Jane Goodall And The Gary Larson Cartoon

(With the recent passing of Jane Goodall, I was reminded of a certain Gary Larson cartoon from 1987. I never was a big Goodall fan but never wished her any ill will either. In my opinion, the Jane Goodall cartoon was one of his best cartoons ... right there next to the 'worm party' cartoon.)

Jane Goodall - 4.3.1934 - 10.1.2025

In July 1960, at the age of 26, Jane Goodall traveled from England to what is now Tanzania and ventured into the little-known world of wild chimpanzees.
While the cows became the spotlight of the [Far Side] cartoons, the inclusion of various other animals also attracted keen interest. But what catapulted it to notoriety was a ‘minor’ controversy in 1987 involving Goodall that garnered it a national response. The cartoon depicted a chimpanzee couple, and while they were grooming each other, the female found a single blonde strand of hair on the male and probed, “Conducting a little more ‘research’ with that Jane Goodall tramp?” Larson, however, had never meant for it to express any malice towards Goodall.

The response to his cartoon was immediate. Many ardent supporters of Goodall took offense to the cartoon and it didn't sit well with The Jane Goodall Institute either. Under the institute director's order and unbeknownst to Goodall, they had their lawyers draft a letter to Larson and his syndicate in which they described the cartoon to be an "atrocity".
In his ‘The Prehistory of The Far Side: A 10th Anniversary Collection’, Larson wrote: “I was horrified. Not so much from a fear of being sued… but because of my deep respect for Jane Goodall and her well-known contributions to primatology. The last thing in the world I would have intentionally done was offend Dr Goodall in any way.”

The plot twist here, however, is that Goodall actually enjoyed the cartoons and intervened when she learned that the institute had contacted Larson.
The primatologist was away in Africa at the time, but when she returned and got her hands on the copy of the cartoon, she found it amusing and personally met Larson, establishing a long-lasting friendship with him. 

"I thought it was very funny. And I think if you make a Gary Larson cartoon, boy you’ve made it," she said. When Larson published the fifth volume of his anthology 'The Far Side Gallery 5', Goodall wrote the preface to the book describing her take on the 'Jane Goodall Tramp' controversy. She went on to appreciate Larson and praised his creativity that often draws comparisons between human and animal behavior.
Goodall and Larson came to an agreement that also enabled all profits from the sale of shirts featuring the 'Jane Goodall Tramp' cartoon to go to her institute.