If you’ve seen the show Courage the Cowardly Dog, I’m sure the header image above filled you with equal feelings of dread and nostalgia. If you haven’t, maybe you’ve heard a little about it, or know a small vagary about certain iconic villains – King Ramses and his infamous curse, for example.

Either way, I’m glad we found you – because shit’s about to get pretty crazy up in here.

Here’s something you probably remember – in the beginning of every episode of Courage, the intro video gives the most basic backstory possible for the set-up of the show. It introduces Muriel and Eustace Bagge, an elderly farming couple, both pretty much the last of their families, who live in the middle of Nowhere. Then we get to the crux of this entire blog:

What follows next is mention of how many creepy things happen in Nowhere, and in truth there are a lot of creepy things that go down throughout the course of the show. Very many non-supernatural issues plague the town of Nowhere whether they’re a result of Eustace and Muriel’s age or from the general isolation of their house and the troubles that can come with that (being particularly vulnerable to burglary, for instance). However, let’s take a moment to dwell on Courage’s origin.

Have you ever had the misfortune (or fortune, depending on how you look at it) to know a dog that was abandoned when it was still a puppy? Usually as a rescue dog that you adopt and give a loving home to, or in Courage’s case as a young and helpless stray?

In case you haven’t, I’ll inform you as someone who has almost exclusively had rescue dogs : they’re terrified of everything. I didn’t think much about that aspect of the show when I was younger, at least well until I stopped watching Courage at all (which is a shame because as a fan of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy, holy shit I should’ve kept watching it), but once I got a rescue dog suddenly I knew way more about the show than I expected. Suddenly, I understood.

I raced to the Xbox and loaded up some Netflix, eager to test my thoughts, and I was swiftly rewarded. No matter which episode I chose, I found the end-result to be the same – none of the supernatural or monstrous elements of Courage are really happening. The show is from Courage’s point of view, and we see what he sees and what he thinks of whatever is happening to his new family that week.

Doesn’t this justify, well, everything? Doesn’t it make sense of Nowhere being host to goose gods, zombie directors, librarian ghosts, spider-feeding hotels, and pretty much everything that happens in the show? Courage is a dog and as such fiercely and loyally loves his new family – ask anyone with a rescue dog, they’ll tell you that they appreciate it much more than any other dog. Rescue dogs, like Courage, know how bad things can be and this motivates them to really enjoy things like attention and affection, and they’ll consistently do whatever they can to defend the good in their lives.

This theory in one fell swoop justifies the relative realism of Eustace and Muriel’s world while making sense of the litany of monsters that inhabit it, while also giving the whole show a funny little lens for dog-owners and animal empaths alike.

It is the aim of this blog to go through Courage the Cowardly Dog, episode by episode, and provide a multi-faceted, objective, and critical look into what Courage perceives and why. This show is like an onion made of gold – the more layers you remove, the more your rewards multiply. Based on what I’ve seen already, I think you’ll be in for one hell of a fun time – if you have the courage for it, that is.

– BR