Sandbox / Courage The Cowardly Dog Eustace Bagge

"Stupid dog!"

Voiced by: Howard Hoffman (pilot), Lionel Wilson (episodes 1-33), Arthur Anderson (episodes 34-52), Jeff Bergman (CN 20th Anniversary bumper, Straight Outta Nowhere), Wallace Shawn ("The Fog of Courage")

A cranky old farmer who hasn't a modicum of kindness in the slightest. He thinks he can fix anything and grow anything, but this is never the case. He also has an insatiable greed for money. Later in the series we learn that he didn't have the best childhood, growing up with an uncaring mother and a selfish older brother, and his abusive home life is implied to be the reason behind his unpleasant attitude.

Click here for Eustace's self-demonstrating page.

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Tropes A-M

• Abusive Parents: His mother's treatment of him echoes his own treatment of Courage. And considering how Muriel acts as a mother figure to Courage, Eustace is kind of like a horribly abusive father figure.
• Accidental Hero: He manages to single-handedly defeat Katz's Mutant Jam by complete accident using his Ooga Booga Mask.
• Aesop Amnesia: In "The Curse of Shirley", he learns empathy and compassion... for half a minute. If anything, he's worse than ever afterwards.
• All Abusers Are Male: He often treats Muriel and Courage as servants rather than his actual family members.
• Anti-Role Model: He's greedy, mean, cruel toward his dog, bossy toward his wife ("Where's my dinner?"), and generally unpleasant. In short, a perfect example of a character who children shouldn’t grow up to be or whose actions children should not be imitating.
• Anti-Villain: He tends to have a Freudian Excuse for his behavior, and deep down loves his wife, although he rarely demonstrates this.
• Arc Villain: In "Ball of Revenge", with Katz, the Queen of the Black Puddle, the Clutching Foot, and the Weremole as his accomplices. Also a Non-Action Big Bad since while the rest of his villain band is attempting to kill Courage, he just watches from the sidelines. Once all is said and done, this of course earns him some Laser-Guided Karma in the form of Muriel's rolling pin to his head. One could say he might have gotten off easy, though it should be noted that he was only watching from the sidelines and not actively trying to harm Courage.
• Asshole Victim: Eustace will usually end up having something bad happening to him, often by getting transformed, trapped or imprisoned, seriously injured or killed, or just being unlucky enough to have his plans fail. He deserves most of it because of how rotten he is to literally everyone.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: He's very abusive towards Courage, and in some cases, he has captured animals to get a big cash reward without caring about them.
• Bald of Evil: He's very embarrassed about his hair loss. And it isn't because of old age, it seems to have been a problem since childhood.
• Baldness Angst: To a point where just flat-out saying that he's bald will cause him to go on a rage-inducing breakdown. He's so self-conscious about this that he loses to the exact same comeback three times in a row.
  Eustace: You know how you spell "ugly"? U....u, u, u, u, u, u!
  Hunchback: And you sir are extremely...bald.
  Eustace: (Incoherent angrish) Oh, yeah? Well, you look like something the cow spit up!
  Hunchback: You sir are extremely bald.
  Eustace: (More incoherent angrish, head starts to cook) And the only thing uglier than this (Pulls out a mirror) ...Is this! (Pulls out a second mirror) Hehehehehehe!
  Hunchback: Are you bald? (Beat) Yes.
  Eustace: Grrrrrm!
• Berserk Button:
  • Cheating him out of money, and messing with his hat, chair, or truck, are the most effective ways to enrage him.
  • Courage's mere existence seems to be one for him. Probably when it comes to getting Muriel's affections. He especially doesn't like it whenever Courage is allowed to sit at the table for meals.
  • His mom.
  • Being called bald.
• Big Eater: He constantly demands that Muriel cook for him, and his hunger saved Courage and Muriel from Katz once.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: Eustace is the Thin one of the three protagonists, compared to Muriel's Big and Courage's Short.
• Blah, Blah, Blah: One of his catchphrases. He says this when something doesn't interest him.
• Blaming the Tools: When the Spirit of The Harvest Moon criticized Eustace, for his inability to grow anything, he gives the excuse of "bad soil," rather than admit he's a lousy farmer.
• Blind Without 'Em: Like Muriel, he can't see well without his glasses. He once got dragged halfway across the world without even knowing it.
• The Bully: He often picks on Courage.
