D.W. Gets Lost

D.W.'s Imaginary Friend, Nadine: "This is a story to thrill you, shock you..."

This one starts with Nadine on the stage --

Nadine: It would be unkind to present this story without a warning...

Nadine warns us that this story deals with the perils of trying to be too grown up. D.W. then comes up onto the stage dressed in Mom's good business clothes, which are too big for her. D.W.'s trying to be "grown up"... When she stumbles onto the stage, D.W. then rips them by accident. Oops.

Nadine: If you do not care to subject your nerves to such a strain, well, we warned you...

The on-stage introduction by Nadine is taken from Boris Karloff's "Frankenstein".

* * * D.W. Gets Lost * * *

D.W.'s in the kitchen with Dad. He's loading several boxes of cakes into the delvery van. D.W. wants to help dad. D.W.'s dad says ok, even though he looks dubious, and tells her to carry "One cake at a time."

D.W. of course, thinks that she was told that because she's not grown up. She takes a giant stack of cakes, then steps on a tube of frosting left on the floor, slides, and drops roughly twelve cakes onto the floor. Splat.

After that incident, next we see D.W. talking to her newish friend Emily. (Emily is the "perfect" rabbit kid from #11601 "D.W. Flips" -- D.W.'s now friendly with her)

Emily has earrings. Ooh...

Emily: They're made of actual stones.

This impresses D.W.

Next, we're in the kitchen. (In nearly every story with D.W. as the focus, Arthur's doing something "gross" -- This episode is no exception...) Arthur's being a pig; eating a whole piece of cake in one mouthful. Arthur then gulps down some milk and gets a milk moustache.

D.W. is trying to find out what exactly "stones" are... She asks Arthur, then Mom, who walks in.

Arthur's nearly choking since he stuffed so much cake in his mouth. He claims that he was too weak to eat something hard like an apple.

Arthur: I was too weak from hunger to chew it. I needed something soft.

Mom wants some clarification on what sort of stones D.W.'s talking about.

D.W.: A stone like in beautiful earrings that every girl should have.

Mom: No.

This leads to D.W. wanting to know why.

Mom: ...You're not old enough, and you'll turn your ears green.

(Dave the Editor's note: cheap earrings will do this, so I've heard... I haven't had any earrings, but my mom's said this. It has to do with the cheap alloys they use in cheapo earrings -- they can react with your ears.) :)

Later, D.W. tries to bypass Mom by asking Dad. This is probably a good strategy, but Dad say that "green ears just aren't her". As he says this he holds two lettuce leaves in front of D.W.'s ears.

Never one to give in easily, later D.W. comes down the stairs with a surprise for her parents. She's glued Mom's earrings to her hair. D.W. thought that it would be a better idea to glue them to her hair than her ears themselves.

D.W.'s parents aren't as impressed as D.W. thought they'd be. They remove the earrings with scissors.

Mom & Dad: What have we always told you about glue?

D.W.: Glue is for paper, not for skin, and don't put it in your soup.

Mom makes a deal with D.W. She agrees to take D.W. shopping, and they'll take a look at the earrings. If Mom think's they're ok, then D.W. can have them, but if not, then D.W. can't complain. D.W. agrees to this.

The next day, they arrive at the local superstore (which looks a lot like a Wal-Mart, a big U.S. chain.)

This is the "All-In-One-Mart", and as the public address system says, All-In-One-Mart is "The store big enough to swallow your town."

(The public address announcement system has plenty to say during the time that D.W. and her Mom are in there -- One of the writers must not like Wal-Mart very much.)

As they walk into the store, who should they meet but Muffy's Dad, Ed Crosswire. What's a rich guy like him doing at a store like All-In-One-Mart?

Ed Crosswire: You can't be too rich, or too cheap.

Unfortunately for D.W., Ed Crosswire isn't one to pass up an opportunity... As we know, Mrs. Read does people's taxes, including Mr. Crosswire's, as it turns out.

Ed Crosswire: As my accountant, can you spare me 5 minutes...

He then trails off into saying that if she can't he can always get another accountant...

He starts rambling to Mrs. Read inside the front entrance to the store. He goes on about his taxes...

Ed (going on and on): If I wanted to give away that much money, I'd be a charity...

D.W. isn't pleased at the way this isn't getting her her earrings any faster, and she manages to wander off from her Mom.

D.W.'s imaginary friend Nadine materializes, and they wander around the store. They see a display of a giant chef pig holding a cake eating cake.

