Fridge / Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends

Fridge Brilliance

• In the episode where Bloo thinks Mac is a nerd, Bloo is put up for adoption and everyone thinks he is like some famous person for no explanation. Until you remember this takes place after Bloo was a TV star.
• In "Emancipation Complication", the tiny pen resembling Abraham Lincoln sold imaginary friends to do people's chores. You know, as slaves. Didn't the original Abraham Lincoln have something to do with slaves, as well?
• In "Bloo Superdude and the Great Creator of Everything's Awesome Party of Fun", Broccoli asks Bloo what his name is, and he replies "Jimmy! No, wait..." This might seem a little bit too stupid, even for Bloo, but it's said in the pilot that "Bloo" is actually just a nickname. His name is actually "Blooregard Q. Kazoo", and at the time he hadn't been referred to as that in 5 years, making it a little more understandable.
• As the series progresses, Bloo's Jerkass tendencies wildly accelerate into a point where he's pretty much nothing more than an insufferable and cruel individual with rare Pet the Dog moments. But as the movies and later episodes imply, imaginary friends often seem to grow into opposite roles of their creators, such as Wilt gaining Extreme Doormat tendencies which encourage his former owner to take his life into his own hands, or Eduardo's owner becoming a police woman to grow brave due to his crybaby nature. In this sense, it can be argued that Bloo Took a Level in Jerkass as sort of a polar opposite to Mac's Nice Guy nature, essentially being a Secret Test of Character to help Mac grow up as an individual with neither of them the wiser. But since imaginary friends are still people too, Character Development can help them grow out of this as well.
  • Plus it could also be all the stuff with Mr. Herriman's not so nice treatment of the other house guests. Given Bloo was likely picked on a lot by Terrence with Mac, he may have had enough with being treated like a doormat and decides to push back by becoming just as big (if not more so) of a jerk than those that picked on him and Mac. Really it could just be a form of aggressive self preservation since Mac can only visit him after school or whenever he's around, so he's really just a being stuck in a big house with people he could see as friends come and go. It also helps that he's not AS bad towards Mac as others, as his things are mostly just pranks and seems to genuinely care about Mac's opinion on him. Meaning that besides Mac, he doesn't seem to want to make as long term connections with people who can go at any moment.
• Eduardo pouting while looking away from Mojo Jojo in the pilot movie. It's not just a jab at unimaginative imaginary friends—Mojo is the primary antagonist of The Powerpuff Girls. Why on Earth would Ed, who's already afraid of everything, associate himself with a supercriminal?
• You might think it's weird that Terrence would receive Christmas presents in "A Lost Claus" while Bloo is the one to receive coal for being naughty. But since he's been Out of Focus, one can reasonably assume that he's eased up on Mac enough to warrant presents.
  • Except the last thing we see him do in that scene is shoot Mac with what looks to be an airsoft gun shooting pellets. The more likely explanation is that his presents were from Mom.
• Coco's fear of flying in "Foster's Goes to Europe" despite being part airplane and bird isn't as absurd as it sounds. In the pilot movie, there was a gag where she tried to fly, but couldn't.
• While the police officers at the end of "The Sweet Stench of Success" arrest Kip for False Advertising, saying he will be sentenced to life in prison for it may sound like some massive Disproportionate Retribution. However, that was far from the only thing he did: he's guilty of several other crimes which, when combined together, really shows that Bloo calling him "Evil" is Not Hyperbole.
  • Perjury - Kip Snip lied to Bloo saying that he was signing an acting contract for his commercials, when in reality, he was signing adoption papers. Speaking of which...
  • Contract Fraud - Those "adoption papers" Bloo signed are illegitimate; the only legal contract for adopting an imaginary friend from Foster's is the Certificate of Adoption (seen in House of Bloo's). Even if they were real, Bloo is a minor (under 18 years old) and therefore cannot sign legally binding contracts under US law without a legal guardian. And even if he was an adult imaginary friend (like Wilt for example) the only member of Foster's staff with the authority to sign any adoption papers at all is Mr. Herriman, who didn't even see, let alone sign Kip's fraudulent documents. And this all ignores the verbal agreement that Madame Foster made to not put Bloo up for adoption in the first place.