• Bullying a Dragon: Occasionally, Eustace seems to take glee in taunting monsters and supernatural beings that are proven to be much more powerful than him. A special mention goes to Eustace back-sassing the Spirit of the Harvest Moon in "The House of Discontent".
  Eustace: 'Least I got arms and legs! You don't even have a neck! Hahaha!
  Spirit of the Harvest Moon: Get out of my face.
  Eustace: Make me!
• Butt-Monkey: The main one, besides Courage. He has really bad luck due to being karma's punching bag.
• Captain Oblivious: Just like Muriel, he's always fooled by the bad guys no matter how bizarre or obvious their disguises, even if said villain has menaced them before.
• Character Catchphrase: Lots of them.
  • "AAAAAAAAHHH!"
  • "Stupid dog!"
  • "Stupid [object/person/location of Eustace's ire]!"
  • [Pulls out mask to scare Courage] "OOGA BOOGA BOOGA!"
  • [After Muriel hits him with a rolling pin] "OW! What did I do?!"
  • "Oh, Wicket!"
  • "Big deal!"
  • "What's your offer?"
  • "Who the heck are you?"
  • "We don't want any!"
  • "No solicitors!"
  • "Blah, Blah, Blah!"
  • "Muriel! Where's my dinner?!"
  • "What's — huh?!"
  • "That's it, I'm gettin' me mallet!"
  • "I'm a farmer! FARMER FARMER FARMER!"
  • "Not getting out of this chair."
  • [When Courage pesters him] "Get away from me!"
• The Chew Toy: Many episodes end with Eustace suffering some horrible fate, such as Demonic Possession or getting Eaten Alive. Of course, since Status Quo Is God, he's shown to be alive and perfectly okay by the next episode.
• Comedic Sociopathy: He might be one of the most unpleasant protagonists to walk in animation, but it doesn’t stop him from having loads of hilarious banter with his family, bystanders and even villains. Inversely, he’s also on the receiving end of some of the harsher slapstick the show has going.
• Cool Mask: His impressive-looking Ooga Booga mask that he uses to scare Courage and a Monster of the Week in one episode.
• Deadpan Snarker: Often makes remarks in an obnoxious (and usually angry) way with all his "Big deal!" and "Blah Blah Blah!"
• Depending on the Writer: How much of an Jerkass Eustace is very much depends in the episode. Sometimes he'll be a relatively harmless Grumpy Old Man or more rarely a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who genuinely cares about Muriel. Other times he'll be an out-right villain exploiting or otherwise harming innocents for his own ends and who will happily leave Muriel and Courage to die to save his own skin.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: He never holds back on his insults, even in the face of powerful monsters. Not surprisingly, this usually won't end well. For example in "King Ramses' Curse", he repeatedly refuses to return Pharaoh Ramses' tomb slab. After Ramses casts the three curses, Eustace thinks he's got a chance at keeping the slab. Ramses pulls one last curse up his sleeve: he turns Eustace into an engraving on his coffin.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: He, of all people, scares Katz's Mutant Jam shitless using his Ooga Booga mask, basically taking care of the episode's Monster of the Week. He also manages to fight Katz to a standstill, despite being a frail old man.
• Dirty Coward: He will sometimes leave Courage and/or Muriel to their fate to save his own skin. In fact, in "The Shadow of Courage", at the end of the episode, the titular Shadow declared Eustace to be an even bigger coward than Courage himself.
• Distressed Dude: He often gets caught in dangerous situations along with his wife.
• The Ditz: Shirley the Medium refers to Eustace exclusively as "the stupid one," and for good reason. He's shortsighted, has a stunning lack of common sense, and overall seems oblivious to the world around him even more so than Muriel. When going on a game show in "Farmer Hunter, Farmer Hunted," he proves to be so dim that he can't even answer questions that a child would have no trouble with.
  [when shown a globe and asked what it is] "It's a bowling ball covered with throw-up!"
• Does Not Like Spam: Despite being a Big Eater even he can't stand eggplants and carrots, and to a lesser extent, cold cuts.
