Revenge of the Chip | Episode #305"The Chips are Down" / "Revenge of the Chip" |
Arthur says even though we hate it when something embarassing happens to us, we don't mind watching it when it happens to someone else. Arthur, Francine and Buster are watching "You Do The Most Embarassing Things" on TV at Arthur's house, the show's a spoof of "Kids Say the Darndest Things" (Thanks George4Browne) The annoying, slightly sleazy host is interviewing a kid with a funny story to tell.
The kid in question relates eating a sandwich and finding half a worm in it.
The host of the show asks what the kid did next. There's a pause.
Buster: Go to the emergency room!Francine: Get dewormed!
The kid on the TV grins and confesses that he ate the other half! The host says that next they'll show a reenactment of the incident. Arthur and his friends don't want to watch, but they feel they must.
Francine says that if something like that happened to her, she'd wear a paper bag over her head for the rest of her life.
Buster: Ten more embarassing minutes to come!
* * * Revenge of the Chip * * *
At the dinnertable, Arthur mentions that he's learned that it just so happens that "You Do the Most Embarassing Things" is going to be filming at the local amusement park, Wonderworld, and he's going to get tickets to be in the audience.
D.W. wants to go to.
Arthur says he doesn't want her tagging along, since she'll just act like a little kid.
D.W. says she won't.
Arthur cites an example of D.W. acting like a little kid.
Last year, when they went to the movies. The movie was about a space alien hunter on the moon, and D.W. kept making noises with her drink and her popcorn. Then she couldn't get a good view of the movie because of the man in the seat in front of her's antlers... (It just happens to be Art Garfunkle from #30302 - "The Ballad of Buster Baxter") Anyway, to get a better view, D.W. decided to stand on the backrest of her seat. She lost her balance, and her tub of popcorn went flying, landing on Mr. Haney's head. Arthur apologized profusely to Mr. Haney. Very embarassing for Arthur, and all as a result of D.W. acting like a little kid.
D.W. says that that's a bad example; that was all the way last year -- she was much younger back then. So it shouldn't count.
Arthur has a more recent example then; how about the green potato chip incident? (Which is stil very fresh in our minds, having just seen it in the story preceding this one -- #30501 - "The Chips are Down".)
D.W. gets angry at Arthur bringing that up. Dad tries to support D.W., but since he's laughing himself, he can't really rebuke Arthur for hurting D.W.'s feelings.
* * *
D.W. decides that the best thing to do would be to make an effort to act grown up; that way Arthur wouldn't have an excuse not to take her.
D.W. follows Arthur to the library. She takes her red wagon with her, (which causes some aggravation in the library, since it squeaks and is rather noisy.) D.W. looks for the biggest, most grown up book she can find. She has Arthur check out a heavy tome on MACROECONOMICS. Neither Arthur or D.W. have much idea of what macroeconomics is, although D.W. says it's her favorite topic... and D.W. struggles to pull the heavy book home in her wagon.
They stop for ice cream at Brain's Mom's store. D.W. says she wants "Rocky Road with extra cookie pieces" at first, but then realizes that that isn't a particularly grown-up choice, so she asks if she can get something vegetarian. She can.
Brain's Mom chuckles and says she's the cutest thing.
Arthur and D.W. walk back home through Elwood City park. D.W. struggles to pull her wagon up the hill, and hands her ice cream to Arthur to carry. As they go up the hill, they pass Binky's and Prunella's Moms who are sitting on a park bench. They call out to D.W. that they're glad to see her, and that she "take care of herself", since "they wouldn't want to lose her"...
D.W. wonders to Arthur if all grown ups say weird things like that all the time. What are they talking about?
They pass the Tibbles. The Tibbles aren't as oblique with their comments -- they start rolling around in a sandbox going on about how they just ate green potato chips and now they're dying. They laugh and make fun of D.W..
So that's why Brain's Mom, Binky's Mom, and Prunella's Mom made those weird comments. They all found out about D.W.'s chip incident. But how could that be? Who would have let the story out? D.W. blows up at Arthur. He must have done it. Arthur denies it. It wasn't him! Arthur suggests that D.W. go ask them and find out for herself.
