what are the things that keep you up at night is it an unfamiliar sound that Creeps in from the
Silence of night a dark figure you think you may have seen in the corner of your room maybe it's
the darkness itself that makes you worry for me it was this pink dog well more specifically this pink
dog show Courage the Cowardly Dog was a nightmare inducing expectation diverting surrealist Cartoon
Network animated series created from the mind of the ingenious and artistically eclectic John
R Dilworth the series was a collection of scary heartwarming nightmare-inducing and
hilarious stories told about a dog his owners and the house in the middle of nowhere it is
truly the only of its kind and one of the few examples of how the medium of children's horror
can be explored and used to convey deeper and more intriguing messages about heavier topics
usually Untouchable in kids media the scares stay with you the villains sometimes revisit you in the
dark blob of clothing in the corner of your room or in the face of your parents when they tell you
sorry was that a little bit of projection I'll never tell so why was Courage the
Cowardly Dog so terrifying and how was it allowed to be terrifying as a show marketed
towards kids constantly under the scrutiny of backseat driving Executives and watchful
parents today let's explore the dark depths of Courage the Cowardly Dog get away from me
Courage the Cowardly Dog was created by John R Dilworth originally as a seven minute animated
short called the chicken from outer space while visiting the farm that his partner's family
worked on he noticed the beauty of the farm in the Rippling wheat and fireflies on the grass he
compared it to being on the sea which both offer an air of isolation above them he saw a monstrous
cloud in which an intense ball of light appeared suddenly he got the feeling that it was looking at
him is this Jordan peels nope well it sure isn't Jordan fringe's yup when he asked the owner of
the farm what it could be she said who knows he then wrote the story of the alien chicken the
following day the alien chicken was inspired by the evil criminal mastermind feathers McGraw from
The Wallace and grommet films he also initially wanted the short to be in black and white to pay
tribute to 1950s classic B horror movies which is a recurring underlying inspiration for a lot
of his work on Courage it introduces us to the setting a quaint farmhouse on a lonely Farm in
which an elderly couple and their little pink dog live Eustis uses his classic Mass to scare courage
a running gag in the series which was originally supposed to be a shotgun dilworth's artistic style
was already making itself known with a mixture of CGI animation with the alien chicken spaceship on
the traditional 2D art of Courage on the farm the short was sponsored by both Hanna-Barbera
and Cartoon Network and was highly successful with an Academy Award nomination in 1995 for the best
animated short film from there given its success Courage the Cowardly Dog was put into production
hi hi
Courage the Cowardly Dog premiered on November 12 1999 and ran for Four Seasons its last episode
airing almost exactly three years later on November 22nd 2002. it was met by a lot of
success from critics and fans its unique and experimental style worked in its favor many
reviews of the series attributed its ethereal quality and weirdness as a part of its charm
re-watching the series however I noticed that a lot of the visuals that I thought were truly
terrifying growing up were still equally as terrifying a lot of my fears and aversions to
this show I thought stem from just being a kid at the time but after a re-watch no I was completely
justified in thinking it was pretty frightening a lot of the time so if there's a general consensus
that the series was terrifying how was it that it was allowed to run on a children's Network
for so long and also be regarded as a cartoon classic well the series itself is scary yes but
the answer to that question lies in how the scares were manufactured they were visually technically
appropriate for kids but mentally can trigger something in your brain that sticks beyond the
run time of the episode and even now all these years later which is a huge accomplishment a lot
of it can be attributed to the medium of Animation because the series is animated there are a lot of
artistic Liberties that the show can take not only in the explicit way of depicting Muriel's
head falling off but in a way of treating the scenes like a canvas to be experimented with
in different mediums and one of the most popular and decorated episodes courage in the big stinking
City courage goes through the varying rooms opening up different doors and revealing the
terrifying scenes inside each door is something different like a collage of unsettling imagery the
scariest being a little girl sitting face away playing a violin she looks to not be in the 2D
animation style but in the live action style she turns around in the big scares that her face is
disfigured and bulging thanks to Clay animation and stop motion the difference in mediums here
is what overall makes the show successful the scares are in the unfamiliar they're in
The Surreal subversion of our expectations but while it's a horror show there is still an air
of fun comedy and unique childlike experiences that lightens the air of the series like when
cats has courage cornered in a night at the cat's motel and instead of him being torn apart or being
scared further he is challenged to a handball Showdown Dilworth has expressed his dislike
towards resorting to violence for his art he would rather the two fight it out through something more
interesting and charged like sports Dilworth is a master of subverting expectations and leaving the
audience on the edge of their seat if you know what's best for you you know to sit back and
enjoy the show because the next 22 minutes are turning on a courage episode you can't predict
anything that you're gonna get and that's the beauty of the show essentially and at the end
of it you know that Muriel and courage will be content and happy in their home while Eustis is
next to them temporarily suffering from some kind of karma from his negative and terrible
personality the construction of the monsters or villains of the series also contributed
to its spookiness favorites of mine include king Ramses Freaky Fred this freaking thing
cats and the floating head guy notice something they're all so different not only in style but in
the art medium as well they're so unsettling and if you were to look at them separately you would
never guess that they were from the same show Dilworth also did an amazing job of building
these characters they were not only just villains driven by anger or Madness but sometimes they just
needed help or just wanted their tablet to be returned Ramses was born from dilworth's travel
to Egypt where he found inspiration in the rich culture and mythological history Katz was inspired
by dilworth's own cat which we've already seen before as the kitten's picture was framed in
the kitchen in the chicken from outer space and Freaky Fred came from Dilworth and head writer
