"D.W. the Copycat" | |
Season/Series: | 1 |
---|---|
Number in season: | 5b |
Original Airdate: | October 11, 1996[1] January 10, 1997[2] December 13, 2001[3] |
Credits | |
Written by: | Joe Fallon |
Storyboard by: | Stéphanie Gignac |
Episodes | |
Previous "Arthur's Pet Business" |
Next "Locked in the Library!" |
Read transcript |
"D.W. the Copycat" is the second half of the fifth episode in the first season of Arthur.
Summary
D.W. starts acting, dressing like Arthur and following him around. Arthur's friends start excluding him because they do not want D.W. around.
Plot
D.W. is coloring in the pictures in Arthur's book. Arthur notices this and takes the book out of her hands. D.W. thinks that they forgot the colors, so she is filling them in; yet, they are supposed to be colorless. Arthur wishes that D.W. would change. He imagines her acting like Brain. She bursts into his room and says she will do his homework for him. She does so at an amazing speed. After she finishes, she and Arthur run outside to play ball. He also imagines her more like Bionic Bunny. Arthur is checking his bike which has a flat tire. D.W. flies down to him and takes him to get more air. Then Arthur imagines her in the form of a donkey. Francine and Buster are riding a carriage with "donkey D.W." pulling. Arthur has her going by luring her with a carrot on a stick. Buster wishes he had a sister which is a donkey too. Back in reality, Arthur thinks that any change would be better. Just then, there is the sound of breaking glass (presumably caused by D.W.).
Jane is playing with Baby Kate with a stuffed bunny, until Arthur walks in all mopey and bored. Jane asks what is wrong. Arthur says that none of his friends can play with him at the moment. Jane suggests he play with D.W., who seems to be bored also. Arthur does not agree, but he goes along with this as long as she will not annoy him. As Arthur and D.W. are going outside, D.W. jumps up and down and tells Arthur to let her know if she is being annoying, for she does not want to be. While they are playing baseball, D.W. takes out her Princess Sneeze-and-Wet doll with her to bat, but Arthur refuses to have her doll "play" baseball. D.W. thinks that everyone should get equal chances. Arthur is annoyed and frustrated, calls it quits, tells D.W. that she's a baby and that she should play with Kate. D.W. denies this, but Arthur says she acts like one. Again, she denies it by showing Arthur she can do a headstand. Arthur is unimpressed and leaves the room as D.W. falls over.
Later, D.W. is watching Mary Moo Cow, until Arthur comes in and is about to change the channel. D.W. stops him, but he says he needs to watch the award-winning, three-part episode of The Bionic Bunny Show. He and D.W. start to fight over the remote. They take this to the kitchen where Jane is working. Arthur and D.W. try to have their mom convinced. She asks them who had the TV first. This was, of course, D.W., which has Arthur irritated. While she is watching her show, Arthur is exasperated at D.W. She complains that he will not do anything with her anymore. He claims that she does boring things and wishes that she was more like himself. She asks if he would play with her then. "Sure" he responds. This gives D.W. an idea. One day, the family is out on a picnic. David gives D.W. a banana and peanut butter sandwich, her favorite. Arthur asks for a watermelon. Suddenly, D.W. asks for a watermelon also. At the park, David asks D.W. if she would want to go on the swings. She is excited at this, until Arthur comes running and asks David to play catch. Immediately, D.W. wants to play catch too and runs up to catch the football, but she bumps into Arthur by accident.
Back at home, D.W. is watching TV. Arthur enters and is annoyed again. But as he leaves, the Bionic Bunny Show is heard on the TV, which surprises Arthur. D.W. seems to be enjoying the show, but Arthur asks if she is going to watch Mary Moo Cow. She replies that it is a "kiddie show" and boring. While watching Bionic Bunny, D.W. copies Arthur whenever he gasps, laughs, or says anything. When the show is over, D.W. asks if he wants to watch Foreign Metallic Spelunking Squad. He agrees and asks if she wants ice cream. She too agrees. While Arthur is getting the ice cream, Jane asks if they are fighting over the television again. "No, D.W.'s finally got good taste," Arthur answers. He re-enters the den, gives D.W. the ice cream and they both eat and watch TV together.
