‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’ Was a Genuinely Terrifying Cartoon

Most kids shows follow the same general guideline when it comes to terror. An episode or even a whole season can be creepy, but there’s a line between cutesy spooky and traumatizing most shows never attempted to cross. But one Cartoon Network show about a little pink dog threw all that out the window. Courage the Cowardly Dog can give almost anyone nightmares.

John R. Dilworth’s series always felt like a fusion between John Kricfalusi’s distinct animation and classic horror movies. Every episode followed roughly the same beats. Some specter or demon would come to the little farmhouse in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas. As the sweet and unsuspecting Muriel (voiced by Thea White) and the cruel Eustace (voiced by Lionel Wilson and then Arthur Anderson) were being tormented by these monsters, it was up to Courage (voiced by Marty Grabstein) to save the day. Every episode, filled with panicked whimpers and one very sweaty pooch, stood as a loving testament to the loyalty of dogs. Courage never wanted to save his family. In fact, he would prefer to do literally anything that wasn’t fighting a never-ending onslaught of creeps. But for four seasons he sucked it up and did everything he could to protect Muriel.

What set Courage apart from other cartoons that enjoyed the supernatural was that it didn’t toe the line between safe and scary. It was scary. It was a horror series specifically designed for children, and it only knew one zany and semi-traumatizing speed.

Perhaps the most interesting element of Courage the Cowardly Dog rests in how it used a variety of horror to give kids chills. It embraced all manner of terror, creating a show that defied expectations of the genre and children’s television. There were episodes like “King Ramses’ Curse” and “The House of Discontent,” stories that used twitchy and too-realistic animation to infuse their tales with world-shattering creepiness. There were also more common yet disturbing threats like Freaky Fred, one of Muriel’s nephews with an affinity for cutting hair. Freaky Freddy was never notably aggressive, but he who moved and smiled just a little to deliberately for comfort. The series even featured point-by-point horror homages. It’s difficult not to watch “Demon in the Mattress”, which features Muriel being possessed by a demonic mattress, and not think of The Exorcist, and the show often used stock footage of King Ghidorah, a nemesis of Godzilla.

Many of the show’s thrills still hold up to this day. A mask-wearing cat is far more likely to haunt a young kid then a grown adult, but the moment an episode of Courage begins, it’s hard not to lean into the overwhelming sense of discomfort the show oozes. Over the years there have been several children’s shows that have gleefully leaned into aliens and occult; Invader Zim and Gravity Falls come to mind. But few understood what Dilworth’s creepy masterpiece did from its very first episode. Fear is as much apart of the human experience as joy, and kids can handle a lot more of it than we may think.

Where to stream Courage the Cowardly Dog