Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" | |
|---|---|
 The logo for Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. |
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| Genre | Animated television series Comedy |
| Creator(s) | Craig McCracken |
| Starring | Keith Ferguson Sean Marquette Candi Milo Tom Kenny Phil LaMarr Grey DeLisle Tom Kane Tara Strong |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 53 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 22 minutes approx. |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Cartoon Network |
| Original run | August 13, 2004 – Present |
| Links | |
| Official website | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is an Emmy award-winning, American animated television series created and produced at Cartoon Network Studios by animator Craig McCracken, who also created The Powerpuff Girls. It first premiered on Cartoon Network on August 13, 2004, as a 90-minute television movie, which led to a series of half-hour episodes. The series currently airs on Cartoon Network and its affiliates worldwide, except in Canada where it currently airs on English and Francophone Teletoon networks due to Canadian television ownership regulations. The show was also on Kids' WB! from July 9 through August 13, 2005, but has since been taken off the schedule.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends is a cartoon that takes place in a home where imaginary friends go when their creators outgrow them. The inspiration came when McCracken and his wife, Lauren Faust, adopted a pair of dogs from an adoption shelter. McCracken was then inspired to wonder what if there was a similar place for childhood imaginary friends.
[edit] Animation technique
Foster's is completely animated in Adobe Flash, the backgrounds are cleaned up in Adobe Illustrator, and then both are compiled in Adobe After Effects. The idea saves some money compared to hand-drawn animation, but not a substantial amount. The technique is broken down even more here.
[edit] The World of Foster's
In this world, imaginary friends become real the instant a child imagines them. Unfortunately for the imaginary friends, the children outgrow them. When that happens, the friends are left to fend for themselves. Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends was founded by the elderly Madame Foster to provide a foster home (hence the title) for abandoned imaginary friends; their motto is "Where good ideas are not forgotten." There are (according to "Setting A President") 1,340 imaginary friends at Foster's Home. It has been suggested that the house itself may be imaginary, as well. In the end of "Emancipation Complication" Madame Foster states that there are 2,038 Imaginary Friends currently residing in the house, suggesting that the house may have grown larger during the time. Probably why they were very busy and overcrowded in that same episode.
[edit] Geography
The show is not clear on exactly what city or state the events are set in; however, the street address is 1123 Wilson Way (first mentioned in "Bloo's Brothers"). The founder of the town is revealed in the episode "Challenge of the Superfriends" to be Elwood P. Dowd, the main character in the play "Harvey". In the episode "Squeeze The Day," the Foster's friends are at a beach while Bloo watches a weather station on cable, which is reporting on the weather in Spokane, Washington, but it also says the weather in Topeka, Kansas at least five times in the episode, where Spokane is mentioned once. In "A Lost Claus," it is seen that in winter there is snow. In "Imposter's Home For Um…Make 'Em Up Pals," the new imaginary friend, Goofball John McGee, says he is from Canada. These clues place the setting somewhere vaguely in the northern half of United States. In the episode "Bus The Two Of Us," a sign for Northern New Hampshire is partially seen during Bloo's road trip. In "Good Wilt Hunting", Wilt's destination on a road map resembles Nevada. Frankie exclaims that the destination is across the country. Judging by the bus schedule in the movie, the bus route on Nina Valarosa's map, and where she points to on it in reference to Wilt's first stop, Foster's Home (or at least, the bus depot) is roughly 600-700 miles east-northeast of Wilt's destination.
When Nina Valarosa "Good Wilt Hunting", is having a flashback when she was little, the park where she is playing and gets bullied by gangsters, it seems that the park is the famous Downtown Los Angeles park, McArthur park.Foster's may be near Los Angeles.
[edit] Characters
[edit] Episode list
[edit] Awards
[edit] Annie Awards
The show was nominated for four Annie Awards in 2004, and five more in 2005, winning two awards that year for Best Original Music in a Television Series (James L. Venable and Jennifer Kes Remington for "Duchess of Wails") and Production Design in an Animated TV Series (McCracken with Mike Moon, David Dunnet and Martin Ansolabehere for the Christmas episode "A Lost Claus"). Five more nominations came in 2006, with three wins as Best Animated Television Production, Best Original Music in a TV Series (Venable and Remington winning again for "One False Movie") and Production Design in a TV Series (Ansolabehere by himself for the one-hour "Good Wilt Hunting" episode).
