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"Arthur's Tooth"
Season/Series: 1
Number in season: 24a
Original Airdate: United States November 7, 1996[1]
Canada February 6, 1997[2]
Germany January 15, 2002[3]
Credits
Written by: Marc Brown (original)
James Greenberg (adapted)
Storyboard by: Jean Charles Fink
Episodes
Previous
"Misfortune Teller"
Next
"D.W. Gets Lost"
Read transcript

"Arthur's Tooth" is the first half of the twenty-fourth episode in the first season of Arthur. It is based on the book Arthur's Tooth.

Summary

Arthur tries everything to get his loose tooth to come out.

Plot

Arthur has a loose tooth, and is trying to make it fall out by using the trick that involves the bathroom door with string tied to the tooth; however, the technique is not working for him at all. David is annoyed from the slamming of the door. Jane tells Arthur that his loose tooth will fall out when it's ready. David tells Arthur to cease his horseplay. D.W. realizes that he is acting weird. Arthur agrees, and then tells all the viewers that if they were 8 years old and still had all their baby teeth, they would be desperate as well.

Arthur's Tooth

One very early morning, Arthur is sleeping. When he bites down, he feels a tooth becoming loose. He gets up and wakes his parents up to announce that his tooth is about to fall out soon.

At school, Arthur tells Buster that he has a loose tooth. Francine sneezes and loses a tooth. Mr. Ratburn comes in and realizes everybody has lost a tooth except Arthur. He turns on a TV to show a video about teeth, which gets interrupted by Francine to call Arthur a baby in front of the whole class. Later at lunch, Francine demonstrates some cool tricks she can do with her missing tooth, including placing her drinking straw through the gap and whistling through her teeth while closed. Francine demonstrates another trick, by doing a spit-take by squirting out juice from the gap of her teeth. Buster, Sue Ellen, Muffy, and Binky do the same as well. Arthur is pressured to try, which he does, but the juice just falls out of his mouth instead.

At home, David asks Arthur if he would like some milk and cookies. Arthur initially declines, but soon changes his mind when he finds out that the cookies are crunchy kinds, due to being desperate to get rid of his loose tooth. Arthur also ropes him into a scheme for that purpose by making a request for dinner. At dinner, Arthur's request is revealed; He eats some extra well-done steak. Arthur notices that his loose tooth is still there. Arthur then eats some corn on the cob. Arthur decides to have a couple of things for dessert; peanut brittle and rock candy.

D.W. tells Arthur that he would have a better chance if he turned into a shark to attempt to get rid of the loose tooth instantly; their teeth always fall out and grow back. D.W. says she learned about this at an aquarium, and shows Arthur a shark tooth necklace that she got. Arthur has an idea.

The next day at school, Arthur arrives and some of his friends tease him for still having all his baby teeth. Arthur claims he in fact lost a tooth, and stupidly attempts to trick them by holding D.W.'s necklace in his fist, showing off just the tooth-part. Arthur's ruse doesn't last long, as Francine sees through the charade and pulls the tooth away from Arthur, revealing the necklace to expose him as a faker. During art, Arthur wants a physical punch to the mouth, but Buster refuses and fails to do that. Arthur turns to Binky during gym, who is happy to oblige, but Binky finds he is unable to do so as well due to Arthur's smile and wimps out.

Later that day, Brain shows Arthur a machine he built to remove a tooth, but it starts malfunctioning and ends up walking outside. Brain self-destructs the machine and notices that it isn't 100% perfect.

That night, Arthur tries to get the tooth out but the doorknob falls off with such amount of force. He tells his parents his tooth is getting looser, and they say he should go to the dentist.

At school, Arthur spreads the word about going to the dentist to Mr. Ratburn. Francine and Muffy pretend to feel sorry for Arthur. Francine tells Arthur that if teeth are unable to fall out, they have to be yanked. She then laughs evilly. Buster tells Arthur that it is actually going to be fine.

Later, at the dentist, Arthur is called in for his appointment. He tells the dentist that he still has all of his baby teeth. The dentist notices his stubbornly loose baby tooth. He tells Arthur that having baby teeth doesn't actually make him a baby literally, and that he himself didn't lose his first tooth until he was nearly nine: “Everyone is different.”

