Arthur's Eyes

	"Arthur's Eyes"
	Main image; Title card;
Season/Series:	1
Number in season:	1a
Production code:	1A
Original airdate:	October 7, 1996; January 6, 1997; April 8, 1997 (CBBC) ; December 7, 2001;
	Credits
Written by:	Marc Brown (original); Joe Fallon (adapted)
Storyboard by:	Gerry Capelle
	Episodes
Previous; N/A	Next; "Francine's Bad Hair Day"

This article is about the episode. You may be looking for the book, the VHS, or the DVD.

Arthur's Eyes (episode) has a gallery at the Elwood City Art Museum.
	This article has a gallery to help represent its content. To view it, visit Arthur's Eyes (episode)/Gallery.

"Arthur's Eyes" is the first half of the first episode in the first season of Arthur. It is based on the book Arthur's Eyes. It also serves as the series premiere.

Summary

Arthur recounts to D.W. the story of how he came to wear glasses, and of the teasing that followed when he began wearing them.

Plot

The series opens with D.W. waking Arthur up with a flashlight in the middle of the night. She shows Arthur some old family photos of him with no glasses on from when he was little, which D.W. thinks are evidence the two of them must have a lost brother.

Arthur denies this, telling her that he is the one in the pictures. D.W. doesn't believe it; she says Arthur was "born with glasses."

Arthur tells D.W. that she was only two years old when he started wearing glasses, so she probably doesn't remember him not having them. He begins to tell D.W. the story of how he first came to wear glasses.

Arthur's Eyes

Arthur's tale starts with him and his friends in Mr. Marco's math class. Arthur has trouble reading the numbers on the blackboard and has to ask Francine for help identifying the numbers, which annoys her.

The math quiz results come in, as Mr. Marco tells the class that anyone with four or more mistakes must see him after class for extra homework. Arthur has done poorly on the quiz, and Francine notes that math is not Arthur's best subject. To this, Arthur complains that he has a headache. Later, all of the kids are in the gymnasium playing a game of basketball, but due to Arthur's poor eyesight, he plays clumsily. When Arthur tries to do a free throw, he misses completely, causing the ball to bounce out of the gym through the door. He chases after it, disappointing his team.

Arthur's class begins their eye examinations in the nurse's office by reading a visual chart. Everyone does pretty well, but when it's Arthur's turn, he's unable to read it properly, which results in him being sent to the optometrist.

The eye doctor tests out Arthur's eyes, and finds that all Arthur needs is glasses. Arthur browses, and tries out different frames. He comes across a pair of circular frames which he likes and accepts. But Arthur's troubles begin when he returns to school.

Francine and the other kids begin to mock Arthur about the way he looks and call him 'four eyes' (Francine even says in a sing-song voice, "Arthur's a four eyes! Arthur's a four eyes! Arthur's a four eyes!"). Even Buster starts imitating Arthur in the cafeteria by taking two water glasses to his eyes, which makes Arthur upset and Buster sad to find out that he hurt his best friend.

Reluctantly, Arthur returns home covering his face with his jacket, which scares D.W. Arthur decides that it would be better to lose his glasses than to wear them to school and get teased.

He places his glasses in their case which he launches with a slingshot. Amazingly, the case with the glasses hits a telephone line and bounces into his room, landing next to his stuffed bear Stanley. Arthur is frustrated, and tosses the case out the window, where it lands in the pile of leaves his dad is raking.

Arthur enters the kitchen, only to find that his father put his glasses there on the kitchen table. He makes another attempt to dispose of his glasses by putting them on a hammer and nails toy, and tries to get D.W. to smash them; she closely misses.

Arthur's mom sees this, and asks Arthur what he was doing; he makes an excuse that D.W. took his glasses and that he was recovering them. His mom asks him to be more careful with his glasses. Being only two, D.W. hits Arthur on the hand with the toy hammer, hurting his hand.

