The Cartoon That Traumatized a Generation (And Why We Love It)

We interrupt this program to bring you nightmares [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so I was lucky enough to grow up during A golden age of children's television we really had it all some of the funniest coolest and most heartwarming shows that many of us have thoroughly enjoyed for 20 years in counting and while there were many light-hearted favorites to put on after school I wouldn't be able to sit here today and tell you that we truly had it all if this era didn't also include some of the Dark Side too right the

ones that air after the sun goes down when your fear of monsters under The bed starts to come out you're not perfect luckily for us in the late '90s and early 2000s there was in fact a banger of an introduction to horror included in this era that for many of us was actually too scary to watch Courage the Cowardly Dog was not your average children's cartoon to say the least while many kids shows included a cast of a few friends a family often a school and a light-hearted tone this show completely rejected those tropes and

Denied us that comfortable familiarity in this world there's no friends no school no neighbors there's just courage who acts as a standin for a child with the lovely Muriel and her awful husband Eustace who all quite literally live in the middle of nowhere right there nowhere there's a lot of little subtle details that help just make the show feel extra uncomfortable like the fact that we can never see the parents' eyes kind of like how in Tom and Jerry the Parents heads are always cut off there's also the fact that we don't have a fun

and catchy theme song like most of these other shows but instead we just got this high pitched voice on the TV interrupting what we were watching we interrupt this program to bring you Courage the Cowardly Dog show in this world there's extraterrestrial visitors and Supernatural disasters regularly basically imagine if you lived in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere you Might have fears of UFOs and aliens things like that all the those types of fears yeah those come true all the time here their house is constantly being destroyed or abducted or relocated against their will

this world is flooded with abstract Terror Sinister [Music] surrealism cold sweat fever [Music] [Applause] Dreams and utterly diabolical villains and tempt me to be naughty in this world the parental figures don't save you they need saving oh courage help me in this world something bad is always happening and on occasion there is no happy ending so why is it then that all these years later the show is still so beloved by the very fans that were traumatized by it my favorite response and I've heard this far more than once Is you really were the head

riter for Courage cowardly dog wow that show fed me up so bad D thank you thank you Courage the Cowardly Dog as I've mentioned and even made a whole video on is one of my favorite shows of all time I think it is the best cartoon ever made it's in my personal Hall of Fame for media that actually managed to traumatize me like this actually me up maybe it's because it Counterbalances its Darkness very well with zany absurdity maybe it's because of how cute this little dog is trotting his way through the nightmares and celebrating

the little victories along the way maybe it's because underneath all of that Terror it's actually got some really sentimental themes threaded throughout and knitted with love in every Stitch because in fact the show wasn't just horror it was comedy horror it actually really delicately balances His Darkness with light-heartedness and you need those moments of coming up for air to be able to keep venturing back into the darkness something that we might get to do later if we're lucky there's a lot of fantastic voice acting and sound bites that this show brings and you're going to

be hearing a lot of them throughout this video and then probably spring go throughout my future videos because it's simply too good first of all the screams this dog would Make like the primary feeling you get from watching the show is definitely the horror but the more you watch it the more those screams will start to ground you in reality that is an inherently funny show too obviously I don't like that bad things keep happening to this poor dog but when they do I can't help but have a laugh at it where's Muriel or even

a like when things start to get real bad sometimes we might get it Good and they were always really inspired in how courage screamed weren't they like how they animated him sometimes his teeth would pop out sometimes his eyes would pop out sometimes he'd scream through his eyes sometimes he'd scream his skin off sometimes it'd cut to a different shot where he' go up to the moon and scream the moon with in tiny little pieces sometimes he'd scream through a trumpet sometimes we'd look at his tongue it Would have sick smaller mouth screaming it truly

feels like they never wanted to animate him screaming the same way twice and I really appreciate that commitment to [Music] originality and while we're talking about great noises sound bites and Vocal Stems we have to talk about the noises that Eustace would make my personal favorite is what like sometimes he just says but other times it's like the Confusion overwhelms his brain and amasses into a critical hit another altimer is get away from me get away from me Eustace really is a piece of [ __ ] throughout the show and he'll often abuse courage get

punished by Muriel rightfully and then candidly ask what did I do and of course we see this one every time in the intro theme as well as throughout the show they pull out this big scary green mask to scare courage with a Oh that mask was originally going to be a gun and he would actually shoot courage like they would in Looney Tunes but then they ended up changing it to make it more child friendly but comedy aside this show really was the intro to for a generation not just in the way it portrayed such

horrifying images but in the way it paid tribute to Classic horror films isn't it cool when new artists tip their hats to the artist that they grew up with it's like how Hanaman kind used project Pats flow and his new Mega hit big [Music] dogs when you SE the real the and did it in a way that actually honors the original what a wonderful Cascade of History Art's a beautiful thing you guys that's why this whole channel is about appreciating it Courage tips its hat to The Exorcist for inspiring it and then future artists would

