History YMMV / CourageTheCowardlyDog

* HarsherInHindsight: The moment where Courage gets a sudden heart attack in Night of the Weremole ends up not quite as funny after Marty Grabstein actually had a stroke in 2024. Fortunately, it was mild and Grabstein is on the way to a full recovery.

** The plot of "Feast of the Bullfrogs" would,later be done by ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' in the episode "The Three F's".

* HarsherInHindsight: The moment where Courage gets a sudden heart attack in Night of the Weremole ends up not quite as funny after Marty Grabstein actually had a stroke in 2024. Fortunately, it was mild.

* ShockingMoments: "Shadow of Courage" (''the very first episode'') features a nasty old rich guy dying just off-screen, feebly calling out for his butler... who just walks away whistling jauntily and leaves the old guy to die. Sure, the guy had just fired the butler for no good reason, but that's pretty cold for a kids' show.

* "Muriel Meets Her Match" is about a criminal couple targeting the Bagges, with the wife explicitly "befriending" Muriel in order to steal her identity and have her take the fall for the couple's crimes. The only thing unrealistic about the couple's portrayal is that the husband is a disembodied hand.
* "The Tower of Dr. Zalost" has the titular doctor, who is clearly clinically depressed, turn his condition into projectiles in order to make everyone around him as miserable as he is. Needless to say, this does a lot more harm than good.
* "Stormy Weather": Take away the fact that the Storm Goddess is...well, a storm goddess...and the plot of the episode is basically a strange woman demanding that Muriel give her Courage because Courage just happens to resemble the woman's missing dog. You can't really blame Muriel for getting upset.

* ShockingMoments: "Shadow of Courage" features a nasty old rich guy dying just off-screen, feebly calling out for his butler... who just walks away whistling jauntily and leaves the old guy to die. Sure, the guy had just fired the butler for no good reason, but that's pretty cold for a kids' show.

** "[[Recap/CourageTheCowardlyDogS1E9 Queen of the Black Puddle]]" & "[[Recap/CourageTheCowardlyDogS4E50CourageousCureBallOfRevenge Ball of Revenge]]": [[LiteralManeater The Black Puddle Queen]] is a man-eating [[OurSirensAreDifferent siren]] who uses bodies of water to travel from her underwater kingdom and hunt for humans. With her CompellingVoice and sultry appearance, the Queen hypnotizes men into following her to her castle, where she performs a ritualistic ceremony before eating them alive. The Queen has filled her kingdom with the skeletal remains of her hundreds -- if not thousands -- of victims, and she tries to subject Eustace and Courage to the same fates. She later joins a villainous alliance to take Muriel hostage and destroy Courage in a slow, painful way out of nothing but annoyance that Courage thwarted the Queen's last scheme.

** "[[Recap/CourageTheCowardlyDogS1E9 Queen of the Black Puddle]]": [[LiteralManeater The Black Puddle Queen]] is a man-eating [[OurSirensAreDifferent siren]] who uses bodies of water to travel from her underwater kingdom and hunt for humans. With her CompellingVoice and sultry appearance, the Queen hypnotizes men into following her to her castle, where she performs a ritualistic ceremony before eating them alive. The Queen has filled her kingdom with the skeletal remains of her hundreds -- if not thousands -- of victims, and she tries to subject Eustace and Courage to the same fates. She later joins a villainous alliance to take Muriel hostage and destroy Courage in a slow, painful way out of nothing but annoyance that Courage thwarted the Queen's last scheme.

** "The Great Fusilli": [[NeverSmileAtACrocodile The Great Fusilli]] himself is a traveling stage magician who lured people onto his stage under the guise of making them famous actors. He would then have them perform for an imaginary audience, in order to [[EvilPuppeteer use enchanted puppet strings]] to [[PuppetPermutation convert them into lifeless puppets]], which he would then play with for his own amusement. Once Courage finds a room filled with the [[LivingDollCollector dozens of people]] he's converted into marionettes, Fusilli turns his owners Muriel and Eustace into puppets--an act not reversed by the end of the episode, causing Courage to suffer SanitySlippage--while at the same time attempting to dispose of Courage.
** "The Quilt Club": [[ConjoinedTwins The Stitch Sisters]], [[CreepyTwins Eliza and Elisa]], are the owners of an antique quilt shop and reclusive quilting club who make Muriel work day and night to pass the standards they use to admit those into their club. The club itself is a front; [[AncientEvil since the dawn of humanity]] the Sisters have walked the Earth, [[YourSoulIsMine ensnaring the souls of women]] to prolong their own youth and [[AndIMustScream binding them forever]] to their quilt. The souls of their victims are kept within the quilt for centuries on end, forever ripped of everything that once made them unique.

** Eustace Bagge is the grouchy, elderly farmer and husband of Muriel Bagge. Growing up being compared endlessly to his older brother and being unsuccessful in nearly everything he did, Eustace became an embittered old man who makes a habit out of terrorizing or harassing Courage for no other reason than a mixture of ForTheEvulz and spite. Despite this, Eustace had shown on occasions to genuinely care for Muriel, and he would team up with Courage when the situation called for it.

* JerksAreWorseThanVillains: Eustace is the biggest BaseBreakingCharacter of the show, since he always mistreats and abuses Courage, despite being his owner. Compare Katz, an evil SerialKiller who is very popular with fans and is universally considered a WorthyOpponent to Courage. The same applies to other villains, though not all of them (it's pretty hard to find anyone who likes the evil veterinarian or [[DomesticAbuser Mad Dog]]), since they are often supernatural beings, while Eustace comes off as a terrible person in a realistic way.

** The Cruel Veterinarian from "Remembrance of Courage Past" turns out to be the man [[GreaterScopeVillain primarily responsible for Courage's fear and anxiety]]. When Courage was just a baby, [[spoiler:the Veterinarian kidnapped Courage's parents and put them on a rocket to the moon]] as part of an experiment, [[spoiler:separating the young pup from his parents for the rest of their lives]]. While people (probably) aren't still [[spoiler:shooting dogs into space]] anymore, animal experimentation is still a very real problem.

* BaseBreakingCharacter: Eustace. He's either a JerkassWoobie who's only grouchy because of his rotten childhood or an outright {{Jerkass}} who doesn't deserve any sympathy. There are also fans who think he's kind of funny (at least, the funniest of the main trio), but others find him irrationally cruel to his dog well past the point of humor.

%%* EvilIsSexy:
%%** The Queen of the Black Puddle.
%%** Katz, if you're a furry. [[ArousedByTheirVoice Although the voice certainly helps]].

** Katz is undoubtedly the most popular villain in the show because of just how [[ForTheEvulz cruel]], [[NightmareFuelStationAttendant frightening]], and downright [[TheSociopath evil]] he is.

** Katz. He is undoubtedly the most popular villain in the fandom because of how vicious and cruel he can be.
** Di Lung is an obnoxious {{Jerkass}} who's arguably a bigger jerk than even Eustace, but people absolutely love hating this guy due to him being so LaughablyEvil.