Your Top Five Least Favorite Episodes

[Mac-a-lacka]

In order.

Bye bye nerdy
Imposters home for um make-em up pals
Where there's a Wilt there's a way-Everyone knows its Bendy
Something old something Bloo
Better off Ed

[Mr. Marshmallow]

Originally Posted by Voxxyn

I didn't see anything wrong or upsetting with "Bloooo". It was a very intense and physically harsh time for Frankie, but since it was a misunderstanding on her part and the hook-armed friend didn't really do anything remotely malicious, I'm able to enjoy it. It wasn't like a certain Season 3 episode that did nothing but abuse and destroy her in every way possible, and cynically mock and insult her fanbase.

I totally agree, I never let my personal feelings totally rob me of enjoying a movie, episode, or TV series unless it is a continuous jab or insult towards the character and it becomes a "mean spirited" attack on the character. What Frankie endured here to me was more like a bad day then a nightmare.

Frankie's treatment was done through 3 channels that to me, make the difference between a night in hell for her and a bad day for her:

1. Halloween based episode, so fear is kind of the point.
2. EVERYONE was having problems this episode.
3. Everyone misconcepted everything and everyone.

I think Blooo worked having Frankie as the typical girl who gets scared, especially with the art work in the dark rainy nights and seeing her frantic "POV shots" when she was looking for the hook guy. But more importantly, I do admit that I do enjoy SOME form of bad antics happen to my characters.

Example? I was just watching Animanicas Volume 2 today and a cartoon came up from the "Rita and Runt" portion. Rita, the small female cat of the duo was nabbed by a berzerker gorilla who wanted her as a "pet" and Rita didn't want to go. The gorilla beat, smashed, and pretty much made Rita a living toy.

Now, while I love Rita and find her to be a charming character, I enjoyed seeing her go through some hell just because it's interesting to see a character go through these changes. Just like in RL, everyone has a bad day. It all depends on if that torture becomes the main joke and nothing else.

Rita was tortured in various "toon" ways so it was hard not to laugh at it, knowing still it was a nightmare for her. Like with Frankie in "Bloooo" there was a purpose to it, it wasn't just directly making Frankie suffer and it was all part of the plot. "Imposter's" though didn't really derive any humor out of the pain.

The PAIN was the humor, and since this episode was handled in a realistic manner then a toony one, and Frankie was pretty much bashed at every waking moment of the episode (where as in Animaniacs, Rita eventually got some "justice") it was hard not to hate that episode, Frankie lover or not.

"Blooo" will always be one of my fav episodes because I think that episode shows the right way to handle making characters suffer for their art, while keeping the humor IN and the intentional character bashing OUT. Sorry that took so long .

[Voxxyn]

Well said. That episode and "The Big Cheese" are examples of how you make characters suffer for their art, without being cruel and malicious.

What Ditchy McAbandonpants said at the end of his post is completely true. Craig, Lauren and everybody else must NOT forget how dangerously close they came to completely ruining the show in Season 3. They have rebounded, of course, but I hope that they've truly learned their lesson and that there will never ever be another hurtful fiasco like "Imposter's".

[Ditchy McAbandonpants]

Nicely said, Mr. Marshmallow! With your point about characters "suffering for their art", you've really put your finger on something that I've thought about for a long time.

When I was a kid, I was a proper little misogynist when it came to watching cartoons; that is to say, I used to really dislike female characters, and find them really boring in comparison to their male counterparts. Looking back, part of that could be attributed to a good, healthy juvenile phobia of the opposite sex (girls?? Ewww, GROSS!!! ), but in other ways, I actually still stand by what I thought then, because female characters, particularly in older cartoons, are frequently one-dimensional, tokenistic and utterly bland Little Miss Perfects, included solely to add a bit of glamour and girl appeal and usually completely unwilling to get their hands dirty for the sake of humour. Penelope Pitstop, Daphne from Scooby-Doo, most Disney heroines...their role is never to be the one doing the pratfall, taking the anvil on the head, heck, even cracking a joke; they're always just there, being oh-so-pretty and oh-so-dignified, always coming out on top, whilst the less "delicate" male characters are the ones off carrying 100% of the comedy burden.

