Saturday Morning Cartoons – Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends
After finally finding the time to marathon Fosters Home I’m delighted a cartoon that still makes me smile the same way it did the first time I watched it. I think this cartoon was created with re-watching in mind as there’s an underlying tone to most episodes and the series as a whole. The show is based around a home for abandoned imaginary friends, where kids who need an imaginary friend of their own can come and choose one from the many living there. I hesitate to call Mac the main character but he’s the closest thing the show has to one next to Bloo, his imaginary friend.
This show is probably the going to be the biggest kick to the teeth of all the cartoons I’ll review as it’s completely different when you watch it when you’re older, sure it had the odd innuendo but I mean on a deeper level, this show dealt with some serious stuff and has also spawned some weird theories from it’s awesome fan base. It’s been used in college thesis’, character studies and creepy pastas and now I claim it for my review! Lets take a stroll down memory lane and through the doors of Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends.
First broadcast in 2004 as a 90-minute, made for TV movie and spawned 6 seasons of absolutely adorable, stylistic madness. The story in a nutshell goes something like this. We’re introduced to an 8 year old boy named Mac who is unfortunately being forced into getting rid of his imaginary friend Bloo. Mac doesn’t want to give up Bloo and tries to figure out a better option. He stumbles across Foster Home for Imaginary Friends, a home for abandoned or outgrown imaginary friends owned by the slightly senile but adorably carefree Madame Foster and her granddaughter Frankie, oh and lets not forget about Madame Fosters imaginary friend, the giant sensible bunny rabbit, Mr. Herriman. Don’t let my description fool you, this big old fuzzy bunny is kind but incredibly stern and generally subject to all of Mac and Bloos pranks through out the show. But I digress, back to the summary. Mac manages to make a deal with Madame Foster which will allow Bloo to stay in Fosters as long as Mac visits Bloo every day.
The show also has the wildest, craziest intro I have ever heard, with brass instruments alongside kazoos and a bundle more thrown into the bunch. It starts off light and then builds into a crazy, hectic intro, with Mac and all the other imaginary friends rushing through a very Picasso inspired Fosters Home and finally surprising a morose looking Bloo. It does the hands down best job of showing us what this show is going to be like, better than any other show I’ve seen, introducing each character with a spike in the music and then carrying on and building up into a theme you will never, ever get out of your head
Fosters, as with most animated kids shows, uses the chance it has to both entertain children and teach them a lesson, a lesson veiled in madness and laughter, but a lesson none the less. Much of what Fosters tried to teach revolved around growth and the complications that come with it. Even becoming worrying at times, such as when Mac thinks he’s about to lose Bloo. Macs fear throughout the show is that he might lose Bloo, his only friend and one escape from his arrogant bully of a brother Terrence. Seeing Macs reaction when he almost loses Bloo to a spoiled brat in one episode and he completely breaks down, it almost made me cry, big manly man that I am. It made us relate to the events in the show, taking moments from our own childhoods and just dropping them at our feet almost as if to say, “Yeah, you remember that one bully right? What about this little bit of unrequited love? Yeah, you remember, muhaha”
A show that deals with the delight and joy of childhood and the loss of creativity and imagination of growing up in even measure. It tried to show us that even though we have to grow and mature, it doesn’t mean we need to shuffle off what makes us who we are, that throwing away our childish creativity just to be “acceptable” to the rest of the world. Even a scribble on paper is what you want it to be, so what if everyone thinks it’s a duck, you drew it to be a plane and damned if anyone can tell you what you thought up is wrong.
A show that carried a message that even as children we understood, even if we didn’t quite get what it was just yet, it helped us grow and deal with the fact that things will change and we need to change with it but that we shouldn’t be afraid to roll with who we are. I’m delighted I had the opportunity to re-watch this and take a trip down memory lane and I strongly advise you to do the same.
Join me next time when I visit The Land Of Ooo and see how Adventure Time stand up against the cartoons of our childhood!
