Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends / Tropes E to L

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends Trope Examples
A - D | E - L | M - R | S - Z

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E

• Elevator Floor Announcement: In "Squeeze the Day", Bloo does this on their way upstairs as they stop at every floor(after he pushed all the elevator buttons).
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Frankie and World in "Destination: Imagination." Frankie finally gets what she wanted all along, to be treated fairly and respected for all she does, Mr. Herriman finally fairly splitting the house work among everyone in the House instead of all on her. World, the Big Bad of the movie and an emotionally unstable Reality Warper whose been sealed in a toy chest by himself for who knows how long, is finally freed from his prison and has the friends he'd wanted the entire movie. But both had to go a long way to get it.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The "House of Bloo's" pilot contains many major differences from the main series. To wit...
  • Bloo was slightly mischievous, but still a very nice guy. In fact, the other characters constantly describe him as "a lovable imaginary friend". This comes as a shock to anyone used to the rude, egotistical, and borderline sociopathic Bloo in the later episodes.
  • Only a select few characters could understand Coco. In fact, Mac somehow being able to understand her, much to Mr. Herriman's surprise, was a major indication of how intelligent he was for his age. In later episodes, anyone could understand her, even if they had just met her.
  • Duchess was an outright villain, willing to kill Bloo, instead of the simple Royal Brat she is in the main series.
  • Madame Foster was depicted as having a hard time going down the stairs and traversing the hallways due to her age, which is why she doesn't even physically appear until the end, with her saying that it took her that whole time to walk down. In the later episodes, she becomes a surprisingly agile Cool Old Lady.
  • Eduardo speaks a lot more Gratuitous Spanish than in the later episodes, to the point where Wilt had to translate both him and Coco when saying good night to Bloo.
• Elderly Future Fantasy:
  • In "Mac Daddy", Mac believes Cheese, who is later revealed to be Louise's imaginary friend, to be his second imaginary friend and Bloo's brother. When Mac has Cheese stay at Foster's with Bloo, Bloo is horrified at the aspect of him and Cheese staying at Foster's together forever. One of the nightmares Bloo has depicts him and Mac as old men sitting in rocking chairs as an equally-elderly Cheese says "Look what I made!" and shows them a telephone with a sock taped to it.
  • In "Say it Isn't Sew", Bloo goes with Madame Foster while Mac and the rest of the imaginary friends go to the fair on the Foster's bus, in the hopes that he will get to the fair quicker. Madame Foster takes a very long time at the craft store, and Bloo has to stay in the daycare with Chauncey, a middle-aged man who has been waiting decades for his own mother to finish her errands. Eventually, Bloo falls asleep and has a dream where he's elderly and asks Madame Foster, who is now a living skeleton, if they can leave now. Madame Foster tells him that they won't be leaving ever again.
• Election Day Episode: In the episode "Setting a President", Frankie challenges Mr. Herriman for the position of house manager, and they hold an election. Bloo briefly posts himself as a candidate (mostly for the attention), and after coming last on the polls, becomes Herriman's campaign manager.
• Embarrassing Old Photo: Turns up in "Infernal Slumber" when Eduardo finds a picture of Mac as a baby bathing in the sink with his butt visible and decides to photograph the picture against Mac's wishes.
• Emotionally Tongue-Tied: Wilt has trouble saying "No" when someone asks him to do something.
• End-of-Series Awareness: In the final episode, when Bloo finds out Mac is moving, he tries to convince him to stay by listing things they can do, all of which were the plots of previous episodes. When Mac tells him they've done all those things already, Bloo says that if they've done everything, the only thing left is to jump the shark. The episode also ends with the opening scene of Foster's being drawn played in reversed, almost like it's being erased.
• Entertainingly Wrong: "The Big Picture" has Mac and Bloo trying to figure out the story behind an unusual house photo where everyone is absent. Mac comes to the conclusion that they all just missed it because a prankster named Wally deliberately chose not to inform anyone that the photo would be an hour early this time because the friend Camery, who took the picture, had his flash broken so they needed to do it earlier in the day to have enough light. This all makes sense and everything leads to that conclusion but it's not actually what happened. Bloo figures out what actually happened, having figured that a prankster like Wally wouldn't do something so simple. After taking a close look at the picture Bloo realizes that Wally rigged the staircase into a trapdoor and dropped everyone into the basement.
• Episode Title Card: All the episodes have these, typically with a relevant sound effect over it. We only see the episode's title in this, as writing, directing, etc. credits are typically played over the first few minutes of the episode.
• Ethnic Scrappy: Eurotrish is one In-Universe: she sings off-key, has a questionable design and voice and was rejected by her creators who found her annoying. However, Poe's Law is certainly in effect.
• Everyone Has Standards: In "Eddie Monster", the Imaginary Friend fighting ring allows — even encourages — cheap shots and dirty tricks. However, attempting to fix a fight is grounds for immediate disqualification.
• "Everyone Is Gone" Episode: Squeeze The Day's plot revolves around this idea. Mac and Bloo are the only ones who aren't gone, time for some fun.
• Everyone Knows Morse: Bloo tap dances Morse code to call for help in "The Sweet Stench of Success".
• Evil Counterpart: Subverted in an episode Terrence attempts to make his own imaginary friend to deal with Bloo, who constantly manages to humiliate and outsmart him whenever he starts picking on Mac. Not only is he sqaure in contrast to Bloo's round, blob like appearance, he's red and, surprisingly, named Red. It's Subverted though in that, despite being made to be an Evil Counterpart to take on Bloo, Bloo easily outsmarts and humiliates him at every turn, and once he begins to realize Red isn't that bad a guy after he pushes his pranks too far, offers to be friends with him. Red quickly realizes that Good Feels Good and starts going after Terrence for picking on Mac. All in all, he's arguably a nicer imaginary friend than Bloo himself!
• Exact Words: When Mac and Bloo get lost in the house in "Dinner is Swerved", they end up asking Duchess if she can help them. She says she can, but when she doesn't lift a finger to, she clarifies that they asked if she could and she can. They didn't ask if she would and she won't.
  • In "Cheese a Go-Go", Coco and Jackie befriend a cop and go get sandwiches. One of them gives the cop a black eye and they both wind up in jail. To be fair, Jackie said "Let's go get sandwiches". He didn't say "I'm buying you a sandwich".
• Expospeak Gag: Mr. Herriman's preferred manner of speaking quite often involves using technical words to describe even the most mundane and simplest of phrases.
• Expy:
  • Mac is based on a one-time The Powerpuff Girls (1998) character, Mike, who had an imaginary friend of his own.

