Genetics of Imaginary Friends

[pitbulllady]

We have heard it mentioned on the show that in the "Foster's Universe", Imaginary Friends are, for the most part, biological beings just like us. We have heard mention of them having DNA("Eddie Monster")and seen strong evidence of some, at least, being capable of sexual reproduction("Land of the Flea"). We have also heard mention of a genetic relationship between at least some Imaginary Friends and their creators("Crime After Crime"). That brings up the question: since most IF's are brought to life via the powers of a child's imagination, rather than being conceived and birthed as most sentient beings are, where does their DNA and genetic code come from, if it's not inherited from a set of parents?

Here's my theory, for what it's worth: anyone remember the movie, Starman, which starred Jeff Bridges as an alien being stranded on Earth? In that movie, this being, in its natural form, actually had no form as all, but was simply an entity of pure energy. It had no body, no voice, just a conciousness. Upon finding itself on Earth, where the dominant lifeforms(us)DO have visable bodies, it created a body for itself using the DNA of a woman's recently-deceased husband, DNA that came from a strand of his hair still in his hairbrush that she had not thrown away. Now, assume that some children can generate concious thoughts so powerful that these are able to use the DNA of living things around them, including that of their creators, to form a physical, biological body for themselves, and you have the Imaginary Friends of the Foster's Universe. Does that make any sense at all? Some could possibly be almost entirely human, in terms of their genotype, yet look quite different from us, because the child's imagination shaped their physical appearance, or phenotype, that way. I would guess that Wilt probably fits well into that category, and that his DNA might very well be indistinguishable from ours...well, maybe with a bit of gecko thrown in! Others, like Mr. Herriman, could have gotten enough DNA from some other species that they have the distinctive appearance of that species, in his case, a rabbit, which could have been a favorite pet of young Madame Foster.

pitbulllady

[Mr. Marshmallow]

I never tried to put this into too much thought simply because the whole idea behind kids popping imaginary friends out of their heads like eggs is defiant of logic and science enough without going into the whole idea of DNA. My guess is that the IFs genetics are already taking care of when they are created.

They have all their blood, and organs and whatever else they need to function directly after being created. I assume that depending on the appearance of the IFs, they will have DNA either similar or relating to whatever they are (like a bull, or slime, or an ape, or bird or whatever).

Like the purple tongue Mac, he'd probably have some of Mac's blood but I think it'd be different considering he's an IF. I also think science doesn't really understand the process of imaginary friends anyone then we can explain say the logic behind how Santa Claus does what he does, or god etc.

Bare in mind I'm not getting into a religious debate, just using it as an example. Usually when I get into these kind of arguements, I have to remember I'm watching a cartoon show because steering into this terriroty usually brings up questions and ideas that make your head explode ala Scanners style.

[Partymember]

i actually questioned the morality of Herriman asking Goo to just "make" more IF's in Big Picture. Thats ridiculous, he tells her exactly what to make, too. I mean, he's an IF himself and he can cooly ask a person to manufacture more just to fill in a picture with no regard to the psychological state of those IF's if the don't get adopted!

oh, and if i had to explain how IF's get made i would say they would be blank "souls" or free energy getting reincarnated or whatever as IF's in the image which a child has in his/her mind. Just a guess.

[montitech]

I personally think IF are very much Like Cartoons, or to be more presice to my opinion the convers0 Cartoons are similar to IF. A cartoon is created in the mind of the its creater, and it is flushed out. and a personality is imbeded into it. cartoons, and IF can do almost anything, including getting SMOOSHED, (Like Wilt) and Survive. The loosing of the limbs, and the patching them up kinda just appeared there out of no were. There was no Hospital stay or parimedic. Most IF do not procreate, yes the flees did, but kinda took that as the baby flees just appeared, Similar to if you have a few bunnies there are magically a lot more bunnies in a year. or if you have a piece of lint on your cloths or in your pocket there is magically always more lint.

Yes it may have been morally off for MR H to ask Goo to create more IF, However MR H predominant personallity is for order and tradition, and The need for the photo outweighed the morality. (and once again being a cartoon, IT WAS FUNNY)

Back to genetics, I believe the basis of an individual IF's DNA is at leastr a part of its creators imagination. imagination in our world is an intangable, but in the Fosters Univers, Imagination is a basis of an IF's DNA. Kinda like the movie MonkeyBone, was the monkey a reality to begin with or a creation. ????

Maybe Someone from the Fosters Team could eventually give us a clue as to the Physics, anatomy and Realities of the Fosters Univers.

I hope I did not go to far off topic. if so Mods feel free to move or delete.
Monty

[pitbulllady]

Originally Posted by montitech

I personally think IF are very much Like Cartoons, or to be more presice to my opinion the convers0 Cartoons are similar to IF. A cartoon is created in the mind of the its creater, and it is flushed out. and a personality is imbeded into it. cartoons, and IF can do almost anything, including getting SMOOSHED, (Like Wilt) and Survive. The loosing of the limbs, and the patching them up kinda just appeared there out of no were. There was no Hospital stay or parimedic. Most IF do not procreate, yes the flees did, but kinda took that as the baby flees just appeared, Similar to if you have a few bunnies there are magically a lot more bunnies in a year. or if you have a piece of lint on your cloths or in your pocket there is magically always more lint.