The next day, Arthur walks to school, but on the way, he takes off his glasses while passing behind a tree. At school, Mr. Marco asks Arthur where his glasses are, and he makes up an excuse that he lost them somewhere at home. Buster asks Arthur why he will not wear his glasses, and Arthur claims that he does not need them and that he knows where everything is in the school.

He even tries to prove this by finding the boy's restroom, since he knows that it is the third door from the corner. Arthur miscounts this, though, for Mr. Marco and Mr. Haney were talking at the first door, blocking Arthur's view.

He walks over to the fourth door from the corner and enters, but it turns out to be the girl's restroom, with Muffy and Francine within. Both Arthur and the girls are frightened, but Arthur can not get out fast enough and three other girls walk in, getting the same results as Francine and Muffy.

All the girls scream and run out of the restroom because Arthur is in there. After they have all exited, Arthur walks out and is startled to see a large crowd of students and teachers before him. But suddenly, he is unable to see them well because his vision goes blurry.

Back at home, Arthur is gloomy and resigned to the fact that he will just have to go through life being a "four-eyed weirdo." He watches TV and sees a special on the making of The Bionic Bunny Show; he then sees that Wilbur Rabbit, the actor portraying Bionic Bunny, wears glasses just like him. This makes Arthur feel better about himself.

The next day at school, Francine calls Arthur 'four eyes' again, but Arthur ignores this, much to Francine's shock. Binky begins to tease Arthur too, but again, he is not bothered. Arthur tells Binky that Wilbur Rabbit wears the same glasses as himself. Binky says he saw that on TV, too, although Francine had not.

Back in Mr. Marco's class, there is another math quiz, but this time, Arthur can read the blackboard clearly. In the gymnasium, Arthur plays basketball with his friends. Unlike before, Arthur plays much better and scores a point against Francine.

Mr. Marco begins handing out the quiz results to the students, and is delighted to see that Arthur got every question correct. Right then, Francine asks Arthur if he wants to play on her team at the next basketball game.

Arthur sees that Francine is wearing movie-star glasses (with no glass, of course). Francine reminds Arthur that Wilbur Rabbit wears glasses. Arthur responds that Wilbur's glasses are just like his.

As Arthur's story ends, we see Arthur and D.W. looking at the photo album. The former tells the latter that he has worn glasses ever since. D.W. understands, and looks at the photos again and notices a picture of their mom and dad disco-dancing together.

D.W. does not recognize their dad, though, for he had brown hair with sideburns, a mustache, and a beard then, and thinks their mom is divorced. She runs to their parents' room to demand an explanation. Arthur runs after D.W. to prevent her from doing so.

Characters

As this is the first episode of the series, this is the debut appearance of all characters listed below.

