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The saying goes, "I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known." But for me, I am the combined effort of every weird TV show I watched when I was a small child. If it weren’t for the impossibly dark Nickelodeon cartoon Invader Zim, or the live-action Lynchian series The Adventures of Pete and Pete, I might’ve grown up to be an accountant, or a data analyst. The one show I credit with my becoming a poet and entertainment writer, however, is Courage the Cowardly Dog.
Courage the Cowardly Dog hit Cartoon Network some 25 years ago, and I had the esteemed honor (they sent me an invite via Instagram DM and I screamed) to attend a special screening dubbed the Courage the Cowardly Dog Scare-a-thon. The sold-out screening, hosted by the NYC Halloween Film Festival, featured an intro and Q&A from none other than creator John R. Dilworth - and a surprise appearance from composer Jody Gray and writer William Hohauser.
I'll call you Courage, we'll have a grand time
If you aren’t familiar with Courage, it’s a cartoon show that uses mixed mediums (everything from claymation to CGI) to tell the story of a dog (Marty Grabstein) who lives in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas with his beloved owner, a sweet, elderly woman by the name of Muriel (voiced by Thea White) and her crotchedy husband, Eustace Bagge (Lionel Wilson; Arthur Anderson). But, as the opening narration will tell you, "creepy stuff" happens in the middle of nowhere - and it’s up to Courage to save Muriel from the likes of zombie directors, chickens from outer space, evil gerbil doctors, Egyptian pharaohs, and foxes with nefarious intentions.
To put it blankly: it was a black comedy horror cartoon for kids - and at times (or most of the time) the music and animation were so scary that it was impossible to watch with the lights off. One of the hosts of the screening even commented that the episode "King Ramses’ Curse" ended up "giving us all nightmares," which made Dilworth giggle. At the screening, he told us that Nowhere, Kansas was inspired by a series of photos of desolate areas from documentary photographer Dorothea Lange, and that Muriel was based on a Scottish woman that he was "in love with." He recreated his pitch to Cartoon Network, which was more or less the opening narration, and he did so by juggling three balls and wearing a space helmet. You can’t make this up.
Five episodes were shown: the very first Courage short, "Chicken from Outer Space" (in which Eustace eat eggs from an alien chicken and turns into one himself), "King Ramses’ Curse" (which includes the famous, "Return the slab or suffer my curse"), "Demon in the Mattress" (where Muriel buys a possessed mattress off a sketchy TV commercial), "Freaky Fred" (which sees Courage fight off Muriel’s terrifying barber nephew who broke out of a psych ward), and "Perfect," the second half of the series finale.
The things I do for love
Now, this was not your average screening - I go to many as a writer/reporter, and the audience is fairly quiet and respectful. This was more akin to a concert: every episode title screen was met with loud, enthusiastic screams - like One Direction had entered the building. We knew the iconic lines (most notably, "Kick 'em in the dishpan, woo woo woo" and Freaky Fred's drawn-out "Naughty"), and we said them out loud. We laughed like we were seeing these episodes, some that were our favorites from childhood, for the very first time. For me, it was my first time seeing "Perfect," and it was a beautiful send-off: the episode makes use of several different types of animation, with each segment directed by a different animator. I cried a bit, knowing that it was the series finale, and that even though the series was syndicated and available on streaming - it still, in a way, marked the end of being a little kid.
A Q&A followed, with Dilworth taking some rather silly (but earnest) audience questions. What stuck with me, though, was Dilworth talking about how much he loved working on the show. "Never got dull, never got tired," he said. And as for pushback on the scary episodes? The network didn’t care as long as they were "quiet" and "didn’t go beyond the budget."
The event only lasted around two hours, and I was so sad when it was over - because I had to leave the theater and go back to being an adult. There was something so special about being in that packed room with all of those people, the majority of whom were tattooed millennials with brightly colored hair (like myself) and beyond blissfully happy to be there. It was healing, in a way, to celebrate something you loved when you were small with 100 people who were all there for the same exact reason. Though it’s spring in New York, I’ll be stuck inside for the next two weeks, marathoning the rest of the episodes - but this time, with the lights off.
Courage the Cowardly Dog is streaming now on Max and Boomerang. For more, check out our list of the best new TV shows coming your way in 2025 and beyond.