watch Courage and Tip their hat to that for inspiring them it's like how this song crisis comes from Courage and that song Would later be sampled by artists like Josiah speaking of artists there's a lot of questions I have for them there's a lot of things I want to find out here like we said before how is it that they made a show that traumatized a generation but still won their hearts in the end who is courage what is courage and how is it different than fear why is Used to so abusive what does it

mean to be a hero what does it mean to be a villain in other words what does this all mean well in order to answer all those questions surrounding this traumatizing Masterpiece we need to dive into the minds of those who made it go on make yourself right at home first and foremost Courage the Cowardly Dog wouldn't exist if it weren't for the mad scientist that is John R D worth hello everybody this is John R dillworth and The r stands for rumble still skin it is his insane mind that we have to thank for

scaring the [ __ ] out of us as kids every single thing was orchestrated by me and my insane mind the first thing you need to know about John dillworth is that he himself is just as much of a cartoon character as any of his Creations we will see chicken from out of space the origins of Courage a cowardly dog life in trans we will see Dirty Birdie oh so many things and then the most horrific cowardly dog cartoons his veins pulse with rampant chaos he's theatrical and animated yet philosophical and profound you know I

said hey John how come you can't see Muriel and eustace's eyes behind the glasses says because they're spiritually blind and he's genuinely opened my eyes to a new level of appreciation for the art form of cartoons absolute bedum Reigned in these Studios where cartoon characters survived the most absurd things you could rip your eyes out and put them back in and it's not a worry I mean you can do this you can stretch your tongue out roll it back up and it could beat against your mouth and you'll be a fine you can get run

over by a giant truck back and forth and then walk out flat and then you're back to normal it was magic you could just experience anything it's Really quite a an experience for the mind I think the two key influences that John credits the most are this era of cartoons and he specifically names Tex Avery a major influences Tex Avery who was part of what they call the Golden Age of Hollywood American cartoons the late 30s the and 40s and very early 50s as well as this silent film era particularly the work of Charlie Chaplain

if you look at Charlie Chaplan this is cartoon this is animation this Is performance art and he is among my greatest influences uh even today in schools animators study the way Charlie Chaplain or these performers from a very early period the way that they performed abber and Costello they were a ridiculous comedy team but they made serious horror films these influence me that you can have stupid business going on while death is being skting down the door if you've seen my Kendrick video you know that one lens I like to use to View an artist's

growth is this metaphor of climbing the mountain which illustrates how one must focus on both study and practice in order to maximize Improvement but there's another more popular metaphor that aligns quite well with this one that I find very relevant to talk about here it's Ira glasses closing the Gap metaphor you heard of this one only some of you she yes I'm just going to have to cook all of us who do creative work we get into it because Have good taste do you know what I mean like you want to make TV because you

love TV you know what I mean cuz there's stuff that you just like love but it's like there's a gap that for the first couple years that you're making stuff what you're making isn't so good okay it's not that great it's it's trying to be good it has ambition to good but it's not quite that good but your taste your taste is still killer and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what You're making is kind of a disappointment to you A lot of people never get past that phase a lot of

people at that point they quit you got to know it's totally normal and the most important possible you could do is do a lot of work do a huge volume of work put yourself in a deadline because it's only by actually going through a volume of work that you're actually going to catch up and close that Gap and the work you're making will be as good as your Ambitions and it's true any artist that you admire for their wonderful art has made a high volume of lesser art in order to get to those Miracles it's

once again like this image of the plate juggler that I mentioned before this is the war of art a subject that many artists have spoken about iterate iterate iterate I believe it's precisely for these reasons that Mr dillworth is so consistent with his answer when everyone asks him what led him to Animation so John how did you get into animation with a pencil so how did you uh design I mean with a pencil man well I mean how did you what made you get into animation uh a pencil did anything like inspire you to like

you know just get in there how did you get into animation even during your youth well it all started with a pencil John pencil I think it was a number two you might think he's trolling and he definitely is Aware that he's like being kind of silly but there's something very real that he's getting at tell us how it started oh um I don't want to occupy too much time on these details uh but courage was really uh started with um uh s seriously one of these yeah right so uh anybody can do it so

an artist like John for example starts out with her pencil and begins making things over and over for years refining not just their skills but their ideas too so Jon started out with Some pretty wild stuff fungus do you have belly blow at this stage in his career Jon often reflects on the evolution of recurring character types in his work was it always meant to be an elderly couple and a dog or oh yeah there's always a three for instance a female of some higher intelligence but that's off somehow a very unsympathetic male character and

