The Last of Mary Moo Cow

"The Last of Mary Moo Cow"
Main image Title card
Season/Series:	5
Number in season:	8a
Original Airdate:	November 13, 2000 January 10, 2001
Credits
Written by:	Dietrich Smith
Storyboard by:	Zoran Vanjaka
Episodes
Previous "Pet Peeved"	Next "Bitzi's Beau"

Read transcript

"The Last of Mary Moo Cow" is the first half of the eighth episode in the fifth season of Arthur.

Summary

When D.W.'s favorite TV show is canceled, she starts a petition to try to force her show to go back on the air.

Plot

At 3:30, Arthur messes with all of the clocks to say it's 4:00 instead to trick D.W. into thinking that it's time to watch Dark Bunnyand sits down to do so. D.W. comes in and tells him that 3:30 is her T.V. time and he claims it's 4:00, not 3:30. However, she sees through this scheme, as she doesn't buy it, being unable to tell time while having a specific internal clock, and sits down to watch Mary Moo Cow. Arthur explains that it's not best to come between D.W. and Mary Moo Cow and proceeds to show instances of this. At the store, D.W. rushes Jane, in the sandbox she stops playing immediately and runs inside, and even a television repair man is rushed when she grabs the screwdriver herself and quickly fixes the TV. Arthur then says D.W. would probably go crazy if she didn't have Mary Moo Cow to watch; or rather, even crazier. Within seconds, the Mary Moo Cow theme restarts, and Arthur calls for the title card to appear.

The Last of Mary Moo Cow

One day, D.W. begins screaming throughout the house and everyone comes to see what happened. D.W. says that Mary Moo Cow is coming to Elwood City, and an announcer on TV says that she is coming on Thursday at Mill Creek Mall and Friday at Petie Pete's Pizzeria. Mary says she can hardly wait. D.W. then goes into a fantasy of Mary and herself as they sing to each other before flying to Mary's barn to live here forever. After the fantasy, D.W. chooses a dress and says that she will stay with Mary during summer and with her family for the rest of the year, while Arthur is in school. Arthur says that they won't put her in the show, to which D.W. says Mary surely will. Jane points out that a lot of kids are going to be there to see Mary. But D.W. already knows this, mentioning that this is why she doesn't want anybody to know she is related to Arthur. After she leaves, Arthur and Buster cheer and start watching Dark Bunny.

At the Mill Creek Mall, they observe a string of children all walking away in tears and crying. D.W. tries to comfort them by saying "Mary can't take everybody." Finally, they reach the door, where Jane apologizes and tells D.W. that Mary Moo Cow's visit to the Mill Creek Mall was unfortunately cancelled (which is the reason those kids were crying). D.W gasps in complete shock.

Meanwhile, back at the house, Arthur and Buster are still watching Dark Bunny, but the intro gets interrupted when D.W. forcefully changes the channel to Mary Moo Cow. After Buster and Arthur question this, D.W. soon chimes in with an angry and harsh voice of explanation. She also steals their popcorn, much to their surprise. Then Mary announces that this is her final episode, much to D.W's devastation, and Arthur and Buster's glee.

That night, Jane and David try to comfort and console D.W. as Jane explains that cancellation eventually happens to all television shows, while David reminds D.W. that she owns a few of the VHS tapes too (this is just an understatement, as D.W. has at least seven shelves of video tapes in her bedroom.) D.W. asks her parents if they are going to punish Arthur, but David leaves with the parting advice of "Think of all the other fun things you can do now at 3:30!". In her fantasy, D.W. is sitting at the TV, flipping channels but all she finds is static. She walks outside, and we see that everything now has a sad face. The inanimate objects around her explain to her that things would not be the same now that Mary Moo Cow has been cancelled and that the only TV show to watch would be Dark Bunny, much to their disgust.

The next day, Arthur plops down in the chair in front of the television with a bowl of popcorn, hoping to watch Dark Bunny. However, D.W. comes up and explains that, "Mom says that I get to keep this time until I recover from my trauma!" Arthur comes out with his usual response—he starts screaming for his mom. The program that's replaced Mary Moo Cow is the first edition of $tock Market Today, which discusses financial matters. D.W's imaginary friend Nadine tries to get her to let Arthur watch television considering how boring this show is anyway, but D.W. refuses and that if she can't watch Mary Moo Cow, Arthur can't watch Dark Bunny. Even when Nadine tries masquerading up as Mary Moo Cow to cheer D.W. up, it doesn't work.

Eventually, the new show gives D.W an idea: When the anchorwoman mentions a historic building saved from demolition because "concerned citizens obtained five hundred signatures on a petition", she makes a petition to bring back the show by bribing her friends from preschool, sets up a booth to charge strangers 5 cents to sign the petition and even tries to enlist the help of Arthur to sign. However, he quickly decides not to since he is not a fan of Mary Moo Cow and D.W. instead forces Baby Kate to forge her signature with her chocolaty hand print. D.W. mails the petition, and has a fantasy sequence about Mary Moo Cow and her child actor sidekicks being freed from prison and claiming D.W. has brought them cheer. Sometime afterward, a response arrives in the mail. D.W. wants to know what it says. The letter thanks D.W. for the petition, and contains an invitation to visit the studios of Channel 12. Arthur believes that D.W's petition didn't work since the show was still cancelled.