• Dysfunctional Family: He was emotionally abused by his mother and brother. It's unknown what role his father played though, as he's only mentioned and not even seen in flashbacks. Regardless it's no wonder why Eustace is such a horrible person.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Despite that love not really being returned. At the end of "Mother's Day", it's implied they have a love/hate relationship.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He's a cruel old man who hates pretty much everyone. However, Muriel and his mother are the closest thing he has to loved ones, as he has genuine Pet the Dog moments with them. He also keeps a picture of his late father under his hat (literally), as seen in "The Sand Whale Strikes", implying he also cared about him. Although, if he cares or not about Muriel varies Depending on the Writer.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Almost everyone except Muriel and his mother just calls him "the Farmer" (including Courage himself). In fact, Eustace is the only one of the trio who never had an episode named after him, and the ones that do focus on him refer to him as "Farmer" (ex: "Farmer Hunter, Farmer Hunted", "Aqua Farmer") and a few online sources here and there even refer to him as such.
• Everyone Has Standards: He's a grouchy, grumpy, mean old git, but even he believes no little boy should be without a hat on a boiling hot summer's day.
• Evil Old Folks: Usually, he's more of a grumpy, crabby Jerkass than actually evil, but he definitely fits the bill in "Ball of Revenge", orchestrating a Villain Team-Up to kill Courage.
• Eyes Out of Sight: Just like his wife, Eustace never has his eyes revealed behind his glasses, even keeping them on while sleeping. One episode has him losing his glasses, and also like Muriel, his eyes are shut tightly.
• Fatal Flaw: His arrogance and greed often blind him to the peril he stumbles into, leading him to ignore Courage's warning and inevitably suffer a terrible fate.
• Fearless Fool: In many situations, he's completely uncaring of the danger and reacts to all the creepy monsters in front of him as they were normal people, acting annoyed and rude to them, even if they are threatening his life. For example, he wasn't scared at all of King Ramses, the absolutely horrifying mummy who told him "Return the slab or suffer my curse!". His only reaction was "What's your offer?" in an angry tone, as King Ramses was just some guy in front of him.
• Flanderization: He was just grumpy and selfish in the earlier episodes, but became a Psychopathic Manchild as the series progressed.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He has a low-down and greedy personality, so his glasses do well even as Sinister Shades since his eyes are rarely seen.
• Freudian Excuse: His mother is much worse than he is, and his brother was The Ace and rubbed it in Eustace's face his entire life. The end of "The Curse Of Shirley" has his 'true self' shown to him by a mirror. What was it? A sad little boy. He also knows his baldness is due to his mother being bald. No wonder he's so screwed up.
• Genre Blind: Eustace can be very stupidly stubborn in the face of danger.
• Get-Rich-Quick Scheme: Tries schemes in getting a lot of money many times, never works out for him.
• Gonk: Compared to his wife Muriel, Eustace himself has displayed ugliness not only internally, but also externally, thanks in part to his visibly large chin.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: He seems to have a rather large scar on the right side of his stomach, indicating that he had a major surgery at some point in his life.
• Greed: Many episodes have him obtaining (only to lose it later), wanting, or basically bathing in money he found.
• Green and Mean: He normally wears green overalls, and is one of the nastiest citizens living in the town of Nowhere.
• Grumpy Old Man: Should be really obvious at this point that he's a crotchety old man with a bad attitude, considering what he does for most of the series.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He gets angry rather easily, especially when he's around Courage. In one episode, an experimental hair growth serum gives him the ability to make things explode whenever he's mad (and it ends with Eustace himself literally exploding).
• Hate Sink: Zig-zagged. Eustace is a Grumpy Old Man and a greedy bastard who is nothing but nasty towards Courage and puts his pride and love of money above all else. This makes the fate he suffers at the end of many episodes very satisfying to watch. However, unlike the usual Hate Sink, he wasn't written only to be hated by the audience. The creator John Dilworth said that he gave Eustace a Freudian Excuse to make him more human and understandable.
• Heavy Sleeper: In "Profile In Courage", Courage repeatedly tries to wake him up, even throwing a Cartoon Bomb at him. Eustace sleeps through all this.
• Hey, You!:
  • He almost never calls Courage by name, instead calling him "stupid dog" or just "dog". He refers to Courage by his real name only a few times, the first in "The Hunchback of Nowhere", the second in "Ball of Revenge", and the third in the Cartoon Network 20th Anniversary Party bumper.
  • Hilariously enough, Eustace seems to get this treatment from the show itself, as while all episodes centered around Muriel are titled after her ("Invisible Muriel", "Muriel Blows Up"), the Eustace-centric episodes only address him as "farmer" ("Farmer Hunter, Farmer Hunted", "Aqua Farmer").
