About
King Ramses is a one-episode character in the TV show Courage the Cowardly Dog.
The episode “King Ramses’ Curse” starts with two feline thieves as they are being pursued by the police at night after they stole a slab from the tomb of King Ramses. They pull over in their car and bury the slab at the Bagge’s water-pump. In the morning, Courage digs up the mound the two cats made the night before and finds the slab. The slab contains symbols of Ramses, water, a record player, and locusts. Courage gives it to his owners, but Eustace tosses the slab out the window claiming it’s “garbage”. However, Eustace takes it back after learning from the Nowhere Newsman that it’s worth a million dollars. Professor Frith arrives and tries to reclaim the slab, but Eustace refuses. That night, the ghost of King Ramses returns, and this time threatens the Bagges. He orders Eustace to return the slab or “suffer three plagues, each worse than the last”. Eustace, thinking the ghost is the professor in disguise, still refuses. The ghost uses the first curse by flooding the house with water, the second curse by playing really loud, bad, disco music, and the third by summoning locusts to eat them and their house. The episode ends with Courage and Muriel now in the destroyed house, where on the TV, Professor Frith explains that the slab has been returned to Ramses’ tomb and will remain protected for all times. The end of the episode shows the tomb of King Ramses, where Eustace has now apparently replaced Ramses on the slab, as punishment for his greed.
Origin
During the whole episode, King Ramses repeats over and over “Return the slab!” while Eustace repeats “What’s your offer?”, trying to strike a deal with Ramses so he can get some money. When the second curse starts, a record player hiding behind a huge rock outside the house starts playing awful disco music and the characters start screaming and cover their ears. The repetitive lyrics are “The man in gauze, the man in gauze, King Ramses! The man in gauze, the man in gauze, he’s no Santa Claus!”
In an interview with Cartoon Cartoon Fridays: The Fansite and the show’s music composer Jody Gray, he spoke about the song:
“CCF:The Fansite: What influenced the song in the episode King Ramses’ Curse?
J. Gray: It’s a musical joke. When trying to visualize what would be musically so horrible that Eustace and Muriel would scream and writhe in agony, we came up with really bad disco.
Here are the lyrics: “King Ramses, The Man In Gauze, He’s No Santa Clause, The Man In Gauze.” Vocals were done by myself and Andy Ezrin."
Spread
The episode is known as one that scared many as a child, and as one of the very few episodes that used CGI animation. Users began to upload “return the slab” and “what’s yer offer?” images and “The Man in Gauze” videos online, where the videos would mute the original song and overlay a different song such as Justin Bieber’s “Baby” or Rebecca Black’s “Friday” as the characters would suffer and cover their ears.
Background
The plot of the episode is most likely a reference to the Plagues of Egypt, where an unnamed Pharaoh kept Israelites in slavery while God tried to persuade him to free them by inflicting 10 different plagues onto Egypt. The 7th and 8th plagues (thunderstorm and locusts) are very similar to two of the plagues in the episode. It is possible that the real-life Pharaoh Ramses II was the Pharaoh in the story, and the one being mentioned in the episode.
Notable Examples
