Why Courage The Cowardly Dog got Discontinued in the whole world – Full Case Study

Horror, suspense, comedy and thrill co-opted, in which That’s name is “Courage the Cowardly Dog”. And today you are going to Know the whole story of “Courage the Cowardly Dog” from its creation to closure.

‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’ is an American animated comedy horror television series Which was made by ‘John R Dilworth‘ especially for Cartoon Network channel. Its entire story mainly revolves around an Anthropomorphic dog named ‘Courage’. Anthropomorphic means a human-like animal that walks on two legs, laughs or cries like a human. Means does all the works like humans.

Courage is a timid dog Who lives with Muriel and her husband at an unknown place. But this house is different because every day some creepy things happen here. Sometimes aliens come from space and sometimes mummy comes alive and asks for stones from them. And ‘Courage’ saves this family from all these kinds of dangers.

A fun fact is that Muriel had found a dog alone at a secluded place. Where it was not a common thing for someone to be alive with such fear. That’s why Muriel named that dog ‘Courage’, or “Sherdil”(Lion hearted) in Hindi. And finally she took ‘Courage’ to keep in her house.

The Back Story of ‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’

John R Dilworth was born on 14 February 1963, The American Animator, Actor, Director, writer, Storyboard Artist, Producer, and creator of ‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’. John Dilworth had began making his own animations while studying in college at the New York School of Visual Arts. In year 1985, right 5 years after completing his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, he formed his own company called “Stretch Films”.

‘Strech Films’ is an Animation Studio where John Dilworth made himself Art director and making a team of some animators Started producing Animation shows. He held up his ideas to the world in the form of several animated short films. “The Chicken from Outer Space” was one of those shorts Which was created by John Dilworth in year 1996.

John Dilworth had made several award winning animated shorts before this as well like ‘The limited Bird’, ‘When Lilly Laney Moved In’ and one of the most popular shows ‘The Dirdy Birdy’ But this 7 minute short which came in 1996 was so special because it made up for the lack of horror cartoon shows in the childhood memories of little kids like you and me all over the world. But how??? By bringing ‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’ into existence.

“The what a cartoon show!” Yes!! ‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’ could never have existed without it. So what was this “What a Cartoon! Show”? Well on 20 February 1995, Cartoon Network started a series in which a new episode was broadcast on TV every week. What A Cartoon…..! Yes! You got it right, this was the series that benefited the new creators the most as they could have showcase their own cartoon shows by getting them broadcast directly on TV. And could find out if their show was really good or not.

If the audience liked any show too much even by mistake, then…….. Then bro all good to the creator of that show. Because after that It was Cartoon Network’s task of converting the pilot of that one episode into an entire show, animating it and airing it on TV. Obviously many new creators took advantage of this series. And what’s interesting is that this series has led to the existence of many of Cartoon Network’s most successful shows. and created a buzz in the cartoon world.

Have a look to the list of episodes of What a Cartoon Show! The Powerpuff girls, Dexter’s Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, And….., and…., and….. “The Chicken from Outer Space’, is also there, on the basis of which the entire series of Courage the Cowardly Dog was later made. Initially ‘The What A Cartoon Show’ was known as ‘What A Cartoon’. And in this whole series, the creators only used to come up with their own ideals, the rest of the work of animating them and converting them into pilot episodes was done by Hannah Barbera Studio.

Originally this series run form 1995 to 1997. And later in year 2000, this series was relaunched with a different tittle ‘The Cartoon Cartoons’. And this time too many successful show came to existence In which the biggest name is ‘The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy’.

Long story short: ‘The What a Cartoon Show’ was a program that no one in the history of TV broadcasting would have even thought of doing. But Cartoon Network did it and more specifically The credit for creating this series goes to the then head of Cartoon Network Channel, Mr. Frederick Seibert. This whole idea was his that we will start a series Which will help the new creators in making their imagination a reality. And obviously it worked and we got some most amazing cartoon series to make our childhood more special and memorable.

18th February 1996, the day ‘The Chicken from Outer Space’ was broadcast on TV for first time. For your kind information I would like to tell you that this was a non dialogue short means no voiceover was given to any Cartoon character except courage’s one or two dialogues. As earlier in this post I have told you that Hannah Barbera used to produce all the pilot episodes of ‘The what a cartoon show’, But ‘The Chicken from Outer Space’ was animated by Hanna Barbera Studios along with John Dilworth’s company Stretch Films.