Yes it may have been morally off for MR H to ask Goo to create more IF, However MR H predominant personallity is for order and tradition, and The need for the photo outweighed the morality. (and once again being a cartoon, IT WAS FUNNY)

Back to genetics, I believe the basis of an individual IF's DNA is at leastr a part of its creators imagination. imagination in our world is an intangable, but in the Fosters Univers, Imagination is a basis of an IF's DNA. Kinda like the movie MonkeyBone, was the monkey a reality to begin with or a creation. ????

Maybe Someone from the Fosters Team could eventually give us a clue as to the Physics, anatomy and Realities of the Fosters Univers.

I hope I did not go to far off topic. if so Mods feel free to move or delete.
Monty

If the Imaginary Friends in the Foster's Universe are like the Toons of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, for instance, then the HUMANS in this series, like Mac and Frankie, would be, as well.

Wilt did NOT get "SMOOSHED"; only his ARM did, and as a result, he wound up losing that arm, just as a living human would if their arm had been crushed. If he's supposed to be nothing more than a bunch of pixels in "canon", then it would be easy to simply animate him a new arm, would it not? We are supposed to certainly get the impression that the Imaginary Friends, for the most part, are biological beings. We did not SEE a paramedic or hospital in Good Wilt Hunting, but that does not mean he didn't wind up in a hospital or clinic to have that arm amputated. SOMEBODY removed it, and sutured the stump. I think that younger children might have been bothered by seeing a favorite character lying up in a hospital bed, and in any case, it was not necessary to show that for people to figure out that it happened. In "Bus The Two of Us", Frankie DOES specifically mention that Foster's Home has an infirmary, and also does specifically mention giving Coco and asperin for her "fever", so we know that Imaginary Friends DO get sick, CAN catch contageous diseases(this is also seen in "Bloooooo"), and can also take human medications, so this would indicate that they are NOT merely "Cartoons", but more like us, biologically.

And, baby bunnies do not "magically" appear-they result from a male and female bunny mating, just as puppies and kittens and snakes and horses get here. There is absolutely no "magic" involved there, from the standpoint of someone raised on a farm, who breeds animals as a hobby.

pitbulllady

[Partymember]

do they age, though?

[montitech]

Originally Posted by pitbulllady

If the Imaginary Friends in the Foster's Universe are like the Toons of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, for instance, then the HUMANS in this series, like Mac and Frankie, would be, as well.

If you are comparing Fosters to Roger Rabbit, then the Humans would be more like the Humans in Roger Rabit. Humans in Roger Rabbit were able to Cartoonish THings when they were Loony enough. But for the most part Humans behaved mostly like humans.

Originally Posted by pitbulllady

Wilt did NOT get "SMOOSHED"; only his ARM did, and as a result, he wound ... ... they are NOT merely "Cartoons", but more like us, biologically.

(Sorry for clipping but people can look up to read the details)
I do need to rewatch GWH, but believe they did not show wilt in the hospital because HE DID NOT Go, I think the Stiches and amputation just Happened.
If wilt was brought to the hospital and there were parametics, then why would Wilts owner have lost him. I think the injuries just magically got patched up and Wilt hid from his creator, as opposed to him getting help and the arm being treated.

also IF are more simmilar to Cartoons, COCO reminds me of this in many episoded. Yes they have an infermary and yes they can catch diseases, but notice How COCO was able to Physically fake being ill a real Biological person cannot fake it as well as coco. She went as far as changing her physical appearance to look ill I have never seen anyone fake a cold that well without make-up. Other evidence of coco being more cartoony than biological are the EGGS, she lays eggs like crazy, the eggs act just like a Cartoon's Back Pocket. as defined in Greg Costikyan's "Toon" Roll playing Game. (the back pocket ability goes something like this, ANd I reach into my back pocket and pull out a bananna to pacify the Rabbid Gorrila" or I pull out a towel from my back pocket to save me from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. )

Originally Posted by pitbulllady

And, baby bunnies do not "magically" appear-they result from a male and female bunny mating, just as puppies and kittens and snakes and horses get here. There is absolutely no "magic" involved there, from the standpoint of someone raised on a farm, who breeds animals as a hobby.

Yes that is true, however in a comedish Cartoony universe built for Children Bunnies DO just Magically appear. Anyone who has several outdoor cats, know that cats also multiply like crazy in a very short amount of time. and it is like Magic since most people never see them mating.

MOnty

[Subzeroace]

Ohhh, a very interesting topic this is. I don't really have anything to add but I'd have to say I agree with pitbulllady's theory. I like to have every aspect of a cartoon wrapped up in a way so even fantasy elements are justified, and that theory does it quite well. Sure it takes some "fun" out of the cartoon, but hey, thats how my mind works.

[Partymember]

perhaps an IF ages with its creator and dies with them unless they get adopted out, i imagine they would revitalize. Therefore you could theoretically have IF's from the Stone Age hanging around still LOL.

