Courage the Cowardly Dog

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The things he does for love...

Narrator: We interrupt this program to bring you... Courage the Cowardly Dog Show, starring Courage, the cowardly dog! Abandoned as a pup, he was found by Muriel, who lives in the middle of Nowhere with her husband, Eustace Bagge! But creepy stuff happens in Nowhere. It's up to Courage to save his new home! Eustace: Stupid dog! You made me look bad! (pulls out mask) OOGA BOOGA BOOGA!

From the mind of animator John R. Dilworth came Courage the Cowardly Dog, a Cartoon Network original series spun off from Dilworth's animated short "The Chicken From Outer Space".

The title character, the high-strung and inexplicably pink canine Courage, is the beloved pet of Eustace and Muriel Bagge, an elderly couple who live on a dusty old farm in the middle of Nowhere (literally; they live in Nowhere, Kansas). Well, he's the beloved pet of the sweet-hearted Muriel, anyway; the mean and crotchety Eustace thinks he's just a "stupid dog", and torments Courage whenever he thinks he can get away with it (and even when he knows he can't).

In every episode, Courage and his family find themselves caught up in some form of supernatural weirdness, and Courage has to steel his frazzled nerves and save his owners from it. A refreshing change of pace from many cartoons of the day was that Courage seldom used force; more often, he relied on his wits (and a bit of kindness now and then) to deal with aliens, ghosts, monsters, the military, science gone wrong, or whatever sort of freaky happenings life threw at him.

As a rather interesting note, this is one of the very few cartoons that aired in the 1990s-early 2000s that Cartoon Network still reruns on a fairly frequent basis.

Tropes used in Courage the Cowardly Dog include:

• Acme Products: "Dil" Products, ranging from blowtorches and vacuum cleaners to alkaline batteries and power cables (and even an entire grocery store).
• Adored by the Network: Quite possibly. Cartoon Network decided the pilot should become its own series, and the show has spanned four entire seasons without a single threat of having it yanked off the air, despite its scary nature. This show is also one of the few cancelled originals to still air on a regular basis.
  • Also, after the show completed its four-season, 52-episode run (typical for most cartoon series on cable networks such as Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon), many fans petitioned for a continuation, which both the network and John R. Dilworth considered, but ultimately, Dilworth decided not to continue with any further episodes or seasons.
  • On the same token, a (possibly theatrical) movie was confirmed to be in the works^[when?]; however, it never came to fruition.
• Adult Fear: Courage's parents get sent to Pluto, and he's all alone until Muriel finds him.
• Aesop Amnesia: Seriously, good luck trying to get Eustace to actually learn from his mistakes.
• Affably Evil: Freaky Fred. A psychopathic man with a Slasher Smile, but his amusing rhyming makes him one of the more entertaining villains. Besides, all he really does is shave people and animals bald.
• Affectionate Parody: The Hunchback of Nowhere is one of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, while Squatting Tiger, Hidden Dog is another one of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
• All Just a Dream: "Cowboy Courage". ...presumably.
• Always Someone Better: Eustace's brother Horst, who was better at pretty much everything.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Courage is pink with black spots. Katz is a fire engine red cat with purple stripes, Shirley the Medium is a green chihuahua, and the Duck Brothers are bright blue with green, purple, and red eyes and neck markings (though they are aliens).
• Anachronism Stew: "Modern" China looks considerably more like Ancient China in Squatting Tiger, Hidden Dog.
• Asian and Nerdy: Di Lung fits the stereotype to a T.
• Asian Drivers: Di Lung, whose first appearance has him parking his red vintage hot rod all the way across an open road before then yelling "WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING, YA FOOL" at Eustace in response to causing Eustace to nearly crash his truck into said car. Needless to say, Eustace is not amused.
• Asian Rudeness: The main personality trait of Di Lung and the Evil Empress.
• Asshole Victim: Eustace and Di Lung are the show's most notable examples of this.
• Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other: Eustace & Muriel courtesy of marriage counseling in "Mcphearson Phantom".
• The Bad Guy Wins: The Evil Carrot in "Muriel Blows Up" wants nothing more than to "grow, expand, explode!" by using whoever ate him (which does exactly what you'd think it does). Initially thwarted after Muriel coughs him up, Eustace finds and eats him instead, causing him to grow to enormous size and explode soon after.
• Bag of Holding: Muriel has one, seen in "Curse Of Shirley".
• Bald of Evil: Eustace and his mother, although it's really more bald of Jerkass.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty: A non-quote example: the instrument in the last episode is a bugle, not a trumpet, as it's commonly assumed.
• Big Damn Heroes: Courage almost every episode. Even Eustace gets in on this rarely.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: Muriel, Eustace, and Courage respectively.
• Big "What?": Cajun Fox upon realizing he lacks a granny for his Cajun Granny Stew.
• Black Comedy
• Black Eyes of Evil: Subverted with The Harvest Moon Spirit, who isn't truly evil.
• Blind Without'Em: Eustace, to the point he once got dragged halfway across the world without him knowing it.
  • In one episode, Eustace was cursed by Shirley to have a constantly raining storm cloud over him until he showed generosity; at some point, Eustace loses his glasses, which comes in handy when he looks at Courage and sees his younger self (though he doesn't recognize as much) crying because he doesn't have a hat. Eustace gives him his own, which ends the curse.
  • Muriel is apparently deaf without 'em. Granted, this only occurs once with Courage, who usually has to rely on Narrative Shapeshifting to communicate with her.