• Extranormal Institute: Foster's is a place where human kids adopt imaginary friends.
• Extremely Overdue Library Book: In "Jackie Khones and the Case of the Overdue Library Crook", Mac seeks the aid of Jackie Khones to find out who stole his library card and used it to check out a now-overdue book, resulting in Mac being put on the library's Most Wanted list. In the end, it is revealed that Jackie was the one who took Mac's library card and used it to borrow a book about detective work so he could start his own detective agency in the first place.

F

• The Faceless: Mac and Terrence's mom. At most, we see the back of her head, if we see her head at all.
• Fainting: Happens to several characters at the end of "Bloooo." Frankie, who has been desperately trying to get back into the house which Wilt and Ed boarded up in a panic, finally drives the bus through the front door. Shakily stepping out of it while muttering about a monster she believes has been stalking her, she passes out upon seeing Ed, Wilt, Coco, and Mr. Herriman coated in the dust she kicked up when crashing through the doors, believing them to be ghosts. They themselves faint when the "monster" that was stalking Frankie enters, only for it to be revealed as an imaginary friend trying to get housing. When he sees Bloo, turned pale-white due to illness, he mistakes him for a ghost and runs away screaming.
• Fantastic Racism: It's never really explored in the series but there is a lot of evidence to suggest that imaginary friends suffer from notable discrimination. They are seemingly seen as being nothing but glorified playmates for children and once a child matures they're expected to abandon their friend, with Foster's existing to house friends with nowhere to go. They also appear have less rights than normal people as they're not allowed some jobs, adopted friends are shown to be legally subordinate to the whims of their adopters and some areas have outright bans on imaginary friends living within their limits.
• Fantastic Science: Figmentology, the study of imaginary friends, as alluded to in "Good Wilt Hunting".
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink, as well as Fairytale Motifs: Unicorns, giant monsters, superheroes, and countless other creatures.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Wilt, who is missing an arm and has one of his eyes being wonky and on a crooked eyestalk.
• "Fawlty Towers" Plot: "Bus The Two Of Us," which involves Bloo taking the Foster's Bus on a joyride and Mac, who got dragged along, asking Wilt to keep this fact under wraps, requiring him to lie which, for a Nice Guy like him, is far from an easy task.
• Fiery Redhead: Frankie, as Mr. Herriman and Bloo learn when they push her too far. Or as Dylan finds out when he threatens her friends.
• Finger-Snapping Street Gang: In "The Bloo Superdude and the Great Creator of Everything's Awesome Ceremony of Fun That He's Not Invited To", the Bloo Superdude (actually a sick Bloo hallucinating) and a rabbit monster (actually a stuffed toy) snap their fingers before fighting each other.
• First-Episode Twist: Two in the series' first episode, "House of Bloo's".
  • Bloo goes to live in the titular foster home, with the plot surrounding Mac and Bloo's attempt to create the deal that would allow the latter to live there without fear of adoption.
  • Throughout the episode, it's also implied that Madame Foster is dead. She makes an appearance in the last scene, and goes on to be a main character throughout the series.
• First-Name Ultimatum: And justified in the cases of some characters like Mac, who well, don't have a last name.
• Flanderization:
  • Bloo wasn't nearly as much of a jerk in the early seasons.
  • The whole series could actually count in regards to how nastier it got in tone in the later seasons. While the first two seasons had their share of sadistic and mean-spirited moments (such as the infamous "Everyone Knows It's Bendy"), it was still a mostly lighthearted show. By the third season, while there are still some lighthearted episodes, there are far more moments of sadism and cruelty with even the most good-natured characters like Mac and Wilt suddenly turning into a jackass if the plot demands it.
• Five-Second Rule: Slightly exaggerated in "Infernal Slumber", when Bloo offers Mac a Potato Chip that fell on the ground.
  Bloo: Fell on the floor, but 2-second rule. (...) Well, 14-second rule.
• Flea Episode: "Land of the Flea", where Eduardo picks up fleas from his pet dog, Chewy, befriends them, and protects them from Frankie and Mr. Herriman. Bloo, thinking that having fleas sounds like fun, makes a robe from Eduardo's fur. The fleas turn out be imaginary friends themselves, and thus are allowed to stay. Frankie and the imaginary friends shave all the fur off the furry imaginary friends and make a special room for the fleas.
• Forbidden Fruit: In "The Trouble With Scribbles" when Bloo finds the door behind which the titular Scribbles are kept. His curiosity is ignited by Mr. Herriman mentioning "Deep, dark, mysterious secrets" when explaining why the door should remain shut and fueled by everyone else avoiding talking about it whenever he asks. Eventually he can't take it anymore and sneaks off at night to open it.
• Framed Clue: How Mac and Bloo find the map to the Foster's treasure in "Squeeze the Day" following a failed attempt to use a picture of Madame Foster as an impromptu cookie sheet to slide down the stairs with, breaking it and revealing the map.
• Freudian Trio: Mac (Superego), Frankie (Ego) and Bloo (Id) had this dynamic in most of their interactions.
• Friendly Tickle Torture: In the episode "Bloo Tube" as one of the videos, Frankie and another imaginary friend do this to an elephant to make him shoot milk out of his nose and ears.
• Fun with Homophones:
  • In "Crime After Crime", Coco steals Mr. Herriman's carrots, so he calls the police reporting a theft of a hundred carrots. The cops, not knowing he's a rabbit, believe that he said a hundred karats; i.e., that Herriman had called to report that a large amount of jewelry was stolen. This ends up getting Herriman arrested when the cops arrive at Foster's and see him holding some jewelry.
  • In "Affairweather Friends", Berri tries to steal Bloo from Mac by disguising herself as a rich kid named Barry. Because of the similar-sounding names, Mac's unable to explain to Bloo that the two are one and the same until he refers to Berri as "Heather" (which was one of the incorrect names Bloo used to refer to Berri in her debut episode).

