Up All Night I - Courage the Cowardly Dog

Childhood itself can be a scary thing, but what really scared us all were the things we watched and read. It seems that kids these days don't have as much in the way of scary things, but in this series called "Up All Night", I'll discuss what kept me up all night in terror as a kid. Maybe the same things scared you?

Courage the Cowardly Dog ran for three years on Cartoon Network from 1999 to 2002. The show follows a dog and his owners and their terrifying experiences in "The Middle of Nowhere". With all sorts of paranormal events, monsters and weirdness; Courage the Cowardly Dog was sometimes legitimately spooky.

I was reminded of Courage when I sat down this evening to watch Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders on VHS. After the astounding amount of previews, the delightful feature and credits, an episode of Courage was shown. Specifically, "King Ramses' Curse".

The episode was still chilling. The haunting voice of King Ramses as he asks for the return of his slab is something that I'll never forget. But it was really because of the use of CGI in a hard drawn series that stood out as the spookiest thing to me as an adult. If it was just traditionally animation, it wouldn't have had the same effect.

Ramses looks like he came out of a very well made 90's computer game. See what I mean? Still, if you're looking for something kind of eerie tonight, I'd recommend it.

The first two seasons of the show are on Netflix, so it is easily watchable. If you have the money, all four seasons can be purchased digitally. Sadly, only the first season is out on DVD though. Yet another gross error from Cartoon Network, who needs is license out their shows to someone like Shout! Factory like Nick does.

Hopefully you aren't too scared. After all, maybe Courage was just acting like a dog.