They giggle and comment that it looks like Arthur.

They keep wandering around the store, but after they come across the pig eatting cake display for a third time, without finding earrings, D.W. and Nadine realize they're lost.

Talking with her imaginary buddy Nadine, they realize it wasn't a good idea to go off on their own. D.W. worries that she'll have to live in the store forever, inside the store's removable ceiling, dropping down from time to time to scoop up merchandise, like a "Phantom of the Opera Store"

The pair manage to find their way into the store's security office, and look a bank of security camera monitors to try and find Mom.

D.W. imagines what it will be like if Mom and Dad have to live the rest of their lives without her...

Mom and Dad are senior citizens now, and they sit on a couch recalling fondly how much they loved D.W... Old Mom wishes that it was "clunky Arthur who got lost instead of our darling D.W."...

Arthur makes an appearance... Arthur by now is a fat slobby 30-something bum who hangs around his parent's house doing nothing but eat cake.

D.W. takes control of some camera controls. She makes the cameras spin around and zoom in and out. This causes the telescopic lenses to extend, pegging one store staff member in the head, and knocking over a display of tennis balls. All D.W. can see is people falling down. She comments on there being a lot of clumsy people at the store.

D.W. and Nadine leave the security booth quickly when a goat guard comes.

D.W.'s getting worried, but then sees a group of people gathered around a free cheese sample booth.

D.W. gets the people to leave by grabbing a funnel and shouting into it that there's free dessert samples in a different aisle. They stampede off, leaving the cheese samples for D.W..

But by the time she gets there, there's only one piece of cheese left, and as she reaches up, a large fly flys down, and flys off with the last piece of cheese!

D.W. meets up with Emily. Emily's come back to return her earrings -- they've turned her ears bright green! (On a rabbit, it's pretty nasty looking.) Emily comments that she saw D.W.'s Mom at the entrance when they came in.

D.W. acts cool at first, but once Emily and her Mom walk off, Nadine says she should go ask how to get back to her Mom.

Emily tells D.W. how to get back to her Mom. Emily points down the aisleway.

Emily: Go back to the end and turn thatway... (Points left)

D.W. finds her way back to her Mom, who's just finished talking with Ed Crosswire, and hasn't even realized D.W.'d been away!

Mom: Thanks for waiting so quietly for five whole minutes.

Now that Mom's finished talking, they can go check out the earrings that D.W. wanted...

D.W. says she doesn't really want new earrings. She can wait. Mom's impressed.

D.W.: Can we do lunch instead?

They head out of the store. The last thing we see is Emily walking past in the foreground through the store still with green ears.

End.

You would think that Mom, even while forced to listen to Ed Crosswire's ramblings on her own time (under the veiled threat of his taking his business elsewhere), would glance down occasionally to make sure D.W. is still with her. I also wonder how many customers filed lawsuits against the store for injuries incurred slipping on cans, being hit in the head with security cameras, etc.

Loved Arthur's excuse to Mom as to why he took cake instead of an apple, i.e. being too hungry to chew, needing something soft. It seems so typical of the lame excuse an 8-year-old would hastily come up with.

Public Address System

1. Welcome to All In One Mart, the store big enough to swallow your town.
2. All In One Mart values all our customers, but if you break something, you bought it. Tough Luck.
3. Today's special in our sportswear department: Pre-worn sneakers for lazy people.
4. If you've lost your child, come to our lost child department, located behind the toy department. And, on your way, why not buy a new toy for that poor, frightened child that YOU lost.
5. Attention smart shoppers: Free samples available all day at our water fountain.
6. Big sale in our book department: Books without vowels now half price.
7. Who needs expensive air-conditioning when army surplus jet turbines are on sale in our wind department.
8. Who doesn't like the satisfying flavor of fresh, warm, carbonated milk, the late-night treat that lulls you to sleep and burps you, too.
9. Don't forget today's sale on chocolate-covered cabbage. It's the dessert that makes you go "Blech."
10. Right now in our free-sample department, everything is half-price.

The piped-in store announcements, while very funny, is hardly a new concept. It may have originated in the movie and TV versions of M*A*S*H, in which the P.A. system would routinely and matter-of-factly issue absurdities and non sequiters. ("The mess tent is off limits due to the officers' meeting. Unfortunately, it will be open for dinner.")

The crazy announcements may be M*A*S*H-esque, but the announcement of the "chocolate covered cabbage" reminded me of the "chocolate covered cotton" from "Catch-22". :)

Other comments...

I really liked this episode.