Retro Rambling: Cow and Chicken
There wasn’t much I liked about being a young kid in the 90s; over produced pop bands, terrible fashion, inflatable plastic chairs and glitter on, in and around every goddamn thing. However the saving grace of my generation’s entertainment and culture was the quantity and quality of animation. With the expansion of satellite TV came dozens of new channels aimed purely at keeping the kids quiet at any hour of any day. As an exceptionally lucky child with no siblings and a remote at hand I was able to flick through every channel on weekends, sick days and holidays until my eyes rolled out of my head, and I did! Channels like Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel developed some of the most groundbreaking, forward thinking and, in a lot of respects, creepy animated series I have seen before or since. My most fondly-remembered shows stood out for their humour, surreal imagery and generally bizarre nature.
What better to start us off on the trail of outlandish weirdness than the crazy world of a cow and a chicken who are inexplicably the children of too half-bodied human parents? There was so much wrong and ultimately so much right with this show. The pilot was created as part of the ambitious What a Cartoon! showcase that gave us some of the most well-known and long-lasting TV series of the mid-90s including The Powerpuff Girls and Dexter’s Lab. Created by David Feiss – animation director on Ren and Stimpy and All Dogs go to Heaven 2 – who also created the slightly less well known series I am Weasel that was sandwiched between the double bill of Cow and Chicken, the two programs simultaneously referred to each other between two-parter episodes, often becoming quite meta.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8EB0dBLYa0
The show itself focused around the improbable but somehow biological siblings comprising of the sweet, rotund and altogether lovable Cow and her rough-tongued, aggressively precocious, pint sized “bigger” brother Chicken, and their episodic misadventures with the devilishly flamboyant Red Guy (all three primary characters were voiced by the rockstar of voice acting, Charles Adler). Cow and Chicken is probably best known for its rebellious and distinctly unsubtle adult humour that was often slipped into almost every episode, including an infamous banned episode. Let’s take a closer look at the lead and supporting characters and the top WTF moments of the 4 series and 52 episode long show (1997-1999).
Cow – our big-hearted, bovine heroine loves nothing more than playing with her toys Crabs the warthog, Piles the beaver and not forgetting Manure the bear. She’s a family girl who often seems to rescuing, but when things really get crazy she calls upon her alter ego Super Cow; a masked defender carrying on that grand tradition of doing very little to hide her identity and yet remain unrecognized by everyone. One of the just plain creepy things that Cow had going on was the fact that anytime she wore clothes of any kind there were intricately cut out holes for her udders, which proved simultaneously sensible and disturbing in equal measure.
Chicken – the bad boy rooster, Cow’s exhausted older brother who often begrudgingly showed Cow the ways of the world, but would always be the first one to defend his sister’s honour whenever she was picked on or bullied. His no-nonsense, bullish demeanour complemented Cow’s softer side which made for a winning combination. Chicken would often end up cross-dressing in various episodes, including Confused, The Girls’ Bathroom and Which Came First – in which Red Guy convinces him he has laid an egg and thus is actually female – but he rocked the feminine look every time.
Someone else who was partial to a frock and panty hose was the devious Red Guy , the original trickster whose sole pursuit was to wreak havoc on the family. Red Guy is also the only character who goes between the Cow and Chicken world and the spun-off universe of I am Weasel. Another common trait was walking on his large behind as if they were legs, also coercing others to walk in this way (I think as a child I tried this, butt to no avail). The rambunctious, devilish character went by many names all alluding to his lack of undergarments.
My top five are as follows:
- Captain Butt Pirates (Yep that happened, I swear)
- Mrs. Barederrière
- Mr. Lackapants
- Dr. I.C. High-Knee
- Officer O’Fannyhee (particularly gigglesome for the Brits)
Mom and Dad; The two halves of an endlessly supportive and constantly proud – however dubious – parenting duo, these two a
re the center of the adult humour in the series. With so many references to roleplay, cross-dressing and sexual exploits prior to the birth of their unusual offspring, these two sets of dismembered legs have a wicked sense of humour. The thing I most often found myself pondering, however, was just what the hell they were speaking through – something I decided to not think about after drawing my first conclusions. Although it has never been made super clear as to why they have no upper torso, there is one episode where Cow refers to what may be their upper halves as a “science experiment”, so maybe their support of their beloved daughter’s dreams went a little too far?
