Here's the only thing I can think of, and I know it's half-assed: You know how some people have bowls of fresh fruit sitting on a table somewhere in their homes, often on coffee tables? Well instead of a variety of fresh fruit, this has a variety of cuts of fresh meat. I know that doesn't make it funny, but that's all I can guess.

^That's it.

I think it's missing the caption.

A) It's not a tumor! I mean, it's not missing a caption. It's not.

B) I doubt it's the meat-for-fruit thing. I mean, where's the joke there? Clearly this isn't one of Gary Larson's greater works, but I think there must be more to it than that.

He's obviously poor (busted lamp, broken window, torn drapes), so maybe Larson was making the joke with the cuts of meat being the opposite of something poor people would have let alone something they'd be able to "put out" on a coffee table. Or maybe the caption is missing?

I think Kronos got it.

Not one of Larson's best.

But he did give us the "Cat fud" in the dryer with the hiding "Oh please! Oh Please!" dog.

So I'll cut him some slack.

The meat is made of wax.

You're all way off. It's so obvious to me.

See, he's a blind guy. That's why he's reading a newspaper with no writing on it. His house is tattered because he can't see the bad condition things are in so he can't fix them. He cut up some fresh fruit in the kitchen to set out in a bowl for his guests, but didn't realize he pulled a ham bone out instead.

Either that or he's so poor he can't afford a TV, so he instead sets out old meat to watch it slowly rot. It's weeks of entertainment.

I was right, the caption was missing. I found it. It is supposed to read, "I've heard of meat in a bowl, but this is ridiculous!"

It's about a guy who's addicted to meat. He reads a newspaper without words and lives in a tattered apartment because he spends all his money on raw meat. Also, Bart Simpson with an ice cream cone on his head is seen sneaking around outside the window, undoubtedly up to mischief.

Is that a human limb sticking out of the bowl?

It's obviously a visual metaphor for the atrocities committed against the working class by the uncaring, callous elite.

The meat represents the overworked, impoverished blue collar masses - Stripped to the bone; to their very souls, of any pleasure or satisfaction in their grueling lifestyle. They pile together in close quarters, wedged against one another, cramped into their diminutive housing, without hope for a better tomorrow, because eventually they will be eaten. You can no longer even tell them apart. Steaks look the same, miserable and drooping. They do not think for themselves, they simply sit, and they rot away, and they wait for their total consumption.

The house is the greater world in which they live. The once beautiful draping is now tattered and worn. No thought has been given to its proper care, because eventually it will just be replaced with something new and innovative, yet cold and unfamiliar. The light of the world grows dim with time - The sun does not shine into their world like it used to. And it only grows dimmer as time marches onward. An artificial light source has been supplied by the elite, no doubt with empty promises that it will be sufficient for the masses, yet it too has grown frayed - A mere shadow of its once hollow glory. But somehow this does not bother the meat, because it was never comparable with the sun anyway.

Lastly, the powerful master sits in his comfortable chair, intentionally oblivious to the meat which lies right in front of him. His luxuries are a far cry from the frigid, industrial plastic in which the majority of society resides. He is deliberately distracted from the rotting meat by entertaining himself with novel items which he consumes with vigor, believing it to be of grand substance, but it is empty and bare. Eventually, he will devour one of his many morsels, exploit it for its essentials, and then excrete the rest. What the unthinking majority do not realize is how powerful their numbers are compared to him.

So in short, lol, that's pretty funny!!

I really think it's that he's poor and meat is an expensive food to set out. And that's not Bart Simpson's head in the window; the window is broken.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Man, I think I just peed!

That's the funniest thing I've ever seen!

Heh.

And here I was, thinking it was that he decided to make a meal out of the family cat who scratched the hell out of all the furnishings.

^right.

I think that's probably the likeliest explanation that I've heard / thought of. The only thing it doesn't explain is the broken window -- how did the cat do that?

Definitely not the best Far Side ever.

>> ^Kevlar:
And here I was, thinking it was that he decided to make a meal out of the family cat who scratched the hell out of all the furnishings.