then the this third innocent it's really interesting that Something in his soul always wanted to get these ideas out thankfully he iterated throughout the years to eventually get his skills and ideas refined enough to the point to make courage you know that short informed courage it's an early version of eustus Uriel en courage you could see the evolution of Hamilton en courage Hamilton was a more introverted character much more sensitive but courage is more active now he evolved to Action despite fear so it is through this continuous learning and iteration that one not only climbs

the mountain of artistic ability but closes the gap between the Amazing Ideas in their mind and the actual things that said artistic ability allows them to create you climb the mountain to close the gap it's an infinite game with an infinite prize of having more and more Effectiveness and bringing your ideas to life do you feel like you wrote your best verse yet my Best verse yet no damn no I'm always searching for that always searching for that next thing that you know inspired me within writing it could be another word it could be another

concept another song another album but it's just a challenge it's just the search to write that perfect verse or that perfect song God damn it art is cool and thus John R dillworth became a fully evolved Pokemon and was now ready to take his big idea to the big networks I went to the Studios pitched my cartoon idea in my space suit I'm going to reenact my successful pitch to The Cartoon Network it's called Courage the Cowardly Dog and it's about an orphan dog rescued by a nice old lady Muriel bad who lives with her

Farmer in the J sit down but creepy things happen in nowhere and it's up to courage to save the but given the approval of the concept now it time for execution and in Order to do that JN needed the Avengers to assemble okay voice actors what does this little dog sound like Anyway JN searched tirelessly through everyone in New York City but nothing was clicking Hope was looking dim enter Marty grabstein John Dilworth he's developing this new show who encourage the Cowardly Dog he's listened to every voice over artist in the city and can't seem

to arrive at a decision over 300 voices I went in and just somehow went with my Instinctive interpretation of what character might be sounding like and he fell in love with it I am convinced that John was not sure exactly how courage was supposed to sound until I came in and he goes that was really funny but okay how about this Marty try it where you take your natural ridiculously grally scratchy voice and Pitch it up here like this go like that and I said okay and he goes that's it I do think Marty's voice

ended up perfect for the Show yay oh no not more and after consuming all 102 episodes with my eyeballs pressed against the Monitor and volume on full blast I do agree with her decision to actually reduce courage's dialogue after about halfway through season 1 I think we did maybe six episodes before Mike Lazo suggested that we should do without it and I agreed because in the original short film courage did not speak but doing a series it's scary to think that you're going to Rely on a star that doesn't say anything you know I mean

it was a it was a good move I think so too well I do like these little moments where courage is saying something like for example in the first few episodes I like this running joke of I have a bad feeling about this but my name is Iana and it's not something smells fishy or my name schinken Hoffer and it's not oh there's something wrong here or my name is Jose Santos de Guatamala and it's not and I don't even Mind this episode where he's having a full-on therapy session with the shadow but I think

the bulk of the episodes function fantastically with action speaking louder than words and in that way it makes it a very unique show that your main character can't talk most of the time he'll still chime in and say something every now and then oh no what do I do what do I do but I think you sparingly it's actually much more effective it all comes back to what Jon Was inspired by to make art in the first place and how he wanted to take that inspiration and put it back into his own thing what I

wanted him to do was be more like of Charlie Chaplain and use his body as uh language letting the events themselves play out with just a bit of dialogue from Muriel Eustace or that episode's villain Works phenomenally speaking of villains as we've mentioned before your Heroes can only shine as bright as the villains are Dark and so we're going to need some killer voices on board for them too enter Paul Sheffer well I went into an audition at Don case and they were looking for the character of cats which was this this really like sophisticated

looking character and I thought maybe I'll try the voice of James Mason for this character it felt right and if anyone knows it's an old British act to talk like this you had a very beautiful voice like this you know has anyone ever Told you that you overplay your various roles rather severely Mr klain I'm quite tired of second place second place is no place as far as I'm concerned John cast me on the basis of that and so I came in and did the the the episode and I thought well that was great that

was fun so Paul was pretty much every other freaking voice on the show he's a jack of all traits and while we're at it we're going to need some killer them for these villains too we need some scary Music to help set the tone every time they enter a scene or when they're doing something insane I'm going to experiment on you with some of my newest products Sean he would come in and you say you know I kind of like this here I kind of like this sound here but he would always accompany by oh

oh oh he was so excitable he was so hilarious he would often describe a feeling rather than a kind of music you know you'd say I want this to be like really dark man really Dark it's scar scary really scary the network is going to order a bunch of episodes to air so we need to bring in some talented writers who can tune their frequency to John's vision and then write for it as if it's their own I believe the primary element to all of this is writing being able to communicate a story whatever the

story is enter David Steven Cohen you know it was it was very much me getting in sync with how John was twisting things and And I was becoming happily Twisted um shout out to the what's in my head podcast for landing interview with so many of these artists and producers their conversations very much helped my research and has resultantly improved the quality of this video so go check them out for a whole lot more interviews of creators of these shows from the same Golden Era that we're talking about here and in my eyes one of

