| “ | Stupid dog! You make me look bad! | „ |
| ~ Eustace in the intro. |
Eustace Bagge is the tritagonist of Cartoon Network's animated series Courage the Cowardly Dog. He is Courage's abusive owner and the husband of Muriel Bagge.
He was voiced by the late Lionel Wilson in seasons 1-2, by the late Arthur Anderson in seasons 3-4, by Wallace Shawn in The Fog of Courage, and currently by Jeff Bergman.
His Evil Ranking[]
His Villainous Deeds[]
In General[]
- He constantly scares, insults, strangles, and kicks Courage for weak reasons, much to Muriel's disgust.
- Although he is married to Muriel, he mainly has her cook for him and often turns a blind eye if she’s in danger.
- Speaking of Muriel, she apparently used to pine for someone else, but through some "dark, unknown deed," he somehow wooed her over instead.
- He is very greedy and will happily leave Courage and Muriel behind whenever he sees an opportunity to become wealthy, even if it's obviously a trap. His most notable example of this is in "King Ramses' Curse", where he endangers the lives of Courage and Muriel by not returning King Ramses' slab despite being warned to do so.
- He is never grateful or appreciative towards Courage, who always saves his life from dangerous situations, and even after being saved, he usually continues to belittle him calling him a stupid dog.
Courage the Cowardly Dog[]
- He tries to force Bigfoot into capture for money in "Courage Meets Bigfoot" and refused to let him reunite with his mother.
- Blows up those around him after using a hair growth chemical in "Hothead."
- In "Freaky Fred," he locked Courage in the bathroom with Fred, Muriel's freaky nephew who is also a barber, and lied to Muriel about going to the hardware store to fix the door like he said he would and went to various other places during the rest of the episode to stay away from Fred, such as reading his newspaper on the roadway, the beach and the movies.
- Constantly scared a hunchback for being ugly in "The Hunchback of Nowhere", and when Courage gave the Hunchback a raincoat that belonged to Eustace himself, Eustace got so enraged that he tried to scare Courage so badly that he nearly fell off the roof, laughing at him in the process.
- In "The Magic Tree of Nowhere," he cut down the titular, sentient tree, which distraught Courage so much that he let out a heartbroken scream that shattered the sun into pieces.
- In "The Transplant", he kidnaps Muriel, causing a bunch of mayhem all over the world.
- Throughout "Farmer Hunter, Farmer Hunted," he tries to shoot Buck, a sapient deer, and his innocent family with Big Bob (his laser gun). Before trying to kill those deer, he attempted to test his gun on Courage, despite him clearly being afraid. This action led to Buck (one of the deer) being forced to stand up for his wife and 2 kids to stop them from dying a brutal death by grabbing a gun of his own and intimidating Courage and Eustace only to make the latter leave his family alone.
- In "Curtain of Cruelty", he attempted to hunt down and kidnap Courage before getting arrested and sent to jail to get educated about niceness.
- In "Last of the Starmakers", he held the star-making mother and her eggs for star-making babies against their will.
- In "Ball of Revenge", he crosses the Moral Event Horizon when he gathers Courage's past enemies to kill him and even uses Muriel, his own wife, as bait to do so, having the villains suspend her over a boiling pot with no remorse.
- Thus, he is fully responsible for everything that Katz, the Queen of the Black Puddle, Le Quack, the Weremole, Cajun Fox and Big Toe did to Courage during the dodgeball game, as they hurled multiple dodgeballs at him and at one point, Courage was hit by numerous arrows before a piano fell on him and crushed him, leaving him severely wounded as a result.
- In "Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog," he takes great pride in scaring Scooby and Shaggy the same way he regularly does to Courage.
Why He Doesn’t Stand Out?[]
- While he manages to pass the general baseline thanks to his abuse towards Courage and Muriel and knowingly attempting to kill a family of sapient deer, he still doesn’t do enough to pass the high heinous standard of the show. While comparing him to Katz, Fusilli and the Queen of the Black Puddle is unfair due to them having more resources, he still fails the standard when compared to Mad Dog, Benton Tarantella, and Errol Van Volkheim, who all do way worse with fewer resources and vastly less screentime.
- To emphasize this, the episode "The Mask" makes it clear that Mad Dog's abuse towards Bunny is far worse than any of the instances Eustace has ever mistreated his own wife, let alone Courage.
- He is always played for laughs and isn't taken seriously one bit, with some good examples being his comedic deaths/defeats at the end of several episodes, his incompetence, his "Outta Nowhere" rap, and his running gag of getting hit in the head with a rolling pin by Muriel every time he scares Courage.
- Even his Moral Event Horizon in "Ball of Revenge" is still played for comedy, such as how his idea of "torturing" Muriel was getting Katz to mix different-colored clothing in the washing machine. He was also forced by Muriel to lay down on the living room floor at the end of the episode and acted petty about it.
- Despite his general callousness and mistreatment of her, Eustace does truly love Muriel and is usually the most affable towards her, never going out of his way to directly harm or show his cruelty towards her.
- He is ultimately tragic, as he was constantly insulted and abused by his mother, bullied by his brother, Horst, and forced to live under the expectations of his father. Flashbacks even show that he used to be a kind and compassionate child before his family’s cruel treatment of him turned him bitter. This has caused him to possess immense jealousy of Courage, as Muriel is the only one in Eustace's life who has treated him with unconditional love and attention, and he doesn't want that taken away from him whenever Muriel gives Courage her attention.
- Despite her mistreatment of him, Eustace does love his mother and would never try to harm or offend her, going so far as to strangle Courage for accidentally hurting her feelings.
- He has standards, as he was truly disgusted at the thought of sending dozens of dogs into space and when his wife was kidnapped by Growth Industries when she said no.
- He is On & Off, as he has admirable roles and traits:
- There are times when he gets along or teams up with Courage, particularly when protecting Muriel or his stuff.
- He protected Muriel from Katz who intended on turning his wife into taffy.
- He was protective over the baby duckling he found.
- He gave an illusion of his past self his hat.
- In the finale episode "Perfect", he finally comes around to accepting Courage for who he is, even starting to treat him like an actual friend.
- He is a scapegoat due to being grievously injured and/or killed in various episodes and being abused by his mother.
External Links[]
- Eustace Bagge on the Villains Wiki
- Eustace Bagge on the Courage the Cowardly Dog Wiki