"You know I can't hear without my glasses, Courage."

• Body Horror: Occurs in most episodes, with Courage's Wild Takes providing many unique (and morbidly amusing) examples.
  • "Cabaret Courage" takes place inside a nauseating and organic environment, complete with literal stomach acid.
• Brawn Hilda: A trio of Brïnnhilde-esque Valkyries mistake Muriel for one of their missing sisters, who is actually named Brïnnhilde.
• Broken Record: Bushwick's constant Suspiciously Specific Denials and his My Name Is Not Durwood routine.
• Brown Note: King Ramses' second curse is horrifying enough to be considered worse than the flooding plague. It's honestly pretty catchy to a lot of viewers, though.
• Butt Monkey: Courage.
  • Eustace deserves almost everything that happens to him. Almost.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Katz is easily the biggest sadist in the entire series, The Evil Empress from Squatting Tiger, Hidden Dog might actually be even more of a CCV than Katz and Di Lung, however.
• Cargo Ship: In "The Gods Must Be Goosey", the Goose and Eustae's Truck get married at the end of the episode.
• The Cassandra: Courage is almost always the one to recognize when evil is afoot, but generally has trouble convincing Muriel and Eustace of it. Shirley's warning are also unheeded initially in most of her appearances.
• Catch Phrase: "The things I do for love!" and "What do I do? What do I do!?!" for Courage. He also tends to comment on strange events to the tune of: "Something weird's going on here, or my name's <strange, random or non-sequitur name>! ...And it's not."
  • Di Lung's "Watch where you're going, ya foo'!"
  • "There is nothing to worry about. Nothing at all." "...But there's nothing I can do." Thanks, Dr. Vindaloo.
  • Eustace has quite a few as well, some of which are used as stock clips in later seasons:
    • "Stupid dog!" and its many variants.
    • "What did I do?"
    • "Blah, blah, blah!"
• Cats Are Mean: Recurring nemesis Katz. Kitty also behaves this way towards Courage initially, though this is a result of trauma from her previous relationship, and she learns that not all dogs are bad towards the end of her episode.
• Chekhov's Gun: Believe it or not, one particular example took several seasons to develop. In "Ball of Revenge", Courage's uncanny ability to scream allows him to turn the table and defeat a group of revenge-seeking villains, whose actions caused Courage to develop his "talent" for years.
  • The Happy Plums from "Tower of Dr. Zalost".
  • The Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich (with just a 'wee' dash of vinegar) from "Tulip's Worm".
  • Muriel's tears in "Queen Of The Black Puddle".
  • Eustace's chair in "Klub Katz".
  • Muriel's homemade fabric softener in "Curtain of Cruelty".
  • Eustace's memory quilt in "The Quilt Club".
• Cloudcuckoolander:
  • Basil is a burglar who flips back and forth between robbing Courage, Muriel, and Eustace and thinking they're his family. After they convince Basil to give FISH.
  • Fred and Dr. Vindaloo.
• Collapsing Lair: Near the end of "The Tower of Dr. Zalost".
• Completely Missing the Point:

Eustace: Did you break that door?! Courage: Ooooh, forget the DOOR!!