The most pronounced example of this that springs to mind is Lola Bunny from Space Jam. Surrounded by the crazy, idiosyncratic Looney Tunes gang , each of whom is a flawed, lovable loser in their own way, she swans through the film being smugly perfect and untouchable, with a teaspoon of "sass" and "sex appeal" (both of which are totally wasted on a young audience) apparently supposed to compensate for the fact that, in a cartoon comedy film, she does nothing funny at any point. Look at the basketball game; the rest of her Looney Tunes teammates get smashed about six ways from Sunday, often in very funny slapstick ways. Does Lola "take one for the team", even once? No - the one time she's in any danger, Bugs pushes her out of the way and takes the hit himself, completely cementing her role in the film, like so many toon gals, as comedic deadweight.

I've often praised Frankie for her "flexibilty"; when I say that, I primarily mean her ability to muck in and get down to the dirty business of making us laugh. Sure, she can do the glam thing, the sassy self-assured bit - but she can also be a hysterical fall guy, come out with some ridiculous gag, do something totally crazy and even engage in some good old-fashioned comedy violence. One of the things I respect most about Craig McCracken is that he's both willing and able to create universal comedy with girls at the centre, so even though it can go wrong (horribly, horribly wrong), I am willing to let rare botches like "Imposter's Home..." slide, because without episodes like "Bloooo", "Store Wars", "Cookie Dough" and "World Wide Wabbit" that allow Frankie to partcipate in the comedy just as much as her more extrovert male counterparts, she would be a much poorer character whom I doubt we would love half as much.

(Oh, man, this is so off-topic it's untrue...I'm sorry! Is that OK? )

[Fomalhaut]

Okay, back on topic...

Seriously, I haven't got many problems with Imposter's. It was cruel to Frankie, but it had its moments. (*gets killed by Frankie fans, with Cassini at their head*) I find it hard to pick, mostly because I find myself saying "I didn't like this and that episode... oh wait, it had the moment when...". That's why I won't put Europe in this list, despite the cruel ending. Eurotrish is my ultimate favourite character.

Sheesh. Okay, let's get down to it.

5. Phone Home
Boring. Boringgg. Boooriiinggg. Saw it once, found it nice (especially the Wilt bits ), but then... Bloo struggling with that poor phone all along was tiring, and there was absolutely no chance of getting a surprise at the end, as we knew all along it wasn't an IF. The second time I caught it I decided I'd rather study History (I had serious problems with remembering all the dates, it's not that I hate that subject, History lovers!). Sight for Sore Eyes was slightly boring too, but not in my least fave 5.

4. Emancipation Complication
Saw it once, and that was enough for me. It's not that bad, just not interesting enough to watch it several times, like I do with my fave, Bus the Two of Us. And, excuse my European point of view, the whole Lincoln stuff etc. was waaay too "American", I don't really know how to put this. Bloo and the videogames was a nice touch, but didn't bring this episode up.

3. My So-Called Wife
The Coco part was a nice touch. That I don't really like this one has nothing to do with me not being a Coco-fan, as "Cuckoo for Coco Cards" was one of my faves. No, Ben E. Factor lying, the stupid contest part... just uninteresting. And Coco at the beginning goes a bit OOC just to seem "worse".


2. I Only Have Surprise for You
This episode had its moments, I liked the "action-Mac" and his speech, it was nice... but the ending hurt me so bad. Sweet little Mac, my favourite (he somehow managed to replace Wilt and Terrence!). I won't forgive Bloo.

1. Blooo
When I first saw it I was like "OMG! How nice, my fave ep...". They aired it the second time, and the magic was gone. Despite the funny horror-parody.

