D.W.'s Imaginary Friend

D.W.'s Imaginary Friend is the fourth episode of the first season of Arthur. It was written by Ken Scarborough and the storyboards by Sylvain Proteau. It first aired on TV on September 23, 1996, alongside with Arthur's Lost Library Book.

Plot Outline
Arthur and his family are having spaghetti with cauliflower. Mom and Dad get things prepared, including burning rolls. D.W. shares her cauliflower with her imaginary friend, Nadine. Dad comes in with a stack of trays until D.W. sees him standing on Nadine's tail. Her dad begins shaking about and, in reaction, D.W. stands up but begins to lose balance. Dad grabs her foot to help and D.W. accidentally throws her bowl of spaghetti high into the air. It begins to land on Arthur but it stops in midair before it hits. At this moment, Arthur explains to the viewers that if they don't have a little sister, it would probably be nice. Arthur explains how D.W. sometimes gives tours of his room to her friends and talks about his stuffed bear, Stanley, and his secret box. Arthur claims that now she has an invisible friend, it's much worse. Just then, the bowl of spaghetti lands on his head. D.W. scolds Nadine for what she did to him. {Title Card} After the mess is cleaned, D.W. tells her dad that Nadine apologizes for what happened. Her dad forgets about it and has her finish dinner. After he leaves, Nadine appears and thinks she shouldn't come anymore, for she thinks Arthur hates her. D.W. denies this and tells her friend that Arthur likes her and that he hung a picture of her on his wall. This turns out to be wrong, for Arthur tears up the picture of Nadine and cleans the spaghetti of his head. But before he finishes, the telephone rings and Arthur frantically dashes down the stairs and answers it. It's Buster who tells him to quickly go to channel 4 on the TV. He does so and sees a commercial about a new Wonder World ride called the Hurl-a-Whirl with motion sickness bags provided. Arthur is excited and begs his dad if they could go to the opening. At first, Dad isn't sure about it. But he is determined and D.W. wants to go too. Eventually, Dad agrees. D.W. asks if Nadine can come too. He agrees to that also which shocks Arthur. At the cafeteria the next day, Buster claims that it's bad enough that D.W. is going, but with Nadine, it will be much more terrible. Arthur imagines him and D.W. going on a horror ride. D.W. says that Nadine is frightened and screams to have the ride stop. The ride does stop and the top of the chair she was sitting in flies off, and bumps into the decorations of the ride which causes a chain reaction. D.W. scolds Nadine of what happened. Francine and Muffy, who are behind them, see that D.W. has an imaginary friend and call Arthur a baby. Back at the cafeteria, Buster offers his library card to Prunella for half of her piece of cake, he then shares his chocolate swirls with Arthur. This gives Buster an idea. After school, they train D.W. on the school merry-go-round by spinning it around as fast as the boys can. This doesn't seem to affect D.W., but it affects Buster. D.W. then tries to go down the slide a hundred times and even tries to do some headfirst, while Arthur tries to recover Buster from his dizziness. They train D.W. more by having her hang upside down on the jungle gym. D.W. notices it's getting late and reminds Buster that he has to go home.