"Cookie Dough" is the 5th episode of Season 2 of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
Plot[]
SPOILER: Plot details follow.
Foster's is in need of a new roof when the current roof begins leaking while it rains outside during the winter. However, Foster's has no emergency funds left after Madame Foster spent it all on a solid gold vault to keep the money safe. Unwilling to tolerate the wet lifestyle, Bloo tries to sell lemonade to some customers, only for his efforts to fail because the cold weather freezes his lemonade. Mac comes by and adds insult to injury by telling him that even if the lemonade didn't freeze, his plan wouldn’t have worked because it's both raining and in the middle of winter, and nobody wants ice cold drinks when it’s already cold and wet outside. Touched by Bloo's efforts, Madame Foster bakes a batch of her famous cookies for him. Madame Foster's cookies prove to be a much more successful venture in selling to people and the money raised by selling them is enough to buy a new roof for Foster's. However, Bloo has, predictably, already become consumed by greed and plans on selling more of them until he learns that Madame Foster only bakes them once a year.
Unwilling to let the sales only last once a year, Bloo and the gang try to break into Madame Foster's vault to get the cookie recipe but are soon quickly caught by Mr. Herriman. Bloo, however, tricks Herriman into giving him the recipe after bribing him to become the chairman for his new cookie-manufacturing company. Soon, everyone at Foster's is working non-stop, baking and selling cookies while Bloo earns all the profits that he strongly desires. However, Bloo's new fortune turns him into a power-hungry boss, forcing everyone to keep working without any break time while he bathes in his new fortune and cool stuff. Also, because of the new mass-production lifestyle the cookies are now made in, the customers begin losing interest, even after Bloo begins selling new cookie-themed merchandise, which also fails to attract customers.
Soon, everyone becomes fed up with Bloo's greedy, callous, and selfish attitude, but Bloo fires them all instead. This action not only leads to him losing the trust of all the friends, but it also leads to Bloo losing his friendship with Mac, as he quits after Bloo fires everyone else. Bloo then decides to make the cookies himself. The task ultimately backfires when Bloo tries baking the cookies at 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit and blows up the roof in the process. With his cookie business destroyed, Bloo is left back at the beginning from where he started: selling lemonade to raise money to fix the roofs for Foster's. Bloo then apologizes to his friends for treating them like dirt, overworking them, and not appreciating them for their hard work, and they forgive him. Then Madame Foster comes in and says that not only just another 19,990 to go until he'd paid her back, but she's now keeping all of Bloo's cool stuff.
In a subplot to the episode, Frankie reveals a greed of her own: a raving addiction to Madame Foster's cookies. Throughout the episode, she acts erratic and insane from being given more cookies to eat since she was only able to eat them once a year. The end credits scene briefly shows that she's gotten considerably bloated from her near constant eating.
Spoilers end here.
Trivia[]
- This is the only appearance of Fluffer Nutter and Bloppy Pants in season 2.
- Mac isn't seen wearing his backpack through most of this episode, but he is seen wearing it in the kitchen after he and Bloo are finished selling cookies.
- Moral: Don't be greedy, selfish, and mean.
- In most episodes of the show, Bloo desires only small amounts of money such as $5 or $10 but here it is apparent that he wants to become at least a millionaire from selling cookies.
- A random customer asks for a baker's dozen of cookies and Bloo responds saying "That's like 12 million cookies!" This is not true; a baker's dozen (usually used for bread) means that 13 of something are obtained for the price of a usual dozen.
- Coco can only write "coco", as seen when Bloo mentions the towns that have made orders. Bloo can actually understand what the "coco"s mean.
- Bloo's voice changes in this episode and stays this way for the rest of the series.
- Bloo's role in this episode could be the most antagonistic in the series by the following points:
- Bloo takes over the mansion and becomes the de facto leader to persuade Mr. Herriman and Madame Foster to hand over the mansion to turn it from an orphanage to a cookie factory, and forces every resident within the mansion, including his closest friends, to be his employees.
- Bloo abuses the imaginary friends, forcing them to work restlessly for several days, later firing and kicking them out of the kitchen for not meeting his demands.
- Bloo cruelly and heartlessly refuses to share his luxuries with anyone else, including his closest friends.
- Bloo only shows concern for the incomes of his business, and he coldly ignores the situation of the imaginary friends, as the fact that he forced them to work without any rest or any luxury, until the point in that they get fed up with Bloo's attitude and tell him their complains about the unfairly treatment, only to prompt Bloo to fire them without regret.
Cultural references[]
- Bloo's boat when he's sailing the chocolate river is called "Bloositania", a pun on Lusitania, which was a British liner credited for enticing the United States to enter World War I since it was sunk by Germany when it carried many Americans onboard.
- When Bloo is looking through Coco's flashcards for cities with cookie demands, one of the cities he mentions is Townsville, which is usually the main setting of The Powerpuff Girls. Another town mentioned is Aron City, the main setting of Johnny Bravo.
- When Wilt and Coco are playing video games, they play the infamous Atari 2600 Port of Pac-Man.
- Frankie's obsession with Madame Foster's cookies and the fact that she loved them since she was a baby is a reference to Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. She even says the one thing Cookie Monster is known to say: "Me love cookies!"
Goofs[]
- When Frankie is shown with a sleeping bag around her waist, it shows her with a scarf around her neck, but when it shows her grabbing Mac's collar, the scarf is gone, and when the screen zooms back out, the scarf reappears.
- It shouldn't have been possible for water to leak all the way to the ground floor, where the dining room is located.
- Frankie's watch says 9:00, but when Mac arrives a few seconds later, she says it's 9:02 and a half. Considering her extreme obsession with the cookies at the moment, it is possible that she wasn't rational or lucid, making her commentary senseless and overreacted.