Animals always featured quite heavily in cartoonist Gary Larson’s long-running strip newspaper strip, The Far Side; Screen Rant is counting down the top ten entries featuring the largest of all land animals, the elephant. Gigantic, tusked, and allegedly possessing excellent memories, elephants served as a wellspring of inspiration for Larson throughout his run, often with trumpeting results.

Among other interesting factoids, elephants are known to be among the most intelligent and the most gluttonous of any creature alive. Are the Top 10 Far Side Cartoons About Elephants as clever as their real life subject matter? That is for readers to decide, as they discover the bizarre and amusing s below.

10 Brian Has A Rendezvous With Destiny

In a meeting drawn together by fate, the hapless Brian – a jocular, if perhaps clueless-looking man on roller skates – is about to come face to face with what appears to be Tarzan, riding an elephant at the head of a herd. While the jungle-man character is clearly evincing what could be construed as some kind of warning signal, most likely some kind of uncanny bellowing spurred on by his epic charge, Brian’s headphones seem to be blocking this vital cue, setting him up for calamity. Unfortunately for Brian, this does not appear to be a situation which will end well.

9 They Turned It Into A Wastebasket

A melding of tragic realism and flight of fantasy, this Far Side installment depicts a clearly outraged elephant, standing in a telephone booth in the middle of the savannah, inquiring on the fate of his missing foot. His reaction, while obviously one of appropriate bewilderment, not only gets at the heart of unlawful practices, such as poaching, but also the cruel absurdity of the market for specific elephant parts, likely in reference to the then still-existent ivory business at the time of the comic's release. While sad, the elephant’s realistic disbelief at such an eventuality gives a jolt of relatable humor to the piece.

8 The Elephant’s Nightmare

In a case of farcical dream psychology, The Far Side depicts the inner workings of an elephant’s mind. Ironically, a pachyderm’s imagined preponderances seem to be less concerned with the immediacies of their own existence, and more in line with the typical worries a stage performer might have the night before a big show. Transposing the commonly-known, and widely attested, nightmare of a performer having to go on stage without prerequisite preparation, the elephant remarks that, at core of his dilemma, is the fact that he is not actually a pianist, but instead plays the flute. The joke, of course, is that an elephant cannot reliably be said to be either a concert pianist or orchestra flutist, as they do not have proper digits to handle such instruments.

7 Secret Pet

It’s every boy’s fantasy The Far Side’s classic dumb humor.

6 Toomba’s Escape

The look of surprise on the janitor’s face says it all, as the emancipated Toomba regales his elephant friends with the tale of his great adventure: a clever ploy which allowed him age away from the manmade prison of the Cleveland Zoo. Aside from the humor of picturing an elephant meticulously putting together a life-sized dummy from bales of straw and knick-knacks, the unseen story of the elephant’s escape and repatriation to India is also a great example of delayed humor. Perhaps Toomba was aided by his ability to mimic human upright posture, as evidence by his stance when relating his story.

5 This One’s Got A Knife

When traveling on safari, it’s always a danger to come across an aggressive elephant, however two such adventure-seeking souls seem to have found themselves in a peculiar predicament, encountering an elephant brandishing a simple knife. While some safari tours might indeed unexpectedly find themselves at the risk of an elephant’s charge, having one come prepared in such a fashion would most likely engender only greater caution. While it is only natural behavior for a wild animal to defend itself, the idea of an elephant in the wild possessing a weapon for such situations would be well beyond the realm of possibility; this Far Side entry's humor comes from the enger’s seeming nonchalance as he warns the driver, Higgins.

4 Mammoth Dance

The barrier between human society and the animal kingdom is always fluid in Gary Larson's mad vision of the Far Side world, with humans and anthropomorphized animals regularly coexisting and winding up in oddball situations together. This is taken to the extreme in Larson's "Mammoth Dance" , which features a peaceful moment out of prehistory, as a mammoth and a caveman shake hands. However, the captain – in the vein of a nature documentary – makes it clear this is a temporary armistice, noting that "tomorrow they would be mortal enemies. But on the eve of the Great Hunt feelings were put aside for the traditional Mammoth Dance."

3 It Was The Butler

A classic murder mystery yarn is brought to its ill-fitting conclusion in this Far Side, with perhaps a hint of a slight misconception. The alleged murderer, a clearly shocked butler, stares in disbelief as a police detective reveals his ludicrously wrong findings, positing that the butler gored and trampled his employer, an unnamed colonel. Though less astute cartoon-readers may simply fall for this mistaken conclusion, Larson points to who is likely the true culprit center-frame: an elephant. Shiftily looking off to the side, and dressed in some a poorly-conceived makeshift disguise, the elephant will remain free from the consequences of his crimes for another day thanks to the detective’s obtuseness.

2 Tantor’s Shock

Once again featuring elephants and humans co-mingling in a social atmosphere, as Tarzan and Jane host a cocktail party for assorted friends from the jungle. Unfortunately, the evening takes a turn when Tarzan's elephant companion, Tantor, notices their piano. Outraged that they would have ivory in their home, Tantor throws a tantrum, feeling betrayed by his longtime friends, and how quickly they have forgotten their roots in an attempt to become "civilized." The elephant’s expression of shock and outrage captures more pathos than many works of fine art, and is among the most absurd jokes in the entire the long history of The Far Side.

1 Ernie’s Horror

One would think that an elevator with a capacity to hold 50,000 lb. should be safe from overloading, but whoever designed those elevators didn’t for the mass of an African bush elephant weighing up to 15,000 lb each, it would hypothetically take no more than four elephants to cause catastrophic failure to such a device. Unfortunately for human Ernie, this improbable eventuality comes to before his eyes, and, like any polite person on an elevator, he simply cannot find it within himself to comment on the debacle, despite this concern. The imive, uncaring gazes upon the faces of the elephants, and single human, already in the elevator seal arguably one of the best situational Far Side comics about elephants.