Courage The Cowardly Dog
Back during the early years of the Cartoon Network they used to have a program called “The What-A-Cartoon Show” which would showcase a revolving door of the network’s original animated shorts. One of the shorts that stood out of the many cartoons the channel broadcasted was a strange story called “Courage the Cowardly Dog in the Chicken from Outer Space”. It was a surreal and strange animated cartoon that centered on a Scaredy cat of a dog named Courage, who would protect his family from the clutches of an evil chicken from outer space. The short spooked me out for its eeriness and dark humor, but then again that is what hooked me on to the show in the first place. I became a big fan of the show as soon as it became a full-fledged series on the channel’s Cartoon Cartoon Friday block in 1999. I think one of the reasons why the short was so popular on the program was its animation style and writing. It certainly did not look like the type of cartoon you would expect from Hanna Barbera. Courage was not alone in that regard as all of the shorts in the program eschewed the in-house style for the creative driven approach that was brought back by animator John Kricfalusi. With that said, the film’s visuals and comedy were very out there and bizarre when compared to the other shorts produced for the show. The ending of the cartoon always scared me at the time because a character gets possessed and fried in the end with no resolution in the end. I had long assumed that the short was made for television, but I was surprised to learn that was not the case. The pilot was initially released to theaters in 1995, marking one of the rare occasions Hanna Barbera produced an animated short for theatrical release. The last time they did this was with the animated series "Loopy De Loop" back in 1959 so it really was a big deal for them to produce a theatrical short. The horror and supernatural themed show was created by animator John R. Dilworth, who brought forth the idea to Hanna-Barbera in the midst of the studio’s own revival that had occurred during the Animation Renaissance in the 90’s. The short would be an enormous achievement for the company as it became the animation studio’s first and only Oscar nomination in its history.