  • Kidnapping (or Friendnapping?) - Given that the "adoption papers" Bloo signed were completely unenforcable as explained above, Kip was never his legal guardian, and therefore, Kip forcing him to live in a pet cage and away from his actual home is considered unlawful imprisonment. This doesn't even get into denying him basic necessities like food and water.
  • Indentured Servitude - Kip forcing Bloo into uncompensated and involuntary labor is a direct violation of the 13th Amendment under US Federal Law.
• Red turning into a nice, if slow-witted, guy against Terrance's wishes seems pretty odd. But then you remember Officer Nina's words: imaginary friends can help you grow as people against expectations. The keyword here is can.
  • Red would be the kind of imaginary friend who would help a mean kid become nice: tough, scary-looking, but a big softie underneath. If Terrance was just a troubled kid who needed an attitude adjustment, he would've eventually gotten along with Red. But Terrance has been nothing but a Grade-A Jerkass who lives to torment Mac. And so when he sees Red acting nice, Terrance just insults and belittles him, learning no lessons about being better.
  • Bloo, meanwhile, behaves like his nasty and manipulative self to Red, albeit not without reason this time. But when Bloo sees Red in tears, Bloo feels bad and offers to make amends.
    • Bloo is, deep down, a being capable of decency and is able to grow as a person with Red. Terrance, a being capable of zero decency, just becomes more of a Jerkass.
• Jackie's lack of effort in solving Mac's case in "Jackie Khones and the Case of the Overdue Library Crook" makes sense when you realize that he was the culprit all along.
• In "My So-Called Wife", one of Coco's antics includes her bouncing on the diving board of the swimming pool while playing a sousaphone. An example of her being quirky? Yes. But it’s also a Visual Pun: she’s tuba diving!

Fridge Horror

• The concept of the show in general. Even fans of the show must admit that a world where sentient creatures are forced to leave their families that raised them and put into foster homes is a very disturbing idea. What was life like before Foster's was even opened? Were imaginary friends just thrown out on the street... or even killed? For such a funny and overall light-hearted show, you really need to wonder how they think. For a show based on a pet shelter, it's surprising they never really thought that through.
  • Uncle Pockets' debut episode lends support to the "thrown out on the street" interpretation—he mentions that he wandered in the streets after his creator abandoned him until Madam Foster found him and took him in.
  • Further Fridge Horror—is Foster's the only institution of its kind in this world? What happens to imaginary friends in other parts of the world if they can't find good homes?
    • One episode showcases an imaginary friend that's native to Europe, but is living at Foster's in the USA. This implies that no, other countries don't have such places.
• Actually, most people might not realize it, but the show's ENTIRE universe is nothing but pure Fridge Horror. They all exist in a universe where all of a persons imaginative thoughts can come to life if believed in hard enough, so that would mean somewhere the visual and audible hallucinations of the mentally insane are alive and secretly roaming somewhere and menacing and possibly killing people at random.
• Stop to consider for a moment that no imaginary friend is shown to age (it's suggested/easily believed that Herriman was just born that old). If that is the case, then one of three things must happen. One is that imaginaries never die, and will wander the world for all eternity, constantly seeking the attentions of children (which is horrible in and of itself). Second, there is an euthanasia program for imaginaries. As a fan of the show, imagine your job being putting Wilt down. Options 1 and 2 could come together, and imaginaries eventually kill themselves.
• In a society where beings like imaginary friends exist, what would be the criteria to determine that they are capable of things like signing a contract or learning how to drive? If there isn't, you could potentially have a situation that an imaginary friend with the mental faculties of a child, signing a contract that they can't get out of.
  • Considering that this is exactly what happened to Bloo in "The Sweet Stench of Success", just imagine how many other imaginary friends this might have happened to that weren't rescued from situations like that.
