Monday, November 6, 2023

Character Analysis: Courage (Feat DJ Tiki)

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Courage


Preliminary Notes

  1. Courage the Cowardly Dog is an American TV cartoon of the horror comedy variety. It started in 1999 and was a staple of early 2000s cartoon programming. It’s just an incredibly extensive series, spanning only 52 episodes with some comic book and crossover video game appearances. All of these will be accounted for towards the analysis for Courage.  

  2. Courage is a series with a lot of negative continuity. Horrible endings happen to many of the characters yet they return the next episode good as new. Given that recurring villains are given spotlight consistently through the series, we’ll count the cartoon as being sequential and not merely various scenarios that happen to Courage. In this sense, any form of horrible ending that characters return from will be counted as a form of regeneration.

  3. Sources will be episode links within parentheses. It’ll be labeled as (#a/b, timecode). A & B being the video order from the episode listing. Look into General Courage the Cowardly Dog Notes for more in-depth notes on the sources.


Background

Once a small puppy, Courage had a family of two parents. He loved playing with the ball and often cried a lot when he got scared. One day, he got his head stuck in a grate and his parents took him to the Cruel Veterinarian to receive treatment. While he did receive treatment, the Veterinarian launched Courage’s parents into outer space, never to be seen by Courage again. Abandoned as a pup, he was found by Muriel, who lives in the middle of Nowhere, with her husband, Eustass Baggs. But creepy stuff happens in Nowhere, the supernatural, the mysterious, and downright scary. And all of them seem to want to endanger Muriel and Eustace. Now it’s up to Courage to save his new home. Crushed with insecurity throughout the series, Courage eventually learns that despite his flaws, he’s perfect just the way he is.

  • Name: Courage

  • Species: Beagle

  • Height: Varies, but usually dog sized

  • Owners: Muriel & Eustace Baggs

  • Nicknames: Dear Boy, Dog, Stupid Dog, Outer God

  • Friend of Scooby-Doo

  • Will do just about anything for love

Experience / Intelligence / Skill

Genius-Level Talents - A gifted engineering genius. Has an extremely acute sense of danger and is able to construct uncanny solutions when one is not obvious. Infiltrated highly secure government facilities, invented several gadgets to protect his family. Highly skeptical and is never tricked as much as caught off guard or out-smarted in a single given moment. Skilled in cooking, music playing, painting, hypnotist, therapist, and repairman. His experience and skill has thwarted many foes, including but not limited to…


Weapons & Equipment


Hammerspace: Courage’s main ability is pulling out seemingly any object he wants from his pocket, body, or out of thin air. These items are usually context sensitive and help out Courage in whatever situation that needs it in. Given his engineering and intelligent brain, there’s very few times that he utilizes something that was of no help. While not all of them, below is a list of Courage’s basic equipment…

Generic Arsenal

Important Arsenal


  • Ray Gun: In the pilot episode, Courage gets his hands on a Ray Gun that can transmute anything into whatever nonliving object. He doesn’t control what they are turned into.

  • Magic Tree of Nowhere: Courage has the seeds for the Magic Tree, that when it grows, it becomes a sentient tree that grants anyone nearby anything it desires. Its growth time is incredibly fast (1:32). It alters reality to bring their wishes to life, even if the wish was entirely thought-based (3:10). It will no longer grant wishes if chopped down or destroyed. 


  • Computer: The most recurring and important part of Courage’s arsenal. It’s a wise-cracking British computer hooked into the internet. If Courage does not know something, he may confide in a Computer to find a solution. Typically, he’s able to find out the solution to any problem, person, or artifact. However, in Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog, he sometimes needs more inputted information to decode and recite solutions. In the main series, Computer typically knows about anything and everything.


Computer has a biometric scanner that can provide information on a subject if a sample is provided to him. (7b, 20:56) This scanner also is a teleportation device into the digital world. (30a, 4:33) After a thunderstorm, it became far more sentient and can possess other bodies by digitally uploading its consciousness into organic beings (done via robotic tendrils). (20a, 15:03) However, Computer can be affected by viruses & hacking to its main system. (30a, 3:10) And just destroying him.


