Imaginary Friend / Western Animation

• All Grown Up!: In one episode, Dil makes an imaginary friend. Tommy and co. tease him for being too old for imaginary friends... until Dil's imaginary friend somehow manages to become one of the most popular kids in school. Until he gets run over by a lawnmower, when some of Dil's friends actually start mourning for his imaginary friend.
• Almost Naked Animals: In one episode, a head injury reunites Howie with his childhood imaginary friend, Platymoose. Turns out Platymoose is a Jerkass who just wants to annoy all of Howie's friends.
• American Dad!:
  • Roger once mentioned a seven year old Black boy he knows who loves Nickelodeon and is in fact imaginary. The kid appears twice, the first time confusing Roger when he thinks the kid is Real After All. The second time the kid fades away with Roger's television despite that the TV was real.
  • When Francine's alone, she regularly breaks out her "private reserve" to hang out with her three friends. Thanks to Klaus being present, it's made clear Francine's "friends" are hallucinations brought on by whatever's in her "private reserve." After listening to their erroneous advice about Stan's secret hobby as a slot car driver, Francine reaches her limit when they imply she cheat on Stan with Steve. At this point Francine reveals the "private reserve" is Windex and fertilizer, and shattering the jar turns the hallucinations demonic before they get sucked into Hell.
  • Another episode has Francine meeting Coach Cathy, a grief counselor and softball coach for the CIA. Coach Cathy is sent by Stan to help Francine cope with him killing someone believing it was her fault. After she's able to make Francine understand she couldn't have known Stan would kill the guy, Stan arrives home and is thanked for sending Coach Cathy to the house. At which point we find out there's no one there and Stan has no idea who "Coach Cathy" is, playing along with Francine's apparent hallucination out of fear of what she might do if she snaps.
• In Arthur, his little sister D.W. has an imaginary friend named Nadine who at times seems to be smarter than her.
• Batman: The Animated Series: "See No Evil" - the little girl's imaginary friend was really her father, using Applied Phlebotinum to become invisible.
• Caillou: One early episode was about Caillou having a race with his imaginary friend, George, and knocking a pot over during it, which makes his parents mad. Caillou tells his parents George did it, but then confesses it was his fault when he is told that George is not real.
• Code Lyoko: In the second season, Aelita is plagued by nightmares of wolves, some of which involve a strange, elf-like creature fleeing from them. Eventually, she and her friends find a doll that resembles this elf (with the key to a bus station locker that holds Franz Hopper's journals) which she recognizes as "Mr. Puck". For some strange reason, the doll makes the nightmares go away, giving her more pleasant dreams of Mr. Puck. The doll is eventually revealed to have been a gift from her father, likely why it helps her feel safe.
• In Daft Planet, Hudson's older brother, Albert, had one when he was a kid. His name was Nanigans.
• Zigzagged in Dexter's Laboratory:
  • Koos-A-La-Goop-A-Goop is a creature from another world who only Dee Dee can see, leading to Dexter believing he is just an imaginary friend, where as his sister insists that he's real but invisible. He tries to prove Koosy isn't real, but his mind is forced to accept it because he has no proof otherwise, allowing him to appear. After being so Not Now, Kiddo about Koosy's presence, he ends up imagining him away, and only then did Dexter realize how much he missed the figment.
    • Another episode has Dee Dee has her traveling to Koosy's world. As the world's residents can't see her, she can be seen as Koosy's imaginary friend.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: The episode "Who Let The Ed In?" revolved around Ed's imaginary friend Jib... who was apparently real enough to pummel Eddy.
  • That same show has Plank, Jonny's Companion Cube, though again his status as "imaginary" is often left up in the air.
• The Fairly OddParents!: Timmy had an imaginary friend he called Imaginary Gary, but when he got Cosmo and Wanda (and therapy) he abandoned the figment...to the figment's immense displeasure.
• Family Guy: One episode introduces Lois' long-lost brother, who was put in an insane asylum^note Supposedly because he witnessed his mother having sex with Jackie Gleason as a child. Lois thinks he's perfectly normal... until he starts talking about an imaginary wife. Of course, this being Family Guy, they play around with it a bit: at one point, Stewie jokingly suggests leaving a cucumber on the couch where "she" is sitting and seeing if it pickles. A couple of scenes later, Lois finds a pickle on the couch.
• Fancy Nancy: Nancy once had an imaginary friend called Genevieve. When she tells JoJo about this in "Nancy vs Dudley," JoJo at first doesn't get it, but finally creates an imaginary friend called Dudley. Then, she gets annoyed when JoJo wants to play with Dudley instead of her, even though she hadn't initially wanted to include JoJo in her fun in the first place.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends takes place in a world where Imaginary Friends are actual, physical beings who pop into existence whenever a kid with enough creativity thinks them up. Unlike most examples, everyone can see them and acknowledges their existence. However, almost all kids stop needing their Friends as they grow up, and the show is centered on a "foster home" (which is more like an Orphanage of Love) where they wait to be adopted by other children.