G

• Genki Girl: Goo, complete with Motor Mouth.
• Gentle Giant:
  • Eduardo is a giant minotaur-like friend who appears frightening to Mac at first, but he turns out to be sweet and (to be honest) a coward - unless his friends are in danger.
  • Wilt is a very, very tall fellow with one arm who's polite to the point of neurosis.
• Godiva Hair: In "Camp Keep A Good Mac Down", Madame Foster is shown to easily adapt to the wild and it gets to the point that she starts going around naked. Because this is a children's show, her nudity is covered up by her hair being worn down.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Frankie. "Holy. Guac. Amolie."
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Mac taking Bloo to his school's show and tell to try and get the kids to adopt some imaginary friends from Foster's just results in the house soon being flooded with copies of Bloo Mac's schoolmates imagined up in Bloo's brothers.
• Grand Finale: Destination: Imagination and "Goodbye to Bloo". Depending on your views, you might assign either the last episode or the movie as the true finale. "Goodbye to Bloo" essentially brings up the point that started the series in the first place — Mac having to say goodbye to Bloo for good. Through classic shenanigans, it becomes a huge misunderstanding that Mac and family will move away and leave Bloo up for adoption. In the end, it's strongly disproved... and Cheese ends up being sent to live at Foster's, followed by a thank you note to the viewers in the credits. The movie, on the other hand, ends with all the friends at Foster's jumping into the toy box, Mac and Bloo the last ones in, which gives a nice closing shot that basically says the characters are going away now, back into the toy box like stuffed animals — say your goodbyes.
• Grandma's Recipe: In the episode, "Cookie Dough", Madame Foster has a special recipe for cookies that she only makes once a year. Bloo takes the recipe and starts making the cookies for profit, but they quickly fail to sell, because Madame Foster had a secret ingredient that he forgot: love.
• G-Rated Drug:
  • Sugar to Mac. Just a small amount causes him to go into a hyperactive frenzy of devouring anything sweet he can find.
  • In "Cookie Dough" Frankie's obsession with Madame Foster's cookies is blatantly akin to a cocaine addiction.
• Gratuitous Spanish: Eduardo. He often throws in various words and calls Bloo "Azul".
• Greeting Gesture Confusion: In the episode "I Only Have Surprise for You", when Mr. Herriman's back-up team to set up a birthday party that Mac is trying to prevent succeeds in their mission, the back-up team leader offers Mr. Herriman a high-five but Mr. Herriman shakes his hand while his hand is still in the air for the high-five.
• Growing Up Sucks: The premise is that nearly all kids grow out of needing their imaginary friends, so Mac will likely end up leaving Bloo. However, we've seen some creators as adults, and they still care a great deal for their imaginary friends. Madame Foster says that Mac's imagination is the purest she's seen since her own, and she never gave up her imaginary friend...
  • Perfectly summed up by Frankie at the end of Squeeze the Day.
  Frankie: ""I wish I could be you, Mac. No job, no responsibilities. You will never be a child again. Don't let it pass you by. All that matters is right here, right now. Take advantage of every precious moment. This is your time to do the most awesome of awesome things."
• Grumpy Old Man: Old Man Rivers from Neighbor Pains and the (appropriately named) Iman Oldcoot from Something Old Something Bloo.

H

• Hair-Raising Hare: Normally strict and formal with the appearance of a distinguished gentleman, you do NOT want to make Mr. Herriman angry. Even Frankie cowers in fear when Herriman truly has his Berserk Button pressed as seen in "World Wide Wabbit".
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Lampshaded in "Adoptcalypse Now;" while Mac claims to Mr. Herriman that he's bringing Coco in because she's embarrassed about being nude(he's really trying to avoid her being adopted), Herriman points out that most imaginary friends are nude. Mac calls him "Pantsless Joe" in response, prompting Herriman to cover his (offscreen) crotch. He's seen wearing a pair of overalls the rest of the episode.
• Hands-Off Parenting: Goo's unseen parents. They let her chose her own name as a baby and have no qualms about Goo spontaneously creating dozens of imaginary friends on the spot.
• Handy Feet: Coco is an Armless Biped and as such, often uses her feet for most tasks.

• Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": "The Bloo Superdude and the Potato of Power" had Bloo tell a story where he painted himself as an overpowered and muscular badass.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Mac and Bloo, which is particularly funny in "Mac Daddy", when they discuss Mac's creation of Cheese as if Mac cheated on Bloo.
• Hiccup Hijinks: The premise of "Hiccy-Burp;" Bloo gets the hiccups before an imaginary friends beauty pageant and he and Mac initially think he'll be unable to perform if they can't get rid of them, but they end up finding a way to use it in the "Talent" portion of the contest.
• High-Class Glass: Mr. Herriman's monocle.
• Hired on the Spot: In "Bus The Two Of Us", Bloo and Mac stop at a pizzeria because Bloo needs to use the restroom. However, the only restroom available is exclusive to employees. As a result, Bloo takes a job as a pizza deliveryman for the restaurant in order to use the restroom. Quickly afterwards, Mac says that he needs to go now, the manager putting a company hat on Mac and welcoming him to the team as he enters the restroom.
• Holding in Laughter: In "World Wide Wabbit", Mac and Bloo secretly record Mr. Herriman reciting an adorably cute poem to Madame Foster. When Frankie and the other friends watch it, they can't help but snicker whenever they hear Herriman speak, especially since they're imagining "-ity" being added to most of his words.

• Horrible Camping Trip: In "Camp Keep a Good Mac Down," Bloo eats all the food that he and his friends brought while en route to the campsite, everyone else struggles to find food in the wild to last the weekend.
• Hug and Comment: "Mac Daddy" has:
  Bloo: I love you, brother! (hugs Cheese)
  Cheese: I pooted.
• Humans Are Ugly: Duchess considers Frankie ugly. Then again, she considers anyone who isn't herself ugly.
• Human Mail: Bloo tries to send Cheese away through the mail. Cheese gets sent back due to insufficient postage — the message on the package says "Postage insufficient to tolerate smell".

I

• I Need a Freaking Drink: In "World Wide Wabbit", after finding out that he's become an Internet celebrity thanks to a viral video, an angry Mr. Herriman announces he's going out for "a stall, stiff glass of carrot juice"
• I Never Said It Was Poison: Bloo once Jackie Khones found Madame Foster's favorite doily in comic book story "Penny Saved".
  Bloo: I wonder how that got shoved under the squeaky top stair?
  Jackie: Hey! How did you know it was under the squeaky top stair?
  Bloo: Lucky guess?
• Idea Bulb: Spoofed in "Cookie Dough;" When Bloo is thinking of an idea to raise money for Foster's to buy a new roof when their current one is leaking, a light bulb imaginary friend hovers over his head, to Bloo's annoyance.
• Identical Grandson: Frankie looks exactly like photos of a young Madame Foster, and both wear green hoodies and purple skirts.

