Courage the Cowardly Dog

Courage the Cowardly Dog is an American animated comedy horror television series created by John R. Dilworth for Cartoon Network. It was produced by Dilworth's animation studio, Stretch Films. The titular character is a dog who lives with an elderly couple in a farmhouse in the middle of Nowhere, a fictional town in Kansas. In each episode, the trio is thrown into bizarre, frequently disturbing, and often paranormal or supernatural adventures. The series is known for its dark, surreal humor and atmosphere. Dilworth pitched the series to Hanna-Barbera's animated shorts showcase What a Cartoon! and a pilot titled "The Chicken from Outer Space" aired on Cartoon Network on February 18, 1996. The segment was nominated for an Academy Award, but lost to the Wallace and Gromit short film A Close Shave. The short was greenlit to become a series, which premiered on November 12, 1999, and ended on November 22, 2002, with 4 seasons each consisting of 13 episodes. It was nominated for three Golden Reel Awards and won one Annie Award. Premise Courage the Cowardly Dog follows Courage (Marty Grabstein), a kind yet easily nervously frightened troublesome dog. He was abandoned as a puppy after his parents were sent into outer space by a crazed veterinarian. Soon after, he was found in an alleyway by Muriel Bagge (Thea White), a friendly and caring Scottish woman who decided to take Courage in as her own, and was inspired by the nature of this first meeting to give him his name. In the present, he lives with the now elderly Muriel and her husband Eustace Bagge (Lionel Wilson in episodes 1–33, Arthur Anderson in episodes 34–52), a cranky and greedy man who is often jealous of Courage and refers to him as "stupid dog", and frequently uses the "Ooga Booga" mask to scare him out of his wits in an isolated farmhouse: the nearest town to the farmhouse is a town called Nowhere.