Things get more strange the next day. Arthur is practicing the piano, while D.W. goes to try on her new clothes. When she returns, Arthur sees that she is wearing clothes that look just like his. Later, while watching Bionic Bunny, Arthur begins to notice D.W. acting strange. When they hear an inside joke on the show, Arthur laughs, and so does D.W. Arthur sighs at her copying him, and, same as before, she does this too. At the library, D.W.'s copying continues. Every time Arthur picks a book, does a gesture, or merely scratches his head, D.W. imitates him. In reaction, Arthur walks to the boys restroom. D.W. notices this, but bravely follows him in, causing all the boys (including Arthur's best friend, Buster Baxter) to scream.
Back at home, Arthur fills a glass of milk to drink, but D.W. copies this too. Arthur tells her to stop copying him. But she claims that they are just interested in the same things. Arthur takes off his glasses to clean them, but this has D.W. thinking again. The next day, Arthur's friends come over and Arthur comes out to get his bike. Likewise, D.W., who is now wearing glasses like Arthur's, does the same. This leaves Arthur's friends bewildered. While riding to The Sugar Bowl, Buster asks what is with D.W. Arthur says that she has to come, for his parents are out shopping. But Buster was talking about the glasses. Arthur asks D.W. if she is wearing his old glasses, but they are actually her sunglasses without the lenses. Buster is confused by D.W. and asks Arthur why she is acting like him. But Arthur does not know why she is doing this, either. The kids begin to race the rest of the way. Arthur gets there last, excluding D.W. The friends enter the Sugar Bowl to get a table, while D.W. parks her bike.
As she locks it, Binky walks by and greets her, but he has mistaken her for Arthur. He enters The Sugar Bowl and says hello to the real Arthur. But, he gets confused because he already said hi to "Arthur" outside. When D.W. gets seated, the waitress kindly asks if she wants a baby seat. D.W. angrily rebukes the offer, because she is not a baby. Arthur again tells her to stop acting like him, saying she "just look[s] weird." Right then, Binky wonders which one is Arthur. Arthur confirms that he is himself and that the other is D.W. Once realizing this, Binky just laughs at and makes fun of D.W.'s looks. Arthur laughs too, but stops for that would mean he is making fun of him, too.
At night, when Jane and David are saying goodnight to Arthur, he asks them if they could move without D.W. They instead decline this and ask why. He tells them about D.W.'s behavior and that he heard his friends talking. Muffy had said that that everybody was invited to her house for swimming, except Arthur. Buster asked why Arthur was excluded, and Francine replied that they didn't want his sister Arthur Junior to come. His parents suggest he should talk to D.W. about this, but he wants them to. They tell him that this matter is between him and D.W. Arthur decides to try.
The next day, the Tibble Twins come over to D.W.'s house and ask if she wants to watch Vegetables Sing the ABCs. But she declines this and thinks it is for babies. The twins do not think so and tell her they sing backwards also. She tells them that she and Arthur are going to play soccer, but the Tibbles think that is boring and leave.
After they leave, Arthur, having reached his breaking point, tells D.W. that she does not even like what he does and demands her to stop doing everything he does. "You mean that you think I should do the things I like, instead of the "interesting things" you like?" she responds. Hearing this, Arthur apologizes for saying that the things she did were boring. They both agree to play with each other sometimes, too.
D.W. is heavily relieved and goes to change her clothes. But before leaving, D.W. tells Arthur that, according to Jane, she can watch Mary Moo Cow for as many days as he watches Bionic Bunny. Arthur wonders in defeat if he was tricked all this time, once again bested by his own sister.
Characters
Major
Minor
- Jane Read
- David Read
- Binky Barnes
- Francine Frensky
- Buster Baxter
- Brain
- Muffy Crosswire
- Timmy and Tommy Tibble (speaking debut)
- Bionic Bunny
- Waitress (debut)
Cameo
- Mary Moo Cow (debut)
- Kate Read
- Pal
- Scientist on Bionic Bunny
- Nurse on Bionic Bunny
- Giant Crab Villain (debut)
Trivia
- Moral: You don't want a sibling who does everything you're doing. It gets annoying after a while.
