"Buster's Book Battle" | |
Season/Series: | 16 |
---|---|
Number in season: | 8a |
Original Airdate: | May 8th, 2013[1] April 19, 2013[2][3] |
Credits | |
Written by: | Jon Greenberg |
Storyboard by: | Gerry Capelle |
Episodes | |
Previous "Brain's Biggest Blunder" |
Next "On the Buster Scale" |
Read transcript |
"Buster's Book Battle" is the first half of the eighth episode in the sixteenth season of Arthur.
Summary[]
Lakewood Elementary has just instituted IRP; a program where kids can earn points (and prizes!) for reading. Buster's thrilled and gets to work straight away! But will he earn enough points for a skateboard?[4]
Plot[]
At the school carnival, Arthur, Francine, and Binky all try to knock down the bottles with balls, but they all fail. Buster then shows up, and asks what they are doing, and he knocks the bottles over and wins a giant panda plush just by crunching a pretzel. Buster comments that "you can win prizes for doing anything these days".
After the title card, a less-than-thrilled Mr. Ratburn tells the class that Lakewood Elementary is instituting the Independent Readers Project (IRP), a system which allows you to take optional computerized quizzes on books that you read. You can earn points, and at the end of two weeks, these points can be redeemed for prizes. Buster is especially intrigued at the prospect of prizes, and he gets to work right away.
After reading Goodnight Universe and sixteen other books the night before, Buster earns 23 IRP points the next day at school. However, Francine earns 35 points for reading a book series called Loki Benediktssen and the Teenage Aesir. Buster also learns that you can win a skateboard for earning 500 points. Wanting to earn more points, Buster decides to start reading the series.
After not being able to finish the book, Buster has a dream that night where he and Loki Benediktssen are about to be attacked by the Fenrir Wolf. Buster then decides he does not like the book, because "when it's not boring, it's terrifying!". Buster then wakes up from his dream and screams.
After getting fewer IRP points than Francine did for incorrect answers the next day at school, Buster decides to give up on IRP altogether.
That night, while Buster is playing video games instead of reading books, his mom Bitzi gives him a manuscript of City of Droids, a book about a crime-fighting cyborg detective named Detective Kilgore that Bitzi's co-worker from the newspaper made. Buster is entranced by the story and reads it non-stop.
At school the next week, Buster asks Mr. Ratburn how many points he can get for reading City of Droids, but he is disappointed to learn that IRP has no quiz for it, or several other books for that matter. Later, at The Sugar Bowl, Buster ends up taking Francine's advice to read Loki again, despite the fact that he does not like that series.
That evening, Detective Kilgore and Loki themselves appear in Buster's room as a metaphorical dream sequence, attempting to convince Buster to read their books, but results in a battle with Kilgore getting the better of Loki and forcing him to retreat. Detective Kilgore then tells Buster that it is up to him to choose what to read, and Kilgore flies off into the distance.
The next day at school, having only received 38 IRP points, Buster chose City of Droids over Loki, and gets a crazy straw. Francine, who got 500 IRP points, gets the skateboard, but finds out that it is actually much smaller than advertised, irritating her. Francine then decides that she is sick of Loki, and never wants to read it again. Meanwhile, Buster gives Arthur his book to read, and Detective Kilgore gives Buster a thumbs-up. The episode then finishes.
Characters[]
Major[]
Minor[]
Cameo[]
- Big Kid 1
- Big Kid 2
- Otis
- 3rd Grade Male Rabbit
- Unknown Female Cat (Number 4)
- Steve Pappas
- Nancy
- Rattles
- Slink
- Molly MacDonald
- George Lundgren
- Prunella Deegan
- Fern Walters
- Jenna Morgan
- Brain
- Sue Ellen Armstrong
- Maria Pappas
- Ladonna Compson
- Alex Davidson
Trivia[]
- Buster mentions to Arthur that he read sixteen other books besides Goodnight Universe. This is a reference to the season that this episode takes place in, Season 16.
Episode connections[]
- In the introduction, both the boy bully and the young boy from the flashback in "The Last Tough Customer" can be seen standing next to Molly. Unlike her, they have not aged at all.
- A Woogle can be seen in the IRP prizes flyer.
- Arthur doubts Buster's claim of being a big reader. In "Buster Hits the Books," Buster confesses he never read a whole book in his life.
Cultural references[]
- Loki Benediktssen and the Teenage Aesir is a parody of Percy Jackson & the Olympians.
- Aesir are Norse gods, Loki is the god of trickery, Víðarr is the god of vengeance, Bifrost is the bridge between the mortal world and the gods' world, Niflheim is an icy world, and Fenrir is a monstrous wolf. Loki Benediktssen's horse is eight-legged like Odin's horse Sleipnir while the riding boar is a possible reference to Freyja's boar Hildisvíni.
- The Percy Jackson series contains 17 books (as of February 2024), whereas the fictional Loki books only have 8 books in the series.
- Some books IRP does not conduct quizzes for include Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson and Watership Down by Richard Adams.
- The flag of Greece can be seen in Mr. Ratburn's classroom.
- One of the books Buster reads at the start of the IRP program is Goodnight Universe, a parody of Goodnight Moon.
- IRP is similar to the real-life program known as Accelerated Reader (AR), which schools may utilize for students to take comprehension tests on the books they have read. Unlike IRP, there are no prizes associated with accumulated points unless the individual schools decide to use prizes.
- City of Droids may be similar to The Caves of Steel, the first book in Isaac Asimov's robot trilogy.
- One of Kilgore's arm attachments resembles a lightsaber from Star Wars.
Errors[]
- When Buster takes the IRP quiz, he reads "goddess" although the screen reads "god."
Production notes[]
- The 9 Story logo appears at the top right of the screen when it zooms in on The Sugar Bowl. This was likely a post-production error.
Gallery[]
- Main article: Buster's Book Battle/Gallery
References[]
- ↑ http://www.ket.org/episode/ARUR%20%20001608
- ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/programmes/schedules/2013/04/19
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20161115074937/http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01s1mmm/arthur-series-15-15-busters-book-battle
- ↑ http://www.aptv.org/episodes/22448/Arthur/Busters-Book-Battle/on-the-Buster-Scale/