• The Great North: Judy tends to imagine her favorite singer, Alanis Morissette, forming in the northern lights whenever she needs to figure out life's issues.
• Hip-Hip and Hurra: Kinga has an imaginary firend — a potted flower named Adelka. Not only can Kinga hear what Adelka is talking, but in the second season she spends all of her free time trying to entertain her (including taking Adelka to cinema and ice skating). At one point she even throws her a birthday party.
• Kaeloo: Stumpy apparently has a whole bunch of these, which is why everyone believes that his girlfriend Ursula is also imaginary. Ursula turns out to be real, but the others are still imaginary.
• Kevin Spencer has Allan the Magic Goose as his imaginary friend, who will frequently rile him into his sociopathic tendancies. However, the final episode of the series reveals that everyone but Allan was imaginary.
• In Kim Possible, Ron's pet mole rat Rufus is named from his imaginary friend as a child.
• King of the Hill: Bill has alluded to creating imaginary friends for himself because his regular friends don't often listen to him and are unsupportive.
• The Mighty B!: Bessie has Finger, her left index finger. When she sprains Finger in a competition, her right index finger, Finger's French Cousin Fingaire, shows up — but he is not a nice finger, and Finger has to defeat him in combat.
• Ned's Newt: One episode had Ned's parents overhearing him talking to Newton (his shapeshifting pet newt, though Ned's parents don't know this), and they believe that Ned's childhood imaginary friend Shoe (who they'd gotten rid of through therapy) is back.
• PB&J Otter: Two-year-old Butter has an imaginary friend named Buddy. Apparently Jelly also had an imaginary friend at that age (an octopus named Bobo).
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In one episode, the girls had to fight an imaginary friend named Patches who was causing trouble at school. They defeat him by imagining a friend of their own to beat the snot out of him. Since the creator went to create Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, this can be seen as a first try how the concept would work out. This raises the question of what exactly made Mike Believe (the kid who dreamed up the villain) imagine out an evil Monster Clown as a friend?
  • Although it's implied that the friend found Mike — Mike is first seen sitting alone on the playground and suddenly acting as though someone is calling to him ("Who said my name?"). It's possible that Patches just needed someone in the physical realm to be his partner.
  • Before the girls create their own friend, Bubbles starts to suggest the Koos-A-La-Goop-A-Goop from Dexter's Lab (see above), but Buttercup shoots it down by saying "Not that Koos jerk!". The friend they create has the same opinion of Koosy.
• In the '80s special Puff the Magic Dragon and the Incredible Mr. Nobody, an excessively creative boy named Terry creates an imaginary friend named Nobody (since nobody was his friend). Since his creative talents got him teased by his peers and were not understood by his teachers, he starts to tell everyone that Nobody was responsible, and eventually he comes to believe that his talent was actually all from his friend. After his father tries to explain that Nobody isn't real, Nobody vanishes, so Terry goes on a quest to find him, aided by Puff. With Puff's help, Terry realizes that he and Nobody are one and the same, and he embraces his talents.
• Rugrats: In one episode, Chuckie creates an imaginary friend named Barney (no, not that Barney), who seems to be a lot braver than Chuckie.
• Sabrina: The Animated Series: One episode had Sabrina using magic to bring Harvey's old imaginary friend Mort to life in an attempt to cheer Harvey up. Naturally Mort ends being far more trouble than Sabrina bargained for.
• The Simpsons: Played with in an episode where everyone becomes convinced that Homer, feeling unappreciated, has invented an imaginary friend. In fact, his friend is real, and the reason nobody ever saw him is a series of insanely Contrived Coincidences.
  • Also played with with Lisa and Milhouse: Lisa knows a lot about Jewish culture because she had a jewish imaginary friend, and Milhouse had an imaginary friend named Walter who tried to murder him several times.
• Played for laughs in South Park, Chef has an imaginary friend called Foo Foo the dinosaur who turns out to be Loch Ness trying to getting $3.50 from Chef's father again.
• Teen Titans: One girl had an imaginary friend who was invisible to those she didn't trust. It was the expression of her telekinesis. Expression of telekinesis in this case being a gigantic teddy bear with razor sharp claws and fangs that beats the shit out of a French gorilla. As she puts it, just because she imagined him doesn't mean he's not real.
• Tiny Toon Adventures: Hamton, who was feeling left out and bored, created an imaginary friend, who in spite of being tall and handsome and created by him, was a Jerkass who stole all his friends and treated him like a loser. By the episode's end, he had faded away and Hamton felt included back in his group of friends again.
• Tish Tash revolves around the adventures of young pink bear Tish, and her larger-than-life blue bear imaginary friend, Tash.

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