the most important people involved in the show as a Producer is Linda simensky I believe Linda is a shining example of what a film producer should be as she ultimately stands for all the things that will benefit the art first and foremost like a you know like a book editor my job was to do the best possible version of this person's idea I was helping them to do it by just basically looking out for them back at the network and explaining the goals of the network to the people at the show in The business of

art there's an infinite push and poll between the two you want to maximize artistic quality and you have to deliver things on time to make money and neither with Thrive without the other there must be a balance but it really can feel like a constant back and forth between the business and the creative cuz I wanted to do the opposite of what everyone before me had done you know it's like you read all these stories about you know how tough the Executives were and I and I always thought well I'm just going to be on

the side of the animators because that seems like the winning approach you know I always felt like you know I was there to defend the people making the cartoons and I was happy to do that 9-second [Applause] Applause it takes a skilled producer like Linda who knows when to get things done and when to remind ourselves that in fact a deadline is just a madeup date On a calendar and that at the end of the day nobody really cares that your thing came out X days or weeks late the only thing that really matters is

if they'll look back on it fondly for the rest of time and I I always used to joke around about all the shows and say I don't think they give prizes for best on time schedule you know I think it it really all comes down to will they stand the test of time and if they need a little extra time to do that we can do that When a piece of art is great nobody will give a flying if it came out a few days late don't believe me you know I'm a huge Kendrick Lamar

fan when he came out with the Heart part 4 just before it was 2017 album Dam he epically ended the song with got with a to get sh together implying that that's exactly when the album would drop it was so hype and he did the same thing with the Heart part 3 just before good kid Mad City youpop October 22nd but guess what this time in 2017 just before Dam he actually pushed it back a week Dam actually came out on April 14th 2017 how could the Great and Powerful Kendrick Lamar go against his word

he prophesies the date how could he push it back a week because here we are 7 years later and no one remembers that it got pushed back a week but everyone remembers that danam was an amazing album and it still is to this day so Linda's 100% right when art is published it is immortalized as it is forever so do it right even if it takes the extra few days to make sure that the way that is forever is something that you're really proud of you're doing the Lord's work Linda seriously this woman is one

of the guiding forces behind this golden a I talked about growing up with when I look at your resume everything you worked on was hit after hit after hit after hit after hit hit after hit after Hit is right and they even paid tribute to her with this sitar that she played they have Muriel playing it in several scenes throughout the show so now that we've met some of the key figures behind the scenes that made courage a reality now it's time to meet the key figures in the scenes that made courage horrifying villains are

the most important thing in a horror show right even if not people but Supernatural forces there has to be some force that Brings about Darkness on the main cast and courage has tons of them this show is a gold mine of villains the one that most fans will be quick to recognize and recall is undoubtedly King ramsy's King Ramsay's curse it did immediately remind me of how scared I was when I first watched this episode it was extremely unnerving and I'm not alone either 22 years later this is still one of the most talked about

horror moments in all of kids programming return the SL or suffer my curse the king or Ramsey's curse thing right that one just based on my uh experience with the convention people that almost everybody yeah that is their favorite episode I think a lot of it really has to do with the Simplicity of this three-dimensional image in a two-dimensional world and that was Dorth by the way right yeah return the slap or suffer my curse what makes this episode go from good to Great is the Elevation from horror to horror comedy because as horrific as

king Ramsay is it really is the unbothered greedy reply from Eustace that is the on top what's your offer cuz faced with the threat of not one not two but three plagues this man will negotiate with supernatural beings over some cash what your offer which as this comment points out is actually a really polite thing to do like he doesn't have to give Eustace this heads up but he does what a Gentleman so I think King Ramsey is definitely the most recognizable and most remembered but the darkest the most Sinister for lack of a better

term the most fued up villain has got to be Freaky Fred is there any episodes or characters that stand out to you both as being you know what you would imagine would have been someone's scariest episode freaky friended I read so many things and people said so many things people have contacted me and said that You you scared the beas out of me when I was a kid and I think that was a dark that was a that was a real risk for them to do that character in my book Freaky Fred is second to

none this episode is cursed the devil is in the details through this demonic poem we learn about the life of abuse that Fred has conducted while poor dog is trapped inside of the bathroom it was a day i' not forget the day that I first met my pet keep in mind all this narration We're hearing from Fred are the words inside his head he says that at the beginning hello new friend my name is Fred the words you hear are in my head I wrote Freaky Fred with a friend of mine who I met while

working on Seuss Bill Marcil and he wrote King Ramsay he's a wonderful writer I do have an affection for for Fred because it's inverse I mean I I remember walking John dillworth and he said I want to do an episode about a freaky Barber invocative of Sweeney Todd Certainly I don't remember if he brought up Sweeney Todd at the time but he said I'd like to do it in verse and oh such fuzz such fuzz it does demand he tells us about his pet that he couldn't help but shave that I be naughty this girl