[pitbulllady]

Originally Posted by montitech

If you are comparing Fosters to Roger Rabbit, then the Humans would be more like the Humans in Roger Rabit. Humans in Roger Rabbit were able to Cartoonish THings when they were Loony enough. But for the most part Humans behaved mostly like humans.

(Sorry for clipping but people can look up to read the details)
I do need to rewatch GWH, but believe they did not show wilt in the hospital because HE DID NOT Go, I think the Stiches and amputation just Happened.
If wilt was brought to the hospital and there were parametics, then why would Wilts owner have lost him. I think the injuries just magically got patched up and Wilt hid from his creator, as opposed to him getting help and the arm being treated.

also IF are more simmilar to Cartoons, COCO reminds me of this in many episoded. Yes they have an infermary and yes they can catch diseases, but notice How COCO was able to Physically fake being ill a real Biological person cannot fake it as well as coco. She went as far as changing her physical appearance to look ill I have never seen anyone fake a cold that well without make-up. Other evidence of coco being more cartoony than biological are the EGGS, she lays eggs like crazy, the eggs act just like a Cartoon's Back Pocket. as defined in Greg Costikyan's "Toon" Roll playing Game. (the back pocket ability goes something like this, ANd I reach into my back pocket and pull out a bananna to pacify the Rabbid Gorrila" or I pull out a towel from my back pocket to save me from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. )



Yes that is true, however in a comedish Cartoony universe built for Children Bunnies DO just Magically appear. Anyone who has several outdoor cats, know that cats also multiply like crazy in a very short amount of time. and it is like Magic since most people never see them mating.

MOnty

I've never gotten any sense of "magic" from this show, not in a supernatural sense of magic, anyway. Just because we did not SEE Wilt wind up at a hospital does not mean this never happened. It also does not mean that he went immediately after he was hurt. More than likely, several days would have passed between him running away from the scene, and winding up in some sort of medical facility. By that time, he likely would have been very sick from toxins that result from dying tissue, and it's not unlikely that some Good Samaritan found him and sought medical help at a time when Wilt would have been unable to resist or protest.

I've seen cats and rabbits mating LOTS of times, so there's nothing at all mysterious or "magic" about where baby bunnies or kittens come from, and anyone who spends much time around animals will say the same thing.

Yes, Coco WAS faking illness, BUT the fact that Foster's does have an infirmary and medication for its residents indicates that they can and do get sick, and since they can take the same medications that we do, this shows that they are biologically and internally much like humans.

One of the things that I(and some others here)expressed concern about prior to the showing of Good Wilt Hunting was that the writers would try to "cop out" by explaining Wilt's missing arm and eye as the result of "magic", but thankfully they did not go that route. Wilt's arm was shown being crushed; you can actually hear the sound of bones breaking and see that look of pain on his face. The loss of that arm later was nothing to do with "magic", and I get absolutely no impression that we're supposed to watch Foster's and just go, "Oh, they can't really be hurt; they're just cartoons! They will just get up and walk away from the explosion like Wile E. Coyote does after he falls over a 300-foot cliff, good as new". Quite the opposite-there are definate moments when we are MEANT to believe that a character's life is in serious danger, that they CAN be hurt or killed. In GWH, you can see that Wilt dreads having to defend the net against Larry's slam-dunk, because he remembers how Larry slammed his massive bulk against that brick wall 30 years prior, attempting to trap Wilt between himself and that wall, and Wilt KNOWS he's gonna do this again. We are most definately meant to believe that IF Larry succedes this time of trapping Wilt between himself and that wall, that Wilt will be crushed to death-not just momentarily-flattened-out-like-a-piece-of-paper-then-get-up-and-act-like-nothing-happened-crushed, but crushed as in really-nasty-broken-bones-major-internal-injuries-LETHAL-crushed, as in dead-as-doornail-somebody-fetch-a-body-bag crushed. That's why Jordan's arrival, and his grabbing Wilt by his arm when he did was of such crucial timing; we are MEANT to believe that had he not gotten there when he did, and done what he did, Wilt would have been killed, period. After all, if Wilt could just magically heal, WHY the heck didn't he magically just grow a new arm and eye, just like Daffy Duck magically grows a new beak after his is shot off by duck hunters? IF magic was a factor, that would be far more plausible than someone's arm just "magically" being amputated and sewn up! As I said, even though this is a fictional series, I have never, ever gotten any impression that the characters, whether human or Imaginary Friends, are in any way supernatural or just comical things that cannot be hurt, like the characters in many animated series. We are SUPPOSED to be able to suspend disbelief enough to feel concern for their safety, something we do not ever feel for characters that we have seen blown up, shot at, fall over cliffs, etc., yet always wind up uninjured. I honestly don't think that very many fans watched Good Wilt Hunting, and just thought, "Oh, he can't be hurt..he's a CARTOON", anymore than they would watch a live-action(yet just as fictional)character from a drama series get shot and think, "Oh, he can't be hurt, he's just an image on a piece of film!"

pitbulllady