• I Know You Know I Know: Done in "Affairweather Friends" when Mac figures out that the rich kid Barry is actually Berry in disguise and ends up falling into a trap, after which Berry goes on a lengthy speech about anticipating that Mac anticipated her scheme and that she knew what he and Bloo would try to do.
• Imaginary Friend: Well, obviously. The twist here is that the friends kids imagine actually become real, and come to Foster's when their kids outgrow them. Lampshaded in "My So-called wife" where Mr. Herriman explains this twist to a visitor who thinks imaginary friends are only visible to their creators.
• In a World…: Parodied in "One False Movie;" this is how Bloo starts the movie he made for Mac's school's film festival
  Bloo: (Voiceover) In a world where chaos reigns like cats and dogs in a hailstorm...
• Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!:
  • In "World Wide Wabbit", while making video interviews of the imaginary friends to help them find new homes, Mac and Bloo secretly film Mr. Herriman performing his "Funny Bunny" song to Madame Foster. The video gets spread across the house by Bloo and Frankie, and eventually gets uploaded to ViewTube and becomes viral overnight. Herriman soon gets hounded by reporters wanting to interview "Funny Bunny".
  • In "Bloo Tube", the imaginary friends decide to film their own videos to upload to ViewTube to pass the time on a rainy day when their trip to the Monsoon Lagoon water park gets cancelled. Upset over the cancellation, Bloo tries to one-up Monsoon Lagoon by turning Foster's into an indoor water park called Bloo Lagoon, which features a poorly-constructed water slide fueled by rainwater he built called the Undertow. When Bloo takes it for a test drive, he ends up both making a fool of and injuring himself. The other imaginary friends film him as he rides it, splice their footage together, and make a video called "The Bloo Buffoon", which becomes the #1 most watched video on ViewTube with over twenty million views.
• Insane Proprietor: Madame Foster is a little more than eccentric, but she does keep the house running, despite her quirks and the general craziness around her.
• Insult Backfire: Duchess keeps on trying to insult the Applebees in "Duchess of Wails", but they all assume that her crass remarks and sarcastic comments are supposed to be jokes.
• Instant Web Hit: The "Funny Bunny" video in "World Wide Wabbit".
• Intentional Mess Making:
  • One episode has Bloo doing everything he can to be sent to bed without supper. The first we see of him doing this is "decorating" a couch with ketchup and mustard. He fails; Herriman sends everyone but Bloo to bed without dinner as he believes everyone is spying on him and Bloo is exposing the culprits, and Bloo is made to eat the dinner he is trying to avoid as delayed punishment. All of it. Frankie even references this.
  Frankie: (as she shoves another plate of "It" in Bloo's face) This is for gluing all the furniture to the ceiling. And don't forget to save room for Banana Hallways and Condiment Couch.
  • In "Everyone Knows It's Bendy", the eponymous Bendy smashes a vase, eats chips while leaving crumbs on the floor, covers Wilt's shoes in mud to get the floor muddy too, breaks a window with a baseball, and writes on the walls. He gets away with it by fake-crying and playing the victim card to blame the other imaginary friends.
  • "Room with a Feud" has two examples;
    • When a new room becomes available to anyone who wants it, Bloo, Wilt, Eduardo, and Coco all compete for ownership of it. After Eduardo puts Bloo in a trash can for trying to claim the new room, Bloo returns to the room in the trash can and spreads garbage all over the room to convince the imaginary friends that only he deserves to live in a room as messy as it. This backfires because Wilt says that he doesn't deserve to live in the new room if he can't keep it clean.