• Hidden Heart of Gold: While physically and verbally abusive to Courage and neglectful to Muriel, he does have some care for them (or at least Muriel, while he simply tolerates Courage since Muriel is so attached to him) and doesn't throw them out of the house.
• Hypocrite: He calls Courage a "stupid dog" when he himself gets injured, maimed, transformed, and otherwise killed for being Too Dumb to Live. In addition, he criticizes Courage for not doing anything right when Eustace himself can't cook, can't grow anything in his farm, and can't fix anything, not to mention that he's completely useless during whatever ordeal the Bagges come across. In short, Eustace is exactly everything he calls Courage out for being, with the only difference being that he's a much bigger coward than Courage, which at one point was even lampshaded by the Shadow in "The Shadow of Courage".
• Iconic Item: The green mask he uses to scare Courage in the intro, always accompanied with "OOGA BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!"
• It's All About Me: Aside from a couple of Pet the Dog moments, he usually never cares about anything other than himself.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Between his ball-busting mother, his damn near perfect Big Brother Bully, and his Disappeared Dad, Eustace is starved to death for affection. It really puts his apparent jealousy of Courage in perspective.
• Insufferable Imbecile: In addition to being one of the biggest Jerkasses in the show, Eustace is also pretty stupid as evident via explanation in The Ditz up above, especially whenever he ignores any type of warning to not do anything that would put him in danger by doing it anyway, which even earned him the nickname "The Stupid One" by Shirley.
• Iron Butt Monkey: He's survived, or healed from, all manner of ridiculously painful and deadly injuries on a regular basis. Inversely to Muriel and Courage, however, who can take plenty of abuse and get back up to keep going, Eustace is often taken out by one large blow that deals him a bad fate for the episode.
• Ironic Name: His own name means "fruitful", yet he's barely shown doing any farm work throughout the show, despite being labelled as a "farmer" (which is best displayed in the episode "The House of Discontent", where it tackles his rather limited farming experience).
• Jerkass: He hates Courage more than anything, is fairly neglectful to Muriel, and has no patience for anyone or anything whatsoever. The episode "Curtain of Cruelty" even had him labeled "the meanest creep in Nowhere."
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Eustace once told Muriel that Dr. Vindalooo doesn't know what he's doing. He's not wrong.
  • At the start of "Dr. Le Quack, Amnesia Specialist", as he is fixing the roof of the house, Muriel intervenes and orders him to stop the noise, lest he wake up the neighbors. Eustace then reminds her that they don't have any neighbors since they're in the middle of Nowhere.
  • He considers Fred to be a freak. Given what Fred does to Courage, and what we learn about his past, it's honestly hard to argue he's wrong about that.
  • In Family Business, Eustace wasn't wrong saying Basil deserves to rot in prison.
  • In one of the bumpers, Eustace calls the automotive repairmen highway robbers. Given they lie about how long it took to fix the truck, he isn't wrong.
• Jerkass to One: Eustace is an all-around asshole to everyone, but he's especially an asshole to Courage, constantly insulting him, scaring him, and even physically abusing him to a degree.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he rarely shows it, Eustace's Pet the Dog moments and his Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other moments with Muriel show that there actually is some amount of heart buried beneath that crotchety greedy exterior.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Most of the time. In "Curtain of Cruelty", he was hit by an energy wave that can turn people nice, but he was unaffected by it.
• Karmic Butt-Monkey: This sicko hates Courage for no reason, to the point where he actually takes joy in Courage’s misery. So it’s safe to say that any misery he suffers at the hands of the bad guys is cosmic punishment.
• Kick the Dog: Literally; he takes whatever opportunity he can to torment Courage or even physically harm him. At least some of it stems from jealousy since Muriel tends to pay more attention to Courage than to him, but he also does so just for laughs or to get Courage to leave him alone especially when Courage tries to warn him about impending danger.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: He thinks he knows everything and can fix anything, but this is never the case, in fact, he knows less than most other people. In "Farmer Hunter, Farmer Hunted", when he sees a globe of the Earth, he thinks it's "a bowling ball covered with throw up".
• Lack of Empathy: He doesn't really have much empathy toward most people, especially Courage.
• Lantern Jaw of Justice: Inverted; he has a rather impressive jawline, but he's lazy, feeble, and a total Jerkass.