- This is the very first appearance of the Mary Moo Cow Show.
- Apparently, Arthur can play the piano with one hand when he is turning the page on his music sheets.
- In one scene, Kate is seen playing happily with Jane. While this happens, there is a blue block that says "DW."
- When D.W. acts like Brain, she merely writes a quick scribble on the paper and is immediately done.
- The Tibble Twins explain to D.W. about singing the ABCs backwards yet mix up the letters, revealing that they as preschoolers are a grade below learning the alphabet and do not know the order yet whether forwards or backwards.
- This is the first episode where Muffy does not have the buck teeth that she usually had in the first season.
- D.W. has once again tricked Arthur into doing things for her.
- Arthur asks D.W. if she is wearing his "old glasses". This year reveals that in the past year (as Arthur got glasses in second grade) that Arthur has multiple pairs of glasses.
- This was said to be one of Marc Brown's favorite episodes.[4][5]
Cultural references
- Arthur references a line of Tom Hanks' Jimmy character in A League of Their Own - "There's no crying in baseball!"
Episode connections
- When D.W. goes into the boys' room, Arthur, Buster and the other boys start to scream; this is similar to "Arthur's Eyes", when Arthur mistakenly went into the girls' room, causing Francine, Muffy and the other girls to scream.
- To make her own glasses, D.W. punches the lenses out of her sunglasses. Francine's movie star glasses from "Arthur's Eyes" do not have lenses, either.
- D.W. copies everything Arthur does, similar to her wearing his glasses and pretending to be him in "D.W. Tale Spins".
Errors
- When Arthur flinches when he hears D.W. watching Bionic Bunny, he is a short distance away from the door, but his hand goes behind the door post.
- When Arthur and D.W. fight over the remote, when the channels change back and forth, Bionic Bunny can be seen in front of the channel-changing waves. However, the channel-changing waves are the TV's source and would actually be in front of the pictures.
- It would be impossible for Arthur to hold the remote while D.W. is holding the other side while dangling from it.
- When Arthur overhears his friends, he turns around, without any eyebrows.
- D.W.'s Princess Sneeze-and-Wet doll first appears in this episode. She tries stealing one in the later episode "Go to Your Room, D.W.".
- It is possible that episode is supposed to predate this one.
- When the Tibble Twins supposedly sing the ABCs "backwards", D.W.'s arms are relaxed on her sides. In the next shot when she rejects the Tibble Twins' invitation to watch a home video with them and would rather play soccer with Arthur, she is folding her arms and then sets her arms out wide.
- Tommy Tibble tells D.W. the ABC Vegetable video is the "sequel to Freddy Fruit Counts by Twos." It is surprising that a video series would teach 2nd-grade-level math before preschool-level topics like the ABC song.
- When Arthur tells D.W. "We're going to get a table", outside The Sugar Bowl, the colors of his bike helmet change from a blue stripe on black to a black stripe on blue.
- With glasses on, D.W.'s eyes are dots, even though the lenses are popped off.
Production notes
- Super Sister was also used as a title card for many other episodes, where Bionic Bunny is heard saying things such as "Peskier than the mosquito", "Faster and more annoying than a mosquito", "More powerful than a locomotive", or "Faster than a speeding bullet". But both end with "It's Super Sister!". The Bionic Bunny quotes were removed after Season 1.
Storyline analysis
- In the end, Arthur apologizes to D.W. for calling Mary Moo Cow a baby show, but in later seasons, he still refers to it as a baby show.
- It is possible those episodes take place before this one.
- The bike that D.W. is riding on is a reference to "D.W. Rides Again," where her parents buy that bike for her.
- Although that episode aired later, it is likely a prequel to this episode.
Home video
VHS:
DVD:
Gallery
- Main article: D.W. the Copycat/Gallery
References
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/19970723021343/http://www.ket.org/Visions/Oct96/VL961011.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20120413104003/http://ww3.tvo.org/program/157024/arthur
- ↑ https://www.fernsehserien.de/erdferkel-arthur-und-seine-freunde/episodenguide/staffel-1/3906
- ↑ https://www.wgbh.org/foundation/highlights/behind-the-scenes-with-arthur-creator-marc-brown
- ↑ https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1064063187299713