Space Chicken (Courage the Cowardly Dog)

The Space Chicken is an alien chicken that first appeared in the What-a-Cartoon short dubbed "The Chicken from Outer Space," and returned with his last appearance in "The Revenge of the Chicken from Outer Space" (though he does make a few cameos throughout the series). He was also the first antagonist that victimized Eustace and Muriel Bagge, as well as the first antagonist that Courage had to face.

Appearance
The Space Chicken greatly resembles an Earth chicken. He is a large, fat, white-feathered bird with skinny black legs and an orange beak bigger than his head. He has a blue wattle that ranges from a light blue to a darker looking blue. He also has a pair of glowing red eyes with no pupils.

In the Revenge of the Chicken from Outer Space, he changed dramatically. He had turned into a brown, featherless and headless creature with blue Wellington boots. He later gains the head, voice and personality of Eustace.

Weapons
Space Chicken has two well-known known weapons: his laser gun and a toilet plunger. Neither of them worked well for him, though. His laser gun is first seen in the What-a-Cartoon short; after Courage bested him at every challenge he threw at him, he got angry and tried to shoot Courage with it. Sadly for him, it backfired and he ended up roasted. Courage then used the same weapon to zap a fully transformed Eustace.

The gun does change designs in the series. In the short, it was large and in very light shades of green. It also had rings on the front and had a small satellite and light bulb. Later in the series, it shrunk in size and was made a darker green. It also has a blue "shark fin" and purple frills on the sides. He never uses it in his return episode, but his son did. He did, however, use a toilet plunger to remove the heads off of various objects...including Eustace.

In the short, he is also seen with a sword. He attempts to have a fencing match with Courage, but when the dog accidentally exposed the former's underpants, the alien chicken responded by throwing down his sword in frustration.

History
The arrival of the Space Chicken was first observed by Courage while he was resting on the front porch of the Bagge residence after being frightened away by Eustace's mask. The Space Chicken was still within his spaceship landing it in front of the Bagge residence in full view for Courage. Though Courage immediately informed the couple about the Space Chicken's arrival, the two were surprised when they saw nothing at the front porch. Unbeknownst to everyone, it was during Courage's alert to the Bagge couple when the Space Chicken performed his plans, which was to replace every chicken in the Bagge's chicken coop.

The Space Chicken succeeded in eliminating all the other chickens from the coop, but not before Courage witnessed the act. Being afraid as usual, Courage immediately ran towards the Bagge's once again in order to warn them of the Space Chicken. Instead of informing them, however, Courage took Muriel to the coop.

The Space Chicken was recognized by Muriel as an ordinary chicken, from which she took some of his eggs. The Space Chicken's eggs were unlike Earth chicken eggs as they had red spots and on a yolk circle with red yolk inside and would turn any human who consumes it into the Space Chicken's species. Eustace fell victim to this, however, which stopped Muriel from eating any amount of it and remained uninfected.

Courage was more than determined to rescue Muriel from the transformed Eustace, but was hindered by the Space Chicken himself, who challenged Courage to a series of challenges. Fortunately, Courage was able to best him at every turn. Angered, the Space Chicken decided to simply shoot Courage with a laser beam. This backfired, though, when the beam missed and was reflected, hitting the Space Chicken in the process and seemingly killing him. This resulted with the Space Chicken being cooked and headless. Afterwards, Courage shot the fully transformed Eustace with the same laser beam, which turned him into ash.

The chicken returned in the episode "The Revenge of the Chicken from Outer Space". He has drastically changed from his first appearance, telling Courage that he was zapped with his own laser weapon (though he claims that Courage did it) and lost his head and feathers. He is last seen after a failed attempt to catch Courage. He unknowingly releases a buried rocket. He tries to exit his ship via parachute, but fails and is killed when the rocket explodes upon impact with his ship.

Cameo appearances
The Space Chicken makes his first cameo appearance in "A Night at the Katz Motel" as a bath toy in Muriel's tub.

He later appears in two cameos in "The Transplant"; the first is when Courage finds the bone and he wonders what it belongs to. The Space Chicken was one of his ideas. He is also in a video of when the Kangaroo Monsters were around (where he was crushed into a "pulpy pancake" by a Kangaroo Monster).

He makes another a cameo in "Aqua-Farmer"; he can be seen among the crowd in Nowhere Wet World, but his appearance has slightly altered.

He makes one last cameo in "Son of the Chicken from Outer Space". He is seen in a slideshow presented by his wife to her three-headed son.

List of appearances

 * 1) "The Chicken from Outer Space" (debut)
 * 2) "A Night at the Katz Motel" (cameo)
 * 3) "The Revenge of the Chicken from Outer Space"
 * 4) "The Transplant" (cameo)
 * 5) "Aqua-Farmer" (cameo)
 * 6) "Son of the Chicken from Outer Space" (cameo)