  • Banishment Spell: Courage has a printed spell on paper that when read out loud, banishes ancient demons and monsters into being submissive. 

  • Courage’s Yo-Yo: Courage’s Yo-Yo has been used for the likes to manipulate minds, hypnotize, and even transmute living beings into other living beings. His pocket watch is capable of the same thing. (39a, 10:38) (48a, 3:37 & 10:10)

  • God Bone: A giant bone so illustrious, no dog can hope to resist its allure. (29a, 11:14)


  • Dark Matter Meteor: The deadliest of Courage’s arsenal. In Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog, Courage receives the Dark Matter Meteor. It’s the meteor responsible for annihilating the dinosaurs. Apparently, it's made of dark matter and has rewrote and altered the laws of psychics and nature in Nowhere. (SON, 59:20) It was responsible for attracting and creating weirdness in Nowhere. (SON, 1:10:30) From aliens, ghosts, curses, demons, and mutated beings. While it affects animals differently, it may be the explanation why every human in Nowhere is stupid or weird. 


When Courage receives the Dark Matter Meteor, he’s able to warp the laws of reality. (SON, 1:04:36) In the movie, Courage utilizes it to turn into a kaiju, reverse the effects of broken gravity, transmute bugs, and a lot more. Its power alone can attract weirdness and send signals to animals and humans in a sense of mind manipulation. However, given what it stands for in the expanse of Nowhere, it’s likely capable of far more dangerous abilities. 

Powers & Abilities

Offensive Hax

  • Possession - His severed head attached to other bodies possesses them. (42b)

  • General Toon Force - As a cartoon which comes up with powers as long as it’s funny, Courage can utilize a general application of toon-force. For the sake of a bit, Courage can reasonably come up with any power on the fly. 

  • Shapeshifting / Self-Transmutation - Typically displayed when Courage is attempting to warn the Baggs about the threat of the episode, Courage can transform his body into several different things. (1a, 6:13) This ranges from disguises, demonic entities, surreal monsters (46, 7:43), replications of non-living objects, and even into different animation mediums. (47a, 19:29)

  • Body Stretching - Courage can stretch & squash several parts of his body. Usually, it’s his tongue or legs. Capable of doing this with the rest of his body. (2b, 17:03)

  • Size Manipulation - With a dryer, he can transform himself into microscopic sizes.

  • Demon Exorcising Incantation - Has an incantation that expels ethereal demonic spirits possessing a body. Could use this to counter possession. (4a, 9:40)

  • Liquidation - Transforms into a liquid and can regenerate his body. Useful when he needs to fit into very small spaces.

  • Ice-Melting Spit - His spit is capable of melting ice. (10a, 8:50)

  • Expedited Bodybuilding - Courage can take mere seconds to build himself into a bodybuilder. He can shed this buff form of his afterwards with a zipper. (21a, 18:10)

  • Digitized Form Control - After transformed into a digitized form, Courage retained all of his abilities and has absolute control over his digital self. He can transmute into different weapons and virtually attack others. This form can also travel telephone lines and leave the digital realm whenever Courage needs.

  • Imagination Creation - While its applications seem limited, Courage imagined a light bulb while frozen and its heat melted the ice he was encased in. (37b, 19:28)

  • Non-Corporeal Interaction - Able to see, touch, and harm non-corporeal beings (42b) like ghosts (4a) and shadows. (2a)

  • Teleportation - Exactly what it says on the tin. Instant teleportation. (44a, 6:37)

  • Duplication - Transforms himself into miniature duplicated versions. (39b, 18:30)

  • Invisibility - Again, what it says on the tin.

  • Energy / Fire Redirection - Courage can swallow dragon fire like he’s Kirby and spit it right back at his opponent. This should reasonably work for other types of energy.

  • 4th Wall Awareness - Knows about the audience watching him & addresses them.

