->The {{Tropes}} we gather for love.
-->The main page can be found ''[[WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog here]]''
-->Tropes A-M can be found ''[[CourageTheCowardlyDog/TropesAToM here]]''
----

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:N]]
* TheNameIsBondJamesBond: In "The Revenge of Snowman", when the snowman first meets the Bagge family, he introduces himself as "Man. Snow Man."
* NarrativeShapeshifting: Courage invokes this trope several times by changing his physical appearance to warn his owners of the MonsterOfTheWeek.
* NeedleworkIsForOldPeople: PlayedForDrama in "The Quilt Club". The elderly Muriel is at a fabric shop and the shopkeepers, an elderly pair of ConjoinedTwins called the Stitch Sisters, tell her about their quilt club, encouraging Muriel to make quilts and bring them in so they can decide if she's worthy to join the club. Muriel makes progressively bigger and more elaborate quilts but the Stitch Sisters keep rejecting them, causing Muriel to go half-mad until they finally accept her and offer her to stitch a cloth with a giant symbol into a giant quilt. [[spoiler: It turns out that the quilt is magical and stitching the symbol into it causes Muriel to go into another dimension inside it, where she's stuck floating with the souls of other quilters. The Stitch Sisters have been doing this for a long time to prolong their lives. Courage frees Muriel by stitching some of her old patches into the quilt.]]
* NegativeContinuity: A number of episodes end with Courage losing or the characters dying, yet they're back to Square One the next week. Even the original short film features Eustace turning into a monstrous alien chicken and then getting vaporized. None the less, there's still a few reoccurring villains in the roster providing continuity in spite of it all.
** The season 1 finale "The Great Fusili" is probably the most glaring example of this and has caused quite a bit of controversy, since it has Courage failing to save Eustace and Muriel from being turned into marionettes and appears to end with Courage descending into madness as he decides to play with the marionettes to pretend that Eustace and Muriel are still alive.
* NewJobAsThePlotDemands: The recurring red mustache guy holds many different jobs depending on the episode. Many of his jobs include working as a Nowhere police officer, an archaeologist, a captain, a pilot, a New York police officer, a ranger, a general, a pirate, and a mayor.
* NiceGuy: Courage himself, and one of only a few nice characters in the entire series. Muriel is also a NiceGirl.
* NightmareHands: In "Shirley the Medium", a box is found that contains a pair of nightmare hands that try to pull people inside itself.
* NightmareSequence: Several scenes of Courage having nightmares occur in "Perfect", stemming from Courage's low self-esteem and his torment by a SadistTeacher. The most infamous of the bunch involves a deformed blue humanoid, rendered in CGI, who whispers to Courage ([[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou and the viewer]]): "You're not perfect."
* NoAccountingForTaste: Muriel and Eustace's marriage, since Muriel is a sweet and kindhearted woman while Eustace is a misanthropic jerk.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed:
** Snowman has Sean Connery's speech pattern so down pat, that some fans thought Creator/SeanConnery actually did his voice (but it was, indeed, Paul Schoeffler).
*** Paul Schoeffler also voiced Jeeves Weevil and the Goose God in pitch-perfect impressions of Creator/TonyJay and Creator/TimCurry, respectively (and, like Snowman, fans thought Jay and Curry actually did voice those characters.) Schoeffler also voiced the Clutching Foot in an Creator/EdwardGRobinson impression, but since he'd been dead for years before the show was created, nobody assumed the character was actually played by Robinson.
** In the episode "House Calls", the Bagges' new neighbor, Dr. Von Orbison, is almost a dead ringer for Roy Orbison.
** The Computer's voice greatly resembles that of Creator/DavidWarner.
** The Duck Brothers sound exactly like Music/RingoStarr (and once again, the voice actor Will Ryan's impression was so uncanny that fans assumed for years that Ringo really was their VA.)
** Robot Randy talks like Creator/ChristopherWalken.
** The Flan King sounds like Creator/PeterLorre with a slightly altered accent (sounding more Spanish than Eastern European) and even [[LorreLookalike looked like Lorre]] (if he were [[DisSimile fatter and had red hair]], that is).
