Fusilli — courage

The Great Fusilli is an anthropomorphic alligator voiced by Jim Cummings. He made his first and only appearance as the primary antagonist in The Great Fusilli.

He has a thick Italian accent and owns a magical traveling theater that he uses to search for potential stars to induct into his troupe, luring them in with the prospects of fame and fortune. A hypnotic spotlight and an invisible audience draw victims into the act, and once they're spellbound, magical strings fall from the mouths of the theater masks above the stage, latching onto the victims and turning them into wooden marionettes. The victims retain sentience and autonomy for only moments after their transformation.

History

When his travels brought him to Nowhere, he attempted to add Muriel, Eustace, and "The Cute Little Doggy" into his act. He ensnared Muriel with the lure of fame and Eustace with the lure of fortune. Courage was apprehensive at first but soon found himself interested in the performance...until he stumbled upon the storage room where Fusilli kept his transformed victims. Upon seeing the empty hooks labeled 'Eustace', 'Muriel', and 'Doggy', he rushed back to the stage, but was too late; the magic strings ensnared Eustace and Muriel and transformed them. Fusilli chased after Courage, who fled and hid in a powder container. Then he charged back to the stage, where Fusilli was playing with his new marionettes, but Courage accidentally scared him with the powder covering his body, giving him the appearance of a phantom. Fusilli jumped from the balcony, and Courage dragged Eustace and Muriel away. When Fusilli got to his feet, his own magic ensnared him, transforming him into a marionette as well.

Appearance

Great Fusilli is a reptilian creature with alligator, snake, and human traits.

His main appearance is that of an alligator, having the head and the body of this animal and being coloured in dark green like real-life crocodilians. The part of his belly and the rest of the front of his body (excluding the head) is from a serpent, having the typical ventral lines of snakes. Also, the tail is more serpentine-like than alligator-like. He has also some anthropomorphic traits, being bipedal in movement, having human-level intelligence, and speaking English, like many of the show’s animals.

He wears a dark blue hat with a purple band and a white feather, black boots, and a purple long cloak. His reptilian eyes are yellow and he has dark blue eyelids.

Fusilli is short if he's measured in height (not in length) and without the tail, being shorter than Eustace and Muriel while completely standing on his legs.

Personality

At a first glance Fusilli doesn't seem to be particularly sinister, as he is very confident and invites people he meets to join his travelling theatre cast company. This can be seen really well in his episode, because he approaches Eustace and Muriel house and quickly invites them to join him for the worldwide shows and a bit later he allows them to use the stage and do some acts.

In reality, he is evil and does this only for deceiving. His real goal is cruel: even if he keeps the promise he made (travelling the world to do shows), he does it in a really different and dark way. He turns the people he invited into wooden puppets, to use them in his worldwide shows and for having fun controlling/playing with their puppets. In his episode, Fusilli plays with Eustace and Muriel puppets making them "fighting" like they often do in their hometime, and laughing a lot for the fun while doing this.

However, Fusilli is a wicked baddie with a (too much) evident interest and passion for puppeteer shows and theatre in general. He also have interest in circus, this can be easily seen by the clown costumes made for his "actors" and a big poster with "circus" written in big letters on it. His magical travelling theatre is really well researched, having an huge stage a really provided dressing room and lot of objects to use for the shows (for example the objects he use to fling over Eustace to make him a funny comic). The theatre has also lot of other dangerous and creepy thing apart from his magic, like some traps in the field (one used to block Courage while he was trying to save his owners, but avoided by the dog) and the room filled by the puppets of the theatre, like already said all made by real people. Fusilli is able to write original copycats of histories really well and quickly, he is the "manager" of his theatre and never performs as an actor and he's not interested to do it.

Despite his evil personality, Fusilli a has fear of ghosts, and this leads him to his demise because he mistakes Courage for a phantom and he falls from the balcony of the theatre in order to escape him. However, if Courage had not endured this predicament, Fusilli would have killed the dog easily and with no remorse.

Fusilli has also gentlemanly and elegant manners, calling other adult people with "we". He is also really curated in the look, wearing an elegant cloak, boots, and hat.

Abilities

Fusilli has a strong magical psychic dark power, being able to turn people or other animals into theatre puppets and then controling them as he wants: he can do this only using the magical strings of his theatre. As they take the victim, he/she at first feels strange and uncapable of controlling, then totally becomes an harmless and motionless puppet made of wood. The puppet is lifeless, but talks (with the voice of the victim) or moves if someone controls it with the magical strings.

Fusilli has also a good deceiving ability, being able to fool easily people inviting them to take place in his show and promising them fame fun happiness and fortune, just for turning them in puppets once they do their first show using the strings of the theatre. The magical wicked strings come from the two masks on the top of the stage, and take the victim while he/she is distracted by the show he/she is doing. For this reason, it's not sure if this dark power comes directly from Fusilli or from his wicked theatre (see Trivia).