• Conspicuous CG: To be expected of a '00s cartoon. Examples include the carriage from "The Demon in the Mattress", the anvil from "The Precious, Wonderful, Adorable, Loveable Duckling", and Kin
  • In "The Queen of the Black Puddle", Courage manages to rescue Eustace from the Black Puddle Queen and uses a hair dryer to close the watery portal, which results in a visible bump from her running into the resulting 'wall'.
  • "Hard Drive Courage" renders the cyberspace in Courage's computer using CGI.
  • The... blue thing from Courage's nightmare Perfect, apparently based on Eustace's bugle.
• Context Sensitive Button: Goes on all the time.
• Continuity Cavalcade: "Ball of Revenge".
• Continuity Nod: The events that happened in "The Snowman Cometh", "Freaky Fred", and "The Queen of the Black Puddle" were mentioned in the episode "Mega Muriel the Magnificent".
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: In a number of episodes. For example, in "Ball of Revenge", Katz puts colors and white clothing together in the washing machine. Muriel's screaming ensues.
• Cool Car: Di Lung has a rather impressive car that appears to be a red vintage Corvette.
• Cool Shades: Most notably Cajun Fox's and Di Lung.
• Cowardly Lion/The So-Called Coward: Courage, of course.
• Crapsack World: It's hard to expect any good definition to come out of "The Middle of Nowhere", but any backwater in a horror plot is screwed; guaranteed.
• Creator Cameo: Dilworth's caricature appears in many of the still photographs that pop up here and there, and his name (often shortened to "Dil") is seen on quite a few products. His name also appears on [[Death by Cameo|the list of people who checked into the Katz Motel.
• Curb Stomp Battle: The titular duel in "Courage VS Mecha-Courage", where the robot uses literally every means it can to beat Courage to a literal pulp, and the only thing he can do is tank Mecha-Courage's hits... until its battery power runs out and it breaks down completely, leaving Courage victorious.
• Cute Machines: Mecha-Courage looks like something straight out of Wallace and Gromit. Robot Randy is also one of these due to the Gentle Giant that he ultimately turns out to be.
• Cyberspace: "Hard Drive Courage", where cyberspace is depicted as the actual inside of a computer, with chips, motherboards, and RAM (of sorts), plus a lot of green binary code.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Not all the monsters Courage meets are Exclusively Evil or hostile - some of them are just Chaotic Neutral or even friendly. In fact in some cases they even need Courage's help.
• Darker and Edgier: Compared to most other animated series, very much so. Later seasons are also significantly more dramatic in nature compared to previous ones. In fact, the show's the two half-hour episodes ("The Tower of Dr. Zalost" and "The Mask") deviate dramatically from the show's usual Monster of the Week formula, dealing with much more realistic horrors such as depression and abusive relationships, respectively.
• Deadpan Snarker: Courage's Computer, as well as Shirley the Medium. Katz can also be rather snarky as well.
• Demon Head: That girl who played the violin in "Courage in the Big Stinkin' City".
• Deranged Animation
• Designated Victim: If the Monster of the Week can terrorize Muriel in any way, it will.
  • Eustace is also a likely target. Unlike Muriel, he's also less likely to be saved from said monster or disaster.
• Determinator: Courage himself. Against an unending onslaught of supernatural weirdness and multiple nemeses, he stands by Muriel out of love and gratitude. Justified considering how he came to be abandoned in the first place by losing his parents to a mad scientist that sent them into space.
  • "Courage VS Mecha-Courage" has him defeat the titular machine just by being too damn stubborn to go down, causing it to eventually run out of power.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: In "Freaky Fred", it's quite easily to interpret Fred's poems as the ramblings of an insane serial-killer.
• Downer Ending: In "The Great Fusili", Courage fails to stop Muriel and Eustace from being turned into puppets. Also, "Muriel Blows Up" to a lesser extent.
• Early Installment Weirdness: A number of the first season episodes have a lot of traditional cartoon antics (chases scenes, slapstick violence, etc), and can actually become quite goofy at times, with John Dilworth himself admitting a number of the earlier episodes were "cartoon filler".
