Courage the Cowardly Dog
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Courage the Cowardly Dog

Hard Drive Courage is part one of the fourth episode of season 3, preceding "The Ride of the Valkyries".

The episode was produced in 2001 and premiered on Cartoon Network in the United States on June 7, 2002.

Plot Outline[]

Eustace is very ill and Muriel has trouble finding a cure for him. She first tries her special gelatin, but Eustace spits it out and throws up when Muriel tells him there is vinegar in it. She then gets the idea to try Artichoke Syrup Soup, but is unable to find the recipe. Courage and Muriel go to the Computer for the recipe, but have to wait 43 hours for it to download. Courage leaves the room to go have cookies and milk while the recipe is downloading. Meanwhile, the Computer becomes infected by a virus. Muriel goes to check if Courage has found the recipe, but when she gets there, the computer instructs her to "push button 'X'." Complying, Muriel presses the "X" key, which causes her to be digitized and sucked into the computer. Just then, Courage walks in, and sees the entire ordeal, leaving him devastated.

Courage uses the scanner to go after Muriel into the digital world and save her. The scene switches to CGI as Courage ends up in a large, reflective room, where he notices an exit where Muriel is. He looks at reflective mirrors as he looked like a muscled dog, a bigger version of his head and a chicken-like dog which made him more scared and he went to the exit as he turns him back into 2D (this time he is green with a binary code on him) Courage approaches Muriel, but the Hard Drive Virus appears and takes her away. While searching for her, Courage is attacked by a flying iron mouth and a snake-like computer mouse. He eventually escapes into the room where Muriel is being held by the hard drive virus, whom Courage notices is very ill. The virus summons a ram that shatters Courage into bits and several small mechanical creatures to finish him off, but Courage reforms himself into a large mace and destroys them. The virus then summons Bill - the computer hard drive itself, which attacks Courage with the razors it has on its back. When Bill corners Courage, he shape-shifts into a soda and sprays the device with pop, incapacitating it.

Muriel asks the Hard Drive Virus if he has tried Artichoke Syrup Soup, and he says he did, but it didn't work. Courage suggests Muriel's gelatin, which contains vinegar, the virus's favorite. Courage uses the telephone line to take the gelatin from the bedside table next to Eustace. The gelatin works and the virus can breathe and laugh again. With computer rid of the virus, Muriel and Courage make their return to the real world. Eustace also begins to make a recovery thanks to the Artichoke Syrup Soup, which he enjoys until Muriel mentions there is vinegar in it. Courage is seen in his room on the computer but in hard drive form laughing hysterically.

Characters []

Main Characters: []

Minor Characters: []

Trivia[]

  • A CGI model of Courage (possibly the same one that appears in the "The End" card featuring him taking a bow on the stage) appears in the episode. This is the first time the show ever used CGI animation heavily in an episode and it was animated by Pacific Data Images.
    • The second time the show would use CGI animation is in the 2014 special The Fog of Courage.
  • Several things appeared on the Computer's screen when he was infected by the Hard Drive Virus.
    • A game of Pong
    • A picture of a hockey court
    • A baseball bat and ball
    • "6 X 4 = BOB" (when in reality it's 24)
    • And a television color test screen.
  • One scene in this episode implies that Courage has a bookmark or folder linked to internet porn. He quickly tears the hotkey out of his keyboard. 
  • The Hard Drive Virus looks like Mustafa al Bacterius from "Mission to the Sun", as both have the same voice actors in English and Japanese.
  • In the Japanese dub, this episode's name is "デジタルで対決したる" (Dijitaru de taiketsu shitaru!) which means "Digital Confrontation!".
  • The Hard Drive Virus's line "Why didn't ya just say so?" has become a popular Internet meme.
  • This episode is one of the rare few to have been written by a woman.
  • When Courage goes into the maze, a flying iron mouth chases him, which could be a Pac-Man reference.

Errors[]

  • When the computer is infected and asks Muriel to push button "X", the screen reads "JEST POOSH BUTTON 'X'" (misspelled over "Just push button 'X'."). However, Muriel pushed what would normally be the "CTRL" key to show a picture. 

Production Notes[]

  • Although this episode premiered in the United States on June 7, 2002, it was actually produced in 2001 according to the credits.
    • This episode was finished in July of 2001.[1]

References[]

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