* NoSell: There's Eustace's immunity to Dr. Zalost's unhappy cannonballs because he's immune to emotions. He is also unaffected by the Cruelty Curtain (because he's already a {{jerkass}}), as well as Muriel and Courage due to her fabric softener, or IncorruptiblePurePureness, or some combination of the two.
* NothingIsScarier:
** The ending to the Le Quack episodes ends with the titular villain escaping from his confinement and he always leaves behind evidence as he goes such as a police van crashing with no officers in sight, and a prison on fire with no signs of other convicts, though it's never explained how he managed to escape every time. Since he usually fights Courage through the means of cartoonish antics, this just makes the endings even scarier.
** Shwick threatens Courage that if he doesn't retrieve the package he ordered, he'll open a tiny locked door that seems to harbor some kind of monster. While Shwick does eventually unlock it after Courage damages the package's contents, it is never shown what the monster looks like, and at the end of the episode, with Eustace's skeleton it is shown what it can do while the monster can be heard chewing and belching as its door closes.
--->"Ya see dat door? Ya wanna know what's behind dat door? Ya don't wanna know what's behind dat door. See dose bones? Wanna know what made dose bones? Ya don't wanna know what made dose bones."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:O]]
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: In "The Mask", Courage takes down two much bigger and more muscular dogs. We don't see what he did, but he apparently needed, along with his shovel, explosives and several arrows.
* OminousPipeOrgan:
** This type of music plays in a few episodes, beginning with "Courage in the Big Stinkin' City". Noteworthy in that they don't use it unless something ''very'' creepy and supernatural is happening. The song also contains [[ForDoomTheBellTolls church bells]] and a choir.
** The creepy, villainous Stitch Sisters' {{Leitmotif}} also makes use of this trope, although it's more quiet and somber than the song mentioned above.
* OncePerEpisode:
** "Watch where you're goin', you fool!" Always expect to hear Di Lung say this whenever he appears
** "There is nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. [[BearerOfBadNews But there's nothing I can do.]] [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment Nothing at all.]] Just keep soaking it." Dr. Vindaloo says this a lot.
** Eustace getting the bad end of the deal and suffering a horrible fate happens to him in just about every episode.
* OneWomanWail: "Doc Gerbil's World", where the final boat chase between Doc Gerbil and Courage is accompanied by almost no sound other than this. It simultaneously comes off as SoundtrackDissonance and awesome. The only reason it's Dissonance is because said chase scene is between a plaid-wearing gerbil and a pink dog on jet-skis.
* OpaqueLenses: All of the recurring normal, non-villainous human characters except the General have their eyes obscured. This seems to emphasize Courage's status as a Cassandra type, as nobody else sees what's obvious to him. Subverted in "Hothead" (though it's fairly surreal looking).
* OpeningMonologue: Provided by the Nowhere Newsman.
-->'''Nowhere Newsman:''' We interrupt this program to bring you... Courage the Cowardly Dog Show, starring Courage the Cowardly Dog! Abandoned as a pup, he was found by Muriel, who lives in the middle of Nowhere with her husband Eustace Bagge! But creepy stuff happens in Nowhere. It's up to Courage to save his new home!
* OurMonstersAreWeird: Quite a few of the monsters on this show are bizarre when they're not outright terrifying. One example is the titular villain of "The Clutching Foot", a fungus which infects Eustace and takes over his body, becoming a giant, purple, disembodied foot covered with green warts and toes with faces that talk like mobsters.
* OverlyLongGag: Katz and Courage falling down the stairs in "Katz Kandy"... and falling... and falling... goes on for about a full minute.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:P]]
* PaperThinDisguise:
** "1,000 Years of Courage" has Courage and the Bagges accidentally travel to the distant future, where the dominant species is a race of anthropomorphic bananas. A shady dealer helps them blend in by giving them disguises that manage to fool the banana people even though they have obvious zippers and are brown and spotty while most banana people are yellow and spotless.
** In "Rumpledkiltskin", Courage tries to get the titular villain to reveal his name by disguising himself with a hat and a fake mustache and using a recorded message to tell him that he wins one million dollars if he signs his name. Rumpledkiltskin instead writes down "Cash".
** To help Eustace regain his self-esteem in "Aqua Farmer", Courage uses a hat, eyeglasses, a fake nose, and a fake beard to disguise himself as a therapist. The deception works, even though Courage barks instead of using words when he talks to Eustace.
