Imagination Companions, A Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends Wiki
Register
Advertisement

"Destination: Imagination" is the third and final TV movie of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. The movie debuted on November 27, 2008 (Thanksgiving Day in the United States) at 8 PM ET/PT.

Plot[]


SPOILER: Plot details follow.


Frankie, ever the caretaking friend to the imaginary friends at Foster's, becomes thoroughly disgusted with being bossed around by Mr. Herriman day by day combined with the endless chores and no help or even a simple "thank you" for all the work she does. However, one day, a mysterious locked-and-chained-up toy box arrives at the door with a letter that explicitly states, "Imaginary Friend Inside. DO NOT OPEN!"; Despite Frankie's protestations, she is ordered by Herriman to take the box up to the attic, which she does, and against the instruction of both Herriman and the letter-in-tow, she decides to open the box and free the friend. She initially looks inside the unusually-deep box only to accidentally fall into it, which she realizes is a world in itself.

She also hears the childlike voice imaginary friend (named "World" by the creators of the show) from nowhere, and from that point, she explores this world-in-a-box, one that is filled with living toys, crayons, sumptuous delicacies and visual beauties, with this new friend; Her friend, who has dwelt in this world alone after being shipped by its kid's family (depicted as a prologue earlier in the film) to Foster's, talks to her and sympathizes with her real-world plight. She promises to return the next day, and it soon becomes a routine for her to fulfill her tiring job and then take a dive inside the toy box to take a load off and be treated like royalty. However, one day, she is about to leave for the real world, but then the imaginary friend (who also controls everything in the world in the toy box) locks the doors and windows of the castle in which she was staying for the afternoon.

Mac (in a sleepover with Bloo at the house), along with Wilt, Coco, and Eduardo, ponders the whereabouts of Frankie, as she hasn't made her tasty French toast breakfast. A furious Mr. Herriman bounces to the attic to find Frankie, only to see the toy box's chains broken; He then bounces out, threatening to hand her a pink slip. Left in the attic, Mac and the others look for Frankie, only to find that the toy box is not only alive, but ticklish; They then tickle it to open the lid, and then fall inside as well to find Frankie.

They then wander into a town in the world, only to find that none of the toys notice or respond to them. They are then pursued by Weeble-like policemen to a river of plastic balls, into which they fall after a long battle with the police. They float down the river but are then pulled under by a large glove-covered hand. The hand, they realize, belongs to a tall, handsome Robin Hood-esque hero figure who talks in an older form of Shakespeare-style English tongue. The Robin Hood-like figure, who yells "Excelsior!" as a battle cry, repeatedly tries to warn the group away from pursuing their quest as he follows them through different, trying environments that the group overcomes, like a forest full of springs and a sea of lava. Meanwhile, Mr. Herriman is trying to get a new employee to take Frankie's job, but to no avail.

After failing to cross a piano-like bridge, the group fall into a gooey, sticky canyon full of clay-gunk zombie copies of themselves. The Robin Hood figure sacrifices himself while the group makes their escape. They eventually end up at the home of a stuffed toy dog who takes them to her home to rest for the night, but then feeds them crumpets that are dusted with sleeping powder, which she presents to them as powdered sugar, as a trap to keep them away from Frankie, but Mac pretended to eat the crumpets because he's not allowed to eat sugar, fooling the toy dog by a clay gunk zombie copy of him. But then the toy dog's face (which is World's true form) slips off of the dog and onto the body of a stuffed squirrel, who then comes to life. The group realizes that the face can animate anything that he slips onto, like the leader of the Weeble policemen they saw earlier, the "Excelsior" guy, and the toy dog.

Capturing World on an apple that is held onto by Mac (he can't move to another body as long as he is held by Mac away from other objects, and Mac is off-limits to him since Mac already has a face), the group then moves the apple to a nearby desert of burning-hot sand and leaves him there. The apple dries up, but then a group of toy horses gallops by; World on the apple then calls out to a stray horse that then attempts to eat the apple, only to become World's new courier. The horse, now possessed by World, then gallops to the castle, and World slips off through several different objects until he ends up at the tallest spire where Frankie is staying; Satisfied that Frankie hasn't left, he leaves for the lower area.

The horse, which is really the disguise of Mac and the group, then runs to Frankie's room, only to find her on a bed with a faceless muscled masseur massaging her back. They plead to Frankie to come back to the real world, but Frankie takes their pleas as acts of selfishness, thinking they only liked her because of all the nice things she did for them. Enraged by this, she then refuses to come back with them and leaves. Mac tries to go after her, but the group is gassed out cold by World, who possesses the figure of a sorcerer.

Waking up, the group finds itself back in the attic, and Mac despairs over Frankie's words while the group wanders downstairs to their rooms. However, they soon realize that they are not in the real Foster's, and Mac is made aware of this when he sees a giant green eye peering into the attic window. Running downstairs, the group is tossed around by the house as it is moved topsy-turvy; When it stabilizes, the group opens the door of the house.

In the real world, Mr. Herriman mops the floor since he can't find any more employees until the rest of the imaginary friends are still upset about Frankie's absence. Mr. Herriman assures them that he will tend to their requests once he is done mopping, but before he can continue, they start passing the mop around. Annoyed, Mr. Herriman says that he is sick of all the things they did and hops off to the attic to find Frankie cause it's her job to do those things.

Frankie, who is enamored with the world that World has built (which she already knows to be the animator of toy figures), is disturbed from her observations by tiny, squeaky voices. Afraid that she may find out, World tries to coax her away from the miniature Foster's house, but a paper plane flies into her head; Picking it up, Frankie finds the miniature group inside. World then becomes fiercely furious at her discovery, accusing her of having made up her mind to leave him alone in the toy box, recounting the similar situation that resulted in the toy box being sent to Foster's in the first place; Frankie rejects the accusation, calming him into unshrinking Mac, Bloo and the group and making friends with them. Suddenly, an upset Mr. Herriman hops into the room and finds them. Herriman then scolds World for bringing and keeping Frankie in the toy chest and says that he is going to drag Frankie and the others out of the toy box and leave him alone to think about his actions.

