List of Courage the Cowardly Dog characters

Courage

 * Voiced by Howard Hoffman (pilot) and Marty Grabstein (series)

Courage is the protagonist of the show, and an overly frightened pink beagle dog who lives in Nowhere, Kansas. He was abandoned as a puppy after his parents were sent into outer space, but was adopted by Muriel Bagge. Her husband, Eustace, regularly mistreats him. Ironically, given his name, Courage is a genuine coward, but still goes to great lengths to protect his owners; to the end, he often gets injured, sometimes quite brutally, or almost killed and only surviving through his determination and/or pure luck. Despite his cowardice, Courage is very clever and resourceful when the situation demands it, outsmarting the villains most of the time. Aiding him at saving the day is a self-aware, sarcastic and seemingly omniscient Computer that he keeps in the attic with which he could consult for information in how to remedy any predicament he faces (though it never fails to badmouth him in one way or another). He got his name when Muriel found him as a puppy alone in an alley and remarked that he must be quite brave to be there by himself.

Though capable of speaking fluent English, Courage mostly does so only to the viewers and other non-human characters, tending to speak in unintelligible gibberish to most human characters (except for Dr. Vindaloo, who is the only human who can completely understand Courage's communication, despite being a doctor for humans). This was likely done to better show what the human hears as opposed to actual speech. Therefore, though impossible in real life, Courage sometimes transforms into other beings, or simply objects, and may include effects such as turning into other characters, weapons, and different vehicles to convey his messages, exaggerating the danger. However, this does not seem to be much more comprehensible to the humans. Often, after being hurt by one of his many assailants, he will do a dazed laugh. He often says, "The things I do for love" when he is about to do something brave, "I just know something bad is going to happen" when there is something afoot, and "I know I shouldn't, but I gotta" when he is about to enter a villain's hideout. He tends to whisper "Oh no" to himself when something bad is going on. He also sometimes states, "Something fishy is going on, or my name is [absurd, goofy name]... And it’s not." Other variations include "I'm telling you there's someone here" and "Something smells fishy". Courage also has a big hole in one of his teeth but, at certain times, he had a gold tooth and a wrench for a tooth in "The Curse of Shirley" and "Swindlin' Wind".

During the development of the series, Dilworth had resembled Courage as Hamilton in the animated short "Smart Talk with Raisin" which had physically and emotionally, and one of the closest ancestor of the series.

Muriel
Muriel


 * Voiced by Howard Hoffman (pilot), Thea White (series), and Kath Soucie (as a child)

Muriel loves Courage and is a kind, peaceful, sweet, elderly and overweight Scottish-American woman who took Courage in when he was a puppy. She is the damsel in distress. She is also Eustace's wife. She often carries a rolling pin that she hits Eustace with when he harasses Courage. She likes tea and usually tends her garden. She has a great fondness for cooking- however, her recipes tend to include an excessive amount of vinegar (which she swears by), much to the distaste of both Courage and Eustace. She is frequently kidnapped by the villain of the week, is quite gullible and is easily tricked by the villains no matter how bizarre or pathetic their disguises are. Muriel loves Eustace, but is not at all fond of his mother. Muriel always tries to get Eustace to do the right thing.

Eustace
Eustace


 * Voiced by Howard Hoffman (pilot), Lionel G. Wilson (Episodes 1-33), and Arthur Anderson (Episodes 34-52 and all other media) Wallace Shawn (The Fog of Courage) 

Eustace, is a grumpy, selfish, greedy and cruel old farmer obsessed with money and his truck. He is also Muriel's husband. He is also the current owner of the farm house which was previously owned by his now deceased brother Horst. He has a very negative and uptight personality; he frequently mistreats Courage and calls him a "stupid dog". Eustace is known for his trademark glasses, which are identical in appearance to Muriel's, and his brown hat which shields his bald head. Eustace often refers to Courage simply as "Dog" and rarely (in only 2 episodes) addresses him by his name. He regularly demands Muriel as well; in one episode, Muriel develops amnesia and Eustace convinces her that she is a "slave woman". Still, he does love his wife, as evidenced by his concern for her well-being in a few episodes.

In many episodes, whenever Muriel is in danger, Eustace will often be preoccupied with something else and not even notice or he will just choose to not even acknowledge the fact that his wife is in danger, which often leads Courage to save Muriel on his own. Eustace is also commonly the subject of a rather unpleasant ending, whether it being a backfire of his get-rich-quick scheme or the villain of the episode going after him or, better yet, he gets his just-desserts at the end, often in quite brutal ways.

Eustace takes great pleasure in terrorizing Courage despite the fact that he frequently saves him from the monsters that terrorize him and Muriel, which primarily stems from jealousy of the attention he receives from Muriel, as well as similar abuse he received from his parents and brother, which led to him feeling like an outcast; the most common of these scare tactics against Courage is Eustace pulling out a large green painted mask with a crazy looking in its eyes and shouting, "Booga-booga-booga!" for laughs. Although Eustace primarily uses the mask, he has substituted it with other things that terrorizes Courage. His cruelty towards Courage often results in Muriel bashing him over the head with a rolling pin or whatever else may be handy at the time, usually causing him to respond with "Ow! What did I do?". During these attempts to harm Courage. On occasion, though, Eustace would team up with Courage, mostly when money is involved, though once he did it to exorcise a demon from Muriel. Eustace hides a mallet under his bed for protection.

Lionel G. Wilson originally voiced the character, but left midway through the third season due to illness (and eventually died a year after the show ended ) and was replaced by Arthur Anderson. However, some vocals and sounds of grunting, screaming and catchphrases from Lionel have been used while Arthur was recording. In The Fog Of Courage, Wallace Shawn replaced Anderson as the voice of Eustace.