* PoliceAreUseless: Pretty much 90% of the time, police officers on this show are portrayed as incompetent. For example, at the end of every Le Quack episode, the police come to cart Le Quack off to prison. He ''always'' escapes.
* PostWakeUpRealization: In the episode "The Transplant", Muriel wakes Courage up to go and check on Eustace. After he groggily opens the bathroom door, he finds Eustace transformed into a giant kangaroo monster. He calmly closes the door and manages to make it all the way back to Muriel's bedroom before screaming in terror.
* PottyEmergency:
** "1,000 Years of Courage" has Courage suddenly needing to go shortly after he, Eustace, and Muriel get banana costumes to make it easier to blend in with the banana people, a comment from Muriel indicating that Courage has to pee because he drank a lot of soda off-screen. While in the bathroom, the banana man the three got their banana costumes from in the first place finds Courage and forces him down the drain, where Courage eventually discovers that a pair of monkeys are manipulating the banana people with their promises of going to Bananahalla solely so they can eat them.
** One of the ways Eustace swindles Muriel in "Swindlin' Wind" is by tricking her into drinking a lot of tea and setting up a toll in front of the bathroom, only letting Muriel pass after she gives him five dollars and her rocking chair.
** Muriel finds herself needing to pee at one point in "The Mask" and having trouble going to the bathroom quickly because the bedroom door was locked from the outside. She makes it after climbing out the window and entering the house from there.
* ProportionalArticleImportance: Featured in the episode "One Thousand Years of Courage", where Courage and his family end up transported into a future ruled by sentient bananas. Eustace is reading a paper, and complains about the RidiculousFutureInflation in an ad ("Eight million bucks for a salami!") before Courage and company [[NewspaperDating notice the date on the paper]].
* PublicDomainSoundtrack: Most episodes (certainly not ''all'', but most) will feature a classical piece, either as a random part of the episode's soundtrack, or even as a character's {{Leitmotif}}.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:R]]
* RealAfterAll: In "Courage Under the Volcano", it initially appears that the volcano god Chief Wiki Wiki plans to sacrifice Muriel to is nothing but a superstition, but after Chief Wiki Wiki points out that Courage has proven that there is no volcano god, the volcano god shows that he's real and in the process draws the natives' attention to Otto, the man trying to force the inhabitants off the island so he can turn the place into a ski resort.
* RedEyesTakeWarning: Quite a few antagonists on this show had red eyes, like the Space Chicken, Mad Dog, and the giant ape from "1000 Years of Courage".
* ReluctantMonster: Courage encounters a few monsters who weren't intentionally menacing or dangerous. Most notably, Bigfoot, who Courage ends up making friends with, and Carmen, a one-eyed sea serpent who kidnapped Muriel, but only because she wanted an audience to show off her beautiful operatic singing voice.
* ReusedCharacterDesign:
** John Dilworth admitted that Katz is a taller male version of Fergurina from ''WesternAnimation/TheDirdyBirdy''.
** The Storm Goddess is identical to the Parachute Lady aside from different hair color, different skin color, and wearing different clothes.
* RhymesOnADime: Fred's narration from his episode rhymes a lot.
* RobotNames: "Mecha Courage" has Di Lung build a robot double of Courage called Mecha Courage.
* RodentsOfUnusualSize: Dr. Zalost's rat, Doc Gerbil, and Mr. Mouse are all larger than regular rodents.
* RoguesGallery: Amongst the threats Courage has squared off against, the recurring ones include Katz, Le Quack, the Chicken from Outer Space (and his son(s)), The Snowman (though he later reforms after Courage helps him), and the film director Benton Tarantella. The evil vet also could be included, considering how much impact he's had on Courage's life.
* RollingPinOfDoom: Muriel's trademark attack against Eustace whenever he abuses Courage is to hit him with a rolling pin.
-->'''Eustace:''' [[RunningGag OWWW!!]] [[CharacterCatchphrase What did I do?]]
* RuleOfFunny: Whether or not it would be funny determines whether Courage can speak or not in each episode.
* RummageFail: Whenever Courage would look through his impossibly large, nonexistent "pockets", he'd normally have to pull out three or more objects until he got what he needed, at which point he'd stuff it all back in.
