Perfection - Ft. The Last Courage The Cowardly Dog Episode
If you were a kid growing up in the early 2000s - chances are, you've experienced nightmares from a show, apparently meant for kids. With some of the most gloomy aesthetics, deep yet meaningful episodes and above all, truly bizarre characters, I am talking about none other than Courage The Cowardly Dog Show!
The show revolves around a family: Muriel, Eustace and Courage - their dog, as they live and spend their days at their Farmhouse in literally The Middle Of Nowhere. This place is crept up with horrors every single day that Courage battles against. And although this dog is named Courage, he is in no way close to being courageous. Each episode introduces a new challenge and horror, sometimes reviving old characters, sometimes introducing new ones, along with deep, meaningful and sometimes truly odd and dark storylines. But how does a show so terrifying and bizarre ends up being loved by almost every kid who has ever watched it? And what does a show like this has to share anything upon perfection?
Enter Season 4, episode 13b - 'Perfect'. The episode starts off as any other, a peaceful day in The Middle Of Nowhere for the family. Pan to Eustace and Courage working together around their farm, Courage ends up creating ruckus while trying to help Eustace. Eustace; being the angry arrogant man, yells and suggests how imperfect Courage is and that he can't do anything right. We are then panned into the kitchen where when helping Muriel with cooking, Courage once again, creates havoc. Although Muriel tries to comfort Courage, he develops a sense of being imperfect.
It is at this point that we are introduced to the antagonist of the episode - a school teacher named 'The Perfectionist'. Strangely enough, Courage is the only one seeing her: meaning that she might just be an imagination of him. She keeps asserting that Courage is imperfect and decides to train him to be perfect. The training becomes more and more intensive and intense as we progress and Courage keeps failing at each and every task while The Perfectionist keeps scolding him, to a point at which he gets sick and burnt out.
In the next scene, when brushing his teeth, Courage meets 'The Fish' or 'The Green Fish' or 'Bathtub Barracuda' as some fans like to call. The Fish shares its wisdom, quoting "There is no such thing as perfect" and that "You are perfect, just the way you are". Shocked by this realization, Courage confronts The Perfectionist and melts her away through his mind by being weird and clumsy, by being himself. The episode ends with the family sharing the table for dinner, chatting and eating and being themselves, not trying to be perfect. The Fish hilariously lays cooked on one of the plates but still somehow laughs at the situation. As the wiki points out, counting the Fish's laugh, he is the last character to speak in Courage The Cowardly Dog Show!
To me, this episode was perfect. I think that 'imperfect' is just a negative word. Outside that, it means nothing. Everyone and Everything is Perfect, just being as destined or meant to. Perfection is a lie that could never exist for us. Trying to be perfect has also often stopped me from getting it done. It is a curse that we could never be free from until we stop believing it (I am looking at you, people that got scared from King Ramses' dialogue - Return the slab, or suffer my curse! The curse isn't real, greed for perfection is. Just like Eustace's greed for the slab!)
Quoting a verse I wrote:
What if we already are,
Who we ought to be?
Will our searches persevere,
When this is all we could see?
To quote Made2Express from his video (Reference 1):
"What even is imperfection? The whole concept of it is completely subjective, and I would argue, doesn’t even exist. Not everything is going to turn out the way it was originally intended, and that’s okay. We can still find beauty by making the most of what we do have. Society shames us all the time for the smallest things that don’t even matter. That’s why it’s so easy to get caught up in trying to impress everybody, and getting frustrated when we realize that’s impossible to do. True happiness comes from expression, and NOT impression. That’s how Courage defeats The Perfectionist at the end of the episode, with his creativity. And as a result, in the final scene we can see he has finally accepted himself for who he is. Eustace is enjoying his broken horn and is letting Courage eat at the table, Muriel is still optimistic and smiling, everything is perfect. This ending is perfect. This episode is perfect. This show is perfect. And you watching this, you are perfect."
Thank you for reading this article!
All cited sources and content belong to the respective owners and are just extended through my thoughts. I love and value their ideas and thank them for making it accessible to us!
And remember, you are perfect!