    • When a new imaginary friend named Peanut Butter moves into the new room, Mac and the imaginary friends trash the room by tearing up its basketball wallpaper, letting a cluster of spiders loose, and spreading garbage all over the floor to convince him to move out. These all backfire, as Peanut Butter hated the wallpaper, loves spiders, and the kid who imagined him was a real slob, so all the garbage reminded him of home.
• Intergenerational Friendship: 22-year-old Frankie and 8-year-old Mac.
• Interrupted Cooldown Hug: Happens during Destination Imagination. Frankie had just calmed World down and made him friendly towards her friends when Mr. Herriman comes barging in and basically reinforces every one of his fears in one fell swoop before attempting to push everyone out of the toy chest. Cue the Unstoppable Rage that literally tears the entire reality of the toy chest apart.
• Interspecies Romance: Coco briefly pursues a relationship with a yeti in "Mondo Coco".
• Intoxication Ensues: Mac on sugar, to the point of tearing off his clothes and running naked through the town.
• Invisible Celebrity Guest: Mel Gibson and Tom Hanks appeared with buckets on their heads.
• Ironic Name: There is one imaginary friend named Crackers who doesn't like crackers, according to her trading card. She can't be blamed considering sharing her name with the snack is the reason why people who expect the real deal don't adopt her, as happened in "Mac Daddy".
• Irritation Nightmare: In the episode "Mac Daddy", Bloo has a nightmare involving a crossdressing Cheese ruining a fantasy moment saying, "I'm a lady!", then kissing Bloo and saying, "Now we're brother ladies!"
• It's A Small Net After All: Averted in "World Wide Wabbit." After finding out a video of him is popular on the internet, Herriman tries throwing out the computer, but Frankie explains to him that's not how it works.

J

• Jumping the Shark: Referenced in a Show Within a Show and was literally attempted by Bloo in the Grand Finale.

K

• Kavorka Man: Bloo gets attention from Berry even though he's not exactly handsome and a real jerk. Her being completely insane might have something to do with it.
• Kazoos Mean Silliness: The music is played with children's instruments, including kazoos, appropriate for a show about kids' Imaginary Friends. Furthermore, main character Bloo has the full name Blooregard Q. Kazoo.
• Killer Rabbit: Several of the imaginary friends may look cute, but can be very dangerous.
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: Imaginary Man may seem tough, but all you have to do to make him lose his powers is to throw flowers at him. Not that his designated Arch-Enemy, Nemesister, has it any easier. She loses her powers once you rough up her perfect hair a little.
• Key Confusion:
  • In the B-plot for "Bloooo", Frankie tries to get into the house to evade an apparently dangerous character. She drops her key at the front door and discovers it landed in a pile of dozens of keys (that Wilt, Eduardo and Coco threw out the window in the A-plot), leaving her to frantically find the right key before she's spotted by her stalker.
  • In "Fools and Regulations", Mac and the imaginary friends sneak back into the house to play Terrence's video games after Frankie locked them out so they wouldn't disturb the benefit party she is throwing to raise money for Foster's. When Frankie and Mr. Herriman go outside to check on them, Bloo locks them out so they won't be able to punish them. Mr. Herriman has a key ring on hand, but has a very hard time figuring out which key is the one that unlocks the house. When he eventually finds it, Eduardo takes the key ring from him to ensure he can't unlock the door any more. At the end of the episode, it is revealed that Mr. Herriman keeps a spare key under the house's doormat.

