Since Courage the Cowardly Dog premiered in 1999, the show has filled our daydreams and nightmares with terrifying imagery and existential dread. Set in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas, Courage follows the titular little purple dog as he tries to protect his owners, Muriel and Eustace Bagge, from the dangerous (and sometimes misunderstood) forces that threaten their isolated farmhouse. The show’s unique, mixed-media art style and references to classic horror made Courage stick in the trauma centers of our brains.
For many, Courage was an introduction to the aesthetic and conceptual possibilities of the horror genre; this dog was our guide to newfound horrors, letting us know that it’s okay, even normal, to be scared. And while most of us have likely found new frights to fill our nightmares, the kernels of those chilling visuals, eerie sounds, and unnerving concepts from Courage still live in the recesses of our minds. Every episode was scary in some way, but these are some of the scariest.
“The Clutching Foot” sees Courage dealing with the subgenre of body horror. Eustace gets a foot fungus that rapidly expands, enveloping the farmer’s entire body and transforming into a giant, hideous purple foot. And this fungic foot isn’t just alive, it’s sentient: a walking, talking gang of five led by the one and only Big Toe. Big Toe and the gang threaten to squish Muriel, forcing Courage to commit a crime in their stead.
Seeing Eustace’s body completely overwhelmed by the fungus feels like something straight out of Cronenberg. The episode quite possibly introduced kids everywhere to the fundamental concept of body horror, namely, the complete loss of bodily self to something else. Eustace’s fungus may not have been the abject nightmare of, say, The Fly, but it certainly felt like it at the time.
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‘The Quilt Club’
“The Quilt Club” is one of the aesthetically darker episodes of Courage, featuring dingy, monotone background elements and a haunting organ theme. Muriel and Courage meet Elisa and Eliza Stitch, the conjoined twins who run the local craft shop. Muriel grows obsessed with making samples that will earn her a spot in the twins’ exclusive quilt club, forgoing her household duties and even forgetting Eustace and Courage.
The Stitch Sisters finally accept Muriel, which Courage discovers is a trap: the “club” is the sisters’ quilt itself, a vessel that traps the souls of its members inside, feeding Elisa and Eliza’s everlasting lives. Courage destroys the quilt by reminding Muriel of her family, thereby transforming the Stitch Sisters into a piece of fabric. The concept of Muriel being trapped in the quilt is terrifying enough for a kid, but the fact that she chose to put herself in the situation specifically to “fit in” is the more existential scare here.
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‘Feast of the Bullfrogs’
In “Feast of the Bullfrogs,” a group of giant bullfrogs, led by King Bufo, invade the Bagge household to make it their new pond. Under the threat of violence, the frogs get their way. Eventually, they even force Muriel and Eustace to behave like frogs living in their pond. This isn’t the end of it, as Bufo wants to eat his new wards in a celebratory feast.
Of course, Courage manages to save his owners through a mixture of wit and cartoon shenanigans. What’s especially scary about this episode is the way in which Bufo and crew strong-arm the Bagges into being frogs, even to the point where they can only “speak” in croaks.
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‘Night of the Weremole’
As the title suggests, “Night of the Weremole” is a play on classic werewolf stories. While tending her garden, Muriel is bitten by the eponymous weremole and eventually turns into a ferocious beast herself. Dr. Vindaloo is of no help, instead getting attacked by Muriel and later transforming himself. The plot of this episode is exceedingly simple, but Muriel’s appearance as the monster is undeniably freaky. This is one of the many Courage episodes that end on a cliffhanger, featuring Eustace in peril, under attack by the transformed Vindaloo.
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‘Evil Weevil’
We all like to think that we’d help someone in need, but “Evil Weevil” makes viewers wary of that practice. In the episode, Eustace accidentally hits a humanoid fly with his truck. Muriel insists on bringing the bug to their home and treating him to dessert as an apology for the accident.
