The Truth Behind Cartoons

Chapter 19: Courage The Cowardly Dog

Courage the Cowardly Dog stars a paradoxically named canine and his elderly owners, Eustace and Muriel. Despite literally living in "The Middle of Nowhere," Eustace's farm somehow tends to attract the attention of monsters like mummies, pirates, and giant mutant flies dressed like humans. Courage always ends up defending his masters from these creatures, without them even noticing it.

The Theory:

This theory from Redditor DiggaDoug492 proposes that these "monsters" are nothing more than humans as seen through Courage's warped dog senses. Courage actually lives on a normal farm; he only thinks it's in the middle of nowhere because his owners are too old and apathetic to walk him, so he simply doesn't know what's outside.

Why It's Totally Possible:

This theory explains why Courage's owners never seem to realize the terrible danger they're in: In reality, they're actually just watching their dumb dog running around, being terrified of the postman, or a vacuum cleaner, or whatever. Have you ever owned a dog? Those guys will lose their sh*t over anything.

For instance, take a look at the episode where the "monster" is a giant talking vulture who kidnaps Muriel. It's then revealed that the vulture only did that so that Muriel could watch over the vulture's children so she could go to Florida to meet her potential husband, which, judging by her stereotypical accent, she probably met on JDate. The conclusion is obvious: Muriel was simply babysitting for her neighbor, and Courage, being a big idiot, imagined she was grabbed by a giant bird.

Further evidence that Courage is imagining everything is in the fact that, in the very first episode, old man Eustace actually transforms into a chicken, tries to eat Muriel, and then gets vaporized by a ray gun, only to come back the next episode with no memory of the incident. Who knows what happened in reality -- maybe he just sneezed and Courage's doggy imagination took it from there.

Also, every time Eustace wants to teach Courage a lesson, he whips out a giant green mask to scare him. Who does that? It's pretty obvious that the "giant mask" is actually a rolled up newspaper or a stick. Can't say we blame the guy.