• Eldritch Abomination: A giant starfish appears, summoned by Shirley in response to Muriel refusing to speak to anyone ever again. It eats its way through cities on its path to the farmhouse, and won't stop until it hears Muriel speak.
• Epic Fail: In Muriel Blows Up, the General attempts to disarm the Evil Carrot by cutting the wires in its brain... and it turns out he got every color but the right one.
• Everyone Has Standards: Freaky Fred's refusal to shave an animal's tail on the grounds that "it would be weird".
• Evil Albino: Downplayed with the Harvest Moon spirit, who's more scary than outright evil.
• Evil Brit: Katz, the Perfectionist, Freaky Fred, and the Evil Weevil. Also, Courage's Computer in Mega Muriel the Magnificent.
• Evil Laugh: Done by many of the villains, including The King of Flan, Dr. Zalost, Katz, and Le Quack.
• Evil Matriarch: Eustace's mother. Her first appearance did portray her as sympathetic after Eustace comforts her when she loses her hair, though subsequent appearances made her far less sympathetic. Her favoritism of Eustace's brother Horst certainly didn't help matters for him growing up.
• Evil Old Folks: Eustace Bagge, all the way.
• Exclusively Evil: Birds, it would seem. At the least, they definitely don't like Courage.
• Executive Meddling: The stated reason behind Courage's limited speech and constant babbling and screaming after the first season.
• Expositron 9000: The computer.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Courage has encountered creatures and people from many genres, including horror, sci-fi, mythological, and fantasy.
• Fat and Skinny: Muriel and Eustace.
• Film Felons: Benton Tarantella and Errol Von Volkheim, Serial Killers who became amateur filmmakers to lure in victims. Benton later returned from the dead as a zombie in order to revive his partner.
• Flanderization: Eustace Bagge has always been a greedy, selfish jerk, but he was mostly just annoyed and passive in the earlier episodes. In "Demon in the Mattress", he even follows along with Courage's plan to get rid of the demon inside Muriel (see Crowning Moment of Funny). By the time of one of the last episodes, "Ball of Revenge", he literally collaborates with several major and minor villains to do Courage in.
• For the Evulz: Katz is usually trying to kill people for his own amusement.
• Fortune Teller: Shirley the Medium.
• Tornado Of Youth: "Little Muriel".
• Freudian Excuse: Sure, Eustace is mean, but he might be less so had his mother or older brother treated him better.
• Funny Animal: Courage exhibits many human qualities and can even talk (albeit mostly to the audience, with some exceptions at first; see Early Installment Weirdness), but he usually gets treated as a normal dog. By comparison, there are several equally anthropomorphic characters, like Shirley, who get treated as humans.
  • This is lampshaded in small, throwaway moments - for example, in "The Last of the Starmakers", Courage picks up the newspaper on the porch with his hand before putting it in his mouth and giving it to Eustace.
• General Failure: The General, who proves comically inept in most of his appearances, including failing to disarm one of his own bombs in Muriel Blows Up.
• Genius Ditz: Di Lung may generally act dim and is usually quite self-absorbed, but is quite talented with science and engineering.
• Gentle Giant: Randy The Robot, which causes him some angst when his peer ostracize him for it, though he embraces his nature by the episode's end.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: Arguably the show's entire premise: mature themes of horror played straight in a show appealing to people of all ages and levels of maturity. Several specific (and traditional) examples include:
  • Kitty and Bunny's relationship gives off strong lesbian overtones.
  • From the Cajun Fox in "Cajun Granny Stew" while sinking into water: "That dog is starting to become a real pain in my (gurgles)."
  • Courage's panicked Imagine Spots where he wonders what could happen to his endangered owners often invoke Bloodless Carnage; Muriel gets decapitated at least three times, and Eustace gets bitten in half in one instance.
  • Some of Courage's Wild Takes as well, ranging from various detailed Eye Pops to instances of him yelling out organs or else tearing himself in half, complete with a view of his insides!
  • In the episode "Ball of Revenge", Eustace assembles a number of villains in his basement. When Muriel asks what they're doing here, Eustace responds:

Eustace: Err...it's a men's club. Muriel: Oh, all right then. [sees the Lady From the Puddle] OH! This is one of those naughty men's clubs!

• • "That Dam Beaver".
  • There were hints that Courage was viewing an adult website in "Hard Drive Courage".
• Gonk: It would be considerably easier to list the characters that don't fit this bill. Mondo's true form and the Ulcer are particularly extreme villainous examples from the show.
• Good Is Dumb: Almost every other good guy is a complete idiot in the series, to the point where they even ignore neon signs pointing at the villain.
• Good Is Not Nice: Shirley and the Computer.
• G-Rated Drug: Water in "Journey to the Center of Nowhere".
• Grumpy Old Man: Eustace Bagge.
• Gypsy Curse: Shirley puts them on people who are rude to her. Though since she's actually not a mean person, she normally leaves a loophole to escape or undoes the curse if she feels they learned their lesson.
• Hammerspace: Courage's 'pockets', which contain anchors and full-grown whales among other miscellaneous items. Eustace also tends to pull his gigantic fright mask from here
• Headless Horseman: The titular "Windmill Vandals", a quartet of bandits with some resemblance to Vikings.
• Hell Hotel: The Katz Motel.
• Heroic BSOD: When Courage is having his flashback in "Remembrance of Courage Past" he just... sits there. He doesn't even twitch when Eustace brings out the 'Ooga Booga Booga' mask.
  • Courage has other moments too, including an occasion where his eyes turn to snow and static is heard.
• Heroic Dog: Courage, of course.
• Herr Doktor: Dr. Zalost has more than a few of these traits.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Ringo Starr is the Duck Brothers. No, really. (He didn't sing the Halftime Show, though.)
  • Eustace's mother is the original dub voice of Astro Boy.
  • Dr. Frank-N-Furter is the Goose God. Honk honk, indeed.
  • Kitty and Bunny are also two Sailor Senshi.
  • Let't not forget Fusilli, who is done by Jim Cummings.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: This is Courage's preferred method of dealing with villains, whether directly or indirectly.
  • Fusilli the magician is turned into a marionette by his own cursed strings after mistaking Courage for a phantom and falling onto the stage.
  • The Flan King gets this twice in a row at the end of the episode.
  • Big Bayou was beaten by a spell from his own spell book, used to animate his own stuffed shed skins (done in part with his own venom). And to top it all off, he was so vain that he couldn't bring himself to attack his likeness.
  • The evil vet from "Remembrance Of Courage Past". {{He was responsible for sending Courage's parents into space years ago; Courage manages to trap him in his own rocket, which sends him to a faraway planet. There, he meets Courage's parents and the other dogs he launched into space, who proceed to enact some well-deserved revenge.}}
  • The Evil Weevil has his blood sucking appendage attached to himself, and then sucks himself dry.
• Horny Devils/Our Mermaids Are Different: The Queen of the Black Puddle is cross between a succubus, a siren, and a Deep One.
• Hypocritical Humor: Eustace always refers to Courage as a "stupid dog" even though he himself isn't aware of the dangers that goes around in Nowhere, and Courage is the one who usually has to save him and Muriel.<--More being ungrateful than hypocritical perhaps...-->
  • Di Lung berating people for being inattentive, usually after bumping into them or otherwise getting in their way..
  • The aftermath of saying "no" to Flantasy Flan:

Eustace: What happened to you, woman?! You look like a house! Muriel: Well! Look who calls the kettle black!

• • Follow up: Courage fixes everyone's Flantasy Flan addiction, except his.

Courage: Well, it's showbiz!

