| "Tales from the Crib" | |
| Season/Series: | 8 |
|---|---|
| Number in season: | 8b |
| Original airdate: |  December 24, 2003[1] March 10, 2004[2] December 26, 2007[3] |
| Credits | |
| Written by: | Jonathan Greenberg |
| Storyboard by: | Robert Yap Julian Harris |
| Episodes | |
| Previous "Muffy's Art Attack" |
Next "Flea to Be You and Me" |
| Read transcript |
"Tales from the Crib" is the second half of the eighth episode in the eighth season of Arthur.
Summary[]
Vicita gets a new bed, but she wants to keep her crib. To help her get through her troubles, D.W. tells Vicita the story of how she grew out of her crib.
Plot[]
The episode starts with a show called Baby Cribz, hosted by D.W Read, that takes you on a tour of the crib of a really young child. Today, they are visiting Vicita's crib in the heart of Elwood City. Vicita shows the viewers the solid maple-constructed bars that make her feel that she sleeps safe, and shows how great the jumping is, and the toys she keeps in there. Vicita then says she would not give up her crib for the entire world.
One day, while D.W. is playing at the Molina house, she accidentally rips the head off of Vicita's Snowboard Kristi doll. However, Vicita immediately forgives her and is about to get her Secret Agent Kristi doll when she finds her crib is disassembled, and she has got a new bed. She is worried and wants her crib, but D.W. tells her about how she got through sleeping in a bed.
(The plot is in bold for a while because these are all flashbacks.)
About one year earlier, because D.W. was getting to be a big girl, Mrs. Read chose to buy D.W. a new bed, though D.W. wanted to sleep in the crib all her life. Mrs. Read then added that the new baby was going to need a crib. D.W. told her mother that she should get one like hers, but she told D.W. that the baby is going to sleep in her crib. When asked if D.W. and the new baby are going to share the crib, Mrs. Read told her that she is going to give D.W.'s crib to the baby and buy her a new bed.
D.W. and her parents went to the store to buy D.W. a bed. At the store, a salesman showed D.W. a sunflower bed with a "secret" pull-out drawer, but D.W. was not impressed, and responded rudely towards the salesman. Her father suggested a bed with monkeys on the headboard, but she turned down that one, too. Before she could finish insisting she wanted the same crib she always had, she observed a royal unicorn bed and picked that one.
Then she told the Tibble twins about getting a bed, but claims she had wanted no more "baby stuff", and requested the bed. The twins said they would never sleep in a bed because of "Arachnar: Lord of the Spider People."
Vicita says that Arachnar sounds scary, but D.W. tells her that it is just an "Irving legend" (as D.W. explains, "the kind of story [one's] old [non-existent] Uncle Irving tells, which is real scary, but doesn't actually happen)."
That night, D.W. got too excited about her new bed to go to sleep, and soon discovered that because her bed does not have any bars like her old crib, she can get right out of bed, and she went through every book on the shelf. She then realized that not only does she not need to stay in her bed, she does not even have to stay in her room. So she exited her room and snuck into her parents' room where Mr. and Mrs. Read were sleeping. As D.W. got in their bed, they started talking sleepily, but D.W. was caught after saying something. Mrs. Read brought D.W. back to her bed, declaring that she knows it is new to sleep in a bed, but she and Daddy also need their sleep, and she therefore told her to stay in bed. She kissed D.W. good night.
Again, D.W. got out of bed, assuming it was okay to do so if she was quiet, and went into Arthur's room to play tea party with his teddy bear, Stanley. When she was about to "warm up [Stanley's] cup", she inadvertently knocked it (with pens and pencils inside it) over, causing Arthur to wake up and scaring him (as he thought there were robbers in the house). Mr. Read came in and brought D.W. back to bed, telling her not to get out of bed anymore, and Arthur told her not to play with Stanley anymore. D.W. was amused that Arthur was so scared, but he denied it. Then they all went back to bed ("No exceptions," added Mr. Read) and stayed in for the rest of the night.