And now I see, I have forgotten to say "Dinner is Swerved", in which I found Charlie the chicken leg the most annoying character EVER (and it made me hungry like 30 minutes after lunch), "Hiccy Burp", in which the 10 minutes of hiccups and burps were boring and gross...

[Mr. Marshmallow]

Originally Posted by Ditchy McAbandonpants

The most pronounced example of this that springs to mind is Lola Bunny from Space Jam. Surrounded by the crazy, idiosyncratic Looney Tunes gang , each of whom is a flawed, lovable loser in their own way, she swans through the film being smugly perfect and untouchable, with a teaspoon of "sass" and "sex appeal" (both of which are totally wasted on a young audience) apparently supposed to compensate for the fact that, in a cartoon comedy film, she does nothing funny at any point. Look at the basketball game; the rest of her Looney Tunes teammates get smashed about six ways from Sunday, often in very funny slapstick ways. Does Lola "take one for the team", even once? No - the one time she's in any danger, Bugs pushes her out of the way and takes the hit himself.

I gotta talk about this, since this brings up another issue I've been bothered with. What you said about Frankie taking one for the team is true, I do feel the fact she gets bonked, bothered, and put through hell like the other characters is a good sign of, in a way, equality and like you said, flexibility.

The issue of Lola though bares more to a bigger problem I have noticed and that's females in media getting "special treatment". Alot of female toons don't have anything BAD happen to them, same with female characters in horror movies of more recently today. Think of the Jurassic Park movies for example.

All three films, know how many women died? NONE ZERO ZIP! How many males died? A hell lot more then you got fingers or toes (don't worry I'll swing this back into topic). Same thing has happened in Animaniacs, Ben 10, Rune Soldier, Darkwing Duck, Bonkers, and even Duck Tales.

All have suffered huge faults where female characters are magically saved from the burden of being bashed, blown up, or taken down the same multiple amount of pegs males do. And now the tie in: Goo. Goo is hard for me to like sometimes because alot of her antics tend to ruin really good episodes.

She didn't have jack happen to her up until "Make believe it or not" and even then, the fact her ego more or less became the plot of that episode shows she still has some peg knocking to be done. I was very upset with that episode because basically, Goo showed herself to be some kind of super god.

That she can think of ANYTHING and she'd be right or she'd always win. Hell, look at her alien creations, half the imaginary friends people think up are very simplistic and basic. Goo's are complicated, detailed, and much more unique, this is still kind of "showing off" her imagination superiority.

Even if she did learn a lesson, I still think that episode was so completely off kilter as far as logic and character representations go. I'm not sexist to female toons, and I don't hate them or Goo for getting the better treatment in the occasional episode or series I watch. But it does ruin my enjoyment of them.

Frankie's treatment in "Cookie Dough" "Bloooo" and "The Big Cheese" are fine examples of how someone can have a rotten day and not turn into a character bashing episode. Character bashing of any kind is one of the worst things to find in a toon, that's why I disliked "Surprise" and "Imposter's".

[kageri]

Originally Posted by Ditchy McAbandonpants

Nicely said, Mr. Marshmallow! With your point about characters "suffering for their art", you've really put your finger on something that I've thought about for a long time.

When I was a kid, I was a proper little misogynist when it came to watching cartoons; that is to say, I used to really dislike female characters, and find them really boring in comparison to their male counterparts. Looking back, part of that could be attributed to a good, healthy juvenile phobia of the opposite sex (girls?? Ewww, GROSS!!! ), but in other ways, I actually still stand by what I thought then, because female characters, particularly in older cartoons, are frequently one-dimensional, tokenistic and utterly bland Little Miss Perfects, included solely to add a bit of glamour and girl appeal and usually completely unwilling to get their hands dirty for the sake of humour. Penelope Pitstop, Daphne from Scooby-Doo, most Disney heroines...their role is never to be the one doing the pratfall, taking the anvil on the head, heck, even cracking a joke; they're always just there, being oh-so-pretty and oh-so-dignified, always coming out on top, whilst the less "delicate" male characters are the ones off carrying 100% of the comedy burden.