• Impossible Shadow Puppets: Courage sometimes does this as part of his Narrative Shapeshifting. One episode also features a Living Shadow that creates these to prank and scare people.
• Inherently Funny Words: "Fool", or as Di Lung prefers to say, "foo".
• Insufferable Genius: Di Lung and Courage's Computer.
• Intercontinuity Crossover: In one Halloween event in-between commercials, the Scooby Gang stopped at the cottage when their car broke down; leaving them with nothing to do but tell ghost stories.
• Invisible Main Character: "Invisible Muriel".
• It Makes Sense in Context: A majority of the plot devices fall under this. Most memorably, an episode which took place in an old west setting had Courage, who took the role as sheriff, bribe the military to send in a stealth bomber to drop a piano on a zombified outlaw.
• Jerkass: Eustace and his family are prime examples.
  • Courage's computer in his snarkier appearances such as "Mega Muriel the Magnificent"
  • Di Lung acted this way on a regular basis.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In rare cases, Eustace manages to overcome his more dickish impulses, e.g. "The Curse of Shirley" where he displays sympathy for a child (actually Courage appearing as a younger version of himself due to losing his glasses).
• Kangaroo Pouch Ride: In the kangaroo monster episode.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: "Remembrance Of Courage Past". {{The evil vet responsible for sending Courage's parents into space years ago is trapped him in his own rocket by Courage in the present day; he crash lands on a faraway planet, where he meets Courage's parents and the other dogs he launched into space, who proceed to enact some well-deserved revenge.}}
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Despite reruns popping up on Cartoon Network and Boomerang every now and again, the show was largely relegated to the modern-day equivalent of tape-trading - YouTube - until 2010, when the first season of the show was confirmed for a DVD release. You can also buy the entire series on iTunes.
  • The pilot, The Chicken From Outer Space, partly plays this straight and partly averts it. It's not on the Season 1 DVD, but Jon R. Dilworth sells it through his online store.
• Kick the Dog: In multiple senses, usually by Eustace and whatever villain Courage is facing.
• Kindhearted Simpleton: Muriel is a sweet old lady who understandably doesn't always catch on to happenings immediately; her awareness tends to fluctuate from episode to episode.
• Lame Comeback: "The Hunchback Of Nowhere" has the title character countering Eustace's insults to him with nothing more than "you are bald" at one point; it still works, however, since Eustace is rather insecure about it.
• Lantern Jaw of Justice: A common trait of Eustace's family.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Eustace is the victim of this in nearly every episode, as are a large number of villains.
• Leitmotif: Almost every character in the show has one. Katz's is the Hell Is That Noise that follows Katz's arrival. Muriel has soft piano music. Eustace has banjo and fiddle music. Le Quack's is french. Dr. Vindaloo's is Indian. Shirley's sounds gypsy. Cajun Fox has cajun music.
  • On occasion rather loud accordion music can be heard from Muriel's radio.
• Lions and Tigers and Humans, Oh My!
• The Load: Eustace's stubbornness and greed alongside Muriel's innocent yet ignorant behavior turns them into this at times. Though on occasion they help Courage more actively.
• Losing Your Head: "Windmill Vandals".
• Lottery Ticket: "Lequack TV".
• Loud of War: In "King Ramses' Curse", one of the plagues Ramses unleashes on Courage and his owners is obnoxious disco music ("King Raaamses! The man in gauze, the man in gauze!").
• Lovable Coward: Subverted by Courage, who is really astonishingly brave for a coward.
• Magical Database: The Computer.
• Magic Librarian: And scary, too, in "The Pixie and the Prickle Pirate".
• Mama Bear: If Eustace is harassing Courage (or if it at least looks that way), Muriel is quick to bash him over the head with a rolling pin. With a One-Woman Wail.
  • In a few episodes, she has also expanded this to the Monster of the Week. For example, when she came upon Katz strangling Courage in "Katz Motel", she smashed a tennis racket over his head and saved Courage without a second thought.
• Manchild: Many of the show's villains, as well as Eustace Bagge, who is ridiculously bitter, petty and spoiled as a result of bad mothering.
• Mass Hypnosis: ...Buy Flantasy Flan... Buy Flantasy Flan...
• The Mean Brit: The Computer. You twit.
• Meaningful Name: Courage is the most obvious instance. Eustace Bagge could be interpreted as "useless baggage", which is what he is during most adventures, while Muriel Bagge could be interpreted as "merry old bag", since she's a perpetually optimistic old lady.
  • Dr. Zalost's name means "mourning" or "sadness" in Slavic. He's on par with Itoshiki "Despair" Nozomu.
• Monster of the Week: Quite literally.
• Mood Whiplash: Depending on the episode, it switches from Tear Jerker or Nightmare Fuel to Funny in the blink of an eye. The "Last of the Starmakers" episode has Courage save the last batch of space squid babies, interspersed with moments of useless henchmen and rollerskating military generals. There is also "King Ramses' Curse", generally regarded as one of the scariest episodes around, with a priceless jingle in the middle and Rameses losing patience in the most deadpan manner possible.
• Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate: Vindaloo often displays an inability (or unwillingness) to cure plot-relevant conditions, though to his credit he does give advice at times. His academic title is pretty suggestive too: "Dr. Vindaloo, quack"..
  • The evil vet who orphaned Courage and sent a huge number of dogs into space For Science!.
• Morally-Ambiguous Ducktorate: LeQuack, the duck brothers, Goose God, and of course "The Precious, Wonderful, Adorable, Loveable Duckling".
• The Morlocks: Conway from Conway the Contaminationist, due to how much his lifestyle and his age have degraded his physical condition.
• My Instincts Are Showing:

Courage: *long howl* Man, I gotta stop that.

