Actually, this isn't the first time that Foster's has specifically mentioned the word "killed"; Mr. Herriman says, in "Crime After Crime", "I could have been KILLED" after Bloo causes him to fall down the stairs, although he wasn't referring to Bloo's actions, but to the "threat" of his "stalker". While that was not as serious an incident as Berry's plot to kill Mac, it did really spell out that Imaginary Friends are very much mortal beings who fear death as much as we do.
There was also no doubt that in the pilot episode, Duchess and Terrence intended to kill Bloo, even though that word was never mentioned, and that whole thing with the Extremasaur in the junkyard was presented in a comedic manner that sort of glossed over the danger that Bloo and the other characters were in. That train scene in "Affair Weather Friends", though, was just edge-of-my-seat gripping, not funny at all, and while I knew that they'd wouldn't actually let Mac be killed, just the fact that they had one character really and truely plotting elaborately to kill another, in cold blood, was really powerful.
I don't know if you remember this one forum member who, after Good Wilt Hunting aired, argued that there was no surgury involved, no doctors needed, in the removal of Wilt's badly fractured arm-all it took was "cartoon magic"; Wilt's arm just "magically" disappeared and those suture scars just showed up, without him having to endure surgical amputation and antibiotics and IV's and all that. The arguement was based on the notion that "toons" don't die and don't get hurt. They just disintergrate into a pile of ashes, as Mr. Marshmallow described, and in the next scene they are back to normal-"cartoon magic". Foster's has the guts to actually have characters, though, animated or not, that can be hurt, that bleed, that can die or be killed. We learned from the Season One DVD, for instance, that Wilt DOES have bones, that can break, and he DOES require a doctor's care in such a situation, having to wear a cast for the same duration that a human would for most fractures. Having characters like this help to suspend one's disbelief and really feel for these characters. Most "kids' shows" dodge around the whole notion of death or dying, or serious injuries to characters, which is one of the things that makes Foster's such a rare exception.
pitbulllady
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