[edit] Emmy Awards
The show has won a total of four Emmy Awards. The episode "House of Bloo's" won two Emmy Awards for art direction (Mike Moon) and character design (Craig McCracken). "World Wide Wabbit" won an Emmy for best storyboard (Ed Baker). The show's theme song (described by McCracken as "psychedelic ragtime" and written by Venable) was nominated for Best TV Show Theme in 2005, but lost to Danny Elfman's theme to Desperate Housewives. The episode "Go Goo Go" was nominated for Best Animated Program Under One Hour in 2006, and Character Design supervisor Shannon Tindle won an Emmy that same year for that same episode.
[edit] DVDs
[edit] Season Sets
| Artwork | Title | Release date | Episodes |
|---|---|---|---|
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Season 1 | March 6, 2007 | 1-13 |
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All 13 episodes from Season One, including the Pilot movie, "House of Bloos" (released here as three separate parts). Also included:
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[edit] Other DVDs
- Cartoon Network Halloween Vol. 3: Sweet, Sweet Fear! — "Bloooo"
- Cartoon Network Fridays, Vol. 1 — "Bloo's Brothers"
- Cartoon Network Christmas Vol. 3 — "Store Wars"
[edit] Merchandising
Other than in-house items such as Cartoon Network's internet shop (T-Shirts, a Bloo plush, etc.), there has not been much as far as major products. As of 2006, there has been a statue series with Bloo, Mac, and Eduardo featured in the first statue. A second statue features Frankie, Madame Foster, and Mr. Herriman released in December of 2006, and the third in the series featuring Wilt and Coco has been released in January of 2007. Two limited edition gilcee cels — one with the cast posing for a picture, the other styled like an cross-stitch — were also created. Since then, the merchandizing has begun to pick up steam. Burger King had nine toys in a kids meal give-away promotion in April and May of 2006, Scholastic Books has printed activity and story books based on episodes, and the complete first season of episodes were made available on Apple's iTunes downloading service as well as a Game Boy Advance game created by CRAVE Entertainment made its' debut in the Fall of 2006. Starting in January of 2007, as part of an overall deal with Cartoon Network, Mattel will have items related to the mass marketing of the show. Recently, t-shirts and other merchandise featuring the characters have been appearing in popular stores such as Hot Topic.
On May 15, 2006, Cartoon Network introduced a new online game, Big Fat Awesome House Party, which allows players to create an online friend to join Bloo and the others in a one-year game online, and earn points that would give them gifts cards and other on-line "merchandise" for their albums and that friend made from one of over 900,000 possible characters could wind up in a future episode of Foster's.
[edit] Other countries
Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends is now seen in many languages on various channels worldwide. While most of these are Cartoon Network affiliates (except in Canada, where due to Canadian television rules the show airs on the English and French Teletoon networks), a few are not, mostly over-the-air or terrestrial channels.
In France, it airs on France 3 during the France Truc block, in the Philippines on RPN, in Mexico on Televisa and on Cartoon Network of Latin America, in Spain on Cuatro TV, in Ireland on TG4 and in Germany on Super RTL.
Because of translation, the title for the show is not always the same in each language. The titles for the show vary from country to country.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Cartoon Network | Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends, the official site for the show.
- BLOGregard Q. Kazoo, the official production blog for the show.
- The Very Unofficial Guide to Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, a fan site with an interview with McCracken and show information hosted by Toon Zone.
- Never Forgotten, A Foster's fansite maintained by Cynthia "Sparky" Read.
- The full theme song for Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
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Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends
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| Characters | Bloo • Mac • Wilt • Coco • Eduardo • Mr. Herriman • Frankie Foster • Madame Foster • Goo • Cheese • Terrence • Duchess Main characters • Secondary characters |
| Other | List of episodes • Craig McCracken • Lauren Faust |
| Cartoon Cartoons |
|---|
| Codename: Kids Next Door • Courage the Cowardly Dog • Cow and Chicken • Dexter's Laboratory • Ed, Edd n Eddy • Evil Con Carne • The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy • Grim and Evil • I Am Weasel • Johnny Bravo • Mike, Lu & Og • The Powerpuff Girls • Sheep in the Big City • Time Squad • What a Cartoon! • Whatever Happened to Robot Jones? |
| Other Cartoon Network original series |
| Camp Lazlo • Class of 3000 • Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends • Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi • The Life and Times of Juniper Lee • My Gym Partner's a Monkey • Squirrel Boy • Chowder • Zoot Rumpus |
