Fridge / Osmosis Jones

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

Fridge Brilliance

• Thrax picking up a bit of DNA from hypothalami as a trophy. In the Real World, some viruses actually pick up bits of host DNA and carry it with them. He also is far more interested in killing than in reproducing and spreading; this means that, like a Real Life super-lethal virus, he wouldn't be able to cause disease in many people (see below).
• The song "Hot-Blooded" just seems like a jab at how the movie is taking place in a human body, and our protagonist is a white blood cell who happens to be hot-blooded. But it takes a whole new prophetic level when one takes this lyric into account: "I got a fever of a hundred and three"... Fun fact: Fevers of a hundred and four (and over) are dangerous. Not only is Thrax's plan to create a deadly fever, but the climax revolves around keeping Frank from hitting the tipping point where his body starts to cook him alive...
• The designs of the different microorganisms and cells are distinct from one another that you can tell which of the characters are human cells based on how anthropomorphic they are. Human cells as depicted in the movie are not only more visibly anthropomorphic (i.e., they are the most human-shaped) but are also uniquely colored to appear to have a translucent outline to their bodies while having a solid internal color, which vary between cell types (for instance, red for red blood cells, blue-purple for neurons, and cyan for white blood cells). Humans cells, like all animal cells, do not have rigid cell walls. Microorganisms, meanwhile, have more variety to their appearances—with multiple legs, eyes, and mouths—and are opaque with darker outlines.
• Jones' boss is six times his size. Macrophagei, a type of white blood cell responsible for attacking bigger pathogens ("macro-" means "can be seen with the eye" and "-phage" means "I eat it"), and teaching other leukocytes about them, are six times the size of regular white corpuscles. They can also metamorphocize into dendritic cells (not to be confused with dendrites, which are a type of nerve), which is more or less a white cell who's got a desk job.
• Jones' ability to shapeshift is actually a reference to leukocyte extravasation, or the ability of white blood cells to move through intact blood vessels to reach pathogens quicker.
• Thrax mentions that one of his earlier victims was a little girl, and that it took him three whole weeks. He says he's getting better as he goes along, and this is undoubtedly true, but children have robust immune systems and less space for a sentient virus to move around in. Of course she would have given him more trouble than the old man in Philly.
• Frank says that the reason monkeys eat so many fruits and vegetables is that they're not smart enough to butcher a cow. It's meant to make him look like an unhealthy slob, but he's more or less right...monkeys and chimps in particular love meat, will go to scary lengths to procure it, and if they were strong enough and numerous enough to take down a cow, probably would.
• Many criticize the fact that Thrax couldn't remove himself from the false eyelash, despite his ability to burn things. However, it stands to reason his ability works differently with artificial stuff than organic. It would make sense organic beings are in danger against him because he's a virus and he can kill them with ease, but artificial objects are essentially lifeless things, at least something a virus can't really destroy as easy.
• It was quite convenient that Shane ran back for Osmosis to make it back to save Frank. Who's to say those running Shane weren't witnessing what's happening right in front of them and decided to give Jones some much needed help. What's best for Shane is for Frank to live.