Normal people put out bowls of candy or nuts. Normal people have nice things.

Cavemen put out bowls of meat. Cavemen have tattered things.

Now laugh!

a reference to one of his other cartoons?

(i didnt know the cartoon before, but now that i've found a couple online i've seen quite a couple of those chairs, cavemen, and windows in combination with lamps)

or maybe this is ned in his younger years and he just cooked the bluebird of happiness that flew in?

<embed src="http://www.lechatnoirboutique.com/prodimages/Coffee%20Mug%20-%20Far%20Side%20Bluebird%20of%20Happiness%20Lg.jpg">


"Larson's sense of humor, while original, can also be confusing, as in a comic dubbed "Cow Tools", which was widely misunderstood. Another famous example requires the reader to know obscure facts about sea life, a comic that was misunderstood by a marine-biologist friend of Larsons. He also occasionally drew cartoons commenting on celebrities or current events, although these are rare."

we probably don't have to know about marine life for this cartoon, but maybe it comments on events from 1983? meh, probly not. ok, i give up.

I just think it's funny that the brut has doilies on his armchair.

Yeah, I don't get it. I've received the Far Side calendar every year for 20 years from my Aunt and Uncle for Xmas, and I don't get it.

I think you all possibly missed the subtlety in the cartoon.
The place is run-down...tattered drapes, lampshade, etc. Note the broken window...the meat is sitting on the table near that window. What is missing from the house to make it completely ramshackle??? FLIES. The meat is there to attract flies through the broken window in order to complete the ambience of the seedy decor...

I think everyone is looking too much into it. Although this is not a particularly funny far side (rare), the joke is quite obvious.

When you think of a refined person sitting and relaxing while he or she reads the paper, you picture him or her in a very tidy house with a bowl of fruit on the table. The opposite of what you'd expect is for an unrefined "brute" in a similar situation. Therefore this comic represents the irony of a neanderthal in an extremely messy and tattered house with a bowl of meat on the table (juxtaposition). I'm not sure the paper has anything to do with the joke but it is a funny addition that the neanderthal likely cannot read so why put words into it.

Gary Larson is brilliant but this is not one of his better Far Sides.

Yes either the bowl of fruit thing, or maybe the guy axed his wife and decided not to waste the meat. That would explained the large leg-looking pieces, and why his house is a mess.

It's so obvious I started an account just to answer this quetion. Look at his hair, his clothing, his arms. He's a caveman, and instead of fruit, he's got a bowl of meat. The curtain rod is a stick, the lamp is made from a stick, the fabrics are made of pelt. Larson could've made it all a bit clear with more detail

The guy's a caveman...what bowl of snacks would a caveman have on his coffee table?

It's totally 'the bowl of fruit thing'. For me, I like a bowl of bon-bons while I read the paper with a nicer furniture set-up than this dude. This semi-neanderthal likes a bowl of raw meat. Get it now? Gary Larson often uses neanderthals in his strips. I killed myself laughing when I saw this, although I was on a Far Side-a-thon so maybe I was in that frame of mind already.

he is waiting for the bear to come back that trashed his house.

As an avid fan of Gary Larson, I immediately saw that this was a picture of a "modern" caveman. An oxymoron but funny.

The meat is bait.....the guy needs a wife

so why did larson draw the newspaper as paper instead of a tablet which would be period accurate. and the home should look like a cave, and not with finished windows.

I know I'm posting to an old thread, but I created an account just to weigh in on this.

Part of the magic of The Far Side is each cartoon can be taken slightly different by each person b/c of how they perceive it or their own life experiences and still be funny. My take on this particular cartoon is the man owned a pet bird. If anyone has ever owned a parrot they've experienced shades/curtains/windows all destroyed (chewed up) by the bird. This man has had enough and decided to make a meal out of the creature.

That's pretty awesome that you'd sign up to share that. Interesting thought.

Out of curiosity, how did you just happen across this 5-year-old thread? Were you Googling for Far Side comics or something?