* * *
D.W. choses not to do so though. Back at home, D.W. is sure that Arthur spilled the beans about the green chip, and all she has to do is prove it. She decides to spy on him, and catch him when he blabs it out to Buster, who's over playing with Arthur.
D.W. leaves a tin-can telephone down beside the boys, with the other end in her room. She figures she'll be able to pick up their conversation with it. Only it's not working so great because the sound of the TV is drowning out the boy's conversation.
D.W.: Very suspicious.
Suddenly Buster's voice comes through the tin-can telephone very loudly. He must have found it.
Buster: Hello D.W.!D.W. (to herself) Very, VERY suspicious.
D.W. spies on the boys outside by disguising herself as a bush. Only she gets knocked over. Buster says hello to her again. D.W. grumbles about this being suspicious too.
D.W. then spies on the boys using a pair of Bionic Bunny binoculars. She can see Buster talking, but can't make out what he's saying. Then he turns around so he's facing her. He can see her evidently because by reading his lips, she can see him saying "Hello D.W.".
D.W.'s spying isn't working.
* * *
D.W. figures her lack of success is due to unsophisticated equipment. We see her on the phone asking for the number for the nearest lie detector store.
Arthur comes in, and D.W. puts the phone down. Arthur shows her the newspaper. D.W.'s mentioned in the "Let a Smile be Your Umbrella" column. The story goes into detail about how D.W. thought a green potato chip was deadly.
D.W.'s horrified.
D.W. imagines becoming President, and making all sorts of great reforms to the country. Then a reporter who looks like Francine asks her if she'd like a green chip, and the press all start laughing! D.W. will never be able to escape from this bad story.
She asks Arthur for help.
Arthur doesn't want to help, but imagines two thought bubble possiblities; either he helps D.W. and she's quiet, or he doesn't and she's noisy and whiny. Chosing to do anything for a quiet life, Arthur agrees to help D.W. out.
They go up and down the streets stealing everyone's newspaper before they get a chance to see the story about D.W.. Then they cart the load of them down to the recycling depot. It's hard work toting all those newspapers, but it's got to be done.
On the way home, they are both horrified to see a station wagon delivering a fresh batch of newspapers to all the houses. The guy in the station wagons comments to them that it was really weird; for some reason, everyone's paper got lost this morning -- must have been a dog or something.
There goes all their work -- D.W.'s image will be ruined.
The thing is though, who leaked the story to the paper? Arthur continues to deny it was him.
Arthur and D.W. are shocked when they come home (yeah, I know, this episode, they've been shocked, horrified, whatever... I'm running low on synonyms...) when they go into the dining room to find Mom there on the phone with a big stack of the newspapers. She's cutting out the article and sending it out to everyone she knows. She says to whoever she's on the phone with that she just about cleaned out the local newstands getting as many papers as she could.
Mom says on the phone that D.W.'s funny like this; Mom says she wouldn't have been surprised if D.W. hadn't drawn up a will or something.
D.W. imagines Mom turning into a giant pair of talky lips as she blabs on and on on the
phone. In rapid fire, she lists a long list of people she's sending the funny "green chip" story to, going faster and faster.
Mom's rapid fire listing of people caught my attention, and Ben's. Back in February 2000, we were contimplating making a family tree for Arthur's family. Arthur's Mom goes so fast, you can hardly tell what she's saying. Ben saw this episode on the BBC in England ((this was back when they were showing them) and taped it. We got to talking about it via e-mail.
>I have this episode on tape, and I have a solution: I own a digital >sampler (a la Fatboy Slim) that I can feed her voice in and >"time-stretch" it so that we can hear what she is saying - I can >probably do that tonight... I'll post you the results.He did that, and e-mailed me back. Too bad it wasn't particularly helpful in our "family tree" project, which was put on hold. Thanks again Ben.