Even if he has a large crocodile-serpentine body with a long tail, he is not seen using his physical skills to attack. He only hits Courage not violently with his tail or kicking him with the legs because the dog discovered he had bad intentions with Eustace and Muriel and tried to notice them this. This happens two times: the first time at the arrival of Fusilli when Courage noticed the danger and started to being nervous so Fusilli kicked him away with his tail, the second time happens when Courage tried to convince the owners to go out the dressing room and to not follow Fusilli so the dog was kicked away from the room by him. Fusilli didn't use his body to hit apart from these two times. Even if he has a large crocodile mouth with sharp teeth which looks like really dangerous and powerful, he didn't use it in his appearances for attacking. However Fusilli could have used his alligator mouth to bite and maul Courage if he managed to capture the dog in the final pursuit where instead he gets defeated.

Trivia

Fusilli's name comes from a type of pasta, to underline his Italian origins.
Oddly, he is somewhat similar to the the secondary antagonist in the Disney version of Pinocchio, Stromboli.
- Like Fusilli, he lies and deceives and promises fame and fortune to his victims for his own personal gain.
- His name also comes from an Italian dish.
Despite having an Italian name and accent, Fusilli is an alligator, which are not native to Italy.
In the Italian dub, Fusilli is given a Neapolitan accent, spoken by people born in Campania, a region of southern Italy. In this region there is the popular old tradition to doing traveling theaters of puppets managed by only a person, which creates stories talking while leading them from the backstage.
- So, probably Fusilli was a Neapolitan wicked puppeteer who started to make his work from this region, turning some people casually met there in puppets, and then he traveled worldwide to make the same thing with other people.
- There are also other Italy references in the Fusilli's figure and in the episode. The Fusilli musical theme is inspired by old Italian music often played also in this kind of shows, while the masks seen in his theatre can be inspired by Venetian masks, carnival masks used in the tradition of the Italian city Venetia.
In the episode where he appears, Fusilli managed to turn Eustace and Muriel into marionettes before being defeated. Courage was unable to report them in the human form, and at the end is seen that he must continue his routine life with the puppets of his owners, inventing their words and actions. This fact created a lot of Creepypastas and theories, one of them supposes that Eustace and Muriel have died before these events and Courage is playing with their corpse, as he will do in next seasons to keep them "alive".
- However, there lot of episodes ends which end with the death of a Courage's owner or both, but curiously this happens only after Season 1.
  - The episode Klub Katz instead ends with the transformation of the entire family (also Courage) in objects, and it's from the Season 1. However, they are all still alive after these transformations, while in the Fusilli, Eustace and Muriel were totally turned into inanimate puppets.
  - If we think about a rational chronological flow of the events in the story (even if the story often seems to be without continuity in each different episode), Eustace and Muriel managed to return humans from puppets to do the events which take place in other seasons. This can be possible to think due to the defeat of Fusilli which eventually broke off the spell.
With an accurate glance, it can be seen that the magical powers which transform living things in puppets could come from the theatre (in particular from the two masks) instead from Fusilli. It's possible that Fusilli discovered the dark powers of that masks/theatre and then decided to use it.
- The fact that Fusilli was defeated by that magic can reinforce this theory. In fact, when he goes into the stage he quickly was taken by the strings, came from the masks, and turned into a puppet. This probably because the magic came from the theatre and not from him, so the theatre treated Fusilli like everyone else which goes its stage.
  - In another theory, Fusilli could have put from himself that dark magical power into the two masks before starting to start his travel and use it.
Fusilli was genuinely scared of Courage, because he has the body covered by face powder and looked like a ghost. This confirms that Fusilli is a living animal and not a ghost or another undead creature.
Fusilli is not part of Ball of Revenge, making only one apparition only in his own-themed episode.
- Even if he has only one apparition, he can be considered one of the main villains of the saga, as he is the final creepy baddie of the first season.
  - Fusilli is also one of the few villains who achieved their evil goals. Even if he was defeated by Courage, he managed to transform Eustace and Muriel into puppets as he wanted.
In the puppet room scene, you can see as well some common characters of the saga transformed into puppets. There's a doctor similar to Dr. Vindaloo and a Policeman.
When Fusilli becomes a puppet, he no longer wears the black boots he is usually seen wearing, this is likely an oversight on the part of the animators.
Fusilli is voiced by Jim Cummings, who also voiced other Cartoon Network villains, such as Dr. Red Eye and the Organ Grinder in Dexter's Laboratory and Fuzzy Lumpkins on the Powerpuff Girls, and has also done voices in various Disney franchises, such as Winnie the Pooh and Darkwing Duck, as well as Cat on Nickelodeon's CatDog.
- Fusilli was not the first time Jim Cummings has worked with John R. Dilworth, as he also lent his voice to the announcer and Wizzo the Very First Cartoon in an old promo bumper John R. Dilworth made for Cartoon Network in 1998.
- Fusilli, Katz and The Queen of the Black Puddle are the most evil villains of the Courage the Cowardly Dog series.
According to John R. Dilworth, Fusilli was based on one of the writers of the show whom had a raconteur-esque style of writing different from the writing of the show, which influenced the development of the characters' debut episode. The writer was initially supposed to voice Fusilli but contractual restrictions led the idea fell through and they had to use a professional voice actor instead.^[1]