* RunningGag: There are several jokes that occur in multiple episodes.
** Among other things, Muriel's using vinegar in almost everything she makes.
*** And almost everyone not liking vinegar. This includes liking what she makes and immediately hating it once they find out there's vinegar in it.
** Eustace pulling out his mask to frighten Courage.
** Muriel playing the sitar.
** Eustace complaining about his possessions such as his chair, hat, or truck.
** Muriel asking for or giving tea.
** Di Lung's car suffering severe damage in its every appearance.
** Eustace complaining about Courage sitting at the table.
** "There's something wrong here! Or my name's (something completely random/foreign)...and it's not."
** Whenever Courage runs into a locked door, he usually pulls bone-saws, arc welders, ''heavy artillery'' or whatever in the hopes of opening it. Naturally, it never works.
** Poultry seems to be a recurring theme for villains, with many being chickens, ducks, and geese.
** Whenever someone (usually Courage) gets struck, smashed, or otherwise severely injured, they'll typically give a dazed "''Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa....''" laugh before passing out.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:S]]
* SadistTeacher: Courage's low self esteem spawns a perfectionist teacher who lambastes him for not being perfect in "Perfect".
* SandIsWater: One episode has the titular character forced by Eustace's mother to hunt a sand whale, who is trying to get his accordion back from Eustace's mother. And Courage is forced to row a boat in the sand. Another slight subversion, considering that the ground only worked like water for the sand whale, and [[MagicAIsMagicA not the rowboat]].
* TheSandman: In "The Sandman Sleeps", the Sandman is unable to sleep, so he steals Muriel's magic sand so that he could. Courage has to get it back and discovers that the Sandman has lost his teddy bear, and when he finds it, the Sandman gives the sand back so Muriel could sleep again.
* SanitySlippage: A few episodes with {{Gainax Ending}}s often leave Courage cackling maniacally in reaction as the episode ends.
* SaveTheJerk: In many episodes, Courage saves Eustace from the supernatural goings-on ([[UngratefulBastard not that Eustace ever shows him gratitude for it]]). As shown in "Queen of the Black Puddle", Courage mostly saves Eustace so that Muriel won't fall into a depression, as [[NoAccountingForTaste she loves her husband despite his actions]].
* ScareChord:
** A scare chord accompanied almost every title card.
** Whenever Katz makes an appearance. You can tell a few seconds before he is actually shown by the creepy beat that suddenly starts playing. And it keeps playing. Until it could cause shuddering years later.
* ScaryScarecrows: Subverted in "Night of the Scarecrow". The Bagges find one who isn't scary, much to his chagrin. After he goes overboard with protecting Muriel, they convince him to be a hay ride driver, which he greatly enjoys.
* SceneryPorn: A lot of the shots of the farm house either at night or at sundown are awfully pretty for a CrapsackWorld. The show uses a technique of overlaying photos with animation, so the skies you see are (mostly) pictures, although exaggerated or altered.
* SchmuckBait: Courage's computer enjoys baiting him with false advice that results in him being tarred and feathered, among other things.
* SecondPersonAttack: In "1000 Years of Courage". Courage picks up a banana, attempting to eat it, but it turns out to be a living baby creature. Courage makes a dash for it as its mother hits him over the head twice with her purse.
* SecretIngredient: The secret ingredient in all of Muriel's cooking is vinegar.
* ShoutOut: There are enough references to other works to [[ShoutOut/CourageTheCowardlyDog warrant its own page]].
* ShownTheirWork: In "Muted Muriel", Shirley the Medium summons a giant starfish made of earth that can only be stopped by the sound of Muriel's voice. While the idea of a starfish on land sounds absurd, [[https://youtu.be/Lbg-tQ6FJgQ it has been proven that starfish can indeed move on land exactly as the monster itself is able to]].
* SilenceOfSadness:
** In "Muted Muriel", Muriel gets tired of being ignored by her husband and stops talking altogether. She spends the brunt of the episode staring at the ground with a sad expression on her face while playing a repetitive tune on her sitar.
** In "Remembrance of Courage Past", Courage becomes completely silent and unresponsive after he remembers that a veterinarian sent his parents to space, orphaning him. [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness He doesn't even scream when Eustace tries to startle him with his mask.]] [[OhCrap He snaps out of that silence]], however, when a worried Muriel decides to take him to that same vet.
