerns will instantly recognize this as a well-known trope, where the pianist, usually playing in a saloon, reacts to chaos by playing a tune that befits the chaotic energy until the fight gets a little too close for comfort.
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Even The Far Side Has Intrusive Thoughts
Lesson Learned: Beware of Your Coworkers
Part of the human condition is suffering from intrusive thoughts, which are typically unwanted, involuntary thoughts or urges that are often disturbing or distressing and pop into the mind without warning. In this Far Side comic, we learn that not even Larson’s characters are immune to intrusive thoughts, as the thoughts of one construction worker are revealed: “Should I push someone off.”
What makes this intrusive thought all the more disturbing is that the worker is sharing this with his coworker as they sit fifty stories up in the air on a precarious piece of scaffolding. This is perhaps the last thing one wants to hear from their coworker while so high up in the air.
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And the Worst Airplane Design Award Goes to… THE FAR SIDE!
A Cabin Panel With One Truly Terrible Option
Anyone who has ever flown in a passenger plane is likely aware of the typical control panel that each passenger has access to. Typically, this control panel features things such as light control, AC control, a light to call for service, recline buttons, and other similar things that are handy to have at one’s disposal while traveling on a plane.
However, The Far Side hits with its special brand of absurdity in this comic, as Larson’s illustration reveals that in the Far Side universe, this common passenger panel also comes with a “wings fall off” switch. This is an absurd design, which makes the comic beyond hilarious, and also undoubtedly caused some readers to reflect on what turn their intrusive thoughts might take if presented with such a switch.
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Parachuting: Looney Tunes Edition
When Your Emergency Chute Is an Anchor
Those familiar with parachuting are aware that many parachutes are double-loaded, where if the first parachute fails to open, there is an emergency cord that will (hopefully) open a functioning chute. Far Side’s Murray wasn’t so lucky in his parachuting endeavors, as his first chute opened up to reveal a grand piano, while the emergency chute released an anchor.
This is a classic example of Larson’s gag humor and feels like something straight out of Warner Bros’ Looney Tunes, where similar gag humor reigned supreme in making kids and families laugh for decades. While most people with acrophobia wouldn’t be skydiving in the first place, this undoubtedly would be their worst fear.
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Mix-Up at the Parachute and Jack-in-the-Box Factory
When Factory Errors Lead to Fatal Surprises
Larson obviously found humor in parachute malfunction, as one comic wasn’t enough for him. In this caption-free comic, the illustration tells it all, with two skydivers featured. However, while one is safely floating down with his chute fully engaged, one is hurtling toward the ground, given that instead of a chute, a Jack-in-the-Box has sprung from his skydiving pack. This just goes to show that going into the business of parachutes and Jack-in-the-Boxes is an unwise decision, as any potential mix-ups at the factory could lead to deadly consequences.
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Pigeons Gave This Far Side Character a ‘Helping’ Push
You’ll Never Look at Pigeons the Same
This Far Side comic is both ridiculous and dark, as it tells the story of a man who was presumably standing on a building’s ledge, preparing to jump and end his life. However, it becomes apparent that he was having second thoughts, given that there was enough time for a crowd to form below him, and by the hilariously dark fact that the pigeons sharing the ledge with him grew impatient with his dawdling and decided to give him a ‘helping’ push. One little bird’s leg is extended in a kick motion while the Far Side character pinwheels his arms in an attempt to keep his balance.
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Paraglider vs. Airplane: Who Wins?
Aerial Collision Course With Cartoonish Doom
Every 90s and 2000s kid was scarred by Pixar in 2004 when The Incredibles debuted and showed the various ways that superheroes had died thanks to bad costume designs. One such example that remains engrained in the mind of a generation is the superhero whose cape caused him to get sucked into an airplane’s engine, ending his heroic career.
This Far Side comic gives the impression that the paraglider is about to meet a similar end, as an airplane gains on him. The impression is that he will get hit, resulting in a bug-on-windshield sort of ending, or similarly be sucked up into the airplane’s engines like the unlucky hero from The Incredibles.
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Lover’s Leap From a Bird’s Point of View
Romance, Tragedy, and One Twisted Punchline
This Far Side comic doubles as acrophobia-inducing as well as one of Larson’s darkest comics ever released. Here, two supposed lovers are pictured jumping from a cliff known as “Lover’s Leap,” with the implication being that they have just committed a double suicide.
However, the humor comes from the jump being seen through a bird’s point of view, where some nearby nesters comment, “There they go again… leaving the nest too early.” Larson was truly the master of taking dark and taboo subject matter and turning it into something outright hilarious.
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It’s Not Heights We Fear, It’s the Fall
When Falling Asleep Takes a Literal Turn
Most humans, even those who don’t suffer from the fear of heights, have likely experienced the heart-stopping nightmare of falling, or even a very real hypnic jerk, a sensation that truly makes you feel like you’re falling when your muscles relax and your brain misinterprets it.
The Far Side, like with most things, has a funny twist when it comes to falling night terrors, as it tweaks the old wives’ tale that you should always wake up before you hit impact. Here, Jerry, the Far Side character who is dreaming, forgets this rule, and thus, he is totally flattened when he wakes up, since he didn’t wake up before hitting the ground in his nightmare.
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- Writer
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Gary Larson
- Colorist
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Gary Larson
