Wishbones

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Wishbones is the 45th episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. It is the second full length episode. It first aired June 10, 2005 on Cartoon Network. The episode bears a resemblance to W.W. Jacobs' horror story "The Monkey's Paw" in which the titular paw containing a restricted number of wishes is used by various people. The monkey paw's wishes go wrong in horrible ways, until the last wish is used to make it as if none of the wishes ever happened.

1 Plot
- 1.1 Wishes
2 Cultural References
3 Goofs and remarks
4 Guest stars

[edit] Plot

While watching the washing machine, Billy and Mandy discover a neglected magical wishing skull inside Grim's cloak when Grim takes the skull out of his cloak. The skull's name is Thromnambular, and it only speaks in rhyming couplets. Thromnambular has to grant nine wishes (represented by the red number on its forehead) before it can leave the mortal world. Throughout the episode, the skull changes hands many times, devastating the characters of the show with twisted wishes, although the wishes aren't as gruesome as the ones in the original novel by W.W. Jacobs; most just involve misfortune (Junior, Billy, Harold, Sperg) and others actually involve pain and torment (Mindy, Pud'n, Skarr), and it seems that Grim is the only one who wasn't harmed by Thromnambular. This is probably because he owned the skull initially, and he knew how to avoid its power.

[edit] Wishes

1:Billy: Wishes for a life of action and adventure (Which is a parody of both Jonny Quest and Indiana Jones). The wish backfires because Irwin was eaten by a pterosaur and they all nearly died. (Somehow, Irwin comes back for wish #4.)
2:Harold: Wishes to relive his high school years. The wish backfires because Harold realizes he's not the stud he thought he was. Every single time he tries to interact with a group of kids, he gets dumped into the wastebasket. Another kid (in another trash can next to Harold) tells him he has four more years of this.
3:Skarr: Wishes to be emperor of the world. A colossal statue erupts from the ground beneath his feet, which grows until it leaves the atmosphere and Skarr suffocates and dies (read: explodes).
4:Irwin: Wishes to be in a hip-hop video. Thromnambular tells him he needs a co-star, and brings Mandy on-set. The wish backfires because Mandy refuses to star with him in his music video. And Irwin's swimsuit gets ripped off after Mandy catapulted him to the park.
5:Pud'n: Wishes for a pet bunny that would love him. The wish backfires because the cute little pink bunny (with a very deep voice) that appears has what it calls "tough love" for Pud'n, which it demonstrates by viciously torturing him. The rabbit even says "It's okay, Pud'n. I forgive you. And I forgive you because I love you. And I love you to death". The bunny is slightly reminiscent of Frank the rabbit from Donnie Darko.
6:Junior: Agonizes over what to wish for, because he considers all the potential drawbacks. Eventually, he wishes to know what to wish for. The wish backfires because the skull only grants one wish per person, which could be debated because Thromnambular grants 2 wishes to Irwin.
7:Sperg: Wishes to become a girl, so he can enter the girls' restroom and take an amount of money from a rich girl who sued her parents. The wish backfires because he discovers that girls are far more cruel than boys.
8:Mindy: Wishes to be a worldwide star. The wish backfires when Mindy is strapped to a Genesis device and literally becomes a star, which unfortunately would fade out in a week.
9:Grim: Mandy ends up with the skull, but decides to sell the last wish to the highest bidder. Grim takes the skull before anyone can buy it and makes the last wish - that Billy and Mandy had never found the skull in the first place.

Everything goes back in time and no one remembers anything that happened with that magic skull. Billy and Mandy are back watching the washing machine (which he believes is his favorite television show, Laundry Day, which is heard in the beginning of the episode) and Mandy says, "Billy, do you want to be a TV star?" to which Billy responds, "I wish!" Mandy then stuffs him inside the machine, walks away, and says, "Wish granted". The last scene shows Grim and Thromnambular changing places-Grim is the wishing skull and Thromnambular is the Grim Reaper!

[edit] Cultural References

When Grim says that it can grant any wishes Billy says "Like a Genie?" it may be a parody of the Spongebob Squarepants episode Christmas Who? when Patrick would say "Like a Genie!"

When Billy wishes for an adventure, he, his father, and Irwin, are in a tomb. The characters they're impersonating are from the show Jonny Quest, and the scenario they're in is a parody of Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark.

To fulfill her wish, Thromnambular has Mindy tied to a Genesis device that is launched into space and explodes to create a new star. At the climax of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, a device called the "Genesis probe" explodes in space to create a new planet.

The truck with the pillow on it and later used by the evil bunny to chase Pud'n bears a striking resemblance to Optimus Prime from Transformers right down to the Autobot symbol on its side.

When Thromnambular grants the wish No. 7, aside from the 7 in his forehead turning into a 6, two other sixes appear in his eyes, forming a 666.
In the begining of the episode of the episode Grim says "665 washings and it still reeks of the ages."

[edit] Goofs and remarks

Pud'n throws a slice of cake at the truck the evil bunny was driving, then wipes the cake off. But when Pud'n grabs the chocolate eclairs, the slice of cake reappears.This part also is a parody of the chase between the T-1000 of Terminator 2.
One would think that Grim would be glad he'd switched with Thromnambular. Now Thromnambular had to serve Billy & Mandy for eternity, and he only had to grant eight wishes. Plus, since Grim hates mortals, he should be glad that the wishes would have negative effects. Instead, Grim said- "NO!!!!!!!!!!" when he and Thromnabular switched because he just wanted to be freed of Billy and Mandy.
The credits misspell Thromnambular's name as "Thrombumbular".
Despite being eaten by a large bird, Irwin comes back to life for his wish. This was because the producers ran out of people to run into Thromnambular.
Nergal Junior wished that he knew what to wish for. Billy did this in the episode Dumb Wish.
When Junior went into the bathroom, he had a short sleeve shirt on. Then, when he was thinking what to wish for he had a long sleeve shirt. When they showed him again, he had a short sleeve shirt on.