We're back dipping into "Arthur" This is an election year, unless you are reading this in a non election year or something.... (Election year..noooooo why oh god no! The worst years ever are election years) I had decided to look at an Arthur episode about an election. (I came for the other episode you are writing about)
"The Election" is a season 5 episode , episode 6a, it's paired with "Francine Goes to War" which is not strange to be paired with an election episode. It first aired on October 30th 2000, right before the 2000 election. (Don't mention that!)
Season 5 Episode 6a: The Election
The cold opening: Muffy is being sworn in a president of the United States by Chief Justice Brain because I don't know how that happened, I didn't think he was interested in law. Muffy ties to steal JFK's line. Arthur shows up and gets arrested because she hates him now. (Dang !)
The episode: Mr. Ratburn want to finish their unit in government in action by making a mock election. (hence the title) Francine gets turned turned down by her peers to be president and Muffy convinces to her to be a Champaign manger instead. Buster suggests that Arthur should run. Muffy announces that she's running for president and Buster nominates Arthur and everyone cheers him on. So it's Arthur vs Muffy (an election worth having) and the campaign goes on.
Arthur isn't taking it as much as Muffy is who has decided to use her money for this. (Give me money, Muffy!) This makes Arthur want to get real plans and start getting to work. (Finally) Muffy starts doing negative campaigning, because of course she does. Muffy uses her part of the debate to promote her father's business. Meanwhile, Binky thinks Arthur and Muffy are boring candidates and he would do a better job. So, Mr. Ratburn encourages Binky to do a write-in campaign. He asks Muffy and Arthur what they think and Arthur is like alright yeah. (Arthur is nice) Muffy is like no. Mr. Ratburn goes along and decides to let him run.
Election day happens and Binky wins! Muffy is sad. She complains that she spent the most money and was the prefect candidate. (wait hold on , oh no no no no) That's also why the cold opening had adult Muffy having adult Arthur getting adult arrested.
The moral of the story is that elections work better when you give people a third choice. (Whoa) It is funny that Binky's write-in works because he knew his audience was offering stuff that people wanted to hear even though he couldn't deliver it. Arthur was a nice guy and offering the idea of working together to get things done, Muffy was going with funding things like a mad woman and trying bribe with perks and getting things slightly negative.
It's not really a satire on elections or anything more than just an episode of Arthur being Arthur and Muffy being Muffy but in election fun. Maybe WGBH didn't want to wade into some weird outrage and just of wanted to tell an election story. That's fine, it's a good episode with some fun jokes and hints. It's funny that Binky is the guy who goes around saying I could do that better then actually runs to prove it, putting his money where his mouth is. The moment where Ratburn asks Muffy and Arthur about Binky running, gives a us great short tap into their characters, that by season 5 you would already know, Arthur is willing to let him run because why not? The more the merrier. Muffy is like he's going to ruin my chances, she was confident she was going to win and yet something about Binky startled her.
It does remind me of school campaigns with the snacks and stuff , that was fun. Anyway It's a fun episode. Not the best Arthur episode, but they all can't be the best , some just can be good.
More after the Jump
Season 18 Episode 5b: Arthur Calls It
Jumping a head to season 18, because we don't want to run out of "classic" Arthur episodes to talk about while also bringing some attention to newer episodes. (2015 is newer?) Anyway, this is episode 5b that first aired on January 26, 2015.
The cold opening : "Arthur" has been around long enough to make a joke about GPS devices giving people bad directions. Buster's mother doesn't doubt it because that's how bad things happen. The main point of this is what Arthur says at the start, about you have to trust your instincts even if someone tells you you're wrong. (What did he mean by that?)
The episode: It's a baseball game and Buster has to hit a run or they lose...and he's down two strikes. The Umpire was Mr. Ratburn but he left because reasons, and they have to find a new one, that means Arthur. The two teams agree that Arthur is the fairest person they can think up. He calls Buster out, they lost the game. Everyone on the team is mad at them.
Francine uses her newspaper to call Arthur out because wow. Arthur stands firm in what he saw. She later gets him stronger glasses, just to make a mean joke. (Wow) Muffy tries a better tacit of trying to bribe Arthur. He strongly refuses it. I do like how Buster isn't mad at Arthur in a direct way, he still thinks he's safe but isn't being mad at Arthur .
He does some weird CD to try to get his mind to remember things and it is a strange dream and sees that he was out. Muffy has it recorded on her phone, and Francine wants him to see with her. Buster shows up and says don't finish the recording , and he thinks he was out and agrees to it. Francine agrees to it , but comes back to see the video and Muffy got distracted and recorded a blimp promoting her father's company.
This episode doesn't show the viewer if Buster made it first or he got tagged first. We have to take Arthur's word for it too. I like how Arthur doesn't fall to the pressure and really it became Francine (in character) trying to get this changed. Muffy only tried because Francine was bugging her, and Buster had an open mind. It's a good episode mostly for the message that if you see something going one way,and someone tells you it's wrong, trust your instincts and don't buckle under pressure. The GPS thing at the start makes sense, too, as Buster's mother could see the GPS wasn't giving the correct instructions to what she could see. It also shows us that different people could see the same thing different ways.
Like I have to say there are some alright episodes in later Arthur, you just kind of have to dig for them.
That's it for now, tune in next time, when we say we saw you reading other blogs, and that really hurts our feelings!
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