Marv Newland, the man who created the cult short Bambi Meets Godzilla in1969 convinced Gary Larson to do an animated TV special called “Gary Larson’s Tales from the Far Side,” which aired as a Halloween special in 1994. The special was only broadcast once. The animated special won the Grand Prix at the Annecy International Animation Festival in 1996, and a sequel in 1996. The comic strip ideas did not translate well on the screen. It is amazing that they made a sequel. The popularity of the comic strip was waning, so the animated version did not do well.

The Halloween Far Side special aired only once

A series of Gary Larsen’s “Far Side” gags are turned into short animated gags, such as a Frankenstein cow; an insect airline’s in-flight movie; deer, hunters, and UFOs; wolf home movies; egg horror flicks; and cowboys & aliens.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Larson’s distinctive brand of humor was a striking counterpoint to the banality of most of the other daily comic strips. But it didn’t necessarily lend itself to television, in large part because it had no recurring characters and no storyline. It was a hodgepodge of weird ideas and science jokes and nonsequiturs that varied from day to day, and for better or worse (a comic strip that also had a Halloween special, come to think of it) that randomness is what got adapted into this animated treat from 1994.