I asked the members of the politics/comics list that I manage, and not ONE of ’em ‘got’ this, either, even tho most of us are dog people. Hope someone here can enlighten us.
Here’s the info on the caption and a description of the cartoon it is the correct caption for:
A man is at a woman’s house pointing to a purple blobish creature sitting in the corner.
Woman: Whoa, Mr. Lewis! We don’t know what that thing is, or where is came from, but after what happened to the dog last week, we advise people not to touch it.
In The Prehistory of The Far Side (page 127 in my copy. I checked.), Larson talks about this sort of mis-captioning happening. In his story, both cartoons were much improved.
@ Boise Ed – All three of those comments report the correct caption with the corresponding illustration. Observing the page generation at Larson’s new website, it is clear that it uses digital (text) captions, rather than having the words incorporated as part of the image.(*) This would be a definite advantage in searching for a particular Far Side comic, but does allow for associational errors(**). Unfortunately, Larson’s web designers have not bothered to offer any sort of search features (neither by caption text nor by publication date). Anyone who is looking for a particular Far Side comic still has a better chance using Google to find a pirated copy rather than searching for an honest, legal reference on Larson’s website.
P.S. (*) – Graphic image captions are used by GoComics, but some features (such as “Calvin & Hobbes”) do incorporate underlying digital text to facilitate searching. Others (such as “That Is Priceless”) do not.
P.P.S. (*) – The caption switch(es) that Punch Rockfist mentioned above weren’t between two Far Sides, but rather between neighboring Far Side and Dennis the Menace panels, and it happened only in the layout of one particular newspaper. In the first instance, Ketcham’s drawing of Alice looking over Dennis and Joey in the kitchen had The Far Side’s caption “Ugh, hamsters again!“. The Far Side drawing (on the same day) showed a family of snakes at the dinner table, with the child snake uttering Dennis’s caption “Lucky I learned to make peanut butter sandwiches, or I would have starved to death by now.“
@ Boise Ed – Larson’s comment (in “The Prehistory of The Far Side”) was that it was a little embarrassing that the switch was such an improvement. Looking it up, the actual wording of the misplaced Far Side caption (on 13-Aug-81) was “Oh, brother! … Not hamsters again!“. The second instance (5-Sep-83) had Dennis speaking the psychic cave woman’s line: “I see your little, petrified skull … labeled and resting on a shelf somewhere.”
P.S. Dennis is a King Features comic, so it’s impossible to look up captions for those two dates.
There’s a “Garfield Minus Garfield”-style opportunity here for randomly swapping captions between Far Side panels. If a site for those existed, I’d happily go down that rabbit hole.
Comics I Don't Understand 
This seems to be some sort of weird captioning error?
LikeLike
I asked the members of the politics/comics list that I manage, and not ONE of ’em ‘got’ this, either, even tho most of us are dog people. Hope someone here can enlighten us.
LikeLike
This appears to be a caption for a different Larson comic. I put a link in a comment, but its stuck in moderation at the moment.
LikeLike
THAT would be a relief; I’d hate to think we dog folks didn’t ‘get’ a dog funny.
LikeLike
After seeing Folly’s comment, I did a search and found this. (We’ll see if I get stuck in moderation as well.)
Now that I see the original comic, I recall seeing it before:
LikeLike
Ah, I got stuck in moderation too. WordPress must not like links today.
LikeLike
Well, if links are temporarily verbotten, look for “lewis” in here (putting slashes in for spaces) tvtropes.org pmwiki pmwiki.php FunnyTheFarSide
LikeLike
Oops. Try again: tvtropes.org pmwiki pmwiki.php Funny TheFarSide
LikeLike
Here is the original cartoon the caption came from.
LikeLike
Go to the Far Side site. The correct caption is in the comments.
LikeLike
Following Arthur’s comments –
Here’s the info on the caption and a description of the cartoon it is the correct caption for:
A man is at a woman’s house pointing to a purple blobish creature sitting in the corner.
Woman: Whoa, Mr. Lewis! We don’t know what that thing is, or where is came from, but after what happened to the dog last week, we advise people not to touch it.
LikeLike
@Mr.G: not anymore, alas.
LikeLike
And the caption for *THIS* cartoon is:
“Keep your eye on that guy….He hasn’t said or bought a thing for over an hour.”
LikeLike
Hmmpph….. Not purple or blobish.
LikeLike
So what’s the correct caption for the comic with the dog in the trench coat?
LikeLike
“So what’s the correct caption for the comic with the dog in the trench coat?”
when I get out of moderation I will tell you.
LikeLike
as I recall: Keep an eye on that guy he hasn’t said or ordered anything in two hours
LikeLike
Is that supposed to be McGruff?
LikeLike
LikeLike
In The Prehistory of The Far Side (page 127 in my copy. I checked.), Larson talks about this sort of mis-captioning happening. In his story, both cartoons were much improved.
LikeLike
Folly’s version makes a lot more sense. Woozy’s and m5rammy’s, not so much.
LikeLike
@ Boise Ed – All three of those comments report the correct caption with the corresponding illustration. Observing the page generation at Larson’s new website, it is clear that it uses digital (text) captions, rather than having the words incorporated as part of the image.(*) This would be a definite advantage in searching for a particular Far Side comic, but does allow for associational errors(**). Unfortunately, Larson’s web designers have not bothered to offer any sort of search features (neither by caption text nor by publication date). Anyone who is looking for a particular Far Side comic still has a better chance using Google to find a pirated copy rather than searching for an honest, legal reference on Larson’s website.
P.S. (*) – Graphic image captions are used by GoComics, but some features (such as “Calvin & Hobbes”) do incorporate underlying digital text to facilitate searching. Others (such as “That Is Priceless”) do not.
P.P.S. (*) – The caption switch(es) that Punch Rockfist mentioned above weren’t between two Far Sides, but rather between neighboring Far Side and Dennis the Menace panels, and it happened only in the layout of one particular newspaper. In the first instance, Ketcham’s drawing of Alice looking over Dennis and Joey in the kitchen had The Far Side’s caption “Ugh, hamsters again!“. The Far Side drawing (on the same day) showed a family of snakes at the dinner table, with the child snake uttering Dennis’s caption “Lucky I learned to make peanut butter sandwiches, or I would have starved to death by now.“
LikeLike
Funny switch! Funnier than the originals, in fact. Thanks for the explanation.
LikeLike
@ Boise Ed – Larson’s comment (in “The Prehistory of The Far Side”) was that it was a little embarrassing that the switch was such an improvement. Looking it up, the actual wording of the misplaced Far Side caption (on 13-Aug-81) was “Oh, brother! … Not hamsters again!“. The second instance (5-Sep-83) had Dennis speaking the psychic cave woman’s line: “I see your little, petrified skull … labeled and resting on a shelf somewhere.”
P.S. Dennis is a King Features comic, so it’s impossible to look up captions for those two dates.
LikeLike
There’s a “Garfield Minus Garfield”-style opportunity here for randomly swapping captions between Far Side panels. If a site for those existed, I’d happily go down that rabbit hole.
LikeLike
I suppose we could switch the captions of these.
The dog in the butchers with the caption “don’t touch that thing” is kind of weird and the fact that the caption mentions a dog is odd.
But the creature in the corner with the caption “Keep an eye on that guy; he hasn’t bought anything” is kind of interesting.
LikeLike
OK, NOW I see the corrected caption…several times. Got it now, thanks guys!
LikeLike