10 Funniest Far Side Comics That Somehow Make Trees Funny

The Far Side famously does not have a main character or characters that appear throughout the comic strip, as creator Gary Larson opted instead to focus purely on the individual jokes, using whatever character that came to mind to tell those jokes in the funniest way possible. This process allowed Larson to create Far Side comics featuring the likes of aliens, dinosaurs, and devils, putting these characters in hilarious situations specifically suited to them.

Out of every random character Larson has featured in The Far Side, perhaps the most impressive (and, indeed, the most random) has to be trees. When it comes to jokes, there’s not a lot a cartoonist can do with trees. They’re just trees, there’s nothing obviously funny about them. But, therein lies the brilliance of Gary Larson, as he somehow makes trees funny in these 10 hysterical Far Side comics.

10 The Far Side Confirms that Even Trees Have Souls (in the Funniest Way)

When a lumberjack cuts down a tree with his chainsaw, he’d assuredly expect nothing more to happen than the tree falling to the ground, ready to get chopped up even more before his work is done. As this comic makes obvious, that’s not what happens. Instead, the lumberjack witnesses the soul of the tree rising slowly up to the sky, greeted by angelic figures that will take this tree’s soul to heaven.

What’s funnier than the idea of trees having souls is the expression on the face of this lumberjack (or, lack thereof). He was in complete disbelief, stunned silent by what he’d just witnessed – and that’s hilarious.

9 The Far Side Reveals that Some Trees are Deadlier than Others

When one considers an average tree, it’s unlikely that they would think it especially dangerous, though The Far Side would disagree. In this comic, a man is stranded on a desert island, writing a message that he intends to put in a glass bottle for help. However, just as he’s finishing up the message, the tree he’s leaning against drops a coconut right on the bottle, smashing it to pieces.

Not only did this tree completely ruin any chances this man had of being saved, but it also nearly killed him outright. That island is incredibly small, and if he had been sitting where that bottle was, the man would’ve been hit in the head by the coconut, potentially dying as a result. Either way, this particular tree proved deadly.

8 The Far Side Hilariously Expands Upon a Famous Philosophical Question

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” – that is one of the most popular philosophical questions of all time, and here, The Far Side takes it one step further, while also adding a hilarious twist. The comic asks the familiar question, and then adds “and it hits a mime“. But, The Far Side doesn’t stop there, as it’s then revealed that the comic is asking a completely different question, “does anyone care?“.

This is a play on how mimes are both silent and notoriously annoying. Would the mime make a sound if they were hit by a tree? If no one heard either the tree or the mime, would either make a sound? And would anyone even care? The Far Side gives readers a whole new version of this popular philosophical question, one that’s decidedly more objective and definitely more hilarious.

7 The Far Side Reveals Some Trees are Happy, & Others are Murderous

A woman is watching a program on television that’s teaching her to paint one evening, and she’s following along at home. Just like the massively popular The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross, this painting instructor tells those watching to make the trees they’re painting “look like happy trees“. Unfortunately, before the woman can paint her own “happy tree“, a real-world tree falls through her home and crushes her in the living room.

It seems not all trees are “happy trees“, as this Bob Ross-alike would have his students believe. Some trees are downright murderous, like the one that seemingly killed the woman in this Far Side comic, and the juxtaposition found in this scene is utterly hysterical (if not a bit morbid).

6 The Far Side Uses Trees to Make a Tragically Ironic Joke

As two lumberjacks are sitting together, enjoying their lunch on the trunk of a recently chopped down tree, one of them says to the other, “I couldn’t work in some stuffy little office… The outdoors just calls to me.” The irony here is that, while this man might think the outdoors calls to him, his surroundings tell a much different story.

This doesn’t look like the work of a regular lumberjack, this scene depicts deforestation on a massive scale. Therefore, the outdoors is most certainly not calling this particular man to it, as he’s doing nothing but destroying it, and would be doing the environment a favor by staying put in that hypothetical “stuffy office“.

5 The Far Side Reveals Trees Used to Have a Surprising Alternate Function

This Far Side comic shows a group of bears shaking a tree filled with ancient humans, and with every couple of shakes, another person falls out of the tree and into the arms of the bears. The bears are talking among themselves, deciding how many people they should grab in relation to how many bears they plan on serving dinner. The entire comic is absurdly hilarious, including the role the tree itself plays in the scene.

In a way, this tree acts as something of a vending machine for the bears, one that dispenses humans instead of packaged snacks (of course, to the bears, those are the same things). A normal person wouldn’t look at a tree and immediately think it could serve the same function as a vending machine, but Gary Larson did.

4 The Far Side Finally Lets the Bible’s Most Infamous Tree Off the Hook

Easily the most infamous tree in the bible is the Tree of Knowledge from Genesis, as it grew the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve were forbidden by God from eating, as doing so would grant them ‘forbidden knowledge’, and they would be forced to leave the Garden of Eden. However, The Far Side tells a much different story. It seems the voice of God that ordered Adam and Eve to leave the Garden of Eden was just a mole with a sound system who was sick of the two humans setting traps for him.

More than that, it seems the Tree of Knowledge was just a regular tree, and the entire thing was a ruse put on by the mole. The tree and its fruit didn’t get Adam and Eve kicked out of paradise on Earth, a shifty mole did that, which officially lets the bible’s most infamous tree off the hook.

3 The Far Side Highlights the Unfair Fate of 1 Particular Tree

In another comic that highlights the negative aspects of cutting down trees, The Far Side shows two lumberjacks looking at an old tree they’ve just cut down. Readers know that the tree is old given the number of rings shown in its trunk. In fact, one of the lumberjacks even points this out to the other, commenting that this tree “miraculously” survived a forest fire. However, the tree certainly didn’t survive them.

This comic is funny in a tragic sense, using a simple scene to convey the destruction humankind can unleash upon nature – even greater than nature itself. Not even something as destructive as a forest fire can compete with humans, and this tree is used as an example by The Far Side to seemingly deliver that message to its readers.

2 The Far Side Uses a Popular Phrase to Give 1 Tree a Happy Ending

The first anthropomorphic one of the bunch, this tree is enjoying a night out with a group of humans, dancing underneath a disco ball with a woman while everyone else cheers them on from the sidelines. The tree is so happy, in fact, that the comic’s caption reads, “he knew, from this moment on, that he would never again be a lone pine tree“.

“A lone pine” is a term used to describe loners, and its origin is believed to be in reference to WWI’s Battle of Lone Pine, where the battleground was completely void of trees due to the soldiers using them in their trenches, with but one exception, a lone pine. But, thanks to The Far Side, this particular (and literal) lone pine isn’t going to be alone anymore, which is, indeed, a happy ending.

1 The Far Side Reveals Every Tree is in Danger of Child Infestation

As if kids were no different from wasps or hornets, this Far Side comic shows a woman calling an exterminator to get rid of a group of children playing in a tree house. While this does seem to be her tree, the way she and this exterminator are talking implies that they aren’t going to just ask the kids to leave, they’re going to exterminate them – indeed, the tree house is even referred to as a “nest“.

Not only is it hilarious to consider a reality this horrific, but this comic also calls attention to something trees should probably be concerned about: child infestation. Once children ‘build their nest’ in trees, there’s almost nothing short of extermination that can get them out, and trees themselves might need to be concerned. That’s why this is one of the 10 funniest Far Side comics featuring trees.