Barbara that he couldn't help but shave Barbara my love was named and her Fair hair are remain untamed and then this older man that he couldn't help but shave this is Dark Art okay some of those episodes were very Dark some were frothy you know but some really twisted not only is he reciting in his head this dark poem that sounds like if Dr Seuss and Edgar Alan Poe made a baby it's his constant smiling throughout the episode he Twirls before he shaves the last bit of hair off of courage's bum even when he gets

taken away at the end presumably back to some mental facility with love Fred as if nothing wrong was done this is one of those episodes where there just is no Resolution it's just like some dark [ __ ] happens and then it ends like diabolical diabolical synonym please cuz I can't keep saying that diabolical syn cinnamon fish satanic hellish Wicked yeah Wicked Unholy it's just 11 minutes of some Unholy Madness thanks to Fred and then there's dilworth's favorite villain the one who set the tone with the very first episode cats welcome to the cats Motel

I'm cats cats is such a diabolical I see There it is again cats is a pretty satanic fellow the way he splits the family up and makes sure that they are so by peeping through his paintings and showerheads only so that he can feed them to his mutant spiders there were notes from time to time but my favorite note which didn't come from Linda it came from standards and practices it's room 666 yeah and the note was we're going to get complaints so can you just change CH The number I made it 666 and A2

I knew it and it was fine when it's time for kurs to confront cats himself there's only one way to resolve the conflict games one of my favorite things about the show was when they like come to the head of a confrontation you know then they do something like they SAA dance or something or they like you know get in like an intense game of like bad Mitten or something or right so how do you resolve conflict think back as a child Would be gained this is true yeah so it's just a formula yeah it's

a formula of mine to resolve conflict not with violence actually think about it that way though when you were creating it were you like I'm going to play on my childhood or like no not me specifically but it was deliberate to use childhood games and play to resolve conflict as a contradiction to the adult world of aggressive dominance right the stronger prevails the most brutal prevails yeah That's going to happen anyway right but to defeat somebody in checkers it's humilia cats is a repeat villain I think it's for good reason he is one of the

best villains welcome to Club cats I'm cats but on Club cats he's not feeding them to spiders now he's up to something else now I'm up to something terrible things happen here who's cats putting on this entertainment for tonight for your enjoyment Eustace the wrecking ball there is no Crowd he just has an Applause machine why did he Mastermind this whole new club to put this performance on is he mad so off the top those are some of the most horrifying villains but there's other flavors of them too like I said this show is a

gold mine of them one of the funniest is schwick name's Bushwick but call me schwick just schwick don't ever call me Bushwick where are you from Bushwick you can call that Bushwick but not me me you call swick just swick La Quac is pretty funny too and he's another repeat villain K the goose God is very funny and then I'll throw Cajun fox in there too I love his sunglasses and especially when he takes them off Cajun Fox is just a cool guy hey man how you doing and who could forget Shirley the medium another

fantastic recurring character in this universe the way she helps Eustace contact his dead brother just stle My Dead Brother and shut up Join [Music] friend that's just brilliant extra points to Shirley for always referring to Eustace as the stupid one the stupid one the stupid right mm and what's this eye she has anyway you know it's a little different it's not like a shingon or a renegon call that the shirle gon the chicken from outer space is a classic because it's the one that started at all in the self-titled short Film that was Oscar nominated

this would be what became courage revenge of the chicken from outer space is crazy cuz the chicken is cooked it's literally cooked and it came back to destroy courage it took eustace's head off and put it on itself I personally hated blood sucking stuff growing up so seeing the evil Weevil was wild watching how Nimble and skeletal Muriel and Eustace are after the Weevil sucks most of their blood out it's pretty scarring look at This his man has been reduced to a small puddle in a bag and it's not even the first episode something like

that has happened which reminds me of the Snowman the Snowman is another one of the funniest villains he gets a couple episodes rightfully so and ho Houser he was a ton of snow you got to throw some appreciation to Benton Tarantella he appears and everybody wants to direct and then again in angry nasty people and I think there's just Like one annoying character in the whole show and it's this guy and they definitely made him that way on purpose but he does offer some really good moments like this one I bet you can think of

at least a few guys that are unironically like this in real life I only had a nickel now I own three apartment buildings and a fleet of limousines here in my garage just bought this uh new Lamborghini here fun to drive up here in the Hollywood Hills all You have to do to learn The Secret of My Success is send me money and there's a couple more key villains that will pay a visit to later but the last one that I'd like to mention for now is the Puppet Master the magician the great fusili this

