Seeing Red: Terrence imagines up an imaginary friend named Red to beat Bloo up so he can bully Mac to his heart's content, but realizes the friend he creates ends up friendly instead of mean and violent.
Phone Home: A jealous Bloo tries to rescue imaginary friends when he sees Wilt get special attention for the number of abandoned imaginary friends he brings to Foster's, and brings home a man stuck in a cell-phone suit, thinking he's an imaginary friend.
Both episodes provide examples of:
- An Aesop:
- Seeing Red: Don't always jump to conclusions about people you don't know. Sometimes, the people you think are one way might be decent people.
- Phone Home: Not everything is a contest. Some things are duties that done out of helping others. However, this gets thrown out when Mac comes with a small imaginary friend and gets rewarded with a medal and a new car.
- Creative Closing Credits: The episode's ending gag has Red is using the cell phone suit guy from "Phone Home", saying "Bloo!" multiple times.
- Two Shorts: The first one done.
"Seeing Red" provides examples of:
- Agitated Item Stomping: When Terrence finds out that Red didn't crush Bloo and instead befriended him, he takes Red's flowers and stomps on them. This leads to Red turning against Terrence.
- Aside Glance: Bloo gives one when Red is dancing inside the beehive and angering the bees.
- Battered Bouquet: A non-romantic example; Terrence creates his own imaginary friend named Red to smash Bloo, Mac's imaginary friend. However, Red is very bad at being bad, preferring to sniff flowers instead of smashing Bloo. When he brings Terrence a flower, Terrence destroys the flower to show him what he should be doing to Bloo. After Bloo causes a series of Amusing Injuries to Red, Red breaks down in tears. Bloo then realizes he went too far and gives Red some flowers to apologize to him. However, Terrence witnesses this and destroys the flowers while calling Red out for being useless. It is at this point that Red has had enough of Terrence bullying him and turns against him, beating him up.
- Bee Afraid: Bloo gets the bee friends to sting Red by tricking him into dancing for some of their honey.
- Berserk Button: Frank, Joe, and Phil do not like being called "Girly", and will beat up anyone who does just that.
- Big Brother Bully: Best shown in this episode. As while Bloo is distracted with Red, Terrence uses this to bully Mac without Bloo stopping him. With Terrence giving Mac wedgies,
spitting on his face, and holding Mac doing on a wrestling pose. - Black Comedy: Terrence imagines a living slice of pizza with eyes and a mouth. It only has a single line, that being a child-like "I love you" directed at its creator, followed by screams of terror as the boy snatches it and starts taking bites out of the poor thing's body. All it's entirely Played for Laughs.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Frank, Joe, and Phil are all male unicorns, but they all look very feminine. They don't like being called "Girly", and beat up anyone who does so. Bloo knows this, which is why he tricks Red into doing it.
- Dumb Muscle: Red has tremendous strength and isn't very smart, as initially he somehow misinterpreted Terrence's instruction to "smash Bloo" as an order to sniff a flower.
- Evil Counterpart: Subverted with Red; Terrence created him to be one to Bloo, only Red is squared in contrast to Bloo's round, blob-like appearance, and he's red. However, he's a Minion with an F in Evil who eventually turns against Terrence.
- Evil Is Angular: Subverted with Red; Due to being a giant red cube with no soft edges except for his arms and facial features, he's just as about as angular as you can get, but he has a gentle, kindhearted personality who loves nature, especially flowers.
- Heel–Face Turn: Red undergoes one when Bloo apologizes to him for mistreating him, and saves Mac and Bloo from Terrence.
- Ironic Echo: As he's about to beat up Mac, Terrence says "Don't worry. This will only hurt for a second." Red repeats this as he's about to smash Bloo, which makes Bloo realize that Terrence send Red to harm him. Later, one of the unicorns says it as he's about to gore Red. And after Red beats up Terrence, Bloo says "Don't worry. This will only hurt for a week!"
- Jerkass Realization: Upon seeing Red cry over crushing some flowers, Bloo realized that Red is nothing like Terrence and gives Red new flowers to apologize for how he treated him.
- Karmic Trickster: Bloo shows to be one in this episode in leu to his trait seen in House of Bloo's. As he tricks Terrence into accidentally hit himself repeatedly and tricks Red into doing stunts to get him hurt.
- Minion with an F in Evil: Terrence created Red to smash Bloo, but Red was more into smelling flowers and admiring cute things. After suffering a series of Amusing Injuries from Bloo, Red breaks down into tears, which gets Bloo to realize he went too far and apologize to him, also leading to Red switching sides.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When Red starts crying when he crushes some flowers, Bloo says this forbaitum (minus the "My God")
- Ocular Gushers: Red cries these after he finds out that he smashed the flowers.
- Pet the Dog: Terrence shows genuine respect to his imaginary friend Red, and only starts treating him badly when he messed up his schemes and knowingly disobeyed his orders.
- Run or Die: Okay, "die" is maybe an overexaggeration, but Mac has to run to avoid getting beaten up by his brother.
- Rule of Three: Bloo gets three types of imaginary friends to attack Red. First, Bloo gets the bees to sting Red by tricking Red into dancing for some of their honey. Then, Bloo gets Red to feed the aquatic friends, resulting in Cyrus eating Red and spitting him out. Finally, he gets Frank, Joe, and Phil to attack Red by tricking him into calling them "Girly". Terrence later gets attacked by these same imaginary friends when Red turns against him.
- Third-Person Person: Red constantly refers to himself by his name.
- Turned Against Their Masters / "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Red was created by Terrence to smash Bloo, but he turned against Terrence when he bullied him, Mac, and Bloo, giving his creator a "The Reason You Suck" Speech before throwing him away.Terrence: You're just as bad as them; you're weak, worthless, and lame!
Red: Red not like Terrence words. Red not mean like Terrence. Red not bad like Terrence. RED NICE GUY! But if you want Red to be bad, let Red start with Terrence! Red make Terrence go far away!
"Phone Home" provides examples of:
- Clingy Costume: The cell phone guy can't take off his costume and tell Bloo that he's not an imaginary friend.
- Goofy Suit: A guy dressed in a cell phone costume is in front of a phone repair shop handing out fliers. Bloo mistakes him for a lost imaginary friend and tries to take him to Foster's.
- Out of Focus: Mac doesn't appear in the episode until the end of the episode.
