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[[folder: King Ramses' Curse ]]


'''Original air date:''' 1/7/2000 ''(produced in 1999)''

'''Production code:''' CCD-105a

Courage discovers a slab of Egyptian stone, which turns out to be an ancient relic worth a million dollars. Due to its value, Eustace refuses to return the slab without payment, and its rightful owner ravages the family with a trio of plagues as punishment.

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[[folder: The Clutching Foot ]]


'''Original air date:''' 1/7/2000 ''(produced in 1999)''

'''Production code:''' CCD-105b

Eustace wakes up with a fungal infection on his foot. Refusing to visit the doctor, the fungus consumes Eustace and takes Muriel hostage. While Courage is forced to carry out their footwork, he races to find a cure.
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!!"King Ramses' Curse" features examples of the following tropes:

* TwoDVisualsThreeDEffects: As one of the show's first uses of MediumBlending, King Ramses is made with CGI.
* AndIMustScream: The ending has Eustace, due to his refusal to return the slab, be turned ''into'' a part of the slab. He's still screaming even after the slab's been returned to the pyramid where it belongs, and where it is said that it will remain for all time. Thankfully, NegativeContinuity means that he's somehow been freed in the next episode.
* AssholeVictim: King Ramses's artifact is stolen from a museum by two criminals. They don't get very far, as Ramses appears and goes straight to the locusts after they refuse to return it.
* BrownNote: King Ramses's second curse is annoying the Bagges with a record player playing a song about him. Out of universe it's actually considered hilarious, but in universe it's horrifying enough to be considered worse than the water plague.
* BullyingADragon: Despite all the curses King Ramses throws at them, including a flood and a really annoying song, Eustace stubbornly refuses to give up the slab without a reward. Even when they make it through all three curses, Eustace still refuses to give in and ends up imprisoned in the slab himself. Muriel even calls him out for this.
-->'''Muriel:''' Eustace, what are ya waiting for? 'Till we're six feet under?!
* CatharticChores: With the house being eaten by killer locusts and presumably having only minutes left to live, Muriel vents her stress by cooking a sumptuous feast. She faints with relief when Ramses calls off the plague just in time.
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: When Courage finds King Ramses's slab and brings it inside, Eustace describes it thus:
-->'''Eustace:''' Garbage! From King Garbage! Of the Garbage Dynasty! Stupid dog, always bringing garbage into the house.
* DevouredByTheHorde: The third plague is a swarm of locusts that is implied to do this to the thieves who initially stole the slab in the first place, as it descends down on them before the scene cuts away, and when it cuts back to them, they're completely gone, car and all. The same is implied to happen to Eustace in the end, as after he taunts Ramses for running out of plagues after he survives all three, the latter simply summons ''another'' swarm.
* DiscoSucks: Ramses's second plague is a {{disco}} song about him that's so annoying that it inflicts agonizing pain on everyone who listens to it. The fact that this is the ''second'' plague also indicates that, in universe, an obnoxious disco song is considered worse than a flood.
* DrowningPit: The first plague Ramses sends turns the entire house into one by making water appear out of nowhere, forcing the residents up to the attic. To prevent himself and his owners from drowning, Courage holds his breath, swims through the flooded house down to the basement, and pulls a large drain plug in the floor to drain the water.
* FauxHorrific: The second plague is... gratingly catchy disco music. The entire cast [[AnythingButThat treats it as the worst of tortures]].
* FlatEarthAtheist: Despite all of the supernatural experiences that he has presumably already been subjected to (based on previous episodes), and how obviously otherworldly King Ramses appears even in terms of the discordant animation style, Eustace believes that it is just the professor pulling a ScoobyDooHoax to make him give up the slab that he refused to return earlier.
* {{Irony}}: King Ramses delivers a series of plagues to Courage, Eustace, and Muriel in response to Eustace's refusal to return his Slab. Ramses is often depicted as the Pharaoh from the ''Literature/BookOfExodus'', who prompts God to strike Egypt with plagues for refusing to free the Hebrew slaves despite Moses constantly warning him to do so. While the Pharaoh of ''Exodus'' is never named and was not likely to be Ramses, popular culture nonetheless makes him the one whose pride and arrogance make him a victim of plagues, while ''here'', it is ''Ramses'' who gets to deliver plagues to punish Eustace for being a brat.
* KnowWhenToFoldEm: Subverted. Eustace surrenders Ramses's slab when he realizes that he's about to die if he doesn't, but then immediately tries to lay claim on it again when he thinks that the threat has passed. Ramses gives him an [[AndIMustScream even worse fate]] than being DevouredByTheHorde for his continued arrogance.
* LaserGuidedKarma: Eustace gets his comeuppance for his callous greed as he gets imprisoned in the slab in place of Ramses, as punishment.
* LoudOfWar: One of the plagues Ramses unleashes on Courage and his owners is obnoxious disco music ("King Raaamses! The man in gauze, the man in gauze!").
* MoodWhiplash: This episode is generally regarded as one of the scariest ones around, with a priceless jingle in the middle -- "The man in gauze, the man in gauze, King Ramses!" -- and the man himself saying "Come onnnnnn" in the same aged, moaning tone as ever when Courage thwarts the first curse by pulling a plug in the basement.
* MundaneLuxury: When celebrating that the slab will make him rich, Eustace plans to buy such extravagances as a flyswatter, a shovel handle, and a lightbulb for the attic.
* ShoutOut: King Ramses's flat design was based on ''VideoGame/ParappaTheRapper''.
* SuckinessIsPainful: The second curse is just blasting annoying house music.
* SuperNotDrowningSkills: It takes about 25 seconds for Courage to swim from the attic to the basement on a single breath. Since he's a small dog with tiny legs, it's impressive that he can hold his breath that long, let alone swim that distance during that time. And that's assuming that this was shown in RealTime and nothing was skipped over or trimmed out, meaning that this all could have taken longer than what was shown.

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!!"The Clutching Foot" features examples of the following tropes:

* AgonyOfTheFeet: Muriel and Courage attempt numerous remedies to cure Eustace's foot fungus, much to his pain. These include rubbing a cactus on the foot, sticking it in a pail of lobsters, and using some unidentifiable horrid concoction that only causes severe burns.
* BananaPeel: The fungus plans to rob a train that Courage stopped, but it slips on the peel from the banana Courage was eating and ends up derailing and [[StuffBlowingUp blowing up the train]].
* BodyHorror: Eustace's foot gets a fungus that swells his foot so much that it takes over his whole body and starts a mobster crime spree.
* EverythingSensor: The Computer has Courage put a sample of the Clutching Foot in its CD-ROM drive to analyze it.
* GiantFootOfStomping: The foot, who actually has enough self-heavy lifting to stomp Muriel, taking her hostage for the remainder of the episode.
* GrossUpCloseUp: Eustace's infected foot has a couple of unflattering close-ups before the fungus fully takes over. Also, we probably didn't need to see a zoom in of his toothless gums as he's screaming during the "cactus treatment".
* HereWeGoAgain: After Courage cures the fungus by vigourously licking Eustace's foot, the episode ends with him finding out that it has moved to his tongue instead.
* WoundLicking: More like Fungus Licking. After analyzing a sample of the fungus taken from Eustace's foot, the Computer deduces that ''dog spit'' will get rid of the fungus. Much to Courage's disgust, he reluctantly licks the fungus everywhere, which actually cures Eustace's foot as it begins to shrink back to its regular form.
-->'''Computer:''' Work up a good drool, baby.
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-->'''''"Return the slab..."'''''[[note]]''[[BrickJoke "What's your offer?"]]''[[/note]]

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