guy and this episode are special for a few reasons it's one of those episodes where the conflict is actually not resolved there's no happy ending this episode is is the root of a popular fan theory that this Twisted ending from The season 1 finale is what actually is the rest of courage's existence in the following three seasons it's like saucery and Naruto whose parents have passed what have been turned into puppets playing pretend that they're still alive to love him and while we're talking fan theories we have to address one of the most popular ones

besides this that this entire show is an exaggeration of reality that courage has an overactive imagination due to anxiety Or perhaps schizophrenia and that it all basically that is all just encourage his head we'll get into these theories a bit more in chapter six which is all about art and the interpretation of it but for now I'll just say that the most important thing is how art makes you feel so if either of these theories or any other ones that you can think of make you feel something greater then go with it that's like the

whole point there's tons of Department that go into Film making but there's one that really stands out with this show in particular and for that reason it deserves its own chapter believe it or not even though we have long called them pictures or Motion Pictures audio is actually the backbone to cinema real ones [Applause] no I think that's why you can watch air quotes watch from the other side of the room while you're cooking dinner or while you're eating dinner or on your Second monitor while you're playing brot you can get a lot of the

key information from sound alone the music sets the tone the dialogue conveys the information and sound effects fill in the details what's exceptionally notable about kurage the Cowardly Dog soundtrack is that so much of it is original we wrote pretty much a different theme for every single villain that's insane you know because it's like people don't do that you know so it was extra work we Didn't really care we just wanted it to be cool reminds me how all the major villains in Naruto had musical themes which was very effective in conveying their powerful dark

presences a lot of these themes have millions of views just because they're so iconic in and of themselves shout out to pain he was a perfect villain he was a ton of snow for any Naruto fans out there people that just notice how much I reference Naruto don't worry we'll get there one day that One's going to be a big video even bigger than crisis catastrophe in SpongeBob are you going to be able to hand them that I hope so because it's coming one of the first examples that comes to mind in speaking about exceptional

music in this show is human habit Trail you know what a habit Trail is I didn't and I had four Geral growing up well it's a pretty [ __ ] up episode Dr Geral is an actual [Music] Maniac go figure but in the climax of this episode there's a chase scene with courage in the dock where they make this inspired choice to actually mute all of the sounds except the music it completely sub her expectations and makes a really beautiful scene and John was constantly wanting us to do cinematic stuff and stuff that was different

bringing it back to Freaky Fred his music was actually so Psychedelically disturbing that it's [Music] intoxicating I love when a fan base comes together it's a lot like how Bikini Bottom came together in band geeks another episode with a fan-made reanimation ha fans are awesome because they make the best creators if you ask me I say that to say you don't want any Mega [ __ ] Executives that stare at spreadsheets all day trying to mmax and calculate what best thing they should Make to make the most money you want fans people that are fans

of great art people that appreciate great art to be the ones making it and I believe it's for those reasons that Dorth and his team felt compelled to make such Innovative decisions and that led to the show being as iconic as it is today so there is a lot of fantastic original music in the show but when they did use music that was not original they were very taste and which songs they selected Like they used the o to Joy in this episode are you kidding me actually maybe that was one of the original ones

I can't believe Courage the Cowardly Dog invented the Ode to Joy and of course we arrive at arguably the most significant musically themed episode in the tower of Dr jalos another fan favorite the one that's the most effective one for me haunting anyone is the Tower of Dr chst I really really like that that score it's very very Integrated into the show I'm using the same theme every time and then at the end it becomes very major and a lot of fans love that sh like that show they're constantly writing me about that show yeah

like how did you do it I sat at the keyboard and I played it they went fully cinematic with this one that's for sheres you missed one there's a happy person in both Tower of Dr zalost and curtain of Cruelty eustus is the only one in the world that it has No effect on it must be immune to emotions that is a hilarious detail I'm a lousy Storyteller but somehow I find some emotional component that I grab on to while dillworth may think he's a lousy Storyteller and everything about film school will teach you that

story is King editing Legend Walter merch agrees that emotion is actually the only thing that over AK takes it in terms of importance it's a highly recommend book for any Editors out there just filmmakers in general out there art appreciators out there get the book in the blank of an eye by Walter merch as an editor he comes up with a list of priorities and at the very top of that list is the emotion and his reasoning is when people walk out of the theater what they're going to remember above all even above what happened

in the story is what they felt that's the number one thing that people remember about any film or Arguably about any piece of art is how it made them feel remember how jod said that John would always describe a feeling when talking about what music he wanted he would often describe a feeling well Christopher Nolan did that exact thing with Han Zimmer when working on Interstellar he wouldn't tell me what the movie was about I sat down and I wrote this piece about what it feels like to be a father I thought it was absolutely

