Courage the Cowardly Dog returning?

[Drtooth]

I'm honestly surprised that Courage is getting this much love: usually, CN didn't give any of their shows this kind of treatment unless they were Dexter, PPG, or KND. Heck, I can't believe EE hasn't gotten anything beyond Season 2, and that was one of their all-time biggest smashes. I'm not surprised, however, that it's another bare-bones vanilla release, as that's what Seasons 1 and 2 were . . . heck, the only CN DVD that got any kind of special features of Johnny Bravo Season 1, and we all know why. Two words: Seth MacFarlane. That's all. If Seth hadn't worked on Johnny Bravo, you can bet they wouldn't bother putting any kind of special features on that DVD at all.

The Seth MacFarlane bit on the DVD was only a demo track for the Schoolhouse Rock parody episode, and strangely for someone with that singing voice, he just mumbled his way through them. That said, I'd also add that it could also have been because of Butch Hartman who they actually got to do commentary tracks and interviews and stuff. I find it completely odd they didn't do the same with Dexter, or even then just Dexter. I dunno if that's when they ticked off Genndy by canning his series. Then again, Seth worked on Dexter's Lab too, so I don't think that's what went down.

Somehow I get the feeling the case is more like they randomly started work on the JB DVD set first, found out it cost too much to produced and just farted out the rest with not even so much as an old set of ads. Then again, (I swear this is true) the Space Ghost Coast to Coast DVD's paid the writers and guest actors with Ed Edd n' Eddy baseball caps to do commentary tracks. Seriously. That's what they mentioned in the commentary!

When this episode first aired when I was a kid, I waspsyched about it: it had already aired in the U.K., so I was anticipating this episode to see so many past villains together in one story, as well as the cameo appearance by the Duck Brothers: when the episode finally aired, I was not disappointed. Looking back on it in retrospect, while I do still have fond memories of the episode, Animation Atrocities does bring up some good points about why the episode really doesn't work. True, Eustace was not only Flanderized in this episode, but it was cranked beyond 11, and he did seem extremely out of character in lidnapping Muriel for the sake of luring Courage to his demise.

I saw that one not too long ago. It's one of the many episodes I didn't see due to not having cable when the series was on. I just felt it overall...weird. Like it seemed to be the last episode, but not quite. It would have at least worked as a series finale (but in that same sort of way Seinfeld ended, just having old characters come back to wave one more time). I agree completely. Eustace is a jerk, a sour old crank that antagonizes Courage, but he never had much malicious intent against Muriel outside of "Woman! Gemme a Sammich!" You just wonder why he wants to get rid of Courage that badly that he'd turn into full blown villain instead of the Wario-ish old guy he is (BTW, for that to work, you need to share my feelings on Wario as not a villain, but a greedy, nasty guy). It felt pretty awkward as an episode.

 

[D'Snowth]

I must confess, I actually do wonder just why exactly CN's been showing Courage so much love lately? Again, Aside from EEE getting their first two seasons released (with special features, mind you) years ago, and their current shows like ADVENTURE TIME getting DVDs, no other CN Hall of Fame shows have gotten further sets beyond Season 1 . . . you'd think Dexter would certainly get a Season 2 release, but that'd probably be too much, considering unlike other shows that divided their 52 episodes over four 13-episode seasons, Dexter's Season 2 was a whoppin' 39 episodes to go ahead and round out its initial 52 episode obligation.

I'm sure Dilly must be feeling a sense of pride to see Courage getting all this love lately; I know he was so hoping Fog would lead to a reboot series, but studio and network politics ended up dashing those hopes against the rocks.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Maybe The Fog of Courage can be like the first of a series of annual halloween specials or something. Or they could rerun the original show throughout October and air The Fog as an episode.

 

[Drtooth]

I must confess, I actually do wonder just why exactly CN's been showing Courage so much love lately? Again, Aside from EEE getting their first two seasons released (with special features, mind you) years ago, and their current shows like ADVENTURE TIME getting DVDs, no other CN Hall of Fame shows have gotten further sets beyond Season 1 . . . you'd think Dexter would certainly get a Season 2 release, but that'd probably be too much, considering unlike other shows that divided their 52 episodes over four 13-episode seasons, Dexter's Season 2 was a whoppin' 39 episodes to go ahead and round out its initial 52 episode obligation.

Seems the only current shows getting DVD's are usually just getting single disks, and that seems to all but have stopped. I'm sure Regular Show, Adventure Time and TTG are still getting season sets, but Clarence, Steven Universe, and Uncle Grandpa only have like one or two single disks each. Over the Garden Wall's getting a complete series, but it's only a few episode long Miniseries.