Fridge Horror

• If every cell in your body is alive and sentient, minor injuries in the world of Osmosis Jones become horrifying. Not to mention the fate of the poor blood cells carried off by mosquitoes and other biting bugs...
• Frank will die one day, and when he does the cell civilization inside him will be destroyed. Now, imagine if everyone else had a civilization of cells living inside them...
  • Probably, but cells don't live too long (except for brain cells) so it's more like the end of the world after many, many generations. The more dramatic case would be the death of an infant causing a newly formed world to expire too soon.
• Also, everybody is basically controlled by a "mayor" and multiple other body cells inside the head. Basically, nobody actually has any free will...
  • But we are controlled by multiple cells inside of our heads.
  • If it's any consolation, in the animated spin-off, The City of Hector's mayor deliberately cranks up his phobia of water (gotten after he almost drowned) to keep him out of the pool. Hector overcomes this anyway, so there is some leeway.
• When you think about it, a sentient virus would pride themselves on killing everything, so slowly but surely, Thrax aims to try and kill every living thing on Earth.
  • Not really. Viruses in the real world evolve for two things: to make more of themselves and spread to other hosts. A virus that quickly killed its host would severely hamper its own spread (see: Ebola).
• In light of the above point, Thrax doesn't seem like a natural virus. But he could be an engineered bioweapon that escaped containment or was unleashed. If Thrax is not this, he's a case of Artistic License – Biology. If he was designed for killing, whoever created him (terrorists, the military, take your pick) would likely have more samples stored away...
• According to The Other Wiki, bacillus anthracis is a soil-borne bacteria that can be contracted via ingestion and causes death by invoking cold or flu-like symptoms, such as, say, a fever. Bacillus anthracis. Otherwise known as anthrax. What's even more disturbing? How anthrax was even exposed to the monkey cage at the zoo in the first placed, and how many cases of Thrax are now just waiting to happen...
  • Thrax may be named for anthrax, but he doesn't cause that disease though. He causes an entirely fictional disease, the Red Death.
• Speaking of Thrax, keep in mind that viruses multiply. Just one Red Death virus was enough to kill someone. There could be millions of Thraxes out there.
  • The pilot to Ozzy & Drix had them confronting another Red Death-like virus before getting carried off to Hector, so it's possible that Thrax may have already done it offscreen.
    • However, the villain in that episode was directly identified as Scarlet Fever, which is real and is a bacterial disease, not a virus. That said, the similarities suggest that Red Death may be a fictitious "cousin" to Scarlet Fever.
  • On that note, are all the potential Thraxes out there just as depraved and evil as he is? Are some of them Reluctant Psychos who don't want to hurt anyone but know they have to in order to survive (since that's basically how viruses work)? Either way, it's not a pleasant thought...
• The way Thrax is hellbent on killing as many humans as possible, as quickly as possible, it could be a class 1 or 2 for the outside world if he escaped Frank.
  • When Thrax died in the beaker of alcohol, that's what happens to every germ on your hands whenever you use hand sanitizer. Yikes.
• Because of Aesop Amnesia, in Ozzy & Drix, Frank for some reason starts becoming unhealthy again, and both Ozzy and Drix are carried away by a mosquito to someone else...
  • Considering Shane is absent and Ozzy talks about getting promoted out of "snot patrol" (when he should have something much higher after the events of the movie), it's possible this is an alternate universe.
  • There is another more grim explanation for Frank's declining health. Frank's internal temperature nearly reached 108 during the events of the film, which is deadly. However, if one's internal temperature reaches 104, which Frank's surpassed, that can result in permanent brain damage. This puts a dark contrast on the situation; Frank tried to get healthy but resulting brain damage from his brush with death meant he kept forgetting (from the anthropmorphised cell POV, the brain cell in charge of memory could've been killed and the records or information cataloguing system destroyed) to maintain his new healthy lifestyle or he just discarded the attempts.
• Thrax claims that, once he breaks his record by killing Frank in two days, he plans to go after Shane and kill her in one day. We see from her initial reaction when Frank flatlines that Shane would not be taking Frank's death well at all. Considering grief can weaken the immune system (which, in the context of the movie, could have been represented as the police becoming increasingly apathetic according to Shane's ongoing mood), Shane would have been a very easy target if Thrax attacked straight away.
• One of the nightmares playing in the movieplex in Franks's brain? Frank's brother marries Shane—his own niece. Since nightmares are basically subconscious fears given imagery, there must be something about his brother that Frank doesn't trust, especially when his daughter is concerned. The fact that Shane quickly sidesteps Bob’s request for a hug immediately after this doesn’t help with the implications.
  • Frank knows he's unhealthy. His wife died due to a similar lifestyle, and his brother looks to be the only other adult who's really around in Shane's life—if anything happens to Frank, his daughter would most likely be put in his brother's custody. That, coupled with the above point, carries some very Unfortunate Implications about that particular nightmare…
• The DNA beads Thrax carries around are each trophies from his earlier successful infections; each representative of a person he's killed. There are over twenty beads in that chain. Now, figure in that Thrax killing the human also kills every single cell inside them — which are established as sentient in this universe — and that factors into possibly one of the highest body counts of an animated villain period.

Fridge Sadness

• Frank's poor health may be (at least partially) due to depression. People with depression sometimes turn to overeating or other self-destructive habits in order to cope with sadness and other negative emotions. Frank is a widower and the incident with Shane's teacher humiliated him and his daughter, cost him his job and stuck him with a restraining order, as well as getting a job at the zoo which he clearly doesn't like. Granted, Shane implies that Frank's poor health habits had started long before losing his wife, but losing her possibly just made his habits get worse and Mayor Phlemming wasn't doing him any favors either due to his incompetence and negligence.
  • However, Thrax's visit to his subconscious also hints that Frank may have a low view of himself for a long time and may have gone through some trauma's in the past, which may have lead to his less than ideal lifestyle in the first place.
  • After Frank had his nightmare, he is clearly shaken and his first reaction is to eat something.