The most pronounced example of this that springs to mind is Lola Bunny from Space Jam. Surrounded by the crazy, idiosyncratic Looney Tunes gang , each of whom is a flawed, lovable loser in their own way, she swans through the film being smugly perfect and untouchable, with a teaspoon of "sass" and "sex appeal" (both of which are totally wasted on a young audience) apparently supposed to compensate for the fact that, in a cartoon comedy film, she does nothing funny at any point. Look at the basketball game; the rest of her Looney Tunes teammates get smashed about six ways from Sunday, often in very funny slapstick ways. Does Lola "take one for the team", even once? No - the one time she's in any danger, Bugs pushes her out of the way and takes the hit himself, completely cementing her role in the film, like so many toon gals, as comedic deadweight.

I've often praised Frankie for her "flexibilty"; when I say that, I primarily mean her ability to muck in and get down to the dirty business of making us laugh. Sure, she can do the glam thing, the sassy self-assured bit - but she can also be a hysterical fall guy, come out with some ridiculous gag, do something totally crazy and even engage in some good old-fashioned comedy violence. One of the things I respect most about Craig McCracken is that he's both willing and able to create universal comedy with girls at the centre, so even though it can go wrong (horribly, horribly wrong), I am willing to let rare botches like "Imposter's Home..." slide, because without episodes like "Bloooo", "Store Wars", "Cookie Dough" and "World Wide Wabbit" that allow Frankie to partcipate in the comedy just as much as her more extrovert male counterparts, she would be a much poorer character whom I doubt we would love half as much.

Wow, I completely agree and have nothing constructive to add to that because you've said it all.

Unfortunately yes, I think perhaps sometimes the "infallible token sassy, smart, female character who scoffs at the male characters who have to carry the weight of the funny on their shoulders while she sits around and be's desirable" thing might be fueled by not wanting to offend women or something, I don't know. But basically what I'm trying to say is that this is perpetuating the "women are inferior to men" menality, not fixing it. It doesn't show that women have common sense and always come out on top. It shows that they can't handle anything besides looking pretty and providing "diversity" in the cast.

Anyways, getting back on topic, one episode I didn't like was Where There's a Wilt, There's a Way. It was just really boring and any character and/or plot development that occurred was totally undone by the end.

[Another Castle]

I'm not a pessimist, but I think I shall get out my views on my least favorite episodes early, because I don't want to bring myself down after listing my 10 favorites. I'd rather moan then praise, rather than the other way around!

5. Where There's a Wilt, There's a Way
Too harsh on Wilt, it was frustrating for him and for me as a viewer. Weak story, and a very unsatisfying ending. A waste of time.

4. Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow (a short)
Lame, predictable, and has been done a hundred times before. Very similar to a very old and very obscure Simpsons short (Tracy Ullman era), and was pretty lame then as well. Was done much better in The Powerpuff Girls (A Mane Event). It's also a little creepy to see how big Mac's head is.

3. I Only Have Surprise for You
Same reasons as everyone else, this was nasty on Mac. He's a lovely boy and he doesn't deserve all this! Everyone else (including Frankie and Madam Foster, the other 'friends' and even Mac's own mother!) were just nasty. I don't like to think that all his birthdays have been ruined!

2. Fosters Goes To Europe
False adverting. Like I explained in my first post, this was frustrating for the characters and for the viewer, and as a European myself (I've never been to the US), I was really looking forward to how Europe would be portrayed in an American cartoon. I like how this show portrays American suburbia, and we have also seen Japan (Mondo-Coco) and Mexico (Let Your Hare Down). I would have loved to have seen the UK, Netherlands, Germany etc. It would perhaps be a little hard to fit into an ordinary episode though, but if the creators ever decides to do a one-off Fosters special in the future, they could write a wrong and actually send them to Europe!

