| "Feeling Flush" | |
| Season/Series: | 10 |
|---|---|
| Number in season: | 4A |
| Original airdate: |  May 18, 2006[1] September 19, 2006[3] November 3, 2006[2] April 29, 2008[4] |
| Credits | |
| Written by: | Glen Berger |
| Storyboard by: | Gerry Capelle |
| Episodes | |
| Previous "The Secret About Secrets" |
Next "Family Fortune" |
| Read transcript |
"Feeling Flush" is the first half of the fourth episode in the tenth season of Arthur.
Summary[]
Francine bets Arthur that her family can use less water than his. But despite her conservation efforts, her water meter levels are twice as high.
Plot[]
The episode starts in an arid desert with vultures circling Arthur and his classmates. Arthur narrates the beginning with an entry in his student journal. It is their seventh day in the desert after getting lost since a class trip to the petting zoo went horribly wrong. Making matters worse, the friends are down to their last bottle of water, and the situation looks grim. Arthur suddenly looks up after hearing the sound of running water. Francine is washing her hands with what is left in the bottle. Arthur gets very upset at her, and then he notices Muffy using the bottle to scare away a vulture with splashes. Next, Binky grabs the bottle to make a water balloon. Arthur takes the bottle away from his friends to conserve it, but he is so thirsty that he drinks it all up. Arthur says “Oops!” as all his friends growl at him.
The main story starts in the Frenskys' bathroom. Francine is taking a 30-minute shower while singing into a brush. Catherine gets upset when Francine finally comes out. She shows Francine an Elwood City Times headline titled “Drought Hits Elwood City” and advises Francine to start talking way shorter showers.
Next, we move to the Reads' bathroom, where Arthur is busy brushing his teeth while the sink is running. D.W. barges in and shuts off the water saying “It’s called water conversation!” (conservation). Arthur tells her to go away and turns the faucet back on. The two battle, switching the sink off and on until D.W. runs to get their mom.
Then, in the school park, Arthur and Francine are playing catch with a baseball. They have each heard about how the other wastes water and choose to make a conservation bet: whoever's family uses more water in a week has to carry the winner's book bag for the rest of the month. The two agree and leave for home, picking up their book bags with heavy grunts.
Francine finds her family's water meter next to the office of their landlord, Mr. Sanders, who explains to her that the multiple meters were once used to keep track of how much water each of the units uses, but are not needed much nowadays because he charges a flat rate. Suspecting that Francine is up to something, Mr. Sanders decides to monitor the Frenskys' water meter as well.
Francine's first step to conserving water involves putting an empty plastic bottle in the toilet tank. However, when Catherine realizes that Francine still plans on taking long showers, the sisters fight over the toilet cover, sending it shattering on the floor. While eating dinner with their parents, Oliver and Laverne talk to their daughters about ways that they can all start conserving water:
- They tell Francine that the best way for her to conserve water is start taking way shorter showers, because her plastic bottle trick will not work if she is just going to keep taking long shower.
- Oliver and Laverne also tell Catherine that a way for her to conserve to stop taking baths, since they tend to use more water than showers do ("Unless those showers are thirty minutes long," Oliver pointedly says to Francine).
Oliver and Laverne ultimately end the discussion by telling Francine to go to Mr. Sanders to order a new lid for their toilet. Mr. Sanders is annoyed as Francine tells him to buy a whole new water saving toilet instead of just replacing the lid. He chooses to replace the lid, upsetting Francine.
Then, we go back to the Reads' house. Arthur and Buster come home from school and Arthur screams as he sees that D.W. has filled massive tubs up with water. She says she is saving it for herself, and Arthur yells at her again. Reading the meter in the basement, Arthur sees that D.W. has upped their daily average by 500 liters for a total of 2,000. That same day, Francine goes to Muffy's house, who shows her how the Crosswire family conserves water by using an automatic pool cover. Back at her apartment, Francine sees that the her family used 2,500 liters that day. Mr. Sanders is not impressed.
The next day at school, Francine notices that Arthur's voice is muffled inside the boy's bathroom. She charges in and tells him off for letting the water run as he brushes his teeth. Arthur responds by saying he heard that Francine took a long shower at Muffy's house the day before. They both agree to play fair for the rest of the bet. Binky suddenly yelps when he notices Francine in the boys' room and she runs out.
Over the next two days, the Frenskys use 3,000 and 3,400 liters of water. Francine is so upset at the rising rate that she decides to make a petition for the people in her apartment, requiring that Mr. Sanders buy a water-conserving toilet for every bathroom in the complex. However, before Mr. Sanders can even order the toilets, the Frenskys set a new record of 3,600 liters in a day. Francine daydreams that she uses up the last of the water in Elwood City on one of her long showers on the same day of Muffy's birthday pool party. Francine runs through the town still in her bathrobe, and all her friends scold her for being so wasteful.
The week of the bet comes to an end, and Francine and Arthur meet at the Frenskys' with Buster and Muffy to see who wins: Arthur wins by a longshot, as his family only used 10,500 liters of water while Francine's family has used 34,000 liters of water.
. Muffy and the boys are shocked by this, but Francine claims that she's done everything she can to help her family conserve water--when she and her friends hear a bunch of flushes coming from the Frensky's bathroom, Francine initially assumes that her sister's the one wasting all the water, but Catherine's in the kitchen while this is happening, proving Francine wrong. When the gang opens the door to the bathroom, they find Nemo to be the one messing around with the flushing(he had taken an interest in watching the bobber going down in the coverless toilet tank) , meaning that he's the one who's wasting so much water.
Later on, Arthur makes sure not to make Francine carry too many books in his bag. Francine claims that although she lost the bet, she kind of won. Francine explains that there are new toilets installed in the apartment and she listens to them and smiles.
Characters[]
Major[]
Minor[]
Fantasy[]
Cameo[]
Mentioned[]
Trivia[]
Cultural references[]
- In Francine's drought fantasy, the Barnes family begging for water alludes to the Great Depression.
Production notes[]
- Like all episodes of Season 10, this episode included the number '10' hidden in various places. For a list of them, see ARTHUR Season 10 Scavenger Hunt.
- This is the last episode to use the original sound of Arthur yelping when Francine bangs the gong in the title card.
- The A Word from Us Kids segment was filmed on November 17, 2005
Home Video[]
DVD[]
Gallery[]
Screenshots[]
- Main article: Feeling Flush/Gallery
References[]
External links[]
- Ark TV Transcript (archived page)