If these two were human, I’m not convinced this scene would be shown to children. Fitting with the title, the fact that they’re both talking animals does mask the fact that this is a very dark moment. This scene alone shows domestic abuse better than some cartoons I’ve seen that were aimed towards adults. Once Bunny starts crying, he starts to act like a caring boyfriend again, saying she’s still his girl. He acts as though he’s someone she is dependent on, and like he is more than worthy of her (“I take you from a two bit joint and make you a class act, and you want to make me second rate?”), then threatens to “bury the two of them” should Kitty ever return. And no, it does not treat this situation lightly.Īside from the fact that they’re both talking animals, Mad Dog and Bunny’s relationship does not come across as whimsical or fantastical. The scene we get of them interacting shows that Mad Dog is clearly a flat out domestic abuser. In case that description didn’t give it away, this is an episode of a children’s cartoon that is looking into an abusive relationship. Courage realises the best way to get Kitty to leave is to reunite her with Bunny, and goes to find Mad Dog. As it turns out, Kitty is a cat, but, more specifically, a cat who lost her best friend Bunny because her boyfriend Mad Dog didn’t approve of their friendship, and threatened Kitty’s life. After taking a lot of abuse from Kitty, Courage tries to find out why she has such prejudice against dogs. Courage’s owner Muriel, however, allows her to stay the night at the farm with them. She instantly despises Courage, simply because he is a dog, and she assumes all dogs are automatically evil. The episode shows a mysterious masked figure named “Kitty” arriving at Courage’s family farm. This episode, however, is not quite so goofy. This has a lot to do with the fact that the show had a lot of heart to it, and when it wanted to be goofy, it did so in quite a lighthearted way. In spite of this, it managed to avoid a lot of the censors, and avoid an all too early cancellation. So, what is the best way to feature dark themes in children’s shows?Ĭourage the Cowardly Dog was a remarkably dark kid’s show about a cowardly dog who protects his family from supernatural forces, both through its use of horror elements, and its use of adult themes. And that can lead to angering the network/studio that’s producing it, which can tragically lead to premature cancellation.Īlas, we shall never see the likes of Zim again. And while such content can often turn into something high quality and enjoyable for the older audiences (and the braver kids), it might just anger the parents. On the other hand, children’s media that does respect their audience’s intelligence can sometimes go a little far in terms of the content they’re showing. And so we get terrible kid’s media that oversimplifies everything to the point where, when the time comes to do a “very serious message”, the kids are not going to listen. How many cartoons do you remember as a kid that did an anti drug message, that oversimplified everything and amounted to “just say no!”Ĭhildren’s media is plagued with writers who assume that kids are automatically dumb as bricks, and thus any effort put into their writing will be wasted. Quite often the latter tends to be the more common. Usually, a writer will fail by either overestimating what children can take, and making it too dark and disturbing for them or underestimating what they can take, and sucking the darkness and the dignity out of the subject. Handling dark themes around kids is a tricky thing to do. That is, it takes talent when it’s done correctly. It really takes skill and talent to be able to show kids a theme or moral that they would otherwise be completely sheltered from. I don’t know about you, but I really love it when a writer is able to tackle a serious and/or dark and potentially disturbing theme in a kid’s show or movie.
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