Arthur's Number Nightmare

Summary
When Arthur and friends discover what looks like a list of their class rankings in Principal Haney's office, they are all taken for a surprise. If Arthur's really Number Two, then he must be really smart! And is there anything Francine can do to move up rank?

Plot
The episode begins with Mr. Haney at his office who makes a phone call. But he doesn't know that one of his papers flew away. It landed at Buster's feet, who later showed it to Francine, who's at #24, and Arthur, who's at #2. The next day, Buster wakes up for school. On the way, he found 11 cents. He tells Arthur about it, only to be interrupted by Mr. Ratburn. Meanwhile, Francine goes to confront Mr. Haney about her class rank, but was afraid to. But then, Mr. Haney found her and recruited her to speak at the Harvest Day celebration, which she accepts. Meanwhile, Arthur was daydreaming about going to space when Buster interrupts him because he was talking about the geography test. Meanwhile, Francine is talking to Muffy about her class rankings. Muffy mentions that she's at #12, then gives her a #1 shirt. Later, at Mr. Haney's office, Mr. Haney is still talking about the Harvest Day celebration. When Mr. Haney leaves, Francine found a book that says class rankings, but it was a cruise brochure. When Mr. Haney returns Francine was startled she knocked over some grapes. Mr. Haney wasn't bothered by it and told her she can wear a pumpkin costume for the celebration.

At the Harvest Day celebration, Francine had the pumpkin costime on, to the amusement of Muffy. Brain offered Francine a candied apple, but she can't eat it due to the effects of her costume. Meanwhile, Arthur talks to Buster about his C-minus on the geography test, but Buster wasn't paying attention because he has to do 11 of everything. At the shirt booth, Prunella is giving away free T-shirts for guessing the right number of nuts, but Buster got annoyed at her, but Arthur led him away. Later, Francine wished she'd not known her class rank while Arthur was thinking about the test, while Buster decides to change his name to Maximillian because it has 11 letters. Then Mr. Haney arrived and saw his seating assignment paper, which he was lookng for. While Mr. Haney seats the people, Francine, Arthur, and Muffy say "Don't start," ending the episode.

Major

 * Arthur Read
 * D.W. Read
 * Francine Frensky
 * Buster Baxter
 * Francis Haney

Minor

 * Muffy Crosswire
 * Prunella Deegan
 * Nigel Ratburn

Trivia

 * PC bank is a parody of TD bank.
 * At the end of the episode, Mr. Haney can be heard saying, "And let's bump Arthur to twenty-four..."

Errors

 * When Buster's mom pours out cereal for Buster, first there are 10 cereal pieces, but in the next scene there are 11.
 * When Francine tries to put the brochure, "World Class Ranking Crusies", under the bowl of Mr. Haney's grapes she has Fern's sleeve.
 * Steve's name can clearly be seen on the list. However, Steve is in the fourth grade, not in Mr. Ratburn's class, which teaches third grade.
 * Mr. Haney says at the end of this episode that Lakewood Elementary does not rank their students, however in MacFrensky there is a "Student of the Month" competition with a points system very similar to that imagined by the students in this episode.

Episode Connections

 * Mr. Haney later mentions the Harvest Day Celebration in Prunella and the Disappointing Ending.
 * Arthur imagining going to space is different from Arthur's New Friend.
 * On the poster, the boy in the costume had a white tongue, referencing to season 1 where the characters had white tongues and foreshadowing season 16 where the characters will have white tongues again.

Prodution Notes

 * On Amazon Instant Video, this episode is called "Arthur's Numbers Nightmare".

Home Video
Other Formats:
 * Arthur Favorites: Volume 1 (LeapFrog)

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