John R. Dilworth's Courage the Cowardly Dog had an auspicious start as the pick of the litter of Cartoon Network's World Premiere Toons. The pilot short "The Chicken from Outer Space" (lamentably missing from this set) was nominated for an Academy Award®, and a series was born. Courage is a teeth-chattering pooch who howls pathetically like Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant at any sign of danger. He literally lives in the middle of Nowhere with his adoptive family, the goodhearted Muriel and the cruel Eustace, who delights in tormenting the "stupid dog." Courage recalls those classic Chuck Jones cartoons that paired Porky Pig with scaredy cat Sylvester, who had to overcome his fears to save an oblivious Porky from homicidal mice, alien invaders, and other menaces. Courage's series opener sets the stage for frighteningly funny things to come. In "A Night at the Katz Motel," Courage and company must fight off cannibalistic spiders. In another short, Muriel is the missing ingredient in a fox's "Cajun Granny Stew." Another memorable short is "King Ramses' Curse," in which Eustace refuses to give up a stolen antiquity and brings a series of plagues upon his house. "The Hunchback of Nowhere" is one of the season's sweeter stories in which Courage is befriended by a Quasimodo-like outcast who defends him against Eustace. "Freaky Fred," also a cut above, is about a deranged barber who delights in being "naughteee." Though roughly 72 in dog years, Courage holds up well. Rich bold colors and stylized character design gives the show a distinctive look. Visual humor and slapstick gags abound without any stale pop-culture references that would date the show, making Courage as eerily funny as when it first creeped out kids in 1999. Fetch! --Donald Liebenson