 

[BertsNose]

Cn seems to really be giving Courage some love randomly.

The Third Season of the show will be released to DVD as vanilla* edition as it is, when other CN shows, even Dexter's Lab, seem to be given the cold shoulder. Pretty good news for those who don't have Boomerang or Netflix, or those like me who want to collect physical media.

*(it should be pointed out vanilla is a flavor, it seems like it's the default code name for plain. True "plain" ice cream, judging by that litmus test for the word is really just sweetened cream. In other words, vanilla has a flavor, sweet cream ice cream tastes like nothing).

Before I go off topic in a little bit I'm very excited for the third season of Courage. I saw the first and second season on amazon awhile back. It's not fair that those reruns on Cartoon Network awhile back seemed to be short-lived.

As for giving "Dexter's Lab" the cold shoulder I find that to be a little insulting. Although I guess I can see how (as D'Snowth pointed out) that it would be a lot of work to put season two on DVD since its a longer season. Still someday I hope Dexter's Laboratory would get properly released on DVD at some point. I feel like that would be a fitting way to honor Christine Cavanaugh's memory.

 

[Drtooth]

As for giving "Dexter's Lab" the cold shoulder I find that to be a little insulting. Although I guess I can see how (as D'Snowth pointed out) that it would be a lot of work to put season two on DVD since its a longer season. Still someday I hope Dexter's Laboratory would get properly released on DVD at some point. I feel like that would be a fitting way to honor Christine Cavanaugh's memory.

Dexter could have benefited from what they did with PPG. Just release all of it at once and throw as much old CN bumpers as possible in there. Other than the fact they're on double sided disks (read Ultra easy to scratch and lose an entire side), I was very happy with that release. Dexter was their number two show, and it's just odd that the not quite as popular Johnny Bravo got a set released with actual bonus features, and Courage gets other volumes, while Dexter got that crummy thing that didn't even include the "lost" episodes. I swear they did the JB one first, found out it wasn't worth the cost and just dumped out the "oh well, at least it's something" Dexter volume.

Then again, I find it strange they didn't re-release the PPG movie in a proper widescreen format where you can see the Aqua Teen cameo, especially not a Blu-Ray edition.

 

[D'Snowth]

I just learned that a Season 1 writer passed away this summer: Irvin S. Bauer.

I notice he never wrote for the show after Season 1, but was the show's "story consultant" all four seasons. Personally, I think what made Season 1 argueably the strongest season of the show was that Dilly was involved a lot more in the writing, and it seems like a majority of those episodes were co-written by him and Irv Bauer.

I'm not saying the other seasons aren't good, just that they weren't as strong as the first: reducing Courage's dialogue to mostly timid babbling and Dilly scaling back to maybe writing an episode here and there ("The Tower of Dr. Zalost" and "The Mask" are the only ones I'm aware of) were certainly blows to the show. The sudden reduction in Courage's dialogue is perhaps the key factor to why Season 2 was a rocky season, and of course the loss of Lionel Wilson during Season 3 hindered that season a tad as well. Season 4, however, with no more obstacles, and with a number of stories with real depth, context, and subtext to them, that made it perhaps the second strongest season of the show.

 

[D'Snowth]

It seems to me that quite a bit of library production music went into the soundtrack of the show because I've heard some of it in different sources. For example: that fiddle tune that plays when Eustace chases after Courage in "The Shadow of Courage" and during their Kangaroo Monster battle in "The Transplant" was also played on an episode of RECESS where T.J. got his shiner at a hoedown; likewise I hear Di Lung's leitmotif in other cartoons that have scenes that take place in a Chinese restaurant, or even in China itself; I think I've even heard Doc Gerbil's leitmotif in other cartoons as well. And hey, you know that sick guitar riff from "Heads of Beef"? I found it in a piece of music I used in a film I produced earlier this year (it was slowed down to sound more menacing and nightmarish).

 

[D'Snowth]

The Computer sure does know how to summaries Twitter perfectly:

 

[Schfifty]

I'm curious if anyone here has been actually terrified of something in the show at one point. I don't think I've ever been actually scared by some infamously scary moments (like the Blue Trumpet thing in "Perfect", the Violin demon-girl in CITBSC, or even King Ramses), and it's kind of weird...maybe it's because I started watching the show when I was a little older (around 7 years old) and already could differentiate between make-believe and reality. Or maybe it's because I just don't find those particular moments scary.

However, I do find Freaky Fred pretty creepy; the only thing about Fred that's creepy to me is his incredibly disturbing smile. I don't think I could stare at that picture of him smiling at the camera with his teeth closed for more than ten seconds.

EDIT: Woah...this was posted right about the same time as the above message.