Vicita asks if D.W. was not scared getting out of bed because of the possibility of the robbers getting her, but D.W. says there were none. The "robbers" were just Arthur being a scaredy-cat. Vicita questions the possibility of Uncle Irving getting her. D.W. tells her there is no Uncle Irving (as he is an "Irving legend" as well). Vicita, not getting the point, bets that was because the robbers got him, much to D.W.'s chagrin.
The next night, everything started off normally, and Mrs. Read (tucking D.W. in) told her not to get up from her bed tonight. Although D.W. desired to get some sleep, she thought about how much there is to explore. She got up again (though she was told not to), and tried turning on the TV, but there was a lot of static roaring on it, so she turned it off. Then she accidentally stepped on a clown doll who told her to press the button on her tummy. She then snuck into the kitchen for some ice cream. Although she managed to get the ice cream, she dropped it due to "Arachnar" (actually Pal) approaching her from behind and spilled it, leaving Pal to eat it up. She then ran back to bed and saw something in the bed, and tried to escape to the crib, but got caught by the blanket (which seemed to be alive). This woke Arthur, who thought the robbers were in D.W.'s room. He went in to try to save her, but ended up fighting with D.W. instead (by accident). Mrs. Read revealed that the thing in her bed was only her doll. D.W. could not believe she let the Tibbles' story scare her, and Mrs. Read revealed that there is nothing wrong with fear, but Arachnar is fictional; however, D.W. asked her to sleep with her that night anyway, which she did, thus ending her trouble of sleeping in her bed.
Back in the present, Vicita still does not want to sleep in a big girl bed, but later, Vicita asks her mother if it is okay for D.W. to sleepover on her first night in her bed so it would not be so scary. That night, although Vicita is now sleeping, D.W. gets up from the bed to see what kind of ice cream the Molinas have.
Characters[]
Major[]
Minor[]
Cameo[]
Trivia[]
- It is revealed that D.W. doesn't like non-anthropomorphic monkeys.
- When three-year-old D.W. steps on Arthur's face, Michael Yarmush's scream effect is heard.
- When D.W. runs out of the kitchen, she drops a carton of chocolate ice cream and Pal eats it. Chocolate is toxic to non-anthropomorphic dogs.
- Tommy and Timmy Tibble have radically different character designs in D.W.'s flashback, appearing to be taller with larger heads than how they normally appear, with larger ascots as part of their ensemble.
Cultural references[]
- The episode's title, "Tales from the Crib", is a reference to a horror comic and show entitled Tales from the Crypt.
- There’s also a series of Rugrats direct-to-videos called ‘Tales from the Crib’ which stars the characters in classic fairytales, such as Snow White and Jack and the Beanstalk.
- Baby Cribz is a parody of the show MTV Cribs.
- When D.W. talks about "Irving legends," she means urban legends: stories that are circulated as if they happened to somebody when they are in fact made up.
Errors[]
- This entire episode could be non-canon or D.W. may have made up this story to help Vicita.
- D.W. looks younger and less mature here than she does in "Arthur's Baby," when David and Jane give her and Arthur the news about the new baby.
- The crib remained in D.W.'s room after she got her new bed, but in "D.W.'s Baby," David and Jane move the crib into her room.
- When D.W. saw the bed that she got, it had unicorns and rainbows on it, but when it is in her room, it is a plain solid aqua/teal color. D.W.'s bed remains this way throughout the series.
- It is likely the unicorns and rainbows were just part of the display, and did not come with the actual bed.
- In the scene where D.W. got the ice cream, Pal is seen under the table, despite him not even being chronologically born yet when the flashback took place (Kate was already around in "Arthur's Pet Business", before Pal was even born, and his absence in "Arthur's Baby" would seem to confirm he was indeed born after Kate).
- D.W. was shown to already have her bed in "Arthur's Pet Business," again before Pal was born.
Gallery[]
- Main article: Tales from the Crib/Gallery
References[]