"Courage" isn't a lack of fear. Courage is facing your fears despite being scared.
In the episode "Courageous Cure" Eustace and Muriel are abducted by multi-armed aliens so they can get a cure for a strange disease that causes them to punch themselves. By the end of the episode, it turns out that Courage's DNA was the one with the cure. This was because the disease causes people to punch themselves and 4 legged animals such as dogs do not have arms.
Courage jumping to the conclusion that Kitty is evil and being horrified when she takes off her mask for the first time in "The Mask" makes a lot more sense when you remember the only other humanoid cat he knows is Katz, who Kitty even somewhat resembles with the same fur color. The theme of the episode deals a lot with Kitty's belief all dogs are evil because the only ones she knows are evil as well. Courage's assumptions of Kitty's true nature are partially blurred by his own encounters with Katz in the same way that Kitty's are by her history with Mad Dog and his gang. In the end, Kitty learns that Courage wasn't evil to begin with.
It also explains why Courage still believed Kitty to be a monster and imagines her attacking Muriel (and Eustace), he still thinks Kitty will attack him and possibly his family because of her vendetta against dogs. He believes getting Bunny back to her will truly calm her down and leave her alone, but he never thinks about any harm towards her, he just wants her to leave him alone.
Other than that, Kitty spend most of the first half of the episode beating Courage, when all he was doing was minding his own business. His scream reaction to her identity was a TWO PARTER, if that needs any more indication.
Sadly, this situation can similar to the perpetuation of a cycle of abuse: Kitty, in turn, has internalized Mad Dog's dastardly ways and Courage seemed to be headed in that direction. The difference was that Courage broke from the cycle of mistreatment did the right thing and chose to help Kitty reunite with Bunny.
Courage helping Bunny escape her abusive partner, Mad Dog, can be him relating with her and Kitty. Courage knows all too well how it feels to have a loved one cruelly ripped away from him and there was nothing he could do to stop them.
While everyone knows Eustace refers to Courage as "Stupid Dog!" (except for two exceptions), Courage himself never calls Eustace by name and only refers to him as "The Farmer." Coincidence?
As noted elsewhere, "Ball of Revenge" has Eustace complaining about Muriel giving Courage a newly-made blanket—his argument underscores the fact that he resents Courage because he's Muriel's favorite, as he said in "The Tower of Dr. Zalost".
In the episode "Perfect", the fish in the bathtub gives Courage a pep talk by telling him, "There's no such thing as Perfect. You're beautiful just the way you are." When Courage accepts this, the perfection obsessed schoolmarm ceases to exist because there's no such thing as perfect!
In a way it makes sense for Di Lung to show up laughing at Courage when the schoolmarm decides to show him a better student. A common theme in nightmares is one's enemies popping up out of the blue to cause them misery somehow. And if it were the likes of Le Quack or Katz it would've been too obvious that Courage was hallucinating.
Why does Katz play games with his victims before killing them? Cats are notorious for playing with their prey to extend the thrill of the hunt.
In the debut of the character "Shirley the Medium," toward the episode's end Eustace learns a lesson in compassion after hallucinating a reflection of his upset younger self in a mirror crying for a hat to shade his head from the sun and being moved to actually sacrifice his trademark hat to the vision. There's spectacular symbolism in that scene...you have to learn to see yourself in the less fortunate.
Why is Courage so determined to protect Eustace and Muriel? Because the last time, he was unable to protect the ones he loved he lost them forever, so he wants to ensure it never happens again.
In "Courage and the Mummy", how exactly did Muriel learn that cookie recipe she never knew before? Perhaps, in his former life, the mummy chef meant to teach the Mayan princess (Muriel's past life) the recipe for the cookies. But before he could teach her, the advisor (Eustace's past life) framed the chef. And the rest was history. By reenacting the scenario and fixing it, Courage virtually Set Right What Once Went Wrong, allowing the mummified chef to teach Muriel's past life the trade.
Speaking of mummies (in this case, the ancient Egyptian kind), this show is one of the few pieces of media to accurately depict King Ramses with red hair! (Assuming that the Ramses in this episode is Ramses II the Great, the most famous pharaoh of that name.)
It's unknown if this was intentional or just a funny coincidence, but remember the name of barber Freaky Fred's ex-girlfriend? Barbara!
Muriel putting vinegar in all her cooking and insisting that it always does the trick seems like just a running gag, but adding acid to dishes can enhance or balance out flavors when used right, making them more delicious. So her best cooking uses just the right amount of vinegar.
This overlaps with Fridge Horror a little bit. Fusilli's fear of ghosts may seemkind of random, until you remember that Fusilli is essentially a serial killer. When he sees Courage covered in powder, Fusilli probably thinks one of his victims has come back for revenge!
Why did King Ramses give Eustace three chances to return the slab, but only one to the thieves who stole the aforementioned slab? Maybe that's because the thieves went out of their way to steal it, while Eustace kept it after finding it.
Why would one of the bad guys be, of all things, a fish missionary (The Fishionary)? Simple, fish and the most famous missionary faith to many, Christianity, have a bit of a history. As to why said missionary's also a hypocrite...insert your own jokes here.
When you take into account the way everyone in Eustace's family treated him throughout his life, it makes perfect sense why he would marry someone like Muriel. As for why Muriel remains faithful to Eustace despite the way he treats her sometimes? Muriel is well aware of what kind of people Eustace's family are (notably, not even Muriel likes Ma Bagge), and she's also capable of standing up for herself if Eustace goes too far.
