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(a la John Cleese) And now, for something completely different :-)
14 years ago today, faithful fans of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends in the US sat down in front of the TV to check out their latest escapades, expecting to see the gang go on the craziest European vacation this side of Clark Griswold... and instead got one of the worst episodes of the show's run. While most of the criticism against "Foster's Goes to Europe" has been levied towards the end reveal that Madame Foster stole the tickets for a European vacation from Mac, I'd prefer to point my criticism at the episode being a bait-and-switch in the first place. Some fans have called it "gutsy" or even "genius" (NSFW language on that last link there), but like many other viewers, I've always felt there was plenty of potential in a proper vacation plot with imaginary friends, in this case, things like Bloo trying to speak French to the locals, Ed getting dragged into a Spanish bullring in a riff on Ferdinand, Herriman typing up the schedule on the plane much to other passengers' annoyance, etc. Even typical travel troubles, like security checks, leg space issues, and flight delays (as opposed to the self-inflicted delays in the actual episode), as well as questions of how international travel might be different for imaginary friends, could probably lend well to the show's offbeat humor... Not to mention getting to see iconic landmarks rendered in the show's art style :-)
Instead, we have an episode that thinks it can mine humor out of dragging the "simple" task of getting the gang out the front door to go to the airport out over 20 minutes, and while I sort of get where they're coming from, I'd rather we got to see these unique characters traipsing across the continent, pulling all sorts of crazy shenanigans along the way, maybe even paying homage to other European adventures before them :-) Certainly would have left the audience much more satisfied than the mean-spirited mess we got...
You'd think that given the gap between expectations and reality, there'd be plenty of fanwork to fill the gap, right? Well, all I've been able to find is this alternate ending fanfic, this simple artwork of Bloo in Rome, and this cobbled together picture of the gang at a Northern Ireland castle ruin... To be fair I haven't been looking that much, but still, not remotely as much as I expected :-\
Well, starting today (Mondays and Thursdays), I'm going to post art inspired by the simple and interesting (yet somehow ignored) premise of "What if European vacation, but with imaginary friends?" I've actually been making these artworks on-and-off since 2010 (!) when I went on a trip to Europe with my family (my posts about that trip have been blighted by Photo-suck-it's policy changes, though :-\)

Let's begin at the end, with this work from 2019... Regulas314 on DeviantArt said in his critique of the episode: "Can you imagine how hilarious it would be for the Foster's gang to go to Europe? They would've had to do a TV movie for it!" So, what better to go with a movie than a poster? ;-) I was inspired to make the poster after getting the idea for the tagline watching, of all things, an airline safety video (which, to be fair, also doubled as promotional material for a film about a young man's crazy European vacation ;-))
14 years ago today, faithful fans of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends in the US sat down in front of the TV to check out their latest escapades, expecting to see the gang go on the craziest European vacation this side of Clark Griswold... and instead got one of the worst episodes of the show's run. While most of the criticism against "Foster's Goes to Europe" has been levied towards the end reveal that Madame Foster stole the tickets for a European vacation from Mac, I'd prefer to point my criticism at the episode being a bait-and-switch in the first place. Some fans have called it "gutsy" or even "genius" (NSFW language on that last link there), but like many other viewers, I've always felt there was plenty of potential in a proper vacation plot with imaginary friends, in this case, things like Bloo trying to speak French to the locals, Ed getting dragged into a Spanish bullring in a riff on Ferdinand, Herriman typing up the schedule on the plane much to other passengers' annoyance, etc. Even typical travel troubles, like security checks, leg space issues, and flight delays (as opposed to the self-inflicted delays in the actual episode), as well as questions of how international travel might be different for imaginary friends, could probably lend well to the show's offbeat humor... Not to mention getting to see iconic landmarks rendered in the show's art style :-)
Instead, we have an episode that thinks it can mine humor out of dragging the "simple" task of getting the gang out the front door to go to the airport out over 20 minutes, and while I sort of get where they're coming from, I'd rather we got to see these unique characters traipsing across the continent, pulling all sorts of crazy shenanigans along the way, maybe even paying homage to other European adventures before them :-) Certainly would have left the audience much more satisfied than the mean-spirited mess we got...
You'd think that given the gap between expectations and reality, there'd be plenty of fanwork to fill the gap, right? Well, all I've been able to find is this alternate ending fanfic, this simple artwork of Bloo in Rome, and this cobbled together picture of the gang at a Northern Ireland castle ruin... To be fair I haven't been looking that much, but still, not remotely as much as I expected :-\
Well, starting today (Mondays and Thursdays), I'm going to post art inspired by the simple and interesting (yet somehow ignored) premise of "What if European vacation, but with imaginary friends?" I've actually been making these artworks on-and-off since 2010 (!) when I went on a trip to Europe with my family (my posts about that trip have been blighted by Photo-suck-it's policy changes, though :-\)

Let's begin at the end, with this work from 2019... Regulas314 on DeviantArt said in his critique of the episode: "Can you imagine how hilarious it would be for the Foster's gang to go to Europe? They would've had to do a TV movie for it!" So, what better to go with a movie than a poster? ;-) I was inspired to make the poster after getting the idea for the tagline watching, of all things, an airline safety video (which, to be fair, also doubled as promotional material for a film about a young man's crazy European vacation ;-))