Major

Minor

Cameo

Trivia

Moral: Getting glasses may be strange at first, but you'll get used to them. Also, it is disrespectful to others to make fun of them simply because of their appearance.
At the end of the 2000 rerun intro on PBS Kids before this episode, Arthur’s crashing sound remains the same.
Arthur's Eyes, the book this episode is based on, is not the first Arthur book; Arthur's Nose (which was never adapted into an episode) is.
- Additionally, despite this episode being aired as the series premiere, it was not the first episode produced. According to Peter Huggan, "D.W.'s Imaginary Friend" (Season 1, Episode 4a) was produced first.
With the exception of the cold open and closing scene, this entire plot is a flashback to when Arthur and his friends were second graders. They are seen as third graders in the next episode, "Francine's Bad Hair Day." Arthur and his friends would later be shown as second graders in a flashback in "Arthur and the True Francine".
This is the first episode in which Francine narrates the title card. However, the title card is only narrated on television airings, not on home media releases.
The "worm" Arthur sees at the optometrist's is actually a caterpillar.
At the end of the episode, the line, "Hey, D.W.!" is re-used from the opening.
In the A Word from Us Kids segment, one of the kids is reading the original book.
This is the first episode to feature the "Baby Kate cry." It was used for D.W., as she was around baby/toddler age when Arthur initially got his glasses.
D.W. is the first character to speak in this episode, making her the first character in the entire series to speak.
- The first vocalization in this episode, however, is Arthur gasping.
The audio of Arthur saying "Hey!" when he sees his glasses is later used in the Arthur Underwater title card in "The Return of the King."
According to the Audio Description, when Mr. Marco hands back the test results at the beginning of the episode, Arthur got four wrong. Also, the characters look like regular kids, but they are cartoon animals.
Kate and Pal are the only Read family members to not appear in this episode since the majority of the episode is a flashback and neither of them were born yet. In the present, since it is nighttime, Kate would be asleep and Pal wasn't born until the episode "Arthur's Pet Business." Kate does not make her debut until "Arthur's Spelling Trubble."
This episode, along with "Arthur and the True Francine" and the special "Arthur's First Day" are the only Arthur episodes to feature a main plot outside of Arthur's 3rd grade year. However, in this episode, Arthur is in 2nd grade, while he is in 4th grade in "Arthur's First Day."
The ripple sound effect used at the end of Arthur's flashback is very different in this episode then the one normally used in other episodes at the end of flashback and fantasy episodes. This sound effect would be used again in "Arthur's Faraway Friend".
At the end of the episode, one of the photos in the album features D.W. as a baby (likely taken when she was a few months old) wearing Kate's hair bow and pink shirt. This implies Kate's clothes are hand-me-downs from D.W.

Episode connections

Arthur mentions the events of this episode in "Locked in the Library!," "The Last Tough Customer," and "So Funny I Forgot to Laugh." He writes his own book adaptation of this episode in "All Grown Up".
Arthur almost accidentally goes into the girls' bathroom again, but is stopped by Francine, in "Arthur and the Square Dance."

Cultural references

The Bionic Bunny Show is a reference to the live-action Superman TV series from the 1950s. The Bionic Bunny Show would continue to be mentioned and/or shown multiple times throughout the Arthur series.

Differences from the book

The entire story is told as a flashback sequence, as Arthur is telling D.W. the story of when he got glasses.
Dr. Iris has a gray complexion, blonde hair, and is a cat. In the book, she had brown fur, was hairless, and was a fox.
In the book, Buster made fun of Arthur by calling him a "sissy". In the episode, he makes fun of him by using water cups to imitate him wearing glasses, but does it unintentionally and not on purpose, and doesn't call him names.
When Arthur attempts to destroy his glasses, he shoots them with a slingshot and later tries to get D.W. to smash them with her toy hammer. In the book, he hid his glasses in his sweater, hoping they would get smashed in the washing machine.
In the book, Mr. Marco was a moose and wore reading glasses. In the episode, he is an aardvark and does not wear any glasses at all.
Francine's movie star glasses are green; in the book, they were pink.
In the episode, when Arthur accidentally goes into the girls' bathroom, Francine is shown with Muffy. In the book, she was by herself.
- In the book, Francine tells him to get out and informs him it's the girls' room. In the episode, the order of her sentences were reversed.
In the episode, Arthur finds out that Wilbur Rabbit wears glasses. In the book, he found out that Mr. Marco wears glasses.
Sue Ellen, Muffy, Brain, Binky, Prunella and the third grade teachers are seen in this episode. None of these characters were introduced until the later books.
At the end of the book, Mr. Marco's second grade class was getting a class picture, but in the episode, they do not have a class picture.
In the episode, the signs to the boys' and girls' restrooms are represented in symbols; in the book, they were represented in words.
In the book after Arthur walks out of the girls bathroom Mr. Haney takes him to his office where in the episode Mr. Haney is seen along with Mr. Ratburn and the other kids staring at Arthur angrily as he comes out of the girl's bathroom. Although it is likely Mr. Haney did take him to his office but hopefully Arthur did explain to him that it was accident that he went into the girl's bathroom and Mr. Haney didn't punish him neither in the book or episode.

