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Popular Culture Review
At its worst, “the chief flinction of mass culture is to relieve one of the necessity
of experiencing one’s life directly” (Warshow 8). While the occasional escape
into the glossy action film does no lasting harm, the failure to recognize such
movies as diversions, instead of replacements for real life, deadens one’s
motivation for dealing with everyday ups and downs.
Although Foster's Home delights in satirizing generic features of
popular culture, such as the blockbuster movie, the show also narrows its focus
in “Challenge of the Superfriends.” Star Wars ends up the focus of extended
satire throughout the latter part of this episode, especially The Empire Strikes
Back. Star Wars has become thoroughly enmeshed as part of the American pop
culture experience, with phrases such as “May the Force be with you” often
quoted by even those who would not claim to be great fans of the films. Derek
Johnson describes Star Wars as “an all-encompassing entity that everyone
knows something about: corporate merchandising rather than something from
childhood memory, something you just cherished yourself’ (38). As the films
surged in popularity, Darth Vader (David Prowse) and the other residents of the
Star Wars universe hit the stores in every imaginable form of merchandise,
creating a scenario where one could own an army of Stormtroopers without ever
having viewed the films. Kevin Wetmore, Jr. argues that George Lucas
addresses the issue of commercialism throughout The Phantom Menace. He
believes that Darth Maul’s name refers both to “maul” and to its homonym
“mall,” thus depicting the evils of rampant consumerism (98). This meaning of
this parallel, if intended, proves problematical. Given that George Lucas
amassed his fortune initially through product licensing of the original trilogy,
this seems less likely a condemnation of consumerism than Lucas slyly
acknowledging his success. “Challenge of the Superfriends” forces the viewer to
examine exactly why these films continue to capture the public’s imagination,
product tie-ins aside, and who should control the transmission of their stories.
The episode’s storyline revolves around two comic-book style
imaginary friends, a superhero and villain. Imaginary Man (Daran Norris) and
Nemesis (Grey DeLisle) respectively. Bloo finds his status as Mac’s best friend
threatened due to the latter’s fascination with the beefed up Imaginary Man.
Bloo makes a last-ditch attempt to become a better superhero than Imaginary
Man, but fails completely, and a disgusted Mac rejects him, although the two are
reconciled as best friends at the end. At this point, the parallels to Star Wars
begin, with Bloo assuming the role of a Darth Vader-like villain. As Mac turn s
to leave Bloo, he steps on a tube of hair gel which had fallen to the floor. The
resulting explosion of gel splatters Bloo’s face in slow-motion, and he falls to
the floor moaning. While this is a far cry from Anakin Skywalker (Hayden
Christensen) burning in the fires of Mustafar, it sets up Bloo as isolated from
those he loves, leaving him susceptible to the “dark side.” The pink-haired
Nemesis replaces Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) as the one responsible for Bloo’s
transformation. She offers Bloo the chance for revenge if he Joins her, which he
readily agrees to do. Bloo’s new identity is that of Lord Uniscom, a black-clad