D.W.'s parents take her to the studios of Channel 12, where they explain that Mary's barn is part of a set, and this is where it is filmed. Inside, while $tock Market Today runs its next episode, a tour guide leads D.W and her family on a tour of the studios and points out where Mary Moo Cow always filmed her soft puppet shows. D.W is offered a Moo Cow soft puppet to add to her collection, but isn't very interested. She says she wishes to see Mary, but the tour guide tells her that Mary is very busy; D.W. loses it. She cries out that she already has some of the stuff that the tour guide gave her, and that Arthur was right about the show still being cancelled. She runs off to try and find Mary.

D.W finds the dressing room that Mary Moo Cow uses, which is all decorated in cow-print fabric, and looks around to find Mary. Suddenly she hears somebody come in. It is not who D.W expects; it's the host of $tock Market Today, who replaces the Mary Moo Cow dressing room sign with a "Patty Jones" sign that was lying on the ground, having fallen off. She talks to D.W. with lots of interest. Initially, D.W believes that the woman was responsible for taking Mary Moo Cow off the air by asking Patty, "What have you done with Mary?". Patty tells D.W. that life works exactly the way that D.W is experiencing it — that sometimes people need a change, and that Mary Moo Cow might well return to TV someday. Once Mary does come back on TV, D.W would have the pleasure of knowing that her efforts with the petition helped.

It's at this point that Jane, David, and the studio tour guide enter the dressing room. David tries to lay down the law by telling D.W that "You don't just barge into people's dressing rooms." Patty Jones doesn't seem to mind, though. They begin to leave, and Patty says goodbye in Mary Moo Cow's voice by accident, to D.W.'s delight, switching back to her normal voice immediately afterwards. The family then goes home as Patty sings to the tune of "Frère Jacques", "Oh D.W., Oh D.W., I love you, Yes I do." in Mary's voice again. "Mary," D.W. dreamily says, happy she got to meet the woman named Patty who played Mary Moo Cow.

Later at home, D.W. enjoys watching Patty doing her $tock Market Today on TV for a while, but then relinquishes control of the remote to a surprised Arthur, telling him that she'll catch Mary some other time. Pleased, Arthur settles in to finally watch Dark Bunny and changes the channel just in time to hear an announcer state that Dark Bunny has been cancelled in favor of reruns of Mary Moo Cow. This, of course, does not go well with Arthur, and the episode finishes with him screaming at the television while he spills his popcorn before Pal arrives to eat them.

Characters

Major

• Arthur Read
• D.W. Read
• Jane Read
• David Read
• Mary Moo Cow
• Patty Jones

Minor

• Buster Baxter
• Unknown Female Adult Rabbit (Number 4)
• Maria lookalike
• Timmy and Tommy Tibble
• Nadine Flumberghast
• Dex
• Mr. Higgins
• Producer

Cameo

• Unknown Male Adult Rabbit (Number 3)
• Unknown Male Rabbit
• James MacDonald
• Sarah
• Maryann
• Liam
• Kate Read
• Pal

Trivia

• Before this episode, the intro uses the boing sound in Arthur’s crash. This is the very last episode to do so, ending 4 and 3/10 seasons of the original Arthur intro. Ironically, the boing sound and Mary Moo Cow were said goodbye to at the same time.
• The coins that D.W. collects come in a variety of the colors gold, silver and brown, meaning these are the type of coins that Elwood City uses.
• Arthur's address is revealed to be 562 Main Street.
• Arthur breaks the fourth wall in this episode by shouting out loud "Well, what are you waiting for? Quick! Go to the title card!". This happens at the end of the opening seconds before the title card appears. Ironically, the card used is the Super Sister title card.
• A running gag is D.W. stealing Arthur's bowl of popcorn for herself (one time with Buster in the scene).
• Mary Moo Cow's identity is revealed to be a certain Patty Jones who's voiced by Heidi Floss.

Episode connections

• Arthur wanting to hurry up and go to the title card is similar to what Fern does in the intro of "Fern's Slumber Party."
• The same kids would appear singing about soup with Mary in "Sue Ellen Gets Her Goose Cooked."
• D.W. wonders whether Mary Moo Cow has spinach for dinner. D.W.’s difficult relationship with spinach was shown in “D.W., the Picky Eater”.
• When D.W. is picking out a dress to wear to the Mary Moo Cow event at the mall, she chooses the same dress she wore for Grandma Thora's birthday in "D.W., the Picky Eater."
• Despite both Mary Moo Cow and Dark Bunny being cancelled in this episode, both shows are frequently featured in later Arthur episodes. They could be re-runs or the shows were uncancelled.

Cultural references

• In one of the episodes of Dark Bunny, there are three villains that resemble The Joker, Catwoman, and The Riddler from the Batman franchise.
• The phrase "I love you", which Mary Moo sang to D.W., refers to the signature song in the Barney franchise.
• The "L-A-S-T Song" that Mary Moo Cow, as well as Arthur and Buster sing, is a parody of the Barney & Friends/Backyard Gang theme song, and the "Yankee Doodle" song from the 1942 film of the same name.

Errors

• When Patty Jones is putting on makeup, her mouth is on top of the powder puff.
• The child actor sidekicks in one of D.W's dream sequences are unable to spell "petition" despite D.W spelling the word correctly on her petition.

Production notes

• In the "A Word from Us Kids" segment (retitled "And Now a Word from Us Zoomers" for this episode), Caroline and Kenny from Zoom take the viewers behind the scenes of Zoom. Also, there is no Arthur drawing in the "Now Back to Arthur" bumper for this episode as Caroline says "And now back to Zoom" by mistake before correcting herself.
• The TV studio guide is based on executive producer, Carol Greenwald.

Gallery

Screenshots

Main article: The Last of Mary Moo Cow/Gallery