• Laser-Guided Karma: He gets struck by this almost every episode... Eustace is literally karma's punching bag. Ironically subverted in at least one episode: he suffers a horrible fate where he didn't deserve it ("The Demon In the Mattress").
• Laughably Evil: He has his funny moments, also thanks to his Butt-Monkey status.
• Lazy Bum: He's very much often seen just sitting on his own red chair, barely doing any of the housework for the Bagge family's residence.
• Lazy Husband: Does little more than read the newspaper, watch TV, and demand his dinner.
• Lean and Mean: He's skinny and very mean, in contrast to his wife who is an overweight but sweet Cool Old Lady.
• Leitmotif: A jaunty fiddle tune. It gets a Dark Reprise in his more antagonistic (as in, more antagonistic than usual) role in "Ball of Revenge".
• The Load: On most trips, he doesn't do anything noteworthy other than needing to be rescued.
• Losing Your Head: In "Mega Muriel the Magnificent", Courage's computer invades his body and runs into a wall, causing Eustace to fall apart like a broken doll and forcing the computer to invade Muriel instead. He then spends the rest of the episode as a disembodied head sitting on his chair, unaware of his bodiless state.
• Meaningful Name: Eustace Bagge could be interpreted as 'Useless Baggage', which is what he is during most adventures. Could also count as a Stealth Pun for "Money Bag", given Eustace's meaning.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: Quite a few Cartoon Network bumpers portrayed him as such, to the point of him being one of the few people who speaks cordially to Scrappy-Doo. In the Cartoon Network birthday celebration, he even speaks fondly of Courage while showing a photo of his family to Muscle Man (though he still jokes about Courage's cowardice) and gets offended when Muscle Man mistakes Muriel for a monster.
• The Millstone: He actively hinders and endangers his family's attempts to survive in this dangerous world. Special mention goes to "King Ramses' Curse", which happens almost entirely due to Eustace's continual stubbornness against the threats of a powerful monster.
• Mr. Fixit: Generally averted for laughs. He claims that he can fix things and we occasionally see him working on things, but nothing comes from it. However "Windmall Vandals" reveals that Eustace can actually rebuild the windmill at lightning fast speed; which comes in handy when the titular ghostly vandals come to slaughter the Bagges, as the windmill is the only thing that keeps them at bay. It is implied that Eustace can fix things but he is either too lazy or angry to put it to good use.
• Money Fetish: He's often convinced to help Courage's Rogues Gallery for money, and even bathing in cash.

Tropes N-Y

• Never Gets Fat: A gluttonous Lazy Bum who always wants Muriel to cook for him, but for some reason his hard-working wife is overweight, while he remains skinny. Subverted when he transforms into a Kangaroo Monster in "The Transplant" and actually gets very fat after eating too much.
• Never My Fault: A Running Gag is that Eustace scares or hurts Courage for fun, which results in Muriel promptly bashing him over the head with a rolling pin or whatever else may be handy at the time, after which Eustace angrily demands, "What did I do?!" Also in his mind, everyone and everything is stupid apart from himself; even when a (now-cursed) hat turns him into stone, he manages to call it a "stupid hat" after having crumbled into a pile of dust.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: Like Courage, Eustace can get seriously harmed and yet never suffer anything permanent, due to all the cartoony violence. Apart from his deaths which need to be subjected to Negative Continuity to be reversed.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Once in a blue moon, Eustace is capable of being more than just the cranky load.
  • In "Mission to the Sun" he somehow wrangled an asteroid and rode it like bull through space which gave Courage and Muriel a ride to escape from the surface of the sun.
  • "Night of the Were-mole" ends with Eustace dragged underground by a were-mole transformed Dr. Vindaloo. We first hear Eustace screaming in horror, but then whacking sounds followed with Eustace chuckling in satisfaction — implying that Eustace of all people may have won the fight against a were-mole.
• Opaque Lenses: His glasses are not transparent.
• Perpetual Frowner: He normally smiles when he wants to laugh at Courage's (or someone else's) pain or sees an opportunity to gain fortune.
• Personal Raincloud: In "The Curse Of Shirley", Shirley casts a spell that creates a small storm cloud over his head to teach him a lesson in kindness. Of course he doesn't learn for most of the episode and it leads to mushrooms growing on him. The cloud only goes away when he sees a small boy in desperate need of a hat to shade his head from the sun. Really it was Courage holding up a broken mirror. What Eustace saw was himself as a little boy but couldn't recognize the child.