perfect and captured the Emotional qualities of the film that I wanted I think what that did was it set him very firmly in a direction relating to the heart of the film at the end of the day all these different people all these different department that are contributing to an art piece it all just adds up to create an effect on the viewer or an emotion the most important thing is the effect upon the viewer they really had no business making this show go this hard in the yard they could have Turned in some crap

and called it a day but instead they went the extra mile of crafting so many original songs just so that it was well tailored to the episodes they were working on and it's all because they wanted to continue that beautiful cycle of inspiration and that's really what I wanted to do I wanted to make sure that there would be shows that people would like as much as I liked Bugs Bunny when I was growing up well that's a beautiful thing but what Does it all mean anyway this is all just a bunch of colors and

voices just a bunch of sounds and images just a bunch of [ __ ] on the TV am I right it doesn't mean anything it's just a bunch of [ __ ] am I right we're going to look at curs through the lens of open interpretation because that's the beauty in art uh especially art that frequently uses abstract symbolism I mean that's the whole game of subjectivity using symbols that might carry inherent Meaning and putting them in a scene that evokes an emotion likely causing the human being to derive meaning from it and it's not

just me that's saying this this is the way that the creator of this art wishes for the world to see it as well art is for interpreting I know what my show is about but I'm not going to tell you you give it the meaning that means something to you I 1,00% agree here if dillworth or any other creators were to come on some interview and tell Us oh yeah the rest of the show is courage controlling the popets oh yeah the whole show is in courage's head well then the whole imagination and guessing game

is over in Mass were they like were the rabbit and uh why why why remove the clothing of a beautiful thing okay so you're not going to answer it what's the point then of trying to decipher true meaning or unintentional meaning in a thing so you rather leave it open for interpretation art is that The whole point of art is that it gets your feelings going gets your imagination going and that's the effect that it has on the viewer take courage in the big stinking City for example there's a lot of teasing and buildup to

what's behind that door you want to know what's behind that door you don't want to know what's behind that door and although we learn it eats everything off a person but they're bones and we get to hear it slurp for a second we never Actually see what it is and once again if the creators of the show were to tell us that oh yeah that's an alien oh yeah that's another bug just like schwick well then that defeats the whole guessing game it defeats the whole Magic of imagining what might be back there rather than

connecting those dots for us it gives us one dot and allows our imagination to finish the connection this is how some forms of therapy work look look they literally do this in an Episode Eustace connects the dots with what's in his head and Muriel connects the dots with what's in hers I see a beautiful butterfly who only wants to make her husband happy boom I see a woman hitting a guy on the head with a frying pan I'm not just making [ __ ] up I actually mean what I say I think a lot of

great artists see things this way the BoJack Horseman Creator feels the same about how fans interpret the last episodes of his show it's useless to try To control people's perceptions it's so much better to just go with the flow of the subjective perspectives of interpretation by using things like symol and double or triple on tandas artists love using things that carry inherent meanings and multiple meanings it's good for the art experience [ __ ] so now we understand that Jon's meaning that has resonated with him during the creation of this art can coexist with someone

else's personal Experiences and interpretations with the same art and so on with mine and yours and the rest there's all these fan theories about how nowhere is like either Purgatory or Hell or something oh I've get so many of those I love them all I love them all I'm not going to become a stuffed shirt and tell somebody their theory is wrong they're all correct who's to say you can't look at artwork and say ah this is it so when talking about symbols what am I talking About I'm talking about courage plunging in into the

darkness and queen of the black puddle that's a great metaphor example meaning types will love this one oh my god do we love a good set of abstract symbolism to derive meaning out of oh I'm going to derive meaning out of this heart so hard what about this blonde girl playing the violin in terms of subjective interpretations it's now time to talk about heads of beef which is a great Example to explore that it was all en courage's head Theory cuz this episode is really like that courage gets a bad feeling from this place and

this pig and when a customer disappears courage starts to think that they took him and maybe even ate him courage connects the dots to those in his head and comes with this narrative that these must be cannibals but in this case courage is actually wrong cuz by the time we reach the end of the episode we learned that This time it truly was just all in his head I would love to feature your work at my gallery of culinary wonders he invents a whole conflict where he needs to plunge into the darkness when this time

he actually didn't even have to do it after all courage was perceiving things in a way that was immediately flavored with fear conflating it with everything else that happens all the time at The Farmhouse and if you do subscribe to this Theory I would go as Far as to say that you should look at this as the prime example for your theory you could say that this episode is a peak into the real world as it truly is where we aren't so submerged and decourage as Viewpoint as to see things that aren't real but rather

see things as they really are for a change if you get more out of the show by looking at it through that lens then why not whatever invokes a greater feeling for you is probably what you should go With art is that and what invokes the greatest feeling for me is plunging into the darkness so while we've explored almost all of the story's key villains there's one more very important one that we need to understand arguably the biggest and inarguably the most consistent villain throughout the entire show Eustace for most of the show Eustace barely