• Narcissist: Bayou loves himself so much that he makes his enslaved slugs created stuffed effigies from his shed skins. His most used word is "me" and variations of it. He's so vain that even when his stuffed shed skins attack him, he cannot bring himself to attack them in self-defense.
  • Di Lung is shown in one episode to have several photographs of himself to ogle, and is even featured on a television show about himself and his wealth.
• Narrative Shapeshifting: Courage uses this as a form of Rebus, often to warn his owners of the Monster of the Week.
• National Stereotypes: Di Lung in spades.
• Negative Continuity: For the most part; though there are recurring villains and allusions to previous episodes, even if Courage or any of the characters suffer a horrendous fate the next episode will show them alive and well.
• Nightmare Face: The violin girl in "Courage in the Big Stinkin' City".
• No Accounting for Taste: Muriel and Eustace's marriage.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The endings to the Le Quack episodes have him escaping from his confinement and leaving destruction in his wake with no signs of anyone else around, let alone any evidence of how he escaped...
• Nouveau Riche: Di Lung is a definitive example of this.
• Odd Job Gods: The Goose God, though it was never quite clear what he was god of.
• Once Per Episode: Eustace getting the bad end of the deal and suffering a usually-undesirable fate.
• One-Scene Wonder: The blue nightmare creature from "Perfect".
• One-Woman Wail: "Doc Gerbil's World", where the final boat chase between Doc Gerbil and Courage is accompanied by almost no sound other than this.
• Opaque Lenses: Muriel & Eustace, as well as Eustace's whole family. Subverted for Eustace during his bouts of rage in "Hothead".
• Opening Monologue: Displayed in the page quote.
• The Other Darrin: Eustace was originally voiced by Lionel Wilson until his poor health forced him to retire. Arthur Anderson took over his voice for the remainder of the series.
• Our Monsters Are Weird: Hoo boy, are they.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: Muriel gets bitten by a weremole.
• Overly Long Gag: Katz and Courage falling down the stairs in Katz Kandy... and falling... and falling... goes on for about a full minute.
• Overly Long Name: The Precious, Wonderful, Adorable, Lovable Duckling.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Benton Tarentella is definitely Not a Zombie.
• Pet the Dog
  • Subverted with "The Precious, Wonderful, Adorable, Lovable Duckling" - he imprints and dotes on Eustace, who actually begins to treat him kindly in return, but also becomes dangerously jealous whenever Muriel's around, and he plays on their trust to try and get rid of Muriel.
• Phrase Catcher: "Stupid dog!"
• Physical God: The Goose God and an unnamed storm goddess.
• Plague of Locusts: King Ramses has an all-devouring swarm of locusts that signal his presence and hunt down thieves. The locusts wipe out the two cat thieves at the beginning of the episode, and are called in as his last plague - they destroy nearly the entire farmhouse and its surroundings, and take Eustace as well when he tries to re-claim the stolen slab.
• Rated "M" for Manly: The Windmill Vandals.
• Rhymes on a Dime: Fred's narration from "Freaky Fred".
• Rich Bastard: Di Lung, who is basically an actually rich version of Eustace.
• Robot Names: "Mecha-Courage".
• Rodents of Unusual Size: Dr. Zalost's rat, Doc. Gerbil and Mr. Mouse.
• Rolling Pin of Doom: Muriel's trademark attack against Eustace whenever he abuses Courage.

Eustace: OWWW!! What did I do?

• Romantic Two-Girl Friendship: Kitty and Bunny from "The Mask" push it to very edge of what constitutes as subtext.
• Rummage Fail: A common gag with Courage whenever he searched for anything.
• Running Gag:
  • Muriel uses vinegar in almost everything she makes, much to Courage's chagrin.
  • Eustace pulling out his mask to frighten Courage.
  • Di Lung's Catch Phrase, as well as his car suffering severe damage in every one of its appearances.
  • Eustace complaining about Courage sitting at the table.
• Sadist Teacher: Courage's low self esteem spawns one in "Perfect".
• Sand Is Water: "The Sand Whale Strikes". Eustace's mother attempts to pursue it in a rowboat, naturally doesn't work all that well.
• Scare Chord: A very common occurrence.
• Scenery Porn: A lot of the shots of the farm house either at night or at sundown are awfully pretty. The show uses a technique of overlaying photos with animation.
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Eustace Bagge, of course.
• Second-Person Attack: In "1000 Years of Courage". Courage picks up a banana, attempting to eat it, but it turns out to be a living baby creature. Courage makes a dash for it as its mother hits him over the head twice with her purse.
• Second Place Is for Losers: Katz's motive in "Katz Kandy".
• Secret Ingredient: The secret ingredient in all of Muriel's cooking is vinegar.
• Sexophone: Plays when the General takes off his uniform to reveal his stomach-entering outfit in Muriel Blows Up, with the Lieutenant suitably puzzled.
• Slasher Smile: Freaky Fred has one.
• Smart People Build Robots: Mecha-Courage is built by Genius Ditz Di Lung.
• Snap Back: Mostly concerning predicaments suffered by Eustace, but occasionally Muriel and Courage as well.
• Snowlems: A living snowman (sounding suspiciously like Sean Connery) became a villain due to Hollywood Global Warming.
• Solar CPR
• Space Whale: One appears as a dangerous predator in "Last of the Starmakers".
• Space Whale Aesop: "The Last of the Starmakers". Not that it mattered.
• Speech-Impaired Animal: Courage seems to be able to talk and make asides to the audience, but not to Eustace or Muriel, forcing him to use Narrative Shapeshifting. Some exceptions do occur, such as when Muriel is de-aged in "Little Muriel".
• Staring Contest: Katz and Courage have an epic duel to the death in the form of a staring contest.
• Stock Audio Clip: Quite a few. See the trope page for details.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Eustace is pretty much a carbon copy of his parents. Lampshaded in "The Sand Whale Strikes", when the Sand Whale has confused Eustace for his father, Ickett. Eustace pulls out a picture of his father (who looks exactly like him with a huge beard) and says "I don't see the resemblance."
• Sunglasses At Night: Di Lung never takes his sunglasses off.
  • Cajun Fox, though in his debut we do see his massive googly Sphere Eyes shortly before he puts them on.
• Surreal Horror
• Suddenly Voiced: Courage has this as a recurring character trait, as do many minor characters such as the tiger from "Squatting Tiger Hidden Dog".
• Syncro-Vox: Used with The Spirit Of The Harvest Moon and The Magic Tree Of Nowhere.
• Talking Animal: And boy, are there a lot of them! Strangely, Courage talked frequently in the early episodes, but later became a Speech-Impaired Animal over time. This is actually a result of Executive Meddling; CN forced Dilworth to give Courage less talking lines as they felt he was funnier as a babbling animal. The latter is still subverted at various points; in one instance, Courage realizes he can't talk to Muriel directly, he runs to a payphone and calls her.
• Talking Appliance Sidekick: The Computer is a rather snide example, though he only talks in Courage's presence.
• The Renaissance Age of Animation
• They Killed Kenny: Downplayed. Eustace is often subjected to an unkind fate at the end of a lot of episodes, though the pilot episode has him reduced to dust.
• Too Dumb to Live: Eustace, naturally, and Muriel to a far lesser extent.
• Troperrific: Not only does this show combine horror with comedy, but it also uses basically all of the tropes that said genres have to offer.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Eustace - despite Courage sometimes risking his life to save him, he never thanks him and always keeps on bullying him.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: From "The House Of Discontent":