Errors

In the beginning when D.W. goes to Arthur's room, the sign on the bedroom door is red, but in the close-up of the door when D.W. opens the door and goes into the bedroom, the sign is blue.

1x01a Bathroom Goof — D.W. can be seen in the bottom right-hand corner, Binky has Brain's clothes and skin color, Jenna is as tall as D.W., and Mrs. Wood is also seen in the crowd.

Sue Ellen did not move to Elwood City until the events of "Sue Ellen Moves In," which happens in third grade, yet she still appears in Lakewood Elementary in second grade in this, and a number of other episodes.
After Arthur leaves the girl's restroom, there are multiple errors in the characters shown staring at him from the hallway:
- D.W. is seen in the crowd. She is also shown in her current form rather than being a two year old. She would not attend Lakewood Elementary herself until the 2021 special "Arthur's First Day".
- Binky is shown, but is incorrectly colored to have Brain's skin tone and clothes.
- Jenna is as tall as D.W, even though she is intended to be about as tall as her own classmates.
- Mrs. Wood can be seen in the crowd, but she is not affiliated with the school.
Sue Ellen has different-colored hair in different scenes.
At the beginning of the lunchroom scene, a brown rabbit with an orange shirt is sitting beside Buster. But when Buster is shown again a few seconds later, the gray rabbit is sitting beside him instead.
Muffy is seen in this episode before Arthur gets his glasses, but when she arrived at Lakewood Elementary School in the flashback in "Arthur and the True Francine," Arthur already has glasses.
Shortly after catching Arthur accidentally entering the girl's bathroom, Muffy and Francine screams in shock. However, in the next scene as more girls enter the bathroom, Muffy opens the door to let them in, looking like she wants to surprise them to let them know Arthur is inside.
When Arthur is in the hall with his new glasses for the first time, Maria is shown wearing glasses like she did in the early books, yet a few seconds later, they are gone. It appears the creators decided to remove the glasses once and for all.
When Arthur picks out his round brown glasses, they are first shown to be teal-colored instead of the actual brown before the close-up.
When Mr. Marco is giving the class directions for the quiz, Otis is smaller than usual; his legs do not come close to the floor.
When Arthur enters the house while coming home from school after his friends teased him, the front door is green instead of the regular brown.
Also, when Arthur walks into his room, his door is green instead of the regular white.
The TV sitting on the cart in the living room below Arthur's room is purple in this episode; in later episodes, the TV is green, but has rarely appeared again since.
In the Read family's photo album, Jane's ears are brown like her hair in the picture of her and David dancing together in their early dating years.
When Mr. Marco hands out the tests the second time, you can see George in the same group as Fern, Sue Ellen, and Otis. And George being beside Otis on his left. Then, he is in the background; however, he seems to be in the same group as Arthur and Francine and does not have anybody on his left.
When Mr. Marco hands back the math quizzes, he tells the students to see him after class for extra homework if they had made four or more mistakes on the quiz. There are only four questions on the quiz, so it is not possible to make more than four mistakes. However, it is possible there were additional problems on the back of the paper that were, for unknown reasons, not shown to the viewer(s).
As Arthur tells Buster how much harder it is to see without his glasses, the part of skin that shows between Buster's shirt collar turns pink a few times.
When the round glasses are grabbed at the optometrist's, it appears that Arthur's hand is grabbing them. But in the next shot, it is shown that the eye doctor was the one who grabbed them. The glasses were also at a height that would have made Arthur too short to grab them.
When Buster makes fun of Arthur in the lunchroom and sees that he insulted Arthur, he immediately looks guilty; in the next shot when Arthur leaves the lunchroom, Buster is seen in the corner laughing again in spite of the previous shot and the fact that he was not sitting that close to the door through which Arthur exits.
In the cafeteria, when the camera zooms in, Sue Ellen can be seen with grey hair.
When Buster is making fun of Arthur in the lunch hall about his glasses, Patrick can be seen in the background with Buster's shirt on.
D.W.'s pajama collar turns pink a few times in the scene where she asks Arthur about the "long lost siblings". This is similar to when Buster's skin turns pink in between his collar in another scene.
When Arthur returns home from school on his first day with glasses, D.W. is seen with David in the front yard, looking like a typical two-year-old. However, when Arthur tries to get D.W. to destroy his glasses with her toy mallet, she is in her original four-year-old form, although she is still laughing like a baby (very much like Kate Read.)
Before Arthur accidentally walks into the girl's bathroom, Mr. Haney is seen talking to Mr. Marco. But after the scene where the girls scream because Arthur is in the girl's bathroom, Mr. Haney is seen talking to another teacher that is not Mr. Marco. Although it is possible that when Arthur was in the girls' restroom, Mr. Marco might have left and another teacher starts talking to Mr. Haney.
When Binky starts reading the letters on the board, he is thinner and shorter than usual.
When Arthur says he does not need to wear his glasses, Binky comes out the restroom door pushing the door to go out but we can see metal on the door to push and Arthur pushes to go in.
In the first gymnasium scene, when Francine and Buster jump up for the ball, Francine has a red jersey on. However, when she's seen standing on the ground again, she has an orange jersey on.

