Trivia / Cow and Chicken

• Acting for Two: Charlie Adler voices a large number of characters (Cow, Chicken, The Red Guy, I.R. Baboon, and some one-shot characters) who all interact with each other in any given episode. In "Factory Follies," Red Guy is actually talking to himself and is the only character in the episode with dialogue.
• Banned Episode: The What A Cartoon! Show pilot episode, "No Smoking" (due to claims of the short glamorizing tobacco use, even though "No Smoking" isn't considered an actual Cow and Chicken episode, as it aired on The What a Cartoon! Show) and the series episode "Buffalo Gals" (due to one letter complaining about the lesbian innuendo) have only aired once. Both episodes weren't even on the Netflix streaming version, but can be found on most video sites, like Veoh and YouTube.
• Banned in China: The show is banned in India due to its depiction of cows, which are seen as sacred creatures in Hindu religion.
• Based on a Dream: The Red Guy came to David Feiss in a dream, complete with his "Hello, it's me" catchphrase.
• Bowdlerization: The episode "Comet" was edited in reruns to change Dad's line from, "Oh, divot!" (sounding almost like "Damn it!")^note though, if you listen closely, there's no "v" sound when Dad yells, "Divot!" after hitting his golf ball and sending it flying to "Oh...two!" Since it started airing on Boomerang in America, the original line has been reinstated. The line was also uncut on the Netflix streaming version.
• Creator Backlash: Feiss admits in an interview that he felt he went too far with the episode "Buffalo Gals", saying "That kind of thing is not for children, I think."
• Creator's Favorite: Charlie Adler has said that Cow was his favorite character to voice, with the Red Guy in close second.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Some◊ of David Feiss favorite episodes include "Ortohodontic Police", "Lost at Sea", "The King and Queen of Cheese", "The Laughing Puddle", "School Bully", "Confused", "Part Time Job", "Headhunting in Oregon", "Sergeant Weenie Arms", "The Bad News Plastic Surgeons", "Tongue Sandwich" and "The Legend of Sailcat".
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Charlie Adler as Cow. Most non-English dubs also have Cow's voice actor as a man doing a feminine voice. The only ones that don't are the dubs f.e. in Spain, Poland, Japan and Brazil.
  • The episode "Cow's Toys" has Tom Kenny voice an unnamed little girl (you know it's him because "she" sounds like Heffer Wolfe from Rocko's Modern Life when "she" yells, "Mommy! That stinky bear doll hurt my feelings!").
• Descended Creator: David Feiss voices a clown in the episode "The Great Pantzini".
• Edited for Syndication: In the summer of 1999, Cartoon Network split Cow and Chicken and I Am Weasel into separate shows, and thereafter, reruns of both shows were essentially a shuffle of three random segments in a half-hour, with "Buffalo Gals" replaced with "Orthodontic Police" and "Comet!" edited to redub "Oh, divot!" to "Oh...two!" Other episodes, like "Grizzly Beaver Safari" and "Chicken in the Bathroom" were pulled for reasons unknown (some say content^note  It is implied that Cow and Chicken died at the end of both episodes ; others say the episodes weren't good enough for the syndication package).
• Executive Meddling:
  • After the first season was completed, David Feiss wanted to drop the I Am Weasel segments from the show altogether, but Cartoon Network demanded that he keep it in; eventually, a compromise was reached, that would allow Feiss to have Red Guy cross over into the Weasel segments, as to hold his interest in continuing the segment (and eventually, more characters, including Cow and Chicken themselves, were allowed to cross over into the Weasel segments).
  • Charlie Adler said how The Red Guy got his name due to how he would've once been called The Devil, but standards and practices meant his name had to be changed.
• Follow the Leader: This was Cartoon Network's attempt to replicate The Ren & Stimpy Show. Fittingly, David Feiss worked on that show as an animation director. It was also one of the few contemporary cartoons that R&S creator John Kricfalusi had anything even remotely nice to say about.
  I liked Cow and Chicken. The drawings and animation were great. David Feiss is fantastic. One of the most talented guys I ever met. I told him I didn't like the voices though. I'm sure he doesn't like everything about my cartoons.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Outside of YouTube and torrents, the episodes "Buffalo Gals", "Grizzly Beaver Safari", and "Chicken in the Bathroom" are considered very hard to find ("Buffalo Gals", especially, since that only aired once and was immediately pulled after a parent wrote to the network to complain).
