Like my subject line says. I’ve seen this particular Far Side now and then for thirty-plus years. It was only today, when I saw it bundled with other historical strips under the History Shmistory label, that I realized Gary Larson’s joke. This now takes, by far, the record between me seeing and me getting the joke. It was previously held by another Far Side strip, the famous “I think you misunderstood … I’m Al Tilly, the bum” incident.
In my defense — and this applies to the Al Tilly the bum incident too — part of my slowness was that it wasn’t obvious I was missing a joke. Imagine if the caption read, “Well, Mr Smith, … ” instead. It’s a fine enough non-sequitur joke that someone might be good in sales or market research or buffalo-slaughtering. Larson played fair, of course. If the identity of the person seeking a career didn’t matter, he’d have been named Smith or Jones or even not addressed by name. The beard and ten-gallon hat were also cues, although it’s not like comic strip characters won’t have long beards or quirky fashion choices either.
I suppose it’s all a reminder that you can tell any joke you like, but you can’t control what joke the audience hears.
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Another Blog, Meanwhile 
I’ve been there, and only after rereading, do things fall into place for me, even though the clues were all there in the first place.
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Yeah. Still, I find something really interesting in there being jokes that are misunderstood, but whose misunderstanding is an acceptable joke. It’s only some misunderstandings that work like that. It seems like an accidental thing, too, apart from when the writer is punning or setting up a dramatic irony. Someday we’ll see a theory of humor which explains that.
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Are you sure the joke isn’t that the door sign should be facing in the other direction? ZAZ milked the heck out of that bit on ” Police Squad!”
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Given how long it took me to get to here, no, I’m not sure of that. But my sense is that Gary Larson just didn’t go in for having that density of background jokes. Julie Larson, with The Dinette Set, sure, but those background jokes often confused readers.
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Not funny, but weird! When Buffalo Bill Cody died, he was buried outside Denver, CO.It is alleged that 3 of his friends stole his body and reburied him in an unmarked grave on Cedar Mtn which was where Bill really wanted to be. So, he has 2 graves! Or does he? Some believe Cody is in that unmarked grave on Cedar Mtn. To my knowledge no one has actually checked either site! The joke is quite funny! I got it right away as Buffalo Bill Cody is one of the famous”Wild West” personalities I have studied. Did you know Bill was a “Pony Express” rider? Also, he was a Union Army Scout during the Civil War. Plus the “Wild West Show”! Then there were all those buffalo he killed for the railroad! This was an interesting and very busy man!
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Corpse theft was a — well, a real problem, if not a serious problem — in the 19th century! Also corpse ransoming, which sounds like the sort of thing you’d make up for a joke about the 19th century but there you go. Department store magnate A T Stewart’s corpse wasn’t ransomed for two and a half years and it’s not perfectly sure that the real body was ever returned for store credit.
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