Courage's first flashback in "Remembrance of Courage Past" shows that his parents simply called him "Baby." Why? Because Courage's parents knew that Courage would be given a new name once he was adopted by a human family. Sure enough, what's the first thing Muriel does after adopting Courage? She names him.
The Bagges are not always the first victims to fall into the enemies traps. Katz seems to provoke this the most which is evident with the bones littered all over the hotel in "A Night At the Katz Motel", the broken machines in "Klub Katz", and questionably the candies in "Katz Kandy". There are also other villains who have shown past victims as well, such as the skulls from "The Queen Of the Black Puddle", the puppets from "The Great Fusilli", the banana peel skins from "1000 Years Of Courage", and most infamously, the monster, bones, shackles, and "help" message from "Courage In the Big Stinkin' City".
Just what did Mad Dog do that made Kitty such a depressed wreck?
Aside from keeping her best friend a prisoner? ... Possibly a lot, actually.
When you consider part of the episode was an allusion to prostitution... the mind can fill in the blanks in the backstories.
Also, burying Bunny in a flowerpot doesn't seem too bad...until you realize that it's more than likely a metaphor that Bunny was gang-raped.
It's a (fairly) realistic portrayal of an abusive relationship. Those don't exactly leave a smile on people's faces.
As Kitty tells her story to Muriel and Eustace, she flat-out states that Mad Dog threatened her life when he found out Kitty was trying to help Bunny get away. Later, Mad Dog himself threatens Bunny that if he even smells Kitty, he'll "bury the two of them." Yeah...
Vastabael Backjurius's plan to stop the Bagges from fixing the sun is outright Monstrous if you have knowledge of life on Earth's dependence on the sun.
That and the rest of the solar system as well, considering that aliens exist in this show...
Although the very ending of "Remembrance of Courage Past" was Played for Laughs, we now know that Courage's parents are still alive. This is of course a good thing until you realize that they have no idea what happened to Courage or that he was adopted by a kind woman. For all they know, he starved to death after being left in the garbage by himself as an infant. Now, imagine being forcibly taken from your infant child and spending the rest of your life not knowing what became of him. That's extremely depressing.
This also applies from Courage's perspective. As far as he knows, his parents perished as soon as they were forced into space.
Actually, it's very likely both side have hope the other one survived. Courage saw his parents being sent to space, so he probably didn't assume they died and his parents probably hoped courage will be found by someone kind. On the other hand, if this is the case then they are terrified because they do not know what happened.
Plus, whether well-deserved or not, its implied that, upon Evil Veterinarian's landing on the unknown planet and being greeted by all the dogs he'd exiled there, they savagely tore him apart and killed him.
Humans live much longer than dogs. What's going to happen to Eustace and Muriel when Courage dies?
Then again, considering how old Eustace and Muriel are, it could easily be the other way around.
Considering that Courage is an anthropomorphic cartoon dog, it wouldn't be surprising if he could live longer than a real dog is supposed to.
The ending of "The Great Fusilli", has Courage playing with puppets of his owners. The scene is a little funny at first...until you realize that he's basically playing with their dead bodies. It gets more and more disturbing the more you think about it. Maybe his insanity is the result of all the paranormal catastrophes always causing him. No wonder he snapped!
Made worse by the fact that earlier on in the episode, Courage found Fusilli's storage containing puppets hanging from the ceiling. Those puppets? They are hanging corpses, gathered from all his previous performances.
Benton Tarantella's character page describes him as "An evil zombie director who puts his "actors" in a position where they'll listen to everything he says where they can be Killed Off for Real on camera"...So, Benton has the honor of being the very first children's cartoon villain to make Snuff Films
As the show went on, Courage talked less and less and his speech was often just gibberish. We also see Courage take plenty of hits to the head during the series. Could it be in those later episodes that Courage is suffering from brain damage that has inhibited his ability to talk?
Probably not, rather, I think he only talks clearly in his Internal Monologue(s) or to the audience is because it's from his view, in which case, when he's talking to other characters, what he says come out as gibberish. In terms of why he talks less and less, maybe it's because his pantomime either told more or, rather, were more amusing to the audience.
In "Hard Drive Courage", though the exact time isn't shown, when the Computer gets infected by the virus, it's clearly daytime, judging by the sky outside the window. By the time Courage finds Muriel getting sucked inside the hard drive, it's night. We know that the Computer is at least sentient enough to talk and quip at Courage frequently, and as far as we've seen, the virus was strong(or stayed long) enough that literally smoke and sparks were coming out from the poor machine. Imagine yourself being fully conscious but unable to move or call for help, while a horrible parasite ruins you from the inside out forhours.
Near the end of "The Hunchback of Nowhere," Eustace confronts Courage and the hunchback as they're performing a concert for Muriel on the barn's roof during a rainstorm. As per usual, Eustace scares Courage, causing the dog to stumble while dangerously close to the roof's edge. In other words, Eustace nearly caused Courage to fall off the roof of a building...right in front of Muriel. Thankfully, Courage catches himself and Eustace gets some Laser-Guided Karma in return, but still, it's a scary thought...
We all know the Black Puddle Queen charms men in order to get them inside her castle and devour them. After her puddle appeared near the Bagges' home, she was able to appear in water sources such as the bathtub and tea. The atmosphere contains water, maybe this is how she moves from one place to another and maybe she is able to appear from thin air. If that wasn't scary enough, 60 percent of the human body is water. Some Body Horror might've happened in the past, with the queen getting inside humans or even turning the victims into herself.
was a TWO PARTER, if that needs any more indication.