Cow and Chicken is one of the oddest cartoons to come out of the '90s, but you might have forgotten what makes it so bizarre. So, why is Cow and Chicken so weird?
One of the main characters is a red devil who walks on his butt and bothers children for fun. The title characters were born to a pair of human legs with no torsos, arms, or heads. And episodes have titles like The Ugly Weenie and Grizzly Beaver Safari. One episode was even banned for being too overtly racy and for perpetuating stereotypes about lesbians. Those are just a few examples - it gets even stranger from there.
Just because it's weird doesn't mean it isn't great. While there are plenty of reasons the show isn't exactly appropriate for kids, don't let that stop you from rewatching it now. Just like all the other great Cartoon Network shows, it certainly has its charms. If this list makes you nostalgic for the '90s, rewatch some of the best Cow and Chicken episodes.
If you saw episode titles like The Ugly Weenie, Squirt The Daisies, Tongue Sandwich, Grizzly Beaver Safari, Meet Lance Sackless, and Horn Envy,would you assume they were titles for a kids' show or from something for mature audiences?
These are all episode titles from Cow and Chicken, which aired on Cartoon Network for an audience of children.
In an episode called The Molting Fairy, Chicken loses his feathers, and his parents tell him that if he puts them under his pillow, the Molting Fairy will leave money in exchange. He then proceeds to rack up a massive bill at the carnival under the assumption that he's coming into a fortune later.
Chicken ends up receiving just a single dollar, but the Molting Fairy (the Red Guy with wings) tells him that his brother, the Scab Fairy, will pay big bucks for scabs.
Cow and Chicken have an older cousin named Boneless who babysits them from time to time. He's a standup comedian and veteran who spends a lot of time dating. All of this sounds like a solid background for a character... except that he has no bones; his time in the military was spent as a living kite.
All of this is for the pun about boneless chicken - something you'll probably never want to eat again after watching an episode or two featuring Boneless.
One thing that comes up all the time in Cow and Chicken is Cow getting mocked for her appearance and weight. Whether it's Red Guy calling her fat every other sentence or Chicken saying her ugliness is a blessing because it makes other people feel better about themselves, it's an inescapable part of the series.
Remember, Cow and Chicken was targeted at pre-teens. It's not exactly great for a young girl's developing psyche to hear the main female character in a cartoon constantly insulted for her appearance - even if that character is a literal cow. It's also not particularly funny or creative.
Whether it's their teacher verbally berating them, Red Guy bothering them, random strangers trying to boil them alive, or their parents making them wear full-body socks instead of actual clothes, Cow and Chicken aren't exactly surrounded by kind and competent adults.
The siblings aren't the only ones who deal with this, though - the Red Guy was apparently raised by a woman who fed him gruel and challenged him to "fight her like a man."
The first (and only) line in Cow and Chicken'stheme song is "Mama had a chicken, Mama had a cow, Dad was proud, he didn't care how!" So, viewers aren't really supposed to question how this bizarre little family came to exist. But there are a lot of questions worth asking.
Was Mama bedding farm animals? If so, why was she able to conceive with an entirely different species? Does Dad know about it? Where did Mama keep the developing fetuses when she doesn't have enough of a body to contain a uterus? Chicken could have hatched from an egg, but where was she keeping Cow?