David Stephen Cohen honoring Dr Seuss Cohen had actually written on a Dr Seuss TV series in the
past so thus was born Freaky Fred there were so many episodes and villains that were directly
parroting specific horror and sci-fi films and Cohen says that it was hard to find one
that didn't influence their work on Courage the Cowardly Dog Dilworth gave his villains
hopes and dream dreams and fears and despite the show being a cluster fluff of freaks and
frights they felt real and they felt relatable and the consequences of the series felt heavier
why am I understanding and relating to the quote unquote Monsters of the show Courage the Cowardly
Dog touches on a lot of real and heavy Concepts that are truly best explored through the medium
of children's horror that is so often overlooked and underdeveloped things that psychologically
trigger fear in our silly little human brains like imperfection hatred loathing and more that
are all presented in diverse forms take Kitty in her episode The Mask she is initially very scary
looking but when we learn of her motivations in past traumas we start to understand where she's
coming from and want to Aid courage in helping her and Bunny escape from their abusive ex-partner Mad
Dog I don't portray Psychopaths that's a different monster altogether and those don't interest me we
are talking about the villain and I am very much interested in the repressed traumas of villains
even of protagonists sometimes the monsters aren't their own beings but serve as physical
manifestations of the repressed fears of the protagonists like this thing constantly reminding
courage of his imperfections there's even a theory that Dilworth has come up with that makes
us understand eustace's terrible actions that he was unloved by his mother the art of the series
itself is really unique as I mentioned earlier Dilworth had Incorporated the use of computer
animation into the 1995 chicken from outer space short and this is something he continues to do
as he loves experimentation with new technologies in his works for the Bold textures of the series
like the grain of the wood and the sheen of the metal he used a combination of digitalized
texture mapping in CGI to create a realistic yet artistic surreal style what a waste of Good Wood
thank you
in the chicken from outer space all of the voices and vocal effects are provided by Howard Hoffman
but in the series The Voice of Courage is provided by Marty grabstein you will notice a
decline in the amount of lines that courage has over the course of the series this is because
while courage was initially written to have the ability to talk later on in the production it was
suggested to Dilworth that courage exclusively try to portray his thoughts through cartoonish actions
and vocal sound effects Thea white voiced Muriel and Lionel Wilson voice Eustace for a portion of
the series to be replaced after his retirement by Arthur Anderson now let me be clear the man is an
artist he explains his Inspirations in general philosophical reflections of his work in such an
academic and well-fleshed out way he noticed that there was a lack of content focused on the simple
lifestyle meeting horrors of modern progress focusing on the Family Farm and the atomic age
Madness we get the setting of our series nowhere Kansas the lone Farmhouse sitting on a sprawling
Barren landscape is heavily inspired by Dust Bowl photography especially the work of Dorothea Lane
Dilworth was raised in the Golden Age of American cartoons and this is evident in a lot of his work
traditional slapstick comedy is often used and built upon in Courage but when it came to the
plot in the character building Dilworth did not set out to make courage as a kid's cartoon this
is specifically evident in how the award-winning sound design was approached Dilworth wanted his
team to avoid pre-made stock sounds and insisted on making new stuff not anything that had been
amassed in a library for the sound effect portion he only wanted sounds that would make him laugh
nothing more and nothing less there's even the unique musical touch of the sitar which Muriel
can play Nick and Cartoon Network executive Linda simenski actually does play the sitar so whenever
you hear Muriel play the instrument you know what's actually coming from semenski herself
as for the score Dilworth wanted it cinematic like a horror movie Dilworth has mentioned that
he doesn't think for television but he doesn't particularly create for a specific medium just
cinematically he just strives to portray on screen a big experience the biggest that he can
give his audience along with its Four Seasons 52 episode run courage also had a CGI special release
on October 31st 2014. it was called the fog of courage and had a short run time of about seven
minutes there was also a Scooby-Doo crossover film called Straight Out of Nowhere Scooby-Doo
meets Courage the Cowardly Dog in which the Scooby gang investigates a suspicious object in nowhere
when they meet and team up with courage this movie was released in September of 2021 but did not have
Dilworth on the creative team in this project he was just uninvolved I actually took a look at this
film last year on the channel along with these two there was a lot of Buzz around a reboot or prequel
for the series but nothing ever came of both Concepts in October of 2018 Dilworth commented
on Facebook that there were negotiations with Boomerang for a prequel idea under the working
title of before courage two years later in 2020 Dilworth mentions that it had been transformed
into something completely different only to let fans know a year later that the project had
been dropped due to the Network's desire to focus on other projects Courage the Cowardly Dog lives
in all of our minds it sticks with us in terms of terrifying memories and even more terrifying
continuing theories one of the more disturbing theories is that fusili the alligator villain
who visits the farm and is revealed to turn his audience into puppets never turn Eustace and
Muriel back into their human form and the rest of the series is basically taking place within
courage's own delusion stillworth is very open and welcomed towards every Theory out there he doesn't
want to put out anyone's theories because his show is a work of art itself it would be the antithesis
of art if the artist was to deny a viewer's interpretations of their painting so while there
is no confirmed reboot live action or prequel courage is still an iconic children's cartoon
figure that will live rent free in the heads of kids that tuned in to crap their pants every
week There's still so much open potential for the characters and story that it could be Revisited at
any point and fans would eat it up but what do you think were you a fan of Courage the Cowardly Dog
did it leave view with lifelong lasting effects from being traumatized let me know in the comments
thanks so much for watching make sure to hit the like button and subscribe with notifications
on for more content like this click the join button to become a member and help support the
channel follow me on Twitter and I'll be back with another video soon but until then later