• In "Seeing Red", we witness what is probably the most Fridge Horror moment on the show. In that episode, Terrance wants a pizza and inadvertently creates a pizza friend, who greets him enthusiastically with "Howdy-do! I love you!"... and then Terrence devours him. Sure, it's Played for Laughs, but seeing the perspective from the imaginary friend can be quite sad. If that character had survived Terrence's hunger, it's likely that he would have lived his entire life depressed, traumatized, and/or broken, knowing that his creator is an incredibly sadistic and sociopathic boy who never loved him, especially considering that he only came into the world to love him.
  • The same could apply to other imaginary friends who were created to be food. This episode roughly shows that imaginary friends could be used as food while they are alive, which there would probably be many more like him suffering the same fate.
  • The mere fact that there are incredibly sweet and friendly imaginary friends like him falling into the hands of guys as sadistic or even worse than Terrence is quite disturbing. Who knows how many imaginary friends could be suffering even worse fates for the sociopathic nature of their creators?
  • Then there's the fact that Terrence done this while he was alone. Can you imagine how Mac, Bloo and his friends would have reacted if they had seen this?
  • Considering what a sociopath Terrence already is at 13 years old, it's terrifying to imagine what he'll be like once he grows into an adult.
  • So... nobody else is going to address the OTHER elephant in the room with the fact that people at least as old as teenagers are capable of imagining living, physical beings, some of which are physically indistinguishable from humans? You know, TEENAGERS, people that have recently gone through puberty and are just starting to get sexually awakened? How many imaginary friends were created with the sole purpose of being a teenage boy(or girl)'s outlet for such desires? How is the population of humans not absolutely dwindling when people can imagine their ideal partner into existence on a whim, assuming imaginary friends aren't capable of reproducing with each other or humans? Actually, considering we know for a fact that Imaginary friends can experience romantic attraction (see the first Bloonardo episode) maybe they CAN.
• There is an imaginary friend shaped like a raindrop that likes to jump off the roof. He has a little umbrella so he can just float down. However, he likes company. He drags people up to the roof to jump off with him when they are sad.
• World was sealed inside of a toy chest. Okay, fair enough, but we have no way of knowing just how long he was in there! Apparently long enough to make him extremely mentally unstable. Think about it, he was sealed in that chest, alone, for who knows how long. Yeah, he's a Reality Warper, but he's unable to make the one thing he wanted more than anything else, other sentient creatures to actually interact with. Imagine being in an entire world with you being the only sentient being in all of existence...no wonder he was so upset when they tried to take Frankie away...
• In the movie/Pilot, when Mac's mother told Mac that him having an imaginary friend may have been causing Terrance to pick on him, she was placing blame on her son for being immature and not on the bullying older brother for choosing to pick on him. It's not acknowledged as much compared to the fact that Mac has to give Bloo up, but that itself is not exactly great parenting.
• At the end of the pilot, the Xtremosaur Duchess releases is presumably locked up again. But when Wilt was talking about the monsters in the cage, he said that "They are called Xtremosauruses"-which means Duchess actually let out multiple dangerous monsters, and only one was found...
  • Wilt was probably talking in a much more general "they" sense. Like when you see a tiger in a pen at the zoo and read its placard. Chances are the information the placard gives is talking more about tigers as a species than this single individual tiger. He didn't necessarily mean there were multiple of them in the same cage (which would likely be extremely hazardous given how dangerous just one in a cage can be), just that he was talking about the Xtremosaurus type of imaginary friend and using this one as an example.
• Berry. A Yandere who fell in love with Bloo the first time she saw him, and would stop at nothing to get rid of his best friend, Mac. Yeah, we don't know what exactly caused her to be that messed up (beyond the obvious of Bloo not paying her any attention,) but it does make you wonder who thought her up. It's even worse when he or she could have been worse than her...
  • What if Berry is crazy because she was abandoned? When she came to Foster's, no one was there to drop her off.