But what starts as a simple conversation – albeit with a bug-man – over desert quickly turns sinister when Courage notices the bug sucking Eustace and Muriel literally dry. That concept is itself nightmarish, but what’s worse is that Muriel and her family are cosmically punished for doing a good thing. It’s enough to make any kid think twice about helping out a stranger.
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‘The Shadow of Courage’
One of the earliest episodes of the series, “The Shadow of Courage” exemplifies a staple of the series and its villains. When an old scientist suddenly dies, his shadow is free to wander Nowhere and scare the locals before he himself is scared into fleeing to the Bagge farmhouse. The shadow torments the family throughout the night, even making Eustace flee to the safety of his pickup truck. Without any other options, Courage has a conversation with the shadow, who tells him that his real dream is to become the shadow of a star. He instead becomes the shadow of the stars in the sky on Courage’s recommendation.
The shadow’s impersonations are scary, even sometimes violent. To scare Courage, the shadow depicts Muriel getting decapitated, cut in half with a circular saw, burned on a pyre, and more. Even so, the shadow isn’t without redemption. Like many of the show’s villains, the shadow is only villainous because he’s misunderstood.
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‘Windmill Vandals’
“Windmill Vandals: is one of the few episodes of Courage where the threat is acknowledged and resolved by all three members of the Bagge family. The episode tells the story of the legendary Windmill Vandals that plagued the town of Nowhere 250 years prior and of their defeat at the hands of the farmer who built the Bagge home, Jiles Galette.
Using magical runes on his windmill, Galette kept the Vandals at bay so long as the mill kept spinning. When it stops in the present day, the Vandals return as skeleton warriors, complete with skeletal horses and realistic weaponry like swords and axes. Unlike many of the more stylized villains in Courage, the Vandals have a more realistic appearance, making them feel like a different kind of threat.
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‘Everyone Wants to Direct’
When famed director Benton Tarantella comes knocking on the farmhouse door, Muriel and Eustace can’t help but be starstruck by the possibility of fame and fortune. So much so, that they don’t notice that the director is clearly a zombie. The two are eager to help Tarantella in every way, but Courage quickly discovers that Tarantella and his former partner, Errol Von Volkheim, were serial killers who disguised themselves as directors to lure in their victims.
The zombie designs are creepy, but what’s really jarring about this episode is hearing about, in a children’s show, is that they are also serial killers who murdered 12 people. Courage wasn’t the only show at the time to explore horror in children’s media, but it may be one of the only to have a verified body count.
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‘Car Broke, Phone Yes’
The setup to “Car Broke, Phone Yes” is classic sci-fi horror. After Courage sees an asteroid land near the farmhouse, a mysterious stranger comes knocking at the door. He’s a small man in a large trench coat and hat, nothing but his bulging eyes showing beneath the getup. When he speaks, the man only says, “Car broke, phone yes?”, but he doesn’t even know how to use the phone.
Courage discovers the man is an alien – just a brain, two eyes, and two tentacles – probing for kindness and indeed stealing all of Muriel’s away. Distraught at the idea of living with two unkind owners, Courage must defeat the alien to return Muriel to her usual self. This is another episode that makes you think twice about showing kindness to strangers. Once again, Muriel is punished for doing the “right” thing, while Eustace is temporarily rewarded for his cruelty.
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‘Queen of the Black Puddle’
The episode “Queen of the Black Puddle” is probably the most selfless we see Courage act in the series, and that says a lot. In it, Eustace is seduced by the eponymous Queen, a siren-like creature who dwells within water’s reflection. The Queen easily takes Eustace into her realm, where she plans to eat him. Muriel is devastated at the loss of her husband, and Courage, out of his love for her, rescues Eustace.
The Queen is beautiful in a Morticia Addams sort of way until she transforms into a hideous fish monster intent on devouring the farmer. And it’s very clear that that’s what she’s doing, considering the skeletons littering her lair’s floor. Courage didn’t have to go through all this, but, as the catchphrase goes, “The things I do for love.”
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