1. The Bride to Beat
It seems everybody loves this one-but I hate it! (I know hate is a strong word, so I'll control myself). An severely dumb and puny premise (Bloo thinks Mac is getting married) and many plot holes (why would Mac plan to trash Duchess's party if he knew he would be busy that day? Would he be to busy to visit Fosters that day? He'd have to mention it to Bloo sometime. Why is he wearing that tuxedo at the home? Where is Mom and Terrance?) Excessively focuses on Bloo, who is really annoying in this one, especially the crying, and I just cannot see him trying maturity. Cliches galore, from a heavy-stereotyped France to Bloo's attempts at being grown-up ('bringing home the bacon', the newspapers, the pet names). Boring for Mac and very boring for me. And I hated the wedding scene. Call me over-sensitive but that's just something I don't like to see- a wedding getting crashed like that. Mac's reaction was hugely out of character, joining Bloo like that is just something he wouldn't do (does he hate his family?). A huge rip-off of The Graduate (there's a fine line between paying homage and ripping off), and I really missed the classic group dynamic of the Fosters five (Mac, Bloo, Wilt, Eduardo and Coco). I wished I never watched it.

PHEW! I didn't hold back did I? I'm glad to get it out of my system! Any episodes I don't like, I just try to forget about them and consider them non-canon.... as in it never happened (like Rocky V). It sounds petty and whiny, but that's just me!



Before I stop, I'll just make some minor comments regarding some other episodes. As you can tell, I don't like episodes with weak plots and jokes , and/or rely excessively on the characters frustrations, and have very unsatisfying endings ('torture' episodes), and don't feel like Fosters. That's why I agree with most of the comments on by far the most universally disliked episode ever, Impostors. It had some neat ideas (the 'Bloo is wrong' jar, the idea of a human pretending to be an imaginary friend), but was heavy cruel on Frankie, and was about as fun as prison (not that I'd know!).

As for the second most disliked episode (or so it seems), Everyone Knows Its Bendy. I don't dislike this one as much as everyone else, but it was a bit weak, and repetitive, but I thought it had a decent twist at the end. I don't mind watching it, but I can relate to the reason it is disliked so much- that Bendy got away with. It reminded me of a typical episode of Dexter's Laboratory (which I think is great!), in that (to quote Wikipedia) "most episodes end in an unresolved state with no easy solution offered for returning the characters to normal", so that the house was in ruins, Bendy got away with it and the gang were in deep trouble.

I'm not keen on episodes that rely too much on Cheese (I'm not a fan of him, and to be honest I'd rather him be a one off character. Sorry!), and I found Bloo Superdude and the Ceremony a little boring. Not to say it was bad or anything, but I explain more on it's thread.

After reading my rants, I can understand that I sound whiny and hard to please, but I think Fosters is and excellent cartoon, with great characters, a wonderfully unique premise, superb writing, fantastic designs and real soul! I just want to get what I don't like out of my system, rather than bottle it in, and so I feel more comfortable. I will soon make a start on my top 10!

[Lynnie]

Yeah, I think you're the first to dislike Bride to Beat that much. Have you seen the thread for that episode? Many of us had the same annoyances that you did. The absence of Mom and Terrence were a big one, especially with it being a family wedding. But then it was speculated that his cousin Tammy might be on his dad's side, so his mom wouldn't have any interest in going, and Terrence, he may have been there but not shown or he was being his usual rebellious self and didn't show up because he might think weddings are lame or something. I personally loved that episode as I have a thing for kids and weddings. As it so happens, the imaginary friend of mine whom I got most involved with was my imaginary "husband", and I daydreamed soooo many times what it might be like to get married for real at the age of 8 (or 7, or 12, as that's when I started imagining him and when I stopped). So I love seeing how other people (the show's creators) portray the thought of a kid getting married, even when it's just in the delusional mind of silly and egotistic Blooregard.

I can totally understand where you're coming from though. That's a very thorough list.

[KazooBloo]

Everyone Knows It's Bendy

Imposter's Home for Make em up Pals

Emancipation Proclamation

The Big Cheese

Hiccy-Burp