Anyhow, welcome to VideoSift!

I had the Far Side comments on my mind today for some reason. Used to read them all the time in the 90s and haven't looked at one in years and years. So I just googled it and was looking through images of the comics. While scrolling through the pics I noticed the caption beside this one mentioned an explanation and opened the link to look at it.

Kinda crazy I know but sometimes my mind just spiderwebs!

I think that he is trying to show that little mistakes of the cat can lead someone to kill the cat and afterwards stay calm, like a cat, after a mistake. He reads a newspaper, near the window, while the "remains" of the cat are nicely put on a fruitbowl.

Beat up old nasty room, doilies on the chair, meat instead of fruit on the table.

the offending pet who did the damage is now chopped up and in the bowl, all is quiet and the man returns to read his paper in peace

Clearest and most succinct description.

Bravo.

I created an account just to weight in as well. I'm pretty sure that this is simply ironic (and therefore humorous) because it's a caveman who is not living in a cave, but instead in a house. This is what the house of a caveman would look like, get it? Larson takes ideas or concepts we have some conception of (cavemen) and ascribes relatable characteristics to them which, again, makes it funny. It's not incredibly deep, just kind of subtle.

I love the far side and I just came across this old thread but My take on this cartoon is it is a serial killer like "Silence of the lambs " he has human arms in the bowl and his lamp shades look like skin shades, and furniture hand made. Normal day for a psychopath. That's my take, I'm usually not such s ghoul

It's Floyd...isn't it? Sorry, me can't insert picture good. The link is to the comic of Thak and Gork on their Time Log. One of the onlookers is driving a Floyd's delivery truck. Floyd doesn't care about the state of his abode since meat is his life. It's all there in black and white.

http://41.media.tumblr.com/6695731eb3e85a1ca88573d64346e153/tumblr_inline_nql0z1WFHw1s5y24d_500.jpg

The actual joke is the fact that you could find a nice bowl of fruit in a normal upper class home, but this man appears to be a brutish, rugged, cave man like human. To accompany this, instead of a bowl of fruit, he eats a barbaric bowl of meat. Hisnhouse isnbatteed and rough just like him. It's a subtle joke

the man is not a bum, and his place is not a dump. He is a caveman somehow surviving into the 20th century, and this is how he lives. The curtain rod is the give away - it's not bent metal, it's a stick! The bowl of meat is the punch line.

No cat. No parrot. No bluebird or flies or Bart Simpson or anything else. If you think about it, putting out a bowl of meat is kinda funny all by itself. In this context, it's a bit funnier. Not Larson's greatest, but not bad.

The window panes are political quadrants. The lower right corner is punched out, indicating the man is anarcho-capitalist. The lamp is tilted toward the newspaper to bring light upon the Sri Lankan Civil War, which was set off by an ambush the day after this comic was published. (That's why the newspaper is blank. Nothing newsworthy compared to the following days/week.) The meat on the table symbolizes the impending carnage, as thousands would die, and 150,000 made homeless.

Ned obviously cooked the Chicken of Depression in this cartoon that came to him, after the Bluebird of happiness left him! Check out those drumsticks

Okay, so I know I'm super late, but my interpretation is that something got in through the window (I know the crack is super small, so it's possible it got in through somewhere else and broke the window along the way) and fought with the dude - I think he might be a modern-ish caveman because of his scraggly hair and square head - and was killed and chopped up into meat. Morbid, yes. Nonsensical, yes. The only thing I could come up with? Yes.

Too late for this gem, but I explain Gary Larson’s comics, in case you require my services in the future. Larsonist.com

It took a minute or two for me to get it. The key to solving this is to determine what kind of meat is in the bowl.

AS I TAKE TGE BOWL OF MEAT ON THE TABLE & THE HOUSE LOOKS SHREDDED...OBVIOUSLY A WILD ANIMAL LIVES THERE...LIKE A TIGER OR BIG CAT...(That's my take) LOVE LARSONS STUFF!!!