Profiles in Courage is part two of the sixth episode of Season Four, which aired October 11, 2002, following Muriel Blows Up.
Plot Outline
When Muriel, Eustace, and Courage visit the local Nowhere fair they see a strange old man, a Silhouette Maker, in one of the booths. The silhouette maker wants to give his art "life", so when he sees Eustace and Muriel he believes that he can use them to create art that is "full of life." When he is done making full sized silhouettes (paper cut-outs) of Eustace and Muriel, they take the art back to the farm house and hang the art on the wall however, the "art" comes to life, in particular Eustace first, and sucks the life out of Eustace when the full sized portrait of Eustace merged with him and leaves a withered up Eustace while the art has a similar appearance with Eustace. The same also goes with Muriel. Although once the "art" started to do the normal daily tasks of the Bagge family such as making tea or fixing the truck, they noticed that it is very difficult to do these tasks as they are made out of paper. Courage seeing this, goes and fixes them up by applying glue to them (fixing up the torn paper body parts) and showing them being paper is fun by making them into different shapes (origami) and coloring them so they have a colorful appearance. Once the "art" realizes how fun it is to be paper, Courage goes ahead and puts back the art on both Muriel and Eustace (though this was never seen with Eustace) to bring them back to life. The silhouette maker goes back and tries to retrieve them and wonders why they do not wish to be lifelike and his art explains that they wouldn't mind if they were made out of paper. The episode ends by showing the happy silhouette maker taking his art back and is glad that is art is now "full of life" in a different way.
Trivia
- Portraits of Katz, Dr. Zalost, Basil, Alien Brain Visitor, Scarecrow, Mayan Baker, Goat, and Dr. Vindaloo can be seen inside the Silhouette Maker's booth.
- The episode title is also the title of a book written by John F. Kennedy