Here’s a show you just don’t know what to expect from it but when you see it it exceeds all your expectations. The story centers around a dog named Courage who is easily frightened by the smallest of things. He lives with this old couple on a farm, Muriel a sweet natured woman who cares for Courage like he was her son and Eustace a greedy mean-spirited farmer who enjoys scaring Courage. They live out in the middle of the fictional town called Nowhere, Kansas where evil people, monsters and supernatural events happen and it’s up to Courage to save his family whenever they come around. The whole show was a mixture of comedy and horror and while the show was weird it was still rather enjoyable. Courage was a coward I admit but whenever his family was in trouble he would always come to their rescue no matter what he had to face. A good moral for kids right there, it’s okay to be frightened but when the time comes you gotta step up. Adults also liked the show for the scare factor it bought with its supernatural and horror element which made the show funny for them to watch and it even had a few adult morals that you wouldn’t expect to see a children’s show. For example, there’s this one episode where a rabbit is in an abused relationship with a dog and the rabbit’s best friend is a cat who comes to hate dogs and beats up Courage every time she sees him. In this episode dogs can be seen as men and it’s implied that the cat and rabbit are in a lesbian relationship. They don’t come out and say it but it’s hinted at.
I have to admit there were a few scary moments in the show, the one moment that still scares to this day is seeing Muriel get sowed into a blanket. That caught me completely off guard and scared me big time as a kid. Even as an adult that still freaks me out. The show had a lot of violence in it basic slap stick comedy but they also took a risk such as showing exploding organs and people turning inside out which if you were a kid at the time grossed you out but at the same you liked it. The show was also quite funny with the many characters Courage had to face throughout the show and I always did enjoy his over the top screams. The music was also very good, very suspenseful and menacing at times but at other times it could be quite upbeat, cheerful, and comedic. The show was also surreal at times. For example, there’s this one example where a space squid falls to earth and Courage has to save it from being captured by the government, there’s an episode where they travel to the future where the world is ruled by talking human-sized bananas, and one of the most surreal episodes I can remember is a sand whale causing havoc because he can’t find his accordion. Just strangeness you wouldn’t expect to see but hey it’s Kansas if I lived there I’ll take strangeness over boredom anyday of the week. If I had to name the one episode I liked the most it was the scarecrow episode. Muriel takes in an injured living scarecrow who can’t scare anyone so the scarecrow decides to train becoming what I like to call the scarecrow terminator and goes all secret service on us to protect Muriel from danger. That’s both funny and at the same time sweet of him.
I think my only complaint about the show is the inconsistency with Courage’s speech. In the show there are times when he’ll speak like a normal human but whenever he’s trying to explain or warn others of something he’ll just start speaking gibberish that you can’t understand. My theory about this is he’s so scare and terrified about what he saw that he unknowingly reverts back to his dog speech so when I think of it that way I guess I can understand why his speech was inconsistent. Other than that the show was still very good, it had good animation along with a good mixture of comedy, horror, and suspense that kept us coming back and wanting to see what would happen next. So was Courage a good show I say yes. Courage was a likable character, the things he faced were scary and creative, and the episodes were just all around funny with the slap stick comedy and Courage facial expressions whenever he screamed always gets a laugh out of people. Throw this dog a bone he’s earned it.