Cousin Boneless; another link to the mysterious farmyard biological backstory of the family, Cousin Boneless often shows up for babysitting duties and regularly becomes Cow’s favourite plaything. Another member of this weird farmyard family tree is Cousin Black Sheep.
Earl and Flem; Chicken’s best friends basically turn up whenever he needs some time away from Cow, although she often turns up uninvited. Their rasping teenage voices are always there to speak up in blind agreement with whatever Chicken says.
Food – pork butts, weenies and chicken?
There were a lot of weird foods in Cartoon Network shows in general, but Cow and Chicken had some of the weirdest. Pork butts and Weenies were the family favourites – Cow even wrote a more-than-a-little-freaky musical starring Chicken about processed meat products. Also, as farm animals a recurring theme in the series was their ability to either be or produce food; Chicken was often almost sold, cooked or eaten, it’s a hell of a life for a young chicken in a mostly human world.
Got milk?
Carrying on from my previous point, the whole family drink milk, and if they run out Cow was right there to squirt directly into their glass, cereal or indeed mouth. No one was OK with this, Chicken included. Oh, and occasionally cow would just ‘squirt’ by accident? Yeah…
Episodes to remember:
‘The Girls’ Bathroom’
I really liked seeing Chicken in lots of different outfits and found his general design incredibly pleasing, so a Chicken-heavy dress-up episode was always a winner for me.
‘Happy Meat’
The school canteen serves nothing but ketchup, ketchup flakes and ketchup on a stick. Sick to the back teeth and probably suffering from malnutrition, Cow and Chicken take it upon themselves to start an opposing canteen menu serving primarily (you guessed it) meat. I don’t know why this one stuck with me for so long. Although ketchup flakes would be frickin’ disgusting in reality, for some reason their very pleasing colour in this episode stuck with me.
‘Squirt the Daisies’
A video game episode was also always a winner – after being tricked into being sucked into the game by the devious Red Guy, Chicken must play through all the arcade games to escape, but even the not-so-tough ‘ baby’ games loved by his baby sister Cow prove to be scarily difficult. Perhaps it was this episode’s retro vibe or repetitive music, but there was something I really enjoyed about the world that Chicken fell into.
‘Supermodel Cow’’
A boy image episode – when Cow is down on her looks she dreams of being a model, so Red Guy comes along and makes all her dreams come true. She’s on billboards and magazine covers, with everyone wanting ‘the Cow look’, strapping on udders and cow prints. But the fickle fashion industry chews Cow up and spits her out, forcing her (for reasons that are never really explained) to work in a sleazy milk bar. When a character normally seen without clothes starts wearing a slinky cocktail dress and pearls, it can make for an uncomfortable scene.
‘Which Came First’
As discussed earlier in the article, this is one of Chicken’s gender ambiguity episodes – however in this one Flem and Earl somehow forget their mate’s plight and try to outbid one another in order to date him. Too bad, as he’s “saving himself for his wedding night”..
‘Tongue Sandwich’
In another oft-commented-on episode, Cow’s tongue rips itself out of her head and takes on his own personality after escaping. This in turn leads Cow and Chicken on a journey through the town, finding and trying on tongues, each new one morphing cow into its previous owner; she turns from a pig, to a horse, to a dog (in a Chinese restaurant) before being reunited with her wayward tongue who, after his crime spree, seeks refuge back in his owner’s damp mouth.
‘Buffalo Gals’ – the banned episode
Difficult to find, due to not being part of the show’s normal syndication having notoriously received a lot of complaints from parents due to its completely unsubtle references. The Buffalo Gals were a female biker gang who would literally break into people’s house and munch on people’s carpets (the leader of the gang even had a square of carpet as her calling card). Once scene in which Dad is very upset at their arrival in his house sees Mom assure him “They’re not here for you”. This was the pinnacle of the animators’ attitudes towards creating cartoons for kids while entertaining themselves with just how far they could push things – apparently this time they just went a little bit over.
How they got away with it all, only the great Gods of animation know (or, more likely, the producers of Cartoon Network at the time) but I’m certainly glad they did, as I have long held on to the belief that the generation of kids that grew up on these weird and wacky characters have turned out the way they have because of them. Whether that be a good or bad thing, we sure did have the pick of good quality viewing. They don’t make them like that anymore!