Eduardo gets fleas and, they drive him mad with itchiness, but he accepts them as friends nonetheless. But Frankie and Herriman are determined to exterminate them and Bloo is determined to steal them! Can Eduardo protect his new flea friends?
Synopsis[]
When Eduardo gets fleas while getting imaginary puppy Chewy to take a bath, he becomes discontent as the fleas are driving him mad. However, despite the way he feels, he decides to keep the fleas on him as his friends, though Frankie and Mr. Herriman want none of it and decide to go to drastic lengths to get the fleas removed, but do show guilt for tricking and upsetting Eduardo just to do so. However, because Eduardo prevents that from happening, he earns the fleas' trust. Meanwhile, Bloo wants to get some fleas of his own and he does anything possible in order to attempt to get Eduardo to share them. To get fleas, Bloo shaves Ed's fur off, making him claim he's naked and hide in the bathroom. Later, Bloo unwittingly abuses the fleas by flooding their town when he wipes his nose on it, shaking their city and starting fur-quakes. The flea mayor sets their country on fire to get Bloo to take off the coat. It works, and while Bloo tells everyone what happened, they don't believe him at first since they still believe the fleas are just regular fleas. However, once the fleas take over Mr. Herriman, but refuse to live in him knowing he will kill them the first chance he gets, Frankie realizes they're actually imaginary fleas and not real ones. They are furious with Bloo for destroying their town and even more angry with Mr. Herriman and Frankie for trying to kill them, and since they don't trust any of them, they will only listen to Eduardo. For Mr. Herriman's sake, they talk to Ed and convince him to let Mr. Herriman, and knock him out so he doesn't hear, in. They agree on shaving every imaginary friend with fur so the fleas can live peacefully in other fur homes before being locked in a closet not to be opened. Bloo later brags about getting "super fleas", but Mac says that they are actually ticks sucking his blood, and Bloo faints.
In the end credits, Bloo is sneaking across the hallway, ignoring the closet door which is still locked. After 20 seconds, Bloo runs to the closet door and finally opens it quickly, freeing all the fleas as the screen goes black.
The episode's title is a reference to the lyric "Land of the Free" from "The Star-Spangled Banner".
The epilogue of the episode is a direct reference to "The Trouble With Scribbles", since it ends with the same outcome: Bloo becomes curious about the door keeping the fleas inside and decides to open it while saying "secret door" in a rapidly repeating manner.
This episode has a similar plot to Horton Hears a Who!, one of Dr. Seuss' stories. Like Eduardo, Horton (a large creature) protects the Whos (small beings) from harm's way. Like Frankie and Mr. Herriman, various animals are trying to get rid of the Whos, except they didn't know they existed and thought Horton is hallucinating by talking to nobody on a clover.
Cultural references[]
The mayor flea that concocts a plan to get revenge on Bloo is an obvious reference to The Mayor of Townsville from The Powerpuff Girls, due to his appearance and the same voice actor voicing him, Tom Kenny.