• Pet the Dog: Sometimes does something nice to prove he's not a complete bastard, though these moments involving Courage are very rare. As a rule, he generally acts marginally nicer to Muriel than everyone else... sometimes.
  • In "Heads of Beef", he orders Courage a burger after seeing that he was hungry, albeit the smallest one on the menu (though in all fairness, it was still a decent sized burger for a small dog).
  • In "The Demon In the Mattress", he helps Courage to save Muriel when she was possessed by a haunted mattress.
  • In "Mother's Day", when his mother is desperate about her hair loss, he tries to comfort her and tells her that she looks good to him no matter what.
  • In "The Magic Tree of Nowhere", while he initially complains about Muriel not making his breakfast, he immediately calls the doctor when he realizes her condition is serious.
  • In "The Curse of Shirley", a hallucination caused by the curse has him see Courage as himself as a young boy with no hat. So he gives him the hat in order to protect him from the rain.
  • In "Katz Kandy", he also defends Muriel and even puts up a fight with Katz.
  • At the end of "1000 Years of Courage", he gives Muriel a bunch of bananas as a prize for winning a game of Bingo.
  • He never once utters "Stupid dog!" to Courage in "House of Discontent", although that's a little more because he didn't really interact with him in the episode.
  • In "Mecha-Courage" he initially insults the titular robot but after the robot starts to give Eustace what he wants he says the robot isn't bad and actually starts petting it.
  • In "The Mask", he's very concerned about Kitty after he learns about her past, and reassures Muriel when she worries about her faults (though he subverts this trope in it's literal sense when he makes it clear he doesn't give a damn if Courage is okay or not in the same breath that he reassured Muriel)
  • His moments with Muriel in "The McPhearson Phantom" due to marriage counseling.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Eustace is supposed to be a farmer, yet he is very rarely seen doing any farm work, preferring to just sit and watch TV instead. Granted, the land on the farm isn't exactly what one would call "fertile."
  • The occasional presence of cows on the farm points seems to imply that it's a cattle farm, but nothing concrete gets stated about it.
  • The farm also has a henhouse, but it's normally empty. The hens only appear when it's plot-relevant, usually when the Chicken From Outer Space is the Monster of the Week. Hilariously, when the henhouse gets destroyed too many times, it appears that several chickens have decided to move out, like they're tenants.
  • In "The Magic Tree of Nowhere", it's mentioned that he hasn't grown anything in 50 years, not even weeds.
  • This becomes a plot point in "The House of Discontent", where the Spirit of the Harvest Room challenges Eustace to grow a plant, threatening to kill him and Muriel if he fails.
  • Of course, Eustace's inability or unwillingness to grow anything largely depends on what the plot requires. "Journey to the Center of Nowhere" explicitly depicts eggplants growing in the Bagge farm.
• Psychological Projection: He repeatedly calls Courage stupid and mocks him for his cowardice and not doing anything right. When it comes down to it, Eustace is exactly everything he calls Courage out for being; he gets injured, maimed, transformed, and otherwise killed for being Too Dumb to Live at least Once an Episode, can't cook, can't grow anything in his farm, and can't fix anything, is completely useless during whatever ordeal the Bagges come across, and, as noted by the Shadow in "The Shadow of Courage," is an even bigger coward than Courage himself.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Eustace is a Bratty Half-Pint in an old man's body. In fact, Eustace's relationship with Muriel seems less like husband and wife, and more like son and mother; Eustace hardly does any work while constantly demanding food and affection from Muriel, and also getting jealous over Muriel's apparent preference for Courage.
  • In "Mother's Day", when Ma Bagge gave Courage a teddy bear, Eustace threw a temper tantrum and whined, "Why don't you ever get me anything?"
  • In "Ball of Revenge", Eustace conspires with some old villains for an evil scheme, because he was fed up with Muriel constantly pampering Courage; for Eustace, the last straw was when Muriel gave Eustace's favorite blanket to Courage.
• Riddle for the Ages: According to the creators, he managed to win over Muriel in his youth through performing some unknown dark deed. What exactly that is has not been revealed.
• Running Gag: Him pulling out a green mask and yelling "BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!" to scare Courage whenever he feels like it.
• Sadist: Eustace really gets a kick out of Courage's own suffering.
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: He's an old man who doesn't give a rat's ass about being respectful.