• Doubles as a tearjerker, but if Bloo is supposed to be based off a child's security blanket, why isn't he nicer to Mac? Shouldn't he be more compassionate? Maybe not- since a jerkass and negligent family is the only security Mac's known. It's also been theorized that Bloo was created to help Mac express his snarkier side and the other parts of him that don't quite fit his Nice Guy reputation; unfortunately, this worked a little too well... and the abusive older brother and absent parents probably didn't help.
  • On a related note, when Bloo started to hallucinate from hunger in Dinner Is Swerved, Bloo seemed incredibly ready to eat the anthropomorphic chicken leg that he thought was Mac until he learned it was another imaginary friend. He was willing to eat his friend, understanding it was his friend, but not someone who actually is food. Let that sink in...
    • Well, Bloo was going insane from hunger, so of course he's not going to use common sense. After all, there have been episodes where, even when Bloo is being a jerk, he still likes Mac and likes hanging out with him.
• The fact that the last episode ends with Cheese moving into Foster's to the displeasure of everyone in the house because Louise has moved to a place that doesn't allow imaginary friends. True, it is a funny gag, but it's really depressing to imagine how Louise, a young girl, is taking being forced to say goodbye to her imaginary friend just because he can't come with her.
  • This idea is seen blatantly in Emancipation Complication, when the teacher was allowed to confiscate both the small Abe Lincoln pen, but also a large green friend, and when Bloo was taken (on purpose) he was locked in the same closet until nightfall, when Mac came to bust him out, meaning the pen was in there for at least 2 days, possibly without food or water.
  • There's also the fact that this means that at minimum, there's Fantastic Racism rampant against Imaginary Friends (that frankly smacks of Jim Crow laws) and it could even mean that Imaginary Friends are considered unusually intelligent animals...suddenly the idea that there's a program to euthanize unwanted Imaginary Friends is disturbingly plausible.
  • The idea of racism against Imaginary Friends isn't all that far-fetched when you consider the episode "Setting a President". When Mr. Herriman is looking for a new job, he sees a help wanted sign, but right under that is a sign that literally says Must Not Be Imaginary.
• Terrence is 13 and Mac is 8, meaning that the age difference is 5 years. Since Mac's dad is never seen, and considering that losing one's father at a young age can prove traumatic, could it be that Terrence bullies his younger brother because he blames Mac for their father dying/divorcing their mother?
• Bloo may be a jerk but has been shown to be worried in episodes where he thinks Mac will abandon him. Now what if Mac did leave him? How would Bloo react? In the episode with Imaginary Man, where Mac was hanging out with the imaginary superhero, Bloo was of course jealous. Has Bloo become more of a jerk because he's scared that Mac will leave him?
• What kind of Enfante Terrible imagined Duchess into existence? The Xtremeosaurses, at the very least, have an explanation: they're stated to be the products of teen boys who think big, loud, scary monsters are cool. But Duchess has no redeeming qualities, kindness, capacity of love (or even tolerance) for others, and is a bossy, screaming monster who demands everyone wait on her hand and foot (to the point where her daily routine begins with someone opening her eyelids for her). The nicest thing she ever said about anyone other than herself was Uncle Pockets, and even he only merited a soft "Tolerable." Taking it even further, what if Duchess is the imaginary product of a child's view of a narcissistic parent or relative? A kid might have tried to figure out why Mommy is so horrible and mean, and dreamed Duchess up as a result. It's hard to say which is worse: that there's a parent out there who is similar to (or even worse) than Duchess, or that a budding-sociopathic child thought of her completely independently.
• One comic introduced Imaginary Frankie as a One-Shot Character, but her existence proves that people can create Imaginary versions of real people, made worse by the fact that the kid who imagined her made her ditzier and curvier compared to the real Frankie. Adding on to this, the panel where the kid's parents dragged him away from Imaginary Frankie treats the situation as the kid being separated from his crush (which the real Frankie doesn't comment on due to being too stunned by the situation and Imaginary Frankie doesn't pick up on), thus implying the possibility of people falling in love with their own imaginary friends. How many other Imaginary versions of real people exist and how many of them suffered from altered personalities or figures due to their creator's own misconceptions about the person or wanting to fulfill their parasocial fantasies?

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