  • Paint Dimension Hopping - Courage can hop through paintings into other worlds and retains his individuality. Courage utilized paintings to hop through dimensions and go back to the farmhouse. He should be able to travel anywhere if there’s a painting available to him. (34a, 10:50)

  • Astral Projection / Dream Form (?) - It’s unclear if this specific power is something Courage has since the comic strip shows that it was a dream. If it’s included, Courage can relax himself to project his form into the astral plane. This spiritual form is cloudy in nature and may enter the dreams of people that are sleeping. If this form is killed, Courage will wake up in his regular body. 

  • Summoning - With his phone, Courage can call up Mr. Mouse, a buff Mouse that can do a bit of the heavy lifting for Courage in physical contests. (21a, 19:03) And with a dog wail, he can beckon an army of dogs all throughout Nowhere to do his bidding. This reasonably increases his numbers advantage.

  • Super Screaming - Courage’s lungs are so powerful that they are responsible for his most powerful feats. By screaming with all of his might, he can paralyze and pulverize anything that has the misfortune of hearing it. His lungs are also responsible for allowing him to maintain oxygen underwater. Could be the reason he can survive in space without equipment.


Defensive Resistances


Courage can resist the following abilities…


  • Extreme Temperatures - Maintained his physical body on the surface of the sun (18b) and his family could do this when the temperature was so hot, it melted everything around him. (25a, 9:10) Courage could also survive the extreme cold in the same way, since he’s been to outer space. (33b, 19:30)


  • Time Manipulation - Courage and the Baggs have been physically moved 1000 years into the future and back into the past afterwards without any change to their aging process. Everyone else, humans and dogs, were extinct in this time period. Courage and his family were the only ones unaffected. (16b)


  • Forcibly Turned Invisible - The invisibility stone could not force Courage to turn invisible because he’s a dog. (17b, 16:08)


  • Mind Control - While not immune to the effects of Mind Control, Courage oftentimes breaks out of these instances by merely thinking of his or Muriel’s own safety. (39a, 7:40) He also was visibly unaffected by a Le Quack TV program that had mind controlled Muriel and Eustace. (20a, 5:30)


  • Emotional Manipulation - Courage was washed with Muriel’s fabric softening detergent & cannot have his emotions tampered with to be empathetic. (32b, 19:06)


  • Outer Space Conditions - Can survive in space without a suit. (33b, 19:30)

Feats

Strength & Attack Potency

  • Snapped leash that explosives & corrosive items couldn’t take care of. (1a, 4:28)

  • Picking up Muriel and Eustace (1a, 6:58)

  • Carrying a tree (28a, 5:10)

  • Chucking a ton of frogs into the horizon (33a, 10:01)

  • Crashes through wood and brick wall (6a, 9:17)

  • Breaking metal doors, digging through steel (6a, 9:46) (49a, 7:36)

  • Physically chucks a gigantic mass of water (12b, 19:53)

  • Physically patches up the holes in the ozone layer (37b, 20:00)

  • When scared, Courage can get stronger (44a, 3:28)

  • Screams so loud it shatters the sun (14a, 9:38)

  • Held a star in his hand (49a, 3:46)

Speed & Reactions

  • Cleaning and painting a house incredibly quickly (41b, 18:45)

  • Dodging several unhappy cannonballs with his acrobatics (26, 10:58)

  • Chased Le Quack to New York, Paris, & Sweden (42a, 6:30)

  • Ran to the Sun’s Core in eight seconds (18b, 20:30)

  • Dodging lasers with Eustace (43b, 17:33)

  • Moves, grabs mirror, & reflects Evil Empress’s glaring lasers (47a, 10:15)

  • Travels an incredibly long distance in the U.S.A in six seconds (17b, 16:37)

  • Technically dodged a beam of light, though it is single-frame (21a, 8:00)

  • Biking a UFO out of orbit throughout the Milky Way, dodging Saturn, and biking into hyperdrive to another solar system (33b, 17:10 - 18:00)

  • If not teleportation, went to the grocery store and came back in a matter of seconds (44a, 6:34)

Durability & Stamina

  • Survived miniature explosions with no harm (1a, 4:20)

