Courage the Cowadly Dog

Courage the Cowardly Dog is one of those Cartoon Network series that my generation grew up with and there is a reason why so many kids used to watch it- even though it was scary as hell it was appealing. But I don't intend to talk about the whole series, just the pilot.
Actually the  pilot started out as a 7 minute short film named "The Chicken from Outer Space" and it was made by John R. Dilworth. The short was nominated as a Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 68th Academy Awards.
I love it that the short has a very unique and unrefined style to it, as a child, for me it seemed something different from all the cartoons, well maybe mostly because of the horror element. But for some reason the characters and color pallet make it really are appealing. And the irregularly shaped backgrounds give it this sort of "twisted world" feel. The character design is really clever, it makes you instantly fall in love with Muriel, sympathies for Courage and dislike Eustace, and as for the antagonist- that is one scary chicken!
Apparently it took 4 years for this pitch to make it into a series, but it was well worth it.