"Cuckoo for Coco Cards" is the fourteenth episode in season 3 of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
Plot[]
SPOILER: Plot details follow.
The episode opens with Mac's class taking a field trip to Foster's. During the tour, Mac's classmates are smitten with Coco's antics, causing her to become the center of attention, much to Bloo's chagrin. Towards the end of the trip, Coco rewards the kids by laying several eggs, which contain packs of Foster's-themed baseball cards. In addition to becoming a hit with the school kids, a trading culture develops within Foster's itself, wherein every friend seeks to grow their collections.
Bloo eagerly seeks to acquire his own card out of narcissism; however, upon doing so, it's soon revealed that Bloo's card is the most common one available, and that it's practically worthless in terms of trading value (humorously, his attempt at increasing the value by autographing the card backfires due to how disliked he is as a person). This ultimately spurs Bloo into an obsessive spiral, desperately trying to collect a full set of cards.
Additionally, the subplot of the episode centers around Eduardo, who tries performing various feats of bravery in order to improve the personality stat featured on his card, with it changing from "Big fat baby" to "Chicken", and then to "Scaredy cat", which Ed misinterprets as improvements rather than simple synonyms.
After his initial trading attempts fail to produce substantial results, Bloo begins to mix in underhanded tactics; most prominently, he perpetually begs various friends into giving up their cards for free so they don't have to listen to his grating voice anymore. Despite the practice being long-winded and unfair, this does ultimately net him a full collection of cards. However, Coco proceeds to rain on his parade by laying new "Series 2" cards, which are holographic.
Bloo is now distraught and frantically gives up half of his Series 1 collection in order to get two of Mac's Series 2 cards. Mac relays that Bloo now is in possession of two incomplete sets, which worsens the friend's obsession. Bloo begins doing chores and odd jobs for other friends around the house to earn cards as payment. However, in his trading journey, he is summoned by a mafioso-like friend named Gumbo. Gumbo offers to give Bloo a complete set of both Series 1 and Series 2 cards in exchange for a large quantity of chewing gum (which, incidentally, was also packaged in the packs along with the cards).
Bloo is, oddly enough, unable to find any packaged gum and instead resorts to acquiring used wads of gum which he then painstakingly sculpts into their factory-sliced shapes before presenting them to Gumbo. After a tense few moments of Gumbo taste-testing the gum, the ape friend suddenly scarfs down the entire collection, before blowing a bubble and floating away, leaving the cards for Bloo, as promised. Bloo brings his collection to Coco in order to gloat, only for her to reveal he is still missing one: the Bloo card. With Bloo desperately seeking out his own card, he finds that most Bloo cards have been discarded (pun not intended) or destroyed due to their miniscule value.
Meanwhile, Eduardo has constructed a massive stunt track where he plans to ride a small tricycle down a massive ramp and jump through a burning hoop. Bloo notices that there is a still-intact Bloo card in the spokes of Ed's trike. Bloo attempts to retrieve the card only to end up being thrown through the hoop with Eduardo, resulting in the card getting burnt and destroyed. Coco, visibly upset that Bloo would go this far to get a card rather than apologize, gives up and lays an egg for him which contains a Bloo card. Bloo is initially ecstatic, only to double take when he realizes all of his stats are negative and focused around him supposedly "hating Coco", ending with his personality being labeled as "Big insensitive jerkface". Eduardo, on the other hand, is excited to see that his personality has been updated from "Scaredy Cat" to "Crazy Idiot", not that he seems to mind. In a rare moment of self-reflection, Bloo realizes that his actions, and refusal to apologize for them, got Coco to believe that he hates her. Now feeling guilty for hurting Coco's feelings, Bloo goes to find her and apologizes.
Once he found Coco, who is clearly hurt and refuses to speak to him, sitting at a fireplace, Bloo goes to talk to her as he assured her that he doesn't hate her. Hearing this, Coco decides to hear Bloo out, but decided to confront him first about his actions before hearing what he has to say. Agreeing with Coco about his behavior and wanting to make things right with her, Bloo selflessly (albeit overdramatically) destroys his card collection in a fire and professes that he values his friendship with her more than the cards. Bloo then plainly tells Coco that he's sorry for his behavior. Seeing Bloo's selfless deed and that he is really sorry for his actions, Coco happily forgives and reconciles with him, even giving him a "Bobble Body" of himself as a gift, which is also an apology for the negative things she put on his baseball card. Bloo innocently shows off to his friends his Bobble Body. However, Eduardo reveals that Coco has already produced a series of Bobble Bodies, and that, once again, Bloo's is the most common (explicitly, Wilt's Bobble Body is the rarest). Bloo's obsession manifests once more and Coco, who realizes what she is in for, makes a run for it as Bloo begins demanding more Bobble Bodies, with the episode closing on everyone showing off their Bobble Body variants.
During the end credits, Gumbo is shown to still be floating aimlessly with his gum bubble.
Spoilers end here.
Trivia[]
- When Bloo sings "I collected all the Coco cards!", he sings it in the same tune as his song from the previous episode "Room with a Feud" upon laying his claim to the titular bedroom.
- Wilt, in a display of naïve, blunt honesty, unintentionally insults Bloo by implying that his autograph diminishes the already-low value of his card. This is one of the few times he's seen insulting someone, even if it is on a technicality.
- When Bloo lists his card collection to Mac, his list of imaginary friends is almost the same as when Mac does a roll call in "Adoptcalypse Now".
- This is Spritz Coleman's only appearance in season 3 and the debut of Gumbo.
Cultural references[]
- The title of this episode is a reference to General Mills' Cocoa Puffs cereal, whose mascot is a cuckoo bird with the catchphrase "Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!", which also acts as the brand's slogan.
- The cards themselves are a very clear parody of sports trading cards, in particular the MLB (Major League Baseball) series. They lack any sort of game attached to the cards themselves, unlike fantasy card games like Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh!, and instead the goal is to simply collect every card in a set.
- After Mac's class runs out of Foster's, Bloo tells them, "Y'all come back now, ya hear!", which is the sign-off phrase from the classic TV series The Beverly Hillbillies.
Goofs[]
- In the first shot of the dining room, seated in between Coco and Eduardo are Bloo and Galoot Palooka, yet in the very next shot, the former two are seated next to each other.
- On the back of Eduardo's Coco card, "broccoli" is misspelled as "broccotli".
- Near the end, when Coco sadly walks back into the house, Fluffer Nutter is seen walking onto the porch, yet the latter suddenly vanishes before reaching the edge of the screen.
- The Eduardo Bobble Body shown at the end of the episode has his name misspelled as "Edwardo".
- The end credits mislabel Phineus B. Vurm as "Phineus P. Vurm".