* SiliconSnarker: Courage's PC is known to make biting remarks about the titular dog, even going so far as to outright call Courage an idiot to his face.
* SkewedPriorities: One episode has Muriel and Eustace being sucked by an evil vortex, so Courage hurries to get a clothesline to tie them safely... But not before folding all the clothing that's hanging there. Muriel as well, as the first thing she asks when he comes back is if he folded the clothes, and calmly commends him when he confirms it.
* SlidingScaleOfComedyAndHorror: [[ZigZaggedTrope zig-Zagged.]] While the show's usually balanced when it comes to dealing with comedic themes and horrific themes, some episodes take the side of comedy or horror.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Closer to idealism. Despite all of the horrors and drama that the Bagge family endure, evil (and [[{{Jerkass}} Eustace]]) gets their comeuppance and Courage [[EarnYourHappyEnding gets a happy ending]].
* SnapBack: Mostly concerning predicaments suffered by Eustace, but occasionally seemingly permanent problems being undone by the next episode happen to Muriel and Courage as well.
** The house often gets major damage or outright destroyed, but it's always back to normal by the following episode unless plot-relevant.
* SnarkyInanimateObject: Courage's computer, which speaks to the dog in a dry English accent.
-->'''Computer''' ([[CharacterCatchphrase frequently throughout the series]], usually to [[ButtMonkey Courage]]): You twit.
* {{Snowlems}}: A living snowman (sounding suspiciously like Creator/SeanConnery) becomes a villain due to GlobalWarming.
* TheSoCalledCoward: Courage The Cowardly Dog is definitely more courage than coward, constantly kicking paranormal ass to protect his owners--[[ActionSurvivor though he screams the whole way]].
* SolarCPR: The plot of "Mission to the Sun" involves the Bagges sent on a covert government mission to fix the sun. It involves [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum replacing the burnt out lightbulb in the core with a new one]].
%% * SpaceWhale: A dangerous predator, in "Last of the Starmakers".
* SpaceWhaleAesop: "Swindling only begets swindling, as selfishness [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext begets banana-heads!]]."
** "The Last of the Starmakers" has a message about government testing endangering creatures that create stars, [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools not that it was a problem]].
* SpeechImpairedAnimal: Courage, though he seems to be able to talk to the viewer, but not to Eustace or Muriel... one exception is when Muriel is de-aged in one episode.
* SpidersAreScary: "A Night at the Katz Motel" features several scary spiders.
** Six which are the pets of Katz.
** One that is released from a box by Katz in an attempt to kill Courage.
** One that tries to bite Muriel while she's in the bathtub.
** A giant collection of spiders in jars located in a room that Courage enters.
** And finally, one that Katz tries to kill Courage with, only for him to be bashed over the head by a tennis racquet from Muriel, dropping the spider in the process.
* StaringContest: Katz and Courage have an [[CookingDuel epic duel to the death]] in the form of a staring contest.
* StarsAreSouls: "Last of the Star Makers"; when the mother Star Maker (Giant space squid) dies, she turns into a huge carpet of stars.
* StatusQuoIsGod: No matter how an episode ends, even with Eustace being killed gruesomely or getting some LaserGuidedKarma, the next episode will have Eustace, Muriel and Courage at home, resuming their usual lives.
* StockAudioClip: Quite a few. See the trope page for details.
* StylisticSuck: The flashbacks in "Remembrance of Courage Past" have choppy animation.
* SuccubiAndIncubi: The Queen of the Black Puddle is cross between a succubus, a siren, and [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos a Deep One]].
* SuddenlySpeaking: The tiger from "Squatting Tiger Hidden Dog" turns out to be able to talk when Courage prepares to let the tiger eat him.
-->'''Tiger:''' Yummy! Beat it, kid.
* SupernaturallyMarkedGrave: In "Last of the Starmakers" when the last adult Starmaker dies. Just after she sees her children float off into the sky, she dies happy and leaves behind a beautiful bed of flowers.
* SuperStrength:
** Eustace is amazingly able to eat just about anything with no problem, despite having no teeth whatsoever -- this includes lobsters still in their shells, raw carrots, candy canes, and other hard/crunchy foodstuff.
