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STUPID DOG, YOU MAKE ME LOOK BAD.
BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!!!
Its one of the orginal Cartoon Cartoons, alongside Powerpuff Girls, Jonny Bravo, and Ed, Edd, and Eddy. And when it died off, the world was a little less bright. Rather than tell you all why Courage rocked hard tasty ABS (washboard style), I'll just give you my 5 fav reasons why I loved it so.
Or my name's not Spanky Bojangles.
And its not.
Reason 1: Courage
Look at him! Isn't he precious?? Besides his consistantly and ever escalating freakouts (reason 6 billion why you should name your dog Courage), he's just really cute. He's pink, he's loyal, and he makes the best thap-thap noises when he walks on wood. Courage had great sound effects. He had the best screams, victory yelps and his laugh after getting the shit kicked in was classic. Marty Grabstein is a vocal wonder to hear as Courage. And when CN said he talked too much, I sent a pack of man-eating badgers to kill the people in charge. Unfortunately, they ate the badgers. T_T
IMDB says The names Muriel and Eustace are taken from the middle names of Chandler Bing and Ros Geller of Friends. oooookay.
Reason 2: The Villians
One of the other shining examples of how...well, creative the show got are the villains. Shown above is Katz, whom, before he would destory our lovable puppy, challenged Courage to a game of handball (HANDBALL GAME OF DOOM). A mummy curses Eustace and company with locuses, floods and of course, music. A crazy fox tried to cook Muriel in a stew. Then there's Snowman, a frozen snow deity that speaks like Sean Connery, who attempts to take out the chemical that keeps people from melting from the old couple. And that's the tip of the iceberg.
Not only were the villians odd and outright bizzare, their methods and motives were odd too. And you know what? They beat out Ben Tennyson's villians any day of the week. Especially that were-mole. Shit kept me out of the backyard for weeks.
One of my favorite and notable villains of the series was easily Fred the Freaky Barber, who spoke in eloquent rhyme of his obsession with cutting hair. And being NAAAAAAAUGHTYYYYY.
You have to hear it to believe it.
In fact, you can:
Reason 3: Animation
While bizzare to say the least, and sometimes borderline amatureish, the animation in Courage was pretty unique. While most of it was traditional 2-D, there were times when 3-D rendered computer graphics were used (in a few ending clips, a 3-D rendered Courage would bow to the audience). A magical tree was "animated" by a live-action face filmed and added to a still of a tree. The two-framed animation of a black phantom who terroized the Bagg household with lobsters and exploding tea. And my personal fav was the violin playing HELL GIRL in an episode where Courage and co. head up to NY for Muriel's sitar recital. Sure, some of it sucked, but it was consistent, which is a lot one can say what with some of the animated tv shows out there (Romeo x Juliet, anyone?).
Also, it had some great background textures for wall paper, dirt, etc. Some of the BG used real photographs. It was that little extra touch that made the look of the show so unique.
Reason 4: The Homages
Any show w/ Carmen Miranda homages is pure gold FTW. Why do you think Bugs Bunny was so f-kickin awsome for a cross-dressing rabbit who kissed men.
Keep an eye out for: swamp thing, a Quintin Tarantino parody, a creature from the black lagoon, , Bates motel pastiche, an Exorcist parody, and the best choreographed dance/fight scene to the Nutcracker Suite.
Reason 5: WTF
And a lot of the time, you were left wondering what the hell you just saw. Like above. I have no idea what's going on. A 3-headed duck? WTF? And no matter what day it is, or what had happened in previous episodes, Eustace and Muriel have no idea what will happen next, and will willingly sprint head-first into danger. Why? Cuz nothing happens in Nowhere, Kansas.
Buy it on DVD, and support a really unique and loveable animated series.
Love it. Embrace it. Watch it.
--Dio (10/28/10)
(images and video are property of Cartoon Network)
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