Cow tools explanation

Cows are another. Frequently, he draws absurd, surreal cow cartoons. They're not supposed to make sense, that's part of the joke. Until Cow Tools. Cow Tools was an absurd, surreal cow cartoon, like many others Larson has drawn. Except this one was slightly different. In what can only be described as a lapse of judgement , Larson accidentally drew a cartoon that almost made sense. Almost being the operative word. Cow Tools featured a solemn-looking cow standing on two legs, near a barn, with a table in front of her.

On the table lie several crude-looking tools. According to The Prehistory of the Far Side , none of these tools were supposed to be functional or even identifiable in any way. They were supposed to represent a further step down from stone-aged implements, in that they were supposed to look not only crude and primitive, but more so than even man's crude and primitive ancestors would have made.

Larson's error in judgement was making one of the tools resemble a rough-hewn handsaw. Fans were perplexed. Why is it there? Well, chances are it isn't anything. While some of it may be a genuine bit of Applied Phlebotinum put there as Foreshadowing , much of the time it's just Cow Tools: props or artwork that the designer of the scene threw in to add to the color or atmosphere of the place.

This doesn't stop the fans for wildly speculating about them , though. Noodle Implements are similar in regards to a Noodle Incident. Named for a notorious The Far Side cartoon of the same name, showing a set of primitive-looking but vaguely familiar tools which a bipedal cow is showing off.

Gary Larson would later say that it was the strip he'd gotten the most inquiries about, as people tried in vain to figure out what the hell they were for , when in fact Larson hadn't meant them to be anything but strange. Larson later said that he regretted having made one of the tools look vaguely like a saw, thus implying the rest had real-world counterparts. He got the idea from the recent discovery that some animals could use tools, and then wondered what it would be like if cows had tools.

He thinks his biggest mistake was thinking this was funny—which it was, but for different reasons than what he intended. On the other hand, the fact that there is No Such Thing as Bad Publicity no doubt attracted more readers to the strip and boosted Larson's circulation.

Go figure. One thing about Cow Tools is that it can be useful for hiding a clever Chekhov's Gun among them. Everything else has no purpose in the story, except for that one thing Apothecary Alligator is a particular cow tool that appears in many works and has a specific significance but no apparent purpose. The Far Side, a single-panel cartoon by Gary Larson, obviously went too far to the side some time ago and threw great chunks of the populace into paralytic confusion.

Anyone familiar with Gary Larson's The Far Side knows that absurd , surreal humor is one of his hallmarks. Cows are another. Frequently, he draws absurd, surreal cow cartoons. They're not supposed to make sense, that's part of the joke. Until Cow Tools. Cow Tools was an absurd, surreal cow cartoon, like many others Larson has drawn. Except this one was slightly different. In what can only be described as a lapse of judgement , Larson accidentally drew a cartoon that almost made sense.

Almost being the operative word. Cow Tools featured a solemn-looking cow standing on two legs, near a barn, with a table in front of her. On the table lie several crude-looking tools. According to The Prehistory of the Far Side , none of these tools were supposed to be functional or even identifiable in any way. They were supposed to represent a further step down from stone-aged implements, in that they were supposed to look not only crude and primitive, but more so than even man's crude and primitive ancestors would have made.