The next day at school, Arthur tells his friends that some people don't even lose their baby teeth until they're nine years old, and everyone is actually different. Francine plans to play a game of "Tooth Fairy" where Francine will pose as the Tooth Fairy. She declares that Arthur cannot be in the game since he's a "baby". Having had enough of her teasing, Arthur tells Francine, "If you ask me, now you're being the baby." Everyone else not only agrees with Arthur but leave as they are fed up with how she's been behaving. Francine tells them she is the Tooth Fairy, and they can't leave her. Disgusted, she throws the ball at the monkey bars, which bounces back and hits Arthur in the face. As a result, Arthur has now lost his tooth. Francine realizes her mistake and apologizes, and an impressed Arthur notices that it was "just what he needed" and gives her his lost tooth. Francine asked about this, and Arthur reminds her that she's a tooth fairy and needs to give him 25 cents to keep it, much to Francine's surprise. Francine then smiles.

Characters

Major

Minor

Cameo

Trivia

  • At the end of the 2000 rerun intro on PBS Kids before this episode, Arthur’s crashing sound changes to the Season 5 version.
  • This is the second and last episode written by James Greenberg.
  • This episode and the next episode were encoded to work with ActiMates Arthur and D.W. on June 29, 1998
  • Even though the title was not spoken on the video and DVD releases, Francine says it during television airings.
  • On the front cover of Arthur's Tooth on VHS and DVD, Arthur was illustrated to have lost a top incisor like the book, instead of a bottom one like in the actual episode.
  • The anguished sounds Binky makes when he can't go through with punching Arthur are recycled in several subsequent episodes, mostly when Binky falls down or gets hit by something.

Cultural references

Episode connections

  • Arthur mentions the events of this episode in the earlier episode "Locked in the Library!" so that episode chronologically takes place after this one.
  • D.W. mentions her trip to the aquarium in “D.W. All Wet”. Her shark tooth comes up again in “D.W. Tricks the Tooth Fairy”, when she wants to fool the tooth fairy with it.
  • Like “Bully For Binky” and “Arthur’s Big Hit”, this episode shows that, despite claiming otherwise, Binky does not want to hit people.

Differences from the book

  • This story took place in Mr. Ratburn's third grade class; although in the book, it was a flashback event that took place in Mr. Marco's second grade class, and that Arthur would happen to have already lost a tooth when starting third grade. Because of this the following changes were made to the televised adaptation:
    • In the episode, Arthur says he is eight years old but in the book, he says he is seven years old.
    • In the episode, Dr. Sozio says he didn't lose his first baby tooth until he was nearly nine but, in the book, he says that he was eight before he lost his first baby tooth.
  • The kids all lost a bottom incisor; although in the book, Arthur and some kids lost a top incisor, while some lost a bottom incisor.
  • The educational tooth video is shown on a television and VCR, compared to the book having the class watch the film on a 16mm movie projector (as when the book was originally published in 1985, many schools did not have VCRs yet). Additionally, the film's titular antagonist is named "Nasty Mr. Tooth Decay" in the book, and "The Plaque Monster" in the episode. The heroes defeating the monster are an anthropomorphic toothbrush and dental floss in the book, while in the episode the heroes are the Flighty Fluoride Scour Rangers (a parody of the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers).
  • The bit with D.W.'s shark tooth was added exclusively for the TV episode.
  • In the book, Binky just claims he can knock Arthur's tooth out "in one second flat", but when Binky attempts it in the episode, he admits he can't actually hit Arthur, while the outcome is never shown in the book.
  • Similarly, the book doesn't show the outcome of Brain's tooth-removing machine, where in the TV version the machine malfunctions and leaves the house, to which Brain has to trigger its self-destruct mechanism before something bad happens.
  • Francine's "tooth fairy" game in the book involves her twirling around and whomever she touches loses a tooth, and whoever loses the most teeth wins. In the episode, she says whoever she hits with a soccer ball loses a tooth.
  • The "literal" tooth fairy was shown in the book; she didn't actually appear in the TV series until D.W. Tricks the Tooth Fairy.
  • In the episode, Arthur gave his tooth to Francine after losing it, in the book he kept it.
  • In the episode, no one wants to play tooth fairy and follow Arthur to play softball. In the book, everyone but Arthur played and only Arthur left to play softball.

Errors

124a Buster clothes error

Buster (right) is colored like Arthur.

  • When Arthur smiles to show the missing tooth, Buster is colored like Arthur in the background.
  • When Arthur sits in the dentist chair, Dr. Sozio's desk is missing. A few seconds later, it reappears right next to the chair.
  • Jean Charles Fink's last name was spelled incorrectly during the title card of this episode (with Fink spelled as Finck).
  • When Arthur tries to pull his teeth, the second time on the bathroom door, the door handle falls, but when he goes to his parents' room, it's still there.

Home video

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DVD:

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References


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