Courage the Cowardly Dog - Disturbing?

Courage the Cowardly Dog must be one of the creepiest cartoons out there. On a scale of creepiness, the online show "Salad Fingers" is for adults, what "Courage" must be for kids. (For those of you not familiar with "Salad Fingers" here's a link to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3iOROuTuMA). A show that deals with situations like alien abductions, burglaries, invasions, kidnappings, and of course demented monsters hellbent on killing the main characters either makes this show incredibly entertaining or disturbing to children. It depends on the kids.

The show has characters like a demon who stalks puddles, cannibalistic pigs, a deformed hunchback, clowns, moles that are werewolves, a deranged mad scientist, and not to mention a particular mental, pedophile-looking man named Fred seen in the first image of my posting. Tell me that's not freaky. I think, as an adult, these characters in cartoon form weird me out because a good majority of them pose like ordinary, everyday people. Door to door salesmen, people on street corners, doctors, motel owners, among others. Some of these are the quirky people that we read about in the news after they hacked somebody up. To see all of these guys presented in an innocent cartoon gives it a very disturbing effect. Now, I'm not here to complain about the show. I love it. I actually admire the producers. It was an odd contrast to the cartoons it played alongside: Ed, Edd and Eddy, Dexter's Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo, etc. But even without deeply thinking into the situations or characters, it still has some frightening content. So parents know your kids! I understand how badly you want them to enjoy such an original, classic cartoon, but you may have to wait an extra year or two. You don't want them afraid of walking near a puddle that a demon could live in. You don't want them afraid of being haunted by a dead mummy.

It's most likely that the kids watching the show won't picture themselves trapped in the truly horrible situations that the main characters sometimes face. The same can be said that they won't connect the plethora of creepy characters to the likes of people around them. Generally, the show makes a solid balance of the lighthearted and fearful elements. But still, when that occasional dark, musical score builds up and that reoccurring, disturbing character comes around, a few kids might be changing the channel. I hope it doesn't come to that, but they might be better off with Blue's Clues. Blue's pretty dull, but definitely a safer dog than Courage.