** Courage basically gives himself this with a 5-second workout during "The Forbidden Hat of Gold", muscles and everything, just to rip open the door to the dungeon he and Eustace were thrown in, only to promptly "unzip" his muscles like they were a costume immediately afterwards.
* SurrealHorror: Especially with the blue fetus thing in Courage's dream in "Perfect", a perfect example of UncannyValley involving computer animation, and the SynchroVox tree and moon qualify as well.
* SurrealHumor: While most of the comedic moments in the show are normal enough, there are situations meant to be taken funny, but come off as ''so bizarre'' that they still make you laugh while scratching your head. A quiet moment in "Dr. Le Quack, Amnesia Specialist" has Muriel, suffering from amnesia, quietly strumming on a sitar. No context, no warning, yet it comes off as charmingly and ''strangely'' hilarious.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:T]]
* TalkingAnimal: Nearly every animal in this show is capable of speech, with Courage himself being a notable exception.
* TheEnd: Every episode ends with its "The End" card.
* TheatrePhantom: The Great Fusilli, a crocodile who runs a stage that transforms its actors into puppets. Ironically, he falls for his own trap when he mistakes Courage for a Theatre Phantom.
* TongueOnTheFlagpole: Courage's tongue gets stuck to a frozen Muriel in "Snowman's Revenge". This gets worse when the snowman snaps the poor dog's tongue in half to free him.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood:
** Throughout much of the series, Courage loves liver, yet in "Ball of Revenge" it's implied that he hates it, and the series finale shows fried chicken dumplings as being his favorite. This actually may keep in line with continuity, because there is an episode where Muriel tells him that he can no longer have liver (presumably due to what she perceives as nightmares).
** The Bagges seem to really love their pancakes; they have them almost every morning for breakfast.
** While Eustace in general is a BigEater, in Season 3 his favorite food is "chopped meat".
* TreatedWorseThanThePet: Ma Bagge tends to be nicer to Courage the dog than she is to her son Eustace, who is already [[ParentalFavoritism her least favorite son compared to Horst]]. Though she becomes more of a {{Tsundere}} to Courage [[CharacterizationMarchesOn in her later appearances]].
* TroublemakingNewPet: The episode "The Precious, Wonderful, Adorable, Lovable Duckling" has the episode's title character out to torment Courage. Muriel finally realizes that Courage was right about him when the duckling makes an attempt to kill her by tying her to a rocket.
* TwoDVisualsThreeDEffects:
** The carriage from the mattress episode, the anvil from the precious duckling episode, King Ramses, and the rug in the living room are all made in 3D computer animation.
** Most notable in "The Queen of the Black Puddle" where the Black Puddle Queen bumps her head onto the rug when trying to catch Courage and Eustace.
** "Hard Drive Courage" takes it to an extreme by having Courage animated in CGI when he first enters cyberspace- though here, it's justified: he's rendered in computerized graphics [[ShapedLikeItself inside said computer]].
** Also the blue creature that says "You're not perfect" in "Perfect" is animated this way.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:U]]
* UglyGuyHotWife: Clyde the Fog Spirit from "The Fog of Courage" was a very unattractive man in life, but was in love with a beautiful woman named Cariana.
* UncannyFamilyResemblance: Eustace shares his baldness and general facial structure with his mom, and he's practically identical to his father.
* UncannyValley:
** The first nightmare in the episode "Perfect" is a blue CGI monstrosity that has a twisted, deformed body and a barely human face.
** The Harvest Moon in "The House Of Discontent" comes off as unsettling due to being a live-action head that has dark, empty pits for eyes.
** The Magic Tree of Nowhere is yet another case of a character looking disturbingly lifelike due to [[SynchroVox having a live-action mouth]].
** King Ramses in "King Ramses' Curse" comes off as unsettling due to being more detailed and lifelike.
* UngratefulBastard: Eustace - although sometimes Courage even risks his life to save him, he never thanks him and always keeps on bullying him.
* UnnamedParent: Eustace and Courage's fathers both have established first names (they're Ickett and Henry respectively), but not their mothers.
* UnholyMatrimony: The episode "Muriel Meets Her Match" features married partners-in-crime Maria Ladrones and Manuel "Mano" Ladrones" as the villains.
* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Muriel and Eustace often pay no mind to the unusual things that happen. For example, from "The House Of Discontent":
-->'''Eustace:''' Would you look at that?\\
'''Muriel:''' It's a floating head!\\
'''Eustace:''' I was talking about that leaky pipe. (''points to leaky pipe right next to the giant floating head'') Gotta fix that leak.
* UrsineAliens: Featured in "Tulip's Worm" as two of Tulip's pets and by "ursine" we mean they're [[LivingToys living Teddy Bears]], one of whom shoots first and never asks questions.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:V]]
* VillainOpeningScene: "Freaky Fred" begins with focus on Fred.
* VillainTeamUp: "Ball Of Revenge" has Eustace round up Katz, Le Quack, the Weremole, the Clutching Foot, the Puddle Queen, and the Cajun Fox to try and kill Courage.
* VirtualSidekick: Courage's most recurring ally is an artificial intelligence resembling an old PC monitor simply referred to as The Computer, which provides him with information about the supernatural phenomenon that is currently threatening them usually in a very sarcastic and condescending tone.
* TheVoiceless: There are some characters who never speak, such as the Space Chicken.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:W]]
* WeirdnessMagnet: Courage and his family seem incapable of going anywhere or even staying at home without attracting some kind of supernatural weirdness.
* WeirdWeather: "Little Muriel" ends with a sudden tidal wave washing over Nowhere, which is entirely illogical, considering Nowhere is in Kansas, nowhere near any body of water large enough to cause a tidal wave to surge over the entire town. Courage even lampshades this by remark, "[[AsideComment Crazy weather we've been having, huh?]]"
* WentToTheGreatXInTheSky: Used in "Cowboy Courage", where Minnie (represented by Muriel) mentions that the Whip (represented by Eustace) has gone to the big round-up in the sky.
* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: Averted. Nowhere is in Kansas.
* WholePlotReference: One episode is essentially "Theatre/TheNutcracker '''[[RecycledInSPACE in A CITY DUMP!!]]'''"
* WhoWritesThisCrap: Eustace doesn't have a high opinion of the exorcism chant given to him in "The Demon in the Mattress".
-->'''Eustace''': Kick 'em in the dishpan, hoo hoo hoo?
-->'''Courage''': (''shrugs'')
* WhyDontYaJustShootHim: Katz frequently plays this straight with bizarre death-traps that would kill Courage indirectly, although, when the cards are down, he often subverts this by ''attempting to strangle the dog with his bare paws''.
** In "Big Ball of Revenge", the [[TheRuntAtTheEnd littlest toe]] points out how silly this would be, and gets a DopeSlap for his trouble.
* WildTake: Courage's tendency to scream in terror actually saves him in a later episode when [[spoiler:he screams so loudly for so long that he shatters the foundation of his house, sending a [[VillainTeamUp team of series villains]] plunging into a bottomless pit]].
** And {{subverted|Trope}} in "Night of the Weremole", where Courage starts screaming before [[HollywoodHeartAttack clutching his chest with a small whimper and falling over]], cue AmbulanceCut.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Snowman. True many of his plans would cause a lot of death and destruction, but it's all entirely motivated into saving his species.
* WrongGenreSavvy: Often Muriel when she's kidnapped.
--> "If it's the secret recipe to my _______ you're wanting, I won't say anything."
** Of course, it's never about the recipe - except for that one occasion where it finally was. And, spoilers, the secret ingredient is always [[spoiler:vinegar.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Y]]
* {{Yandere}}: There's a reason that even Muriel thinks that "perhaps that Adorable, Precious, Lovable, Wonderful Duckling isn't so good after all..."
** Also, "Mad Dog" from "The Mask" isn't happy about Bunny spending time with Kitty.
* YouFool: The catchphrase of Di Lung.
-->'''Di Lung''': Watch where you going, you fool!
* YourCostumeNeedsWork: Eustace accuses Ramses of wearing a cheap dinosaur costume.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Z]]
* ZorroMark: One episode tells the story of the cast's [[IdenticalGrandson Identical Ancestors]] in the Old West. Eustace's ancestor was a bandit named The Whip who was quite proficient with his weapon, even leaving a {{Franchise/Zorro}}-style "W" on the clothing of his victims.
[[/folder]]
----