While driving a Light Cycle from Tron through the massive landscapes of the internet, I stumbled upon a treasure from the past that I never gave too deep of a look into. Dismounting the cycle, I meander over and picked up a rock which was covered in simple slapstick, a dog, and the Cartoon Network emblem. However there was some shine to this rock and much like Aladdin's lamp, this rock held inside treasures beyond the workings of time and space. With a few rubs I soon found great artistic vision, a dark and comical view on the paranormal, and enthralling story lines. There he stood in front of me, Courage the Cowardly Dog, my newest muse.For those unfamiliar with this cartoon, here's John R. Dilworth's Golden Globe and Academy Award nominated animated short that started it all, The Chicken from Outer Space.
A major part that makes Courage, Courage is its artist design. Blending a world of cartoon with elements of 3D, such as the chicken's UFO, brings a level of creepiness and other worldliness.
In many other episodes, vehicles, characters and other elements are created in the 3D format which makes them stand out within this shabby world Courage lives in. Another element of its artistic design, is the color choices. Courage the Cowardly Dog is drawn up much like Watchmen, keeping towards the secondary colors like green, purple, and orange. This ultimately gives the world a tone of it's own. Using secondary colors in a world dominated by primaries, allows the cartoon to look withdrawn from the world we're used to. These two elements allow the slapstick filled cartoon to continue to haunt us during each viewing.
In addition to the artistic vision, the story lines are mixture of Looney Tunes and The Twilight Zone. The opening of each episode, tells us everything we need to know about each character, who never grow, just continue being ignorant about the world they live in (except for Courage). Every episode starts with the conflict being introduced and Courage is then faced with a large amount of slap stick, one liners, and most important paranormal. Most episodes draw from a different seminal piece of work of science fiction or horror. References to Peter Lorre, Sweeney Todd, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame all are used as starting points for stories, however other stories pull ideas out of nowhere, such as an island inhabited completely by bananas or a gerbil vacuum salesman named Doc Gerbil. While many episodes follow similar curves of villain appears, Eustace and Muriel are in danger, and Courage gets beaten to a pulp but manages to save the day, the story stays fresh with the references and many other original ideas. This save the day story line combined with the dark paranormal references and slap stick comedy, creates a haunting tone which leaves you uncomfortable at times. When Courage has been comical brutalized by a Weremole and his teeth are knocked out, are we intended to laugh or feel sorry for our hero?
Courage the Cowardly Dog's greatest strength was it's fearless approach to create a story. No subject or reference was too far for this show. If the story was about foot fungus, then they have the fungus take over Eustace and act like Little Caesar. The Doc Gerbil episode ends with a boat chase dubbed over with operatic music. The show continued to test the bound of the comedic cartoon platform and ended with a haunting story of a dog seemingly living the same day over and over just with a new twisted turn of events. If Nowhere, Kansas isn't hell, I'd fear to find out what is.
John R. Dilworth is quite a guy, for sure. Just being able to blend horror and the paranormal with a children's show is a feat in and of itself. As a kid I didn't notice it as much, but he seemed to be almost trying to incorporate different fears into each episode. Sure, you laughed during the one where Benton Tarantella (clever) tried to trick Eustace and Muriel into letting him eat them alive while filming the entire thing, or the one where Le Quack convinces everyone into believing that he's a door-to-door doctor of some kind, while attempting to kill them in various ways. There are some which stick with you, though, and not because they were so funny. Some, like the poetic, romantic, and psychotic barber Freaky Fred, whose every word is accompanied by a haunting melody and a disturbing smile which never leaves his face, or a water-dwelling temptress who hypnotically pulls men into her world by appearing in their tea, bathtub, even in nearby puddles, so that she can feed on them once they're trapped in her world. There are some episodes which leave impressions on us just by poking at what frightens us most, something completely foreign to a medium like a Cartoon Network program.
ReplyDeleteThe characters were all so memorable, especially the villains. Each was colorful and had their own brand of evil to them. Katz, an aristocratic, tasteful feline with a strong hatred of dogs (so strong that he's been known to maim, humiliate, and flat-out torture poor Courage fairly often.) Goose God, a feathered deity who speaks only in rhyme, questing for the heart of a much older woman that shows no interest in him. The Snowman, the super-intelligent, last-of-his-kind Sean Connery impersonator, tries to convert Eustace and Muriel into a special kind of water which would help him live forever. The list goes on.
And of course, just like every cartoon from when we were younger (as I'm beginning to realize), there were so many jokes and references which were completely above our head. References to global warming, impersonations of famous actors, jokes which may seem completely irrelevant to a child but hearing them as an adult makes it so much more hysterical.
I really wish there were more programs like this one being played for the generations after us, but unfortunately they seem to be getting nothing but things like Total Drama Island. It's a pity.
i used to be scared of this show... my cousin's friend's dad draws the cartoons for the show! they live in galloway
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ReplyDeletefor cartoon network, a kids show, Courage was pretty morbid, i loved the show and would always shut all the lights off(at night) to scare myself even more, if you want to see a show entertaining and having an amazing artistic value, watch this show if you haven't, Courage the Cowardly Dog, although very cowardly can be really courageous
ReplyDeleteI never did like Courage. Sorry guys. :(
ReplyDeleteYEP! STILL JUST AS SCARY! ):
ReplyDeleteWow. It's been a long time since I've even thought of this show. It seems like the sort of show that you can have a different perspective of now that you're older. I mean alot of this humor is the sort of stuff that as a kid you just see as being weird and therefore funny, but now that you've grown you suddenly get the allusions.
ReplyDeletedrew its ok
ReplyDeleteDrew it's totally not okay.
ReplyDeletei like turtles
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