ever calls Courage by his name courage to us courage is the main character to Eustace he's just a stupid dog stupid dog one that Muriel shouldn't have saved but why is he like this I explored hate through the Persona of eustus but then I also offered potential reasons for the source of that hate the older you get the more you come to understand that behind that scary old face there's a Broken Man underneath can I come hunting with you no please Big Brother no perhaps even deep within a broken child in the sand Whale strikes

we see eustace's Mom wish to give up her son's life and his wives in order to get the sand whales prize money you know how much a sand whale is worth he can keep me stupid son of his stupid wife now so now we know that that's probably where his unending greed and fixation on money over family comes from in the Mother's Day episode eustace's mom hates all of the gifts that he brings her except for the mirror and the photo his mom has always been Obsessed with her looks and when his mom gives eustace's

gift to courage his inner child starts to peek out that's mine why don't you ever give me any pres she never gave him anything he's always felt neglected and continues to feel so Eustace was verbally and emotionally abused by his mom your paw was a real man you can't fill his sh CH by his older brother see you later useless and he fell into the negative Momentum of continuing that cycle of abuse to the Next Generation even if it isn't onto his kid but onto his dog being victim to one is an incredibly difficult position

to be in and therefore one of the most difficult decisions in life to Bear such a brutal suffering and still to choose light over dark they say that that's the only difference between heroes and villains villains and heroes actually have the exact same backstory both the villain Story and the backstory of the hero are pain so the difference between the villain and the hero is one thing it's how they respond to pain the world hurt me I'm going to hurt it back and the hero says the world hurt me I'm not going to let this

happen to anybody else wow it's just literally how you decide to react to pain that either turns you into the victim or turns you into the hero one continues that cycle and one breaks it this is why albums like Mr Morale and the big steppers are so important and so Timeless I predict it's about breaking cycles of pain and hatred and abuse to create more peaceful lives in Generations future we're getting closer to the source you guys let's proceed even deeper in mcferson Phantom I think one of the most important episodes in the whole show

we see her team up with a literal Phantom to manipulate her son into believing his wife Muriel is treating him badly Specifically to separate them that's what level she's on I guess it all started with me mom she never liked me mhm good work eustus I see a bitter old woman with a bad wig who's in a lot of pain that's a big dose of reality I'm ugly I'm ugly then eustace's Mom gets therapy it all started out years ago with my mother's mother's Auntie grisela she was a cruel woman made us all miserable and

There it is now we've learned that this Rabbit Hole goes pretty [ __ ] deep this is beyond just Eustace and his mom now we can finally make sense of that fear that we felt as a kid the fear that courage felt when eustus abused him where was that hate coming from why was eustus like this because he's a victim first and then a villain later I ain't useless I'm useless he's a victim to the patterns instilled in him from his own mother who Herself is a victim to the patterns instilled from her family growing

up these patter patterns are Insidious and it's very hard to break it's the right thing to do but so many don't do it because it's extremely hard and it's far easier to just pay it forward there's a moment where Eustace catches a glimpse of what he really is inside in the curse of Shirley the whole day eustace's only remaining loved ones are trying to set up for his birthday party in celebration Of him all day everyone is just trying to love him thatman should really come to his own birthday party but they can't cuz the

person that really needs to love him is him their love can't get through to him until he learns to love himself first it's so hot my head is burning where's your hat I don't have one no hat that's not right little boy like little boy should have a hat courage you did the impossible you got used to to give himself You either grow or go blah blah blah I ain't growing and I ain't going a villain is a perfect character to have discover empathy this stupid one has taken on the pain of his wife he

has learned to give relief and share pain no ma you always look good to me now I will show the world the difference between courage and yeah courage easily could have just closed his eyes to any of the phenomenon that Came a knocking and then just let events happen as they happen but that's not courage courage is action anything worth its value is worth fighting for the heart is a very strong muscle it really does overcome fear nothing that I wouldn't do to prevent harm to someone I love [Music] you know life is so terrifying

I guess the only way to survive you have to be As scary as it is that's what gave courage his courage I'll save you the things I do for love especially people who suffer with a lot of anxiety we didn't know what to do with our fear he was The Shining example of what you can do even if you are afraid to tackle something if a little pink dog could face his fears so could that person you've taught me the meaning of The word colage courage courage there's lots of rumors going on about that uh

courage is modeled after the dog that I had when I was a boy and it's probably true I missed that dog but it wasn't the coward howage courage I think you Ned off before I get you the ending we are celebrating the life of Muriel Barry who had helped Inspire Muriel bag of whom's lap courage found Consolation from all the Terrors of that Bor dog's life and so my dear Muriel the one quote she would often repeat a cup of tea a friendly chat a cozy seat simple things hard to beat and that's the end

of the story happily ever after