Courage the Cowardly Dog
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Courage the Cowardly Dog
Return the slab... Or suffer my curse...
―King Ramses demanding the slab from Eustace.

King Ramses is the ghost of a pharaoh from Ancient Egypt. He appears in the episode, "King Ramses' Curse". He brings about three plagues on the Bagge family in order to retrieve an ancient slab that was stolen from his tomb. Eustace, realizing that the stone tablet is worth a fortune, refuses to give it back despite being plagued by the ghostly Pharaoh's curse.

History[]

Ramses is the ghost of a pharaoh whose tomb is disturbed when two criminals looted a stone tablet. He first confronts the two grave robbers who hid the slab next to the Bagges' water pump, sending a swarm of locusts to devour them. When Courage finds the relic, Eustace is initially uninterested, but immediately clings to the slab when he realizes it's worth a million dollars. A researcher tells Eustace that he has come for the return of the stolen slab, but he declines and shuts the door when he offers a tote bag instead of money. The same night, Eustace, now obsessed with his future fortune, babbles about what he will buy with the million dollars.

Loud noises are heard outside as an unbeknownst Eustace opens the door. King Ramses visits the farm and demands that the slab be returned. Even after being warned of suffering the mummy's curse and the insistence of Muriel to give it back, Eustace refuses, thinking King Ramses is the researcher from earlier in a cheap costume. King Ramses then unleashes a water plague, which is one of the three listed on the slab. He floods the house, but Courage opens a massive drain in the basement of the house. Once again, Eustace declined the second request of returning the slab.

The next plague is loud, annoying music on a phonograph that plays a song about King Ramses calling him "The Man in Gauze". Courage locates the source and destroys it with a bat. Insisting on breaking the Bagges' spirit, King Ramses for a final time requests the return of his slab. In the midst of the third plague, Eustace bribes Ramses about the slab, telling him that a million is as low as he'll go. Eustace relents when they are about to be eaten by locusts and Courage throws it out the window, but changes his mind quickly and claims the slab again. King Ramses appears, displeased, and Eustace taunts him for using up all his plagues. An infuriated Ramses raises his arms and simply calls the third plague, the swarm of locusts, onto Eustace. Afterwards, when the slab is finally returned to King Ramses crypt as announced by an archaeologist on television, a hieroglyph depicting a screaming Eustace is visible on it.

Appearance[]

King Ramses most prominent attire is his skull, a skull reminiscent of Egyptian burial masks, but far more dilapidated and skeletal. He has orange burnt flesh, Blue dark teal eyes with blue white iris's with a sickly yellowish-green sclera, and purple eyebags from egyptian eye-liner, and pale orange brow ridges. His eyes are permanently shown to be sunken to his rotting skull. He wears a dark green Egyptian pharaoh robe with yellowish green gauze around his shoulders. Burnt tangerine hair protrudes from his skull that always shows to moving in a inwards and outwards scrunch movement. His feet are covered in a ghostly zig-zagged shaped floating rag from his robe, indicating he floats instead of walking, it is unknown or not if he can even move towards the user of the slab or he just stays in place marking his curses onto the user, until they give up his slab. Marking these attributes to the fact he is a 3D CGI animated apparition of a decaying mummy, this design is far considered to be one of the most scariest entities from within the show.

Personality[]

King Ramses is a somewhat stern and calm person, but quickly irritated. He shows great disdain to anyone who is directly responsible of stealing his slab from his tomb, and will quickly punish him/her for doing so. However, he does gives his victims he sees as innocent a chance to give up the slab, and will warn them what will happen to them if they refuse to do so. He was also shown to get annoyed or irritated if the person still refuses to give up the slab by expressing the words "Aww, come on!", implying that he does not like doing what he has to do in order to get what he needs back, possibly implying he may hate summoning his curses on those who steal his slab. It's also implied that he is able to use any of his plagues at will, even after using all of them in a short time, evidenced when Eustace, still refusing to give up the slab after surviving the 3 plagues, King Ramses uses the locust plague again to get the slab back, much to Eustace's surprise and horror. He seems to be in neutral terms with Courage and Muriel as he does not show any disdain or irritation towards the two, even when Courage finds a way to undo most of his plagues. The most possible reason was that they were on the side that Eustace must in fact return the slab to his tomb, meaning most of the plagues were mostly targeted towards Eustace instead, noting Courage and Muriel were just unfortunate enough to be caught in the effects of his Curse in the episode.

Quotes[]

  • "Return the slab."
  • "Return the slab, or suffer my curse!"
  • "This night, you will be visited by three plagues. Each worse than the last. Return the slab!"
  • "Aww, come on..."

Trivia []

  • Ramses is one of the few characters on the show animated in CGI.
  • This animated character's voice actor is John R. Dilworth, who initially came up with the voice when he and his brother mentioned below were trying to scare their mom.
  • Ramses was designed by John R. Dilworth's late brother, who was good in CGI. He also designed the bugle from "Perfect".
  • Ramses is not seen in person until his encounter with Eustace.
  • Ramses, along with the Bugle Monster and the Spirit of the Harvest Moon, is commonly regarded to be one of the scariest characters in the show.
  • There were eleven Pharaohs who were named Ramses, but judging from his red hair, this Ramses was likely Ramses II, or Ramses the Great. Moreover, the character appears to be a cartoonish, stylized take on the features of the real Ramses II's corpse. The overall facial shape, jaw structure, nose, pronounced cheekbones, sunken eyes, darkened lips, and tufts of hair are eerily similar to the real deal.
  • He can be seen for a few seconds in the They Might Be Giants music video.
  • In Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog, a portrait of Ramses, as well as his slab, can be seen in the museum of the mayor's house.

Gallery[]


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