Production notes

This is the first episode to use the animation of Arthur swimming as a title sequence.

Home video

VHS:

DVD:

Gallery

Main article: Arthur's Eyes (episode)/Gallery

References

↑ MS148.001, Arthur print material, 1994 -- 2007, bulk: 1994 -- 2000. Marc Brown Papers, MS148. Tufts Archival Research Center. https://archives.tufts.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/31977 Accessed March 23, 2025.
↑ https://web.archive.org/web/19961225213502/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/arthur/tv.html
↑ Jeffery D. Zbar (June 29, 1998). "THE MARKETING 100: 'ARTHUR': MARC BROWN". (Archived copy from 2016).
↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20000818001446/http://207.114.151.6/saturday/shows/synopsis/838.php
↑ https://web.archive.org/web/19970723021343/http://www.ket.org/Visions/Oct96/VL961007.html
↑ https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/b194bb24e21143b889fb33d46a2da07a
↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20120413104003/http://ww3.tvo.org/program/157024/arthur
↑ https://www.fernsehserien.de/erdferkel-arthur-und-seine-freunde/folgen/1a-die-brillenschlange-23175

External links

Livedash TV Transcript of "Arthur's Eyes" (archived page)

[1] MS148.001, Arthur print material, 1994 -- 2007, bulk: 1994 -- 2000. Marc Brown Papers, MS148. Tufts Archival Research Center. https://archives.tufts.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/31977 Accessed March 23, 2025.

[2] ttps://web.archive.org/web/19961225213502/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/arthur/tv.html

[3] Jeffery D. Zbar (June 29, 1998). "THE MARKETING 100: 'ARTHUR': MARC BROWN". (Archived copy from 2016).

[4] ttps://web.archive.org/web/20000818001446/http://207.114.151.6/saturday/shows/synopsis/838.php

[5] ttps://web.archive.org/web/19970723021343/http://www.ket.org/Visions/Oct96/VL961007.html

[6] ttps://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/b194bb24e21143b889fb33d46a2da07a

[7] ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120413104003/http://ww3.tvo.org/program/157024/arthur

[8] ttps://www.fernsehserien.de/erdferkel-arthur-und-seine-freunde/folgen/1a-die-brillenschlange-23175

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"Arthur's Eyes"
Main image Title card
Season/Series:	1
Number in season:	1a
Production code:	1A^[1]
Original airdate:	October 7, 1996^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] January 6, 1997^[7] April 8, 1997 (CBBC) ^[6] December 7, 2001^[8]
Credits
Written by:	Marc Brown (original) Joe Fallon (adapted)
Storyboard by:	Gerry Capelle
Episodes
Previous N/A	Next "Francine's Bad Hair Day"