L

• Lack of Imagination: Addressed when Wilt gives Mac and Bloo a tour, he points out an imaginary friend that is an exact copy of Mojo Jojo from The Powerpuff Girls (1998) saying that some kids just copy what they see on the TV.
• Lame Pun Reaction:
  • From the pilot movie House of Bloo's: "Let's Bloo (do) this!". The gang even reacts to this.
  • Done several times in "Mac Daddy": Mac and Cheese, Bloo Cheese, and finally "Cheese Louise". Cue Mac's Face Palm.
• Lampshaded Double Entendre: Subverted in "Partying is Such Sweet Soree"
  Bloo: (Describing the party to Mac) ...and on the 6th floor, "Ring Around the Rosie" (suggestively, elbowing Mac) If you know what I mean!
  Mac: (audibly confused) Not really...
  Bloo: Yeah, me neither.
• Laser-Guided Karma: "A Lost Claus" has Bloo rewarded for his collective naughty shenanigans when he receives an unceremonious pile of coal for Christmas. Mac celebrates this because it proves Santa Claus is real if he knows Bloo so well to give him coal.
• Last-Second Photo Failure: In "The Big Picture", Mac and Bloo try to solve the mystery of how all the friends mysteriously disappeared one year during the house's annual group photo shoot. The answer is eventually revealed to be a prankster friend named Wally turning the stairway into a trapdoor and opening it everyone just as the shot was taken, something that got him banished from the house (and all conversation). At the end of the episode, Bloo pulls the exact same stunt.

• Learned from the News: In "World Wide Wabbit", the friends try to keep Mr. Herriman from finding out that Bloo secretly recorded him doing a dance for Madame Foster, released the footage onto the Internet and is now viral. When Frankie sees a picture of Herriman in the newspaper, a game of Keep Away ensues to prevent him from seeing it; eventually, Eduardo eats the paper and Wilt suggests that he watch the news on TV. Unfortunately, the station's news team is in front of the house to do an interview — and they're live!

• Lessons in Sophistication: In "My So Called Wife", Mr. Herriman has to teach Coco how to behave like a lady when a rich benefactor thought that she was his wife and the two were invited into his mansion for the charity. All the while, Mac teaches Bloo what sarcasm means.
• Let's Meet the Meat: Food-based imaginary friends are shown in the episode "Dinner is Swerved," usually imagined by kids in diet camps according to the chicken leg friend we see.
• Limited Wardrobe: The human characters always wear the same clothes, as do the few imaginary friends who actually wear clothes. "Setting a President" features a bit of Lampshade Hanging; When Frankie runs against Mr. Herriman for president of the house, Herriman eventually resorts to a smear campaign in his efforts to win. One of the resulting ads counters Frankie's promises of "change" by pointing out that she wears the same green jacket every day.
• Living Prop: Downplayed. Every resident imaginary friend who isn't in the main cast takes the role of a living prop unless the plot makes them relevant, yet the creators of the show took the time to name them all, even going so far as to write a small paragraph about a dozen or so of them in the Season 1 DVD.
• Loophole Abuse: In "Beat with a Schtick" Bloo intentionally gets himself in a lot of trouble hoping to get expelled. Why? He is about to get into a fight with the new guy (to quote Mr. Herriman: "That vicious, gargantuan bone-crusher"). Mr. Herriman does the math and decides this isn't an illegal fight but a "gentleman's challenge" which is totally legal.
• Love Makes You Crazy/Love Makes You Evil: Berry attempts to kill Mac in both appearances because she thought he was getting in the way of her relationship with Bloo.

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