With the imaginary friend kids comedy currently hitting theaters and landing the box-office top spot, I thought what a better way to celebrate “IF” than watching these five TV Shows & Movies that deal in imaginary friends and monsters? I quite enjoyed “IF” (Best use of a Tina Turner song in years!) when all was said and done. It had flaws, but none that hindered the entertainment value.
These five titles should help if you have a bigger appetite for stories about imaginary friends and magical worlds featuring monsters.
5.Monsters, Inc. (2001)
Currently Streaming on Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video and Google Play
Pixar’s hit animated fantasy revolves around two monster friends Mike and Sully who make their living scaring children. When a human child breaks the barrier and follows them in to their home world, they have to figure out how to get her back home, all the while avoiding the ominous organization they work for that deems human children unhealthy and dangerous. It’s still a fun, funny, and witty film filled with heart, and worth re-visiting if you haven’t had the luck of seeing it yet.
4. The Fairly OddParents (2001)
Currently Streaming on Netflix, Paramount Plus, Amazon Prime Video
The hit animated comedy series from Nickelodeon is a sprawling and fun story of Timmy Turner an alienated young boy who is gifted with two fairy god parents. The bizarre married couple befriend Timmy and seek to make his life easier all the while also helping him deal with growing pains and adolescence. The show lasted 174 episodes with ten seasons total and a strong loyal fanbase and is still being rebooted by Nickelodeon to this day for better and for worse.
3. My Neighbor Totoro (1990)
Currently Streaming on MAX
Two young girls move in with their father in to a cottage by the woods. As their mother struggles with a potentially terminal illness in a nearby hospital, the sisters seek solace with a habitat of friendly, cat-like, magical monsters living within the woods, to whom they befriend. The biggest of them all, known as Totoro, takes them on an adventure. Hayao Miyazaki’s animated masterpiece is a wonderful, sweet, and touching tale about grief and resilience and my all time favorite from Studio Ghibli.
2. Harvey (1950)
Currently Streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Youtube, Fandango
Jimmy Stewart plays Elwood P. Dowd, an eccentric young man who is best friends with his imaginary six foot tall rabbit he calls Harvey. The two are inseparable, and Elwood’s family are convinced that he’s virtually going insane as no one else can spot Harvey. Despite their cynicism and attempts to sabotage Elwood, he keeps his sense of wonder and confidence in himself and his best pal Harvey. It’s a funny, sweet, and relatable tale about keeping the childlike wonder in our lives no matter how old we get.
1. Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends (2004)
Currently Streaming on Hulu
Created by Craig McCracken, “Foster’s…” is an animated series about Mack, a boy who moves away and leaves his imaginary friend, the amorphous blob Bloo to live at “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.” It’s a massive foster home for abandoned or surrendered imaginary friends of all kinds, and the often rambunctious and bratty Bloo struggles to fit in among a small group of other imaginary friends. Mac and Bloo, along with foster home staff, the kindly Frankie and her cohort/talking rabbit Mr. Herriman, get in all kinds of adventures and mishaps while growing up together. It’s a fun, funny, and inventive series that lasted 79 Episodes.