Becoming distraught and enraged by this, the entire world crumbles as World pursues Herriman, Frankie and the rest; After a long and hard retreat, World becomes a huge dragon-like combination of the many objects of the box. After realizing that World is large enough for them to use to get back home, Mac and the others, with the exception of Frankie, get onto his back. Soon all but Frankie makes it out of the toy box as World, still in his monster form, eats Frankie and swallows her whole. Frankie, however, emerges from the box unharmed, and then pleads with the group to let World out of the box. A bitter argument ensues between Frankie and the rest, but then Mr. Herriman consents to her opening the box, cracking a very-rarely-seen smile. The group then lets her open the box, and a very frightened World (with whom she negotiated her release in return for his release) emerges. World gets happy already and everyone is really confused; Frankie's answer is: "Well think of it this way: Imagine if you were able to have anything you wanted, except one thing, when that one thing is what you wanted more than anything else. For him, that thing is a friend. That's all he wanted. That's what he was trying to protect. So I brought him here. Here he can have all the friends in the world. I mean come on, isn't friendship what Foster's is all about?" Instantaneously, Bloo shouts, "No, it's all about me!"; Herriman promptly slaps him with a glove, to the delight of everyone else.

World soon adapts to the outside world, and Frankie knits him a stuffed body; The residents also agree to cooperatively take care of cleaning and caretaking affairs for Frankie so that she can have a temporary respite from her duties, and all the residents soon join Frankie and World in jumping into the toy box world.

During the credits, Madame Foster shows up at the door, refreshed from her vacation but wondering where everyone is.


Spoilers end here.


Trivia[]

  • Even though this episode was not the last aired, this was the final episode of the series to be produced.
  • This is the only episode that was co-directed by Rob Renzetti.
  • While the movie was formatted to 16:9 aspect ratio on local broadcast, the streaming and home release version was at 4:3 even though seasons 5 and 6 had the widescreen formation on 2022 complete series DVD release. The 16:9 version of movie was eventually released on HBO GO Asia but has yet to see the light in America.
  • When World said he's everything, everywhere, and everyone, Mac disagreed with him saying he is one person and can only be one thing/person at one time; however, World was sort of correct because near the end, in his rage, he tore apart his own realm, so in a way, he's a god in his realm, the realm's embodiment. In fact, when Frankie first entered his realm, World was just a disembodied voice that seemed to come from everywhere and/or nowhere.
  • This episode won the Emmy Award for Best Animated Program One Hour or More in 2009.
  • This is the last episode to be written by Lauren Faust.
  • This marks the last episode to feature Eurotrish.

Cultural references[]

  • There is a scene with a replacement for Frankie wearing a Mojo Jojo t-shirt, referencing Craig McCracken's other work, The Powerpuff Girls. This causes a symmetry, as Frankie normally wears a t-shirt of the title characters.
  • One potential replacement for Frankie is a Mary Poppins parody.
  • After one of the Wobbly Cops tells the gang to leave or "face the consequences", Bloo exclaims "You'll never take me alive, copper!" This is a reference to the movie And Now for Something Completely Different.
  • Frankie wearing her hair in an upswept hairdo and a gold dress is a reference to Walt Disney's Beauty and the Beast character Belle and, to a lesser extent, Giselle from Disney's Enchanted.
  • Frankie (and later, the others) falling down into the world within the toybox is a reference to the story Alice in Wonderland, where the lead character falls down a rabbit hole leading to her adventures.
  • Mac saying, "There must be another way back, like in this wardrobe!" is a reference to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
  • When Bloo throws one of Coco's eggs at a Wobbly Policeman, he says, "These people wobble but they don't fall down" which is a reference to Weebles and part of the Weebles song "They wobble but they won't fall down."
  • During the video game section, which looked as if it took place in a level of Super Mario Bros., sound effects from Asteroids can be heard.
  • In some scenes where the interior of the model house is seen, the pattern on the floor carpet is based on that of the Overlook Hotel, featured in The Shining, a 1980 film directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Goofs[]

  • Wilt's zombie clones have his broken eye and arm to the viewer's left, essentially making them mirrored versions of Wilt, yet the "1" on their chests is normal.
  • There was a misunderstanding between the script and the closed captioning. According to Keith Ferguson, the actor who voices Bloo, a line as World was destroying his world was read as "You peeved him off, that's what's happening." Vitac, the closed captioning group that produced the captioning, read the line as "You pissed him off, that's what's happening!" For that reason, along with the darker tone of the story and with the hinting that Coco and Frankie use a particular curse word, this episode was rated TV-PG (although current airings give it the usual TV-Y7 rating). Faust explained this misunderstanding at Sparky Read's "Never Forgotten" boards at fosters-home.com, a fan site for the show under her board name "girl_named_goo."
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Wikipedia_small_logo_rounded.png This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends
Characters Main CharactersSecondary Characters
MacBlooFrankieMadame FosterGooWiltCocoEduardoMr. HerrimanCheese Jackie
Media Episodes and DVD releases
Movies/Specials House of Bloo'sA Lost ClausGood Wilt HuntingCheese a Go-Go
Nightmare on Wilson WayRace for Your Life Mac & Bloo
Destination ImaginationGoodbye to Bloo
Games Big Fat Awesome House PartyFoster's Home for Imaginary FriendsImagination InvadersFoster's Home for Imaginary Friends Didj
Creators Craig McCrackenLauren Faust
Advertisement