2 years after ‘The chicken from Outer Space’ aired on TV Cartoon Network said to John Dilworth that they want to make his short film a Cartoon series. and they need his permission for that Knowing this Mr. Dilworth became very happy and said that,

For sure you covert it to series but my Strech Films studio will animate it not Hanna Barbera studios. Initially Cartoon Network did agree to this but after a bit of instigating by John Dilworth, they agreed. And……, And……., And…….., Almost 1 year later, on 19 November 1999, its first episode aired as a series. After that 2nd episode, 3rd episode and so on……

Its total 4 seasons were made contained 13 episodes each. On 22 Nov 2002, its last episode was aired and was discontinued permanently. Its new episodes stopped being made, but Cartoon Network keeps rebroadcasting its four seasons outside India and also in India.

In India, this show was dubbed in Hindi and aired on Cartoon Network between 2002 and 2003. You will find the list of its Hindi dubbing artists here.

Why ‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’ stopped?

So why ‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’ was cancelled? Some people say that this show was too scary and watching this kids used to have scary dreams. And many times parents used to complain about it. Due to which this show was discontinued and new episodes stopped being made. But that’s not confirmed as this show was not discontinued due to any such reason but because of John Dilworth’s decision.

If John Dilwerth wanted, he could have taken the show further, but he did not. Because he had many other ideas on which he wanted to work. If you visit the YouTube channel of Strech Films, you will find how many cartoon series John Dilworth has worked on in the last 11 years. Well! ‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’ even if it has been discontinued for whatever reason, but it will definitely be memorable for all of us. A show whose story is so well written that we definitely tremble after seeing it but at the same time we enjoy it too. Also this series not only won the hearts of the people but also won many awards. Also nominated for Oscars unfortunately could not win it.

In this video uploaded in February 2017, John Dilworth talks about his short movie ‘The Chicken from Outer Space’ and reveals many secrets that you yourself would never know. Well let me share some secrets with you,

Secret No. 1- John Dilworth has pictures and names written of real humans everywhere like walls etc. in Courage’s house, and these are the persons who worked in Strech Films or John Dilworth got inspired from them and respected them.

Secret No. 2- If you’ve watched the first episode of ‘Courage the Cowardly Dog’, Courage, while sending the chicken back to its hideout, has a suitcase with MARs written on it but before that it was replaced by Albany. But Cartoon Network said that this chicken came from Space, so if you write MARs on it then people will find it more relatable that they will get it as it really came from Space. And that’s why John Dilworth had to replace Albany with MARs. Otherwise John Dilworth wanted to write Albony there because Albony is a real place where John Dilworth had gone for a trip with his sister.

Secret No. 3- in the end of the same episode, when chicken became ashes, Then John Dilworth has written a secret message in that Ashes, “EAT ME”.

So yeah!! Many more secret like these, John Dilworth shared in this 20 minutes video. Which you can watch for yourself.

In an interview with Bob Miller in 1999, Joan Dilworth says that If you want to learn something wholeheartedly or want to know better things related to your passion, then no school or college will learn you that but you will have to take the responsibility of those things and learn them. And Yup! This is the reality of life, If you really want to bring a big change in this world by creating something then remember that no one else can help you except you. Whether it’s a teacher or your best friend, you have to learn things on your own.

And you may have to bear the pain in that learning process. And after learning those things, you should enjoy the process of making something. Because the happiness from the outcome will last for some time but in the process of learning you will create memories.

Somebody asked John Dilworth which episode of Courage do you think is the worst? So you know what was his answer? his answer was that if I could do, I can make all those episodes again with more perfection But I can’t because what we make cannot be perfect. No matter how perfect that thing may seem to you at this moment, but when you look at that thing again in the future, you will laugh and think that is it I made it? and literary I also feel the same when I rewatch my old YouTube videos

In conclusion, “don’t wait to be happy after getting result of your work but enjoy the process of your work and be always happy.” If you want to ask something related to this video direct message me on my Instagram ID ‘Animation_Vibes’.