>>I bet that when you got the sampler, using it to slow down a >>children's program wasn't at the top of your list. :) > >True :) However, how do you think Mom's voice got like that in the >first place? Samplers aren't just for music, you know... > >Here's what she said: > >"Grandma Thora, Lucy, Aunt Jessica, Great Aunt Susan, Cousin Hortens, >and Hortens?s step-brother Tyler, and of course my college room-mate >Wilma and her sons, Jim, Daniel, Mickey - Michelle, David, Heather - of >course there?s Carrie, Christine, Shane and Jessie..." [D.W. >interrupts] > >This doesn't help us a great deal with the Read family tree...
Mom hasn't seen D.W. yet. D.W. runs in and starts wailing. D.W. can't believe that Mom's doing this to her.
D.W.: You're trying to ruin me!
D.W. is very upset by Mom spreading the story. Mom says she's sorry, and that she didn't know it was such a big issue for D.W.. Mom promises that she won't tell anyone else about it. That satisfies D.W.. Although she's still worried about anyone recognizing her from the story. She decides to walk around in a football helmet as a disguise.
* * *
The day of the taping of "You Do the Most Embarassing Things" comes around. Arthur, D.W., and their friends are all in a line to get in. D.W. is still sporting the football helmet. D.W. says she'll be alright; she intends to lie low until college.
Buster says the same sort of thing happened to him, but it blew over pretty fast. He says that his Mom used to call him "Booboo" at home, and then one time, she said it to him when he was at school, and everyone teased him about it. But they quickly forgot about it.
Muffy appears.
Muffy: Hi Booboo!
Buster grabs D.W.'s football helmet and puts it on himself.
Then D.W. hears something she doesn't want to hear. Mom's in the line too, and she's talking to someone about D.W.'s chip incident. D.W. goes over to Mom and starts yelling at her. D.W.'s really angry this time; Mom promised that she wouldn't tell anyone, and now she's doing it anyway!
Mom says she's sorry.
D.W. says it isn't good enough. What good's a promise if you can break it whenever it suits you? Everyone's going to keep laughing at her... D.W. grabs her football helmet and runs off.
Muffy shouts out that her Mom knows a good plastic surgeon...
* * *
D.W. heads to a nearby pier, which has a dressing room trailer on it.
BInky's there, dressed in a leotard -- he's with the ballet still. D.W. hasn't seen him, and has her back to him.
Binky: Are you OK, sir?
D.W. turns around. Binky apologizes once he learns who it is. He didn't recognize D.W. with the football helmet on; he figured she was just a football player wearing a dress. D.W. explains how she's been having a lot of grief with everyone making fun of her because of the green chip incident.
Binky says that whenever he has trouble with someone, he just glowers at them, and that shuts them up.
D.W. feels better talking to Binky. She decides to go back to watch the taping.
She meets up with Mom. Mom says she's truely sorry this time. D.W.'s still not entirely happy; could Mom get the paper to print a retraction? Mom doesn't know about that, but she won't tell anyone about it again. That seems to suit D.W..
* * *
Everyone's watching the stage, where the monkey guy is doing his show. He comes to a story about a kid who ate a green potato chip, and believed it was poisonous...
D.W. swoons. Surely he's not talking about her is he?
Monkey guy: Binky Barnes!
Binky comes out on stage in his leotard.
Binky: I thought I was going to die!
He stares at the crowd to make them stop laughing.
The announcer goes on to say that Binky, with the help of the Elwood Ballet, will now present an interpretive dance which recreates the event, in a dance entitled "Don't Eat the Green Ones".
About half a dozen dancers come out on stage in costumes, some dressed as chips. Binky dances with them, and catches Molly, (Molly must have really been turned on to ballet at Binky's recital in #30501 - "The Chips are Down" and signed up.) who's dressed up as a chip.
Binky takes a bite out of the chip costume.
Molly's eyes are visible; she looks surprised!
End.
Mom really let D.W. down big time, blabbing out her fear
of the green potato chip after being sworn to secrecy. One might expect such
poor judgment from Dad, but Mom always seemed much more level-headed than
this!
Buster's comment in the teaser is clever; the episode runs about 10 minutes itself. :)
The scene where Binky is in the recital shows him dancing on toe (or on point, as we say in ballet). Boys don't dance on point, but rather in flat, soft shoes. Not to mention that a nine year old wouldn't be allowed to dance on point because their feet aren't strong enough.