No evidence suggests Jane Goodall herself was offended by Gary Larson’s Far Side chimpanzee comic. The objection came from a Jane Goodall Institute executive while Goodall was away, and an Institute team member later said she found the cartoon funny.
What was the Far Side comic about?
The cartoon shows two chimpanzees grooming. One finds a human hair and makes a remark implying that Jane Goodall had been doing more research with the other chimpanzee. The joke turns the idea of chimpanzee gossip into an absurd insinuation about Goodall.
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A secondary account identifies it as a 1987 cartoon, but a primary syndication record confirming that date has not been established. The Daily Cartoonist’s account also reports that the Institute’s lawyers drafted a letter after a representative objected.
Who objected—and what did Goodall think?
The key distinction is between Goodall and the Institute official who complained. In an interview, Goodall recalled that she was in Africa and did not know about the executive director’s action at the time. She said the executive director contacted Larson’s representatives and raised the possibility of suing over the cartoon. That account does not establish that Goodall authorized or supported the complaint.
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The Daily Beast interview’s indexed excerpt provides Goodall’s recollection, though the interview page was not accessible for direct verification. Read the Daily Beast interview.
In a 2017 Reddit AMA, a Jane Goodall Institute team member answered a question about the cartoon by saying: “Dr. Goodall actually has no issue with the comic and thinks it’s rather quite funny.” The answer was identified as coming from a team member, not Goodall speaking directly. It is the clearest accessible statement of her reported reaction. Read the Institute team’s AMA response.
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How did Gary Larson react?
Larson later described being horrified—not primarily because he feared a lawsuit, but because he respected Goodall and her work in primatology and did not want to offend her. The Daily Cartoonist reproduces that account from Larson’s book The Prehistory of The Far Side; the quotation is attributed to Larson as reproduced there.
The mismatch between Larson’s concern and Goodall’s reported amusement is why the story is better understood as an Institute complaint that became a comic-history anecdote, rather than a personal feud between Larson and Goodall.
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What happened when Larson visited Gombe?
The Institute team member’s AMA answer adds that Larson later visited Gombe Stream Reserve and was attacked by a chimpanzee named Frodo. That detail is part of the team member’s account; it is not independently confirmed by the other sources cited here. The same response presents it as a striking coda to an episode Goodall herself reportedly found funny.
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- Author: Larson, Gary.
- Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
- Pages: 192
- Publication Date: 2003
- Edition: Illustrated
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