Having grown up in the 1960s, The Far Side's Gary Larson is well-versed in the Golden Age of Television, with a young Larson watching a bevy of classics that ultimately endured for decades. It therefore makes sense that Far Side parodied a lot of legendary TV shows, but which of Larson's classic TV show jokes was the funniest? In February 2024, we asked you to settle that question.

Screen Rant's poll ran as part of our article '10 Funniest Far Side Comics That Reference Classic TV Shows,' with over 1900 readers choosing the best of the best from comics that parody shows including Lassie, Bewitched and The Brady Bunch. Enjoy the runners-up by opening the image gallery below:

Voting was relatively competitive, with even our last-place entry receiving the of 65 people. Classic sitcoms Bewitched, The Love Boat and Mr. Ed were still fondly ed, but the strongest performers were the franchises that are still going strong - Larson's take on Jeopardy! is in third place, Star Trek in second, and the winner was a grim twist on The Flintstones. Check out the winning entry below, after the full results of our poll.

Flintstones Won Our Vote for Far Side's Best Classic TV Parody

Gary Larson Mocked the Modern Stone-Age Family

The winner of our poll for Far Side best classic TV reference shows two saber-toothed tigers reflecting on having just eaten Fred Flinstone - the patriarch of the 1960s animation. This wasn't the only time that Larson took aim at the residents of Bedrock, with another strip showing the Flintstones' mailbox being discovered by archeologists.

Given the continuing love of The Flintstones as a foundational piece of animated comedy, it's no surprise that the love transferred to Larson's strip. It's also no surprise that The Far Side would be interested in taking on Flintstones, given Larson's obsession with caveman comedy...

Far Side's cavemen are its most famous characters (next to Larson's ubiquitous cows.)

Larson's Caveman Obsession Didn't Stop with The Flintstones

The Far Side's Prehistory Comics Are Iconic

Next to his ubiquitous cows, cavemen are the most iconic stars of The Far Side. Larson created countless prehistoric gag strips over The Far Side's 14-year run, often taking modern inventions or behaviors and stripping them down to their 'first draft' status. Larson's caveman comics depict the invention of the wheel, clothing and milkshake, while charting the many, many ways that prehistoric people could meet a sticky end.

One of the central conceits of Larson's caveman comics is that our forebears had some kind of sense of how the world should be, and most of their inventions were stumbling attempts to create the world as we know it now - for example, the early version of caveman checkers, which only uses two squares. Larson itted his prehistoric comics did have one big flaw, sometimes showing cavemen contending with dinosaurs, despite the almost 65-million-year gap between them. In The Prehistory of The Far Side, Larson writes:

I've always felt that I've committed some heresy by doing cartoons (like the ones above) that mixed dinosaurs with primitive people. I think there should be cartoon confessionals where we could go and say things like, "Father, I have sinned - I have drawn dinosaurs and hominids together in the same cartoon."

Larson's pop culture references didn't stop at TV - he also created a wide range of gags mocking iconic movies like The Godfather, Godzilla and The Sound of Music.

Larson may think he was wrong to combine humans and dinosaurs, but by doing so he actually contributed to paleontology. Larson's strip which describes a Stegosaurus' tail as a 'Thagomizer' (after it flattened a caveman named Thag) provided real scientists with a word for the bodypart, which didn't have an official designation at the time. Even today, paleontologists refer to the Stegosaurus' tail spikes as the Thagomizer.

The Far Side Didn't Stop With TV

Gary Larson's Work Includes a Wealth of Classic Movie Parodies

Larson had a great eye for which subjects would stand the test of time, often referencing movies and real-life celebrities who are still relevant today. Gags include a shaken horse leaving a showing of The Godfather and an adult version of Disney's Dumbo taking revenge on humanity.

Larson had a particularly soft spot for horror movies, which fit perfectly with his morbid sense of humor. Jaws' shark returns, bringing its iconic score with it, Psycho's Norman Bates trades his knife for a tank, and a truly disturbing chicken becomes the villain of the new Nightmare on Elm Street.

Larson may have loved making fun of TV and movies, but pop culture got its own back with sly references to The Far Side. Beloved shows like Cheers and The Simpsons have referenced Larson's comic in the years since it started. Simpsons recreated one of Larson's gags in the back of an episode, and Homer even met Gary Larson in season 21's 'Once Upon a Time in Springfield.'

Gary Larson demonstrated an uncanny eye for the pop-culture references that would still be funny decades later, and in the process, The Far Side became a cultural touchstone that other comedies could mine for laughs - all fans need to close the circuit is a new Flintstones project where Fred, Wilma, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm run into one of Larson's cavemen.