Eustace: Would you look at that? Muriel: It's a floating head! Eustace: I was talking about that leaky pipe. *points to leaky pipe right next to the giant floating head* Gotta fix that leak.

• Villain Team-Up: "Ball Of Revenge" has most of the Rogues Gallery coming together to try and kill Courage.
• Vocal Evolution: Eustace's voice has become noticeably deeper halfway through Season 3.
• We Could Have Avoided All This: "The Duck Brothers".
• Weirdness Magnet: Courage and his family.
• What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: A Running Gag is that when Courage confronts the villains, they rarely actually fight. Instead, they often decide who wins via some otherwise casual competition like handball or thumb-wrestling, made epic with with close-up shots of desperate, perspiring faces, Scare Chords, cutaways to the people in danger, etc.
  • Of course, semi-subverted with Katz. He'll play along, but only because it's fun. When it stops being fun, WATCH OUT!
• What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?: From "The Mask":

Muriel: But my dear, we all must face reality. Kitty: Really? Like how you sneak extra sweets when no one is looking!? Muriel: (gasps in horror and shame)

• What the Hell Is That Accent?: The Alien Brain Visitor's strange, vaguely Indian accent in "Car Broke, Phone Yes".
• Whole-Plot Reference: One episode is essentially "The Nutcracker, but in a city dump".
• Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him: Katz frequently plays this straight with bizarre death-traps that would kill Courage indirectly, although, when the cards are down, he often subverts this by attempting to strangle the dog with his bare paws.
• Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: The recurring red mustache guy holds many different jobs depending on the episode. Many of his jobs include working as a Nowhere police officer, an archaeologist, a captain, a pilot, a New York police officer, a ranger, a general, a pirate, and a mayor.
• Widget Series: A cartoony style mixed with Surreal Horror and unsettling Art Shifts.
• Wild Take: Courage's tendency to scream in terror rarely produces the same result twice. It actually saves him in "Ball of Revenge" when he screams so loudly for so long that he shatters the foundation of his house, sending a team of series villains plunging into a bottomless pit.
• Wire Dilemma: The General's extremely terrible attempt to disarm the Evil Carrot in Muriel Blows Up.

The General: That carrot ain't worth a dime! I disarmed it! I cut the green wire! The Lieutenant: (audibly shudders) The General: Uhh...the blue wire? Red? The Lieutenant: Not likely...

• Yandere: The Adorable, Precious, Lovable, Wonderful Duckling gets a little too attached to Eustace after imprinting on him.
• Watch Where You're Going, Ya FOOL!: Di Lung's Catch Phrase.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Courage has pink fur, and a few other characters are shown with colorful hair.
• Zorro Mark: In "Cowboy Courage", The Whip, Eustace's Identical Ancestor bandit left Zorro-style "W" on the clothing of his victims with his trademark weapon.

---

The database in tatters, a lone figures approaches. "You have not seen the last ... of LeQuack!" Iris out, but Courage holds it open. "I said it twice, and I'll say it again, the stuff on this page still shouldn't happen to a dog!" Iris out (for real) and closes on Courage's nose "Owch!"