Boise Ed sends this in: “Tantor is “a nervous, lovable elephant character from the Tarzan stories.” Why he would want to chew a tusk is a good question, but why the shrink is suddenly nervous is a bigger one.”
Similarly, Ian C asks: “Is this just a reference to biting his fingernails or is there an actual joke involved?”
Looking at this again, to get beyond the overall weirdness humor,
Look at the overall shape of the Doctor. From the tip of his pointy head down to the chair.
He has the curvature of an elephant’s tusk, or a banana, and he knows it,
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The therapist is choosing to ignore the “elephant in the room”?
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Probably the head but possibly a double entendre
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Ah! I think the Cloudy Clouded Leopard has it. I hadn’t considered the shape of then psych.
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Agree with Rikulu as well. While clarity isn’t always (and shouldn’t always be) the goal of cartooning, it may have been easier to suss out if he’d worked the joke into a different setting. Specifically one with multiple people that have normal heads, so we have more points of reference than “ironing board” and “Uncle Conehead.”
For that matter, it’s not clear to me why Tarzan has a flat head at all. He’s not a prehuman hominoid or something, he’s just some dude.
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