• Kids' Meal Toy:
  • Taco Bell released a set of four toys in 1999. There was the TV Animator, the Sparking Cow, the Cereal Launcher, and the Pop-A-Wheelie Triycle.
  • Carl's Jr. and Hardee's released a set of four toys in February and March 2000. There was the "Evil Cownevil" spring-loaded launcher, the "Watch Out For That Chicken!" wind-up car, the "Just the Tube of Us" rev-up spinner, and the "Take-Along TV" paper punch with motion screen.
• No Export for You: Mixed in with the Banned in China trope — the show was never aired on Cartoon Network India, because of the unflattering portrayal of the titular Cow (and cows are banned from being depicted on animated shows due to them being considered holy in India).
• The Other Darrin: From the Brazilian dub of the pilot to the show, only Chicken kept his voice actor (Clécio Souto), everyone else was recast:
  • Cow: Carmen Sheila in the pilot, Miriam Ficher in the show
  • The Red Guy: Paulo Flores in the pilot, Jorge Vasconcellos in the show
  • Mom: Carmen Sheila in the pilot, Myriam Thereza in the show
  • Dad: Hércules Franco in the pilot, Darcy Pedrosa in the show. Domício Costa later replaced him as the voice of Dad due to Darcy passing away in 1999.
• Out of Holiday Episode: "Halloween with Dead Ghost, Coast to Coast" aired on January 1998.
• Posthumous Credit: Robert Ridgely passed away in February 1997, before Cow and Chicken premiered, but recorded his lines for the character Dr. Chunks in the episode "Part-time Job" which aired 5 months after his death.
• Screwed by the Network: Somewhat. Before the final season had finished its initial run, Cartoon Network jumped the gun at splitting I Am Weasel into its own "spinoff". Because of this, the remaining "new episodes" of the series were essentially unaired "Cow and Chicken" segments cobbled together into half-hour episodes.
• What Could Have Been:
  • David Feiss originally wanted to use the idea, itself taken from a bedtime story he told his daughter, for a children's picture book. It would have had a softer art style and the title characters were friends rather than siblings. When Cartoon Network put out the call for pilot ideas, Feiss overhauled the book idea and turned it into the show we now have.
  • Red Guy's Hypercompetent Sidekick from the pilot was originally planned to be an alligator. At some point, it was changed to be a more unique and cartoony take on the three-headed hellhound, Cerberus.
    • On a similar note, Chicken's feathers were originally planned to be colored yellow, much like newborn chickens, and similar to his original design from Feiss' picture book. When the pilot entered full production, it was decided that his feathers be colored white, instead, which carried over into the series proper.
  • "Buffalo Gals" originally had a scene in which Mom assured Dad that Cow should go with the Buffalo Gals because "...I rode with the Buffalo Gals when I was in college." The censors had the scene cut, though, in the end, that decision was a fool's errand as the entire episode ended up being banned.
• Working Title: "Comet!" was originally called "Dad's Ball" (and was most likely changed because of the censors).
  • Similarly, "Pirate Lessons" was originally "Capt. Butz Pirate" and "The Exchange Stüdent" was "The Holy Cheese War."
  • The Halloween Episode "Halloween with Dead Ghost, Coast to Coast" originally◊ had◊ the title "Trick or Cow and Chicken".
• Write What You Know:
  • The episode "The Cow with Four Eyes" is based on an incident that David Feiss experienced. When he was a kid, he thought that having glasses made people smarter, so he faked his eye exam like Chicken to get big, thick glasses, even though he couldn't see from them.
  • The episode "Major Wedgie" came from Feiss' son during a car trip where his son proclaimed "I got a major wedgie". Feiss thought that sounded like a military type and made an episode with the Red Guy being a Drill Sergeant Nasty named Major Wedgie.
• Write Who You Know:
  • David Feiss based the title duo's personalities and relationship on his two children.
  • Supercow's Gratuitous Spanish was inspired by Feiss' Spanish then-wife, Pilar.
• Written for My Kids: The series came about from a bedtime story David Feiss told his daughter.

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