• Seven Deadly Sins: Given his usual personality all throughout the show, it's pretty easy to point out that he's applicable to all of these sins.
  • Greed: He gets enthusiastic whenever he hears about, or sees something that's materialistically valuable, such as money or gold.
  • Sloth: Even though he's occasionally referred to as a "farmer" by others, Eustace himself is actually a lot less productive than both his wife Muriel and their pet dog Courage. This is supported by the fact that the former is often seen just sitting on his signature red chair, either watching something on the television or reading the latest newspapers, while the other two were left doing more activities than he does.
  • Wrath: Since he's normally stubborn, that also means he has the shortest temper among the Bagge family.
  • Envy: He gets jealous if someone else gets more of the beneficial treatment from his wife Muriel than he himself does, best displayed in the episodes "The Magic Tree of Nowhere" and "Ball of Revenge". Granted, this can be heavily stemmed from his less-than-satisfactory life with his own family, which is what made him the bitter man he is today.
  • Gluttony: If he sees something he perceives as both edible and delectable (especially if he's really hungry), he will try to consume the entirety of it all to himself.
  • Pride: He has a lot less consideration for others, even to his own wife Muriel, than for his own self.
  • Lust: While much subtler than the other sins here, he gets more excitement from other stuff that's enjoyable to him than being with Muriel, such as Courage's (usually undeserved) suffering. At the same time, he downplays "Lust" in the sexual meaning that's usually associated with this sin, since in one episode, he's attracted to the Queen of the Black Puddle, but that's only because the Queen herself mercilessly hypnotized him.
• Signature Laugh: He has three recurring laughs: a smugly mocking "huh-huh-huh," a proudly arrogant "Hehe-hehe-hehehe-he," and a boisterous "AH-HAHAHA!".
• Small Name, Big Ego: He has an inflated opinion on his own pathetic skills.
• Snap Back: Eustace relies on this trope to continually exist in the show considering a good number of occasions have him separated by the other two by the episode's end with no resolution.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: He's always angry and unpleasant, but episodes like "The Curse of Shirley" and "Farmer-Hunter, Farmer-Hunted" show that that he lashes out at everyone due to a miserable childhood and an abusive home life.
• Spoiled Brat: He treats Muriel and Courage more like servants than family and often throws temper tantrums when he doesn't get what he wants.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He looks like his parents and his brother. His father looks exactly like Eustace with a beard.
• They Killed Kenny Again: Due to Negative Continuity, despite suffering an assortment of horrifying demises (ranging from literally exploding with rage and destroying the entire house to getting turned into a golden statue and so on and so on), he is shown alive and well by the next episode.
• Thin Chin of Sin: He has a large protruding and pointy chin and is a greedy jerk who has often been the main villain of several episodes.
• This Is My Chair: Eustace always sits in his armchair, and in a few episodes would refuse to get off it and would get mad at anyone who tried to sit in it.
  No sir! Not getting out of this chair!
• Throw the Dog a Bone:
  • He somehow comes out on top at the end of "Bad Hair Day", covered in hair from head to toe and carrying two huge stacks of money. Of course the fact that it's implied that he earned the money legally (allowing himself to be used in an experiment to grow hair) as well as the fact he didn't do so at the expense of either Muriel or Courage (trying to get money for Muriel being taken initially notwithstanding) likely allowed him to dodge his particular dose of Laser-Guided Karma that episode.
  • In "Heads of Beef", it looks like he's getting set up to be eaten by a cannibal pigman and his wife, but instead turns out they're actually a nice couple who give him a hearty meal of hamburgers. The pigman's wife even makes a sculpture of Eustace out of beef which certainly gives him some that attention he craves so much.
  • A strange instance happens in "Invisible Muriel;" an invisible Eustace sneaks into a government agency's gold vault, not realizing until it's too late that the government agents in charge of the place planned on melting the stuff down to make statues. Eustace gets stuck on the conveyor belt, gets turned into a statue... and joyously basks in the attention and praise of the public at his unveiling.
    Ma, if you could see me now...
  • "Aqua Farmer" is a rare episode Eustace is genuinely the protagonist going against Jojo, a smug, Jerkass dolphin. He challenges the dolphin to race, which he loses, but then wins the rematch thanks to training and Courage's help (mostly the latter).
• Token Evil Teammate: One would wonder how an asshole like him gets such a kindly wife and a loyal dog.