  • Survived a train crash and a plane crash (15b, 20:18) (1b, 19:47)

  • Breaking through wood, iron, and steel

  • Shot out of a cannon several times throughout the series (27b, 11:53)

  • Flung from paraglider to a bank far away (20a, 6:00)

  • Able to walk away after a giant tower collapsed on top of him (26, 19:40)

  • Receiving constant abuse from recurring villains in a dodgeball game (50a)

  • Face-tanked a nuclear explosion (48b, 17:58)

  • Shot to the moon from a cannon, and then swatted back into Earth that causes a massive dust explosion (20b, 16:18)

  • Living through the San Andreas Fault Earthquake sinking California (20b, 17:56)

  • Survived a meteor impact that physically spirals Earth 1000 years into the future with the Baggs Family being its only survivors (and again in reverse) (16b, 11:48)

  • Holding a star in his hand (49a, 3:46)

Regeneration

Courage regenerated from the following (or his toon force should be comparable to)…


Scaling

  • Eustace Baggs: Courage’s toon force powers are never shown to be inferior to Eustace’s, in fact, they’re mostly shown to be comparable. Courage, Muriel, and Eustace are also often put into the same dangerous situations together. Eustace typically gets the “bad ending.” Courage defeats him in “Ball of Revenge.”

    • After using hair formula, his anger caused earthquakes across Nowhere. These anger points caused explosions. Survived blowing a kitchen, a car, the Baggs house, and himself up with this power. (3b “Hothead”)

    • Launched with a duckling to the moon. (10b, 21:06)

    • Survived in deep space. (19a, 10:45) (18b “Mission to the Sun”)

    • Was hybridized with alien DNA. (50a, 10:55)

    • Survived a sinking island. (21b, 21:30)

    • Dodged lasers (43b, 17:33)

    • Virtually dies every other episode

    • Explodes into a sentient constellation (49a, 10:56)


  • Goosey: Courage is likely the strongest being attracted / residing in Nowhere.

    • Transformed desert into a festival of flowers (8b, 15:52)

    • Blows a blizzard directly in Courage’s face (..., 18:10)

    • Created a thunderstorm (..., 11:18)


  • Muriel: Exact same as Eustace, but Courage never fights her.

    • Swipes cicada into a nuclear explosion. (SON, 14:33)

    • Relative in strength & durability to Eustace.


  • Alien in Car Broke, Phone Yes: Courage defeats it. They never show back up.

    • Bounces off planets, moves Saturn’s rings, and bursts through a constellation. (23a, 0:51)


  • Squid Aliens in Last of Starmakers: Government locked it up and Courage is solely responsible for their species not going extinct. 

    • Making stars in the night sky (confirmed with their conversation with Muriel) (49a, 0:53)

    • Swimming through space, lightyears away. (49a, 0:53)

    • Baby Squids create new stars (49a, 9:50)

    • Eustace exploding into stars should be comparable as well.


  • Shadow: Courage chases / runs from the shadow and it hurts the Baggs.

    • Flies out into deep space & transforms into stars. (2a, 10:54)

Weaknesses


  • Cowardice: It’s in the show’s name. Courage is scared of anything and everything that’s even the slightest bit off-putting. He’s even scared of his own shadow. While this has not impeded his ability to protect the Baggs Family, it’s very likely that in a fight to the death, he’ll fight kicking and screaming scared for his own safety the entire time. (Every single episode of this show)


  • Preparation: Courage often needs a bit of time to come up with solutions to the problems he’s facing. There isn’t really a situation that Courage has solved nearly immediately after it appears. Though in the comics, the time it takes Courage to solve these issues is greatly reduced. Likely due to its format as a comic book strip and not an eleven minute episode section.


  • Transmutation Resistance: Courage can re-transmute himself at a whim, but he strangely does not have any resistance to being turned into something else. This isn’t much of a weakness as his powers let him turn back into a regular dog just as quickly. 


  • Soul Hax Resistance: No resistance to having his soul destroyed. If it’s destroyed, that’s curtains for the Cowardly Dog.
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