Eustace Bagge

Eustace Bagge is the tritagonist and the overall main antagonist in Courage the Cowardly Dog. He is Muriel's cranky husband and one of Courage's two owners. He is also the latter's most hated enemy.

Eustace has several antagonistic roles throughout the series, one of the most notable is in the episode, "Ball of Revenge", where he gathers and meets up with the villains that Courage had previously encountered and either outwitted or defeated to get rid of him by challenging him to a game of dodgeball.

That episode arguably cemented Eustace as a villain and the direct threat and most dangerous enemy to Courage. However, sometimes he teams up with Courage if need be, as seen in a few episodes such as Bad Hair Day.

He was voiced by Howard Hoffman, the late Lionel G. Wilson, the late Arthur Anderson, and Wallace Shawn.

Biography

Eustace was born on an unknown date in a trailer park. He was not well-liked by his mother and he was shown to be a friendlier person than in his later years. He had a brother and father who are implied to be bigger and much more muscular than Eustace. It is implied that his family all wear glasses for unknown reasons (possibly a poor vision trait) and that he was bald since he was a child.

Eustace married Muriel sometime in 1953.

Role In Courage the Cowardly Dog

Muriel found Courage as a puppy outside the veterinarian office where his parents were launched into space by the vet for his secret experiment on sending dogs to space. Later on, Eustace began to hate Courage as he received more attention from Muriel than Eustace himself.

At certain times, Eustace was subject to many weird and crazy injuries, such as being mummified or exploding and surviving (often saying "OW!" as the explosion happens or afterwards) leaving him as black string wearing glasses.

At times, he helped Courage save Muriel from various things (despite that he at times gets hurt or does not return and besides, who else was going to fix his meals?).

Personality

Eustace is a malicious, ill-tempered, cruel, heartless, egoistical and nasty old farmer who is married to the kindhearted Muriel despite being her polar opposite.

Throughout the series, he is very ornery, combative, and antagonistic to Courage the Cowardly Dog, having a grudge against Courage, and is basically a cantankerous and argumentative bully who constantly calls Courage a stupid dog, mistreats him, and loves to scare him. Often, his cruelty earns him a bop on the head by Muriel, often followed by him asking, "What did I do?". Eustace is also regularly maimed or tortured by the many ghosts and ghouls that haunt Courage.

Eustace's behavior towards Courage seems to stem from jealousy over the attention Courage receives from Muriel and his own mother (who dislikes him intensely yet seems to be very fond of Courage). One of Eustace's favorite tricks is to wait until Courage is in relative peace before he utters his catchphrase of "Stupid dog!" and proceeding to pull out a hideous Voodoo-like mask and yelling, "Ooga booga booga!" to frighten Courage half to death.

Although almost always an antagonist, Eustace has occasionally worked with Courage to try and overcome some particularly nasty villains. For example, in "Katz Kandy," when Muriel is kidnapped by a candy creation of Katz's and Courage is defeated by him in a staring contest and turned into candy for his loss, it is Eustace who surprisingly saves the day by defeating Katz and throwing him into his own candy-making machine (after Katz tries to do the same to him first). However, these alliances are usually temporary. More often than not, Eustace is a very stubborn and even devious individual.

As well as his bullying, Eustace has long been established as a very acquisitive and greedy individual who has brought disaster upon himself and others in his stubborn pursuit of riches, showing no sympathy and hestiation to those around him. (That he often doesn't deserve). One of the more famous examples of this was Eustace's refusal to give up King Ramses's slab after Eustace finds out its potentially worth a fortune; despite that Ramses continually demands they return the slab between unleashing horrible plagues in warning.

Appearance

Eustace is a tall and thin elderly man with enormous feet (though these pale in comparison to his father's) who walks in a crouch. He's bald and has squinty little eyes. His arms are spindly, but his hands are large. He has an enormous underbite and false teeth. He wears green overall-like trousers and a short-sleeved yellow shirt along with jam-jar glasses, a brown hat and brown shoes. His usual facial expression is extremely grouchy.

Gallery

Mr. Eustace Bagge

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Trivia

• It has been hinted that Eustace is very cruel and mean and cannot comprehend good. In the episode "Curtain of Cruelty", when Eustace was hit by the object of the same name, he remained mean and nasty and was even named mayor for his behavior. However, once the object was turned into the Curtain of Kindness, Eustace was hit by it but still remained his mean self.
• In a commercial for Cartoon Network's 20th anniversary, Eustace talks to Muscle Man and tells him about his wife and dog. Shockingly, he uses Courage's name.
• Eustace Bagge could be considered a Tragic villain for a few reasons:
  • It was seen in a flashback that he was nice as a child; sad, but nice.
  • Eustace might have looked up to his parents during childhood, but they never paid attention to him.
  • Eustace was nicknamed "Useless" by his brother Horst. Also, his mother nicknamed him "Stupid Boy", this being the reason for which he always refers to Courage as "Stupid Dog".
  • After years of being rejected, particularly by his mother, Eustace may have been traumatized emotionally, and that might have led to his cold personality to get attention.
• According to an unknown source, Brian Doyle-Murray (who also voiced the Flying Dutchman and supposedly La Sombra) was contracted by Cartoon Network to voice Eustace in a potential CGI revival or reboot of Courage the Cowardly Dog. However, it remains unknown if a fifth season or a reboot of Courage will be made or not.
• In the episode "Ball of Revenge", Eustace makes his worst antagonistic act and officially defines himself as the main antagonist of the episode. He reunites Katz, the Weremole, The Queen of the Black Puddle, Cajun Fox, Le Quack and The Big Toe to get their revenge against Courage. Also, he didn't seem to mind that villains tried to cook Muriel alive with boiling water, ignoring the fact that she is his wife.
• Despite Katz being more evil than Eustace, Eustace is the main antagonist because he has more screen time than Katz and has more plans than anyone else in the show.

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