• Too Dumb to Live: Like Muriel, he often blissfully gets in harm's way. Sometimes, Eustace is too stubborn to get out of harm's way, which often unavoidably leads to a gruesome death.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In "Ball of Revenge", he hired several villains to kill Courage; even going as far as holding his own wife Muriel captive, to use as bait to lure Courage.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Whenever he and Muriel hosted Cartoon Cartoon Fridays, he was way more genial than he would ever be in-show; justified because there it's a case of Animated Actors off the clock. Though averted in the original hosting bumpers when he did the job solo. Then he would just nag and complain about the classic CCF bumpers, the lack of parents in Ed, Edd n Eddy, and how awful the viewer's tastes are in the viewer's choice cartoon segment.
• Tragic Villain: Due to his sad childhood and backstory, he can come off as a bad guy who deserves sympathy sometimes.
• Treated Worse than the Pet: His mother likes Courage more than him.
• Troubled Abuser: He's a complete bastard and Jerkass to everyone and everything he comes across, especially Courage, who he constantly insults, scares, and even physically abuses. Come "Mother's Day," we're introduced to his mother, Ma Bagge, who treats him the exact same way he treats Courage. It's seen that not only does the abusive behavior come from his mother, but also from his father and brother, the former two heavily preferring the latter and constantly compared him to his brother.
• Unexplained Recovery: No matter how badly Eustace turned out at the end of the show, Status Quo Is God, and the Reset Button will be hit for the next episode with him coming back none the worse for wear.
• Ungrateful Bastard: No matter how many times Courage saves his life, Eustace will still treat him like crap. Once in "Shirley the Medium", Courage was annoyed by Eustace's ungratefulness and decided to throw him away during the middle of a rescue attempt, terrified that there was no escape and being unwilling to die for Eustace. An even bigger example is in "Farmer Hunter, Farmer Hunted" where he tried to shoot the Deer, after the Deer was convinced by Courage to spare Eustace.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: A lot of humor in the show comes from just how much of a douchebag Eustace can be, and the negative consequences he suffers because of it.
• The Unfavorite: He's apparently the unpopular child to his mother. She even likes Courage more than him.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: It is suggested that he used to be a good-natured child until his Dysfunctional Family made him too rotten.
• Vague Age: Eustace (like Muriel) is definitely an older man, but exactly how old he is isn't made clear in-universe. He is treated as an elderly man by most other characters, but is young enough that his mother (who herself is still very strong and energetic) is still alive. However, he is a less pronounced example than Muriel, as he does show some physical signs of advanced age (such as his lack of teeth, his enlarged ears, and - of course - his baldness).
• Verbal Tic: He tends to mutter to himself (it even sounds like he's saying the word "mutter" over and over again) when frustrated or confused.
• Villainous Glutton: A rare skinny example of a bad guy with an enormous appetite - most likely because most of his dinners get ruined before he can eat it.
• Villain Protagonist: By the end of the series, he's pretty much an evil protagonist. In "Ball of Revenge" he becomes an antagonist for the episode by hiring some old villains to get back at Courage.
• Weirdness Magnet: He, like his wife and dog, is not immune to the strange things that happen in Nowhere.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: He badly wants the validation of his mother, but she couldn't care less about him.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Eustace's accent is American, but exactly where in America it's from is a mystery. He seems to combine elements of various different rural accents spanning the length and breadth of the US with a little British influence, such as saying "me" instead of "my" — which he may or may not have picked up from Muriel.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: In many cases he has come across a load of money only to lose it at the end of the episode.
  • In "Record Deal" Eustace makes a lot of money being Velvet Vic's manager, but Shirley steals it claiming it's her "licensing fee".
  • In "Angry Nasty People" Eustace makes a lot of money from being in the titular reality show, and later starts his own talk show, only for Mr. Nasty to reveal his agent screwed him over and takes his money away.
  • In "Last of the Starmakers" the General gives Eustace a bag of money for telling him where the Starmaker was, but at the end of the episode reveals the money was made out of experimental rocket fuel, which proceeds to shoot Eustace into the sky and blow him up into stars.
  • In Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! meets Courage the Cowardly Dog several people are mind-controlled by the main villains to leave treasures at the Bagge farm. Eustace is ecstatified and even sings a Glam Rap about how rich he is. At the end of the movie, the money is returned and Eustace is crying about being robbed.

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