Based on a True Story

Summary
There’s a new kid in town: Ladonna Compson, the Louisiana native with the gift of gab. Ladonna charms Arthur and friends with her amazing “true” stories. But are her stories really fact…or fiction?

Plot
Arthur begins the intro by trying to introduce Ladonna Compson, but she interrupts the intro by making up false stories, but Arthur outsmarts her, which Ladonna surrenders. Arthur & Ladonna then decide to start the show.

After the title card, the episode begins with Ladonna & her family leaving their home in Louisiana for a 16 hour car drive to Elwood City. They soon arrive & unpack their things at their new house, which is 4 blocks away from where the Read family lives. Arthur & D.W. are walking down the street to meet the Compson family.

Ladonna invites them into the house. After introducing 1 another, Arthur then gives Ladonna a rhubarb pie his dad made. Ladonna likes the pie & begins telling stories to both Arthur & D.W., but the 2 have to go to Grandma Thora's house.

After they left, Bud who had been spying said to her older sister that she talks too much & that she scared them away. Ladonna was a bit annoyed that Bud had been spying on her. The next day at Lakewood, Mr. Haney introduces the class to Ladonna.

At lunch the gang asks Ladonna questions about where she's from & what she does. Ladonna then starts telling false stories about her family & soon everyone starts listening to her stories. Many are impressed with her stories & she even went as far as telling the Tough Customers the stories. Meanwhile Bud tries to impress D.W. with his animal sounds.

He did a pig & then a whale. D.W. wasn't impressed & subsequently left. Bud's feeling sad that D.W. didn't like the animal sounds & Ladonna reassures him it takes time to make friends. Bud then questions how Ladonna made friends & even asked if she was paying them. His sister tells him that his new friends liked her stories. Bud asks what will happen when she runs out of stories to tell, & that night Ladonna has a dream about what Bud had said to her. She no longer had stories to tell her new friends, & was soon no longer invited to hang out with them. Ladonna awakens & soon starts making up new stories.

The next day at the playground at school, Ladonna's telling stories, but this time Arthur & Buster have heard of the stories before. Soon Arthur & Buster start talking about Dark Bunny & Ladonna feels sad & a bit left out. She soon starts to leave & her friends ask where she's going & which she replies she's going to get her mittens.

Later on at night Ladonna's sleeping & she soon dreams about what happens when she no longer has any interesting stories to her new friends. She then wakes up & starts writing down made up stories to tell her friends.

The next day at school in the cafeteria, she starts to tell her "new" made up stories & soon her friends start to question her new stories. Soon she admits that she fibbed the story. Soon most of her new friends leave her as she should of told them the truth.

Soon, Arthur wants to give her a 2nd chance, which Francine & Muffy disagree with the idea. Soon both Arthur & Buster move back to the table with Ladonna. They tell her that they like her just the way she is & to be herself.

Meanwhile D.W. & Emily are having a "tea party" with Bud. Bud isn't sure how to play & instead changes the pretend tea to tomato soup. D.W. tells Bud that they are playing a tea party not lunch & Bud asks why not. Soon after playing, Bud thinks D.W. doesn't like him. Soon Rapty talks to him & Bud decides to try telling jokes to D.W. to impress her.

The next day Ladonna's going to explore & her mom makes her wear a hat her aunt made that she states is itchy. As Ladonna's walking, she sees an eagle & pulls out her cellphone to take a picture of it, but she ends up missing it.

She turns to get her hat that she threw to the ground after it kept slipping over her head, but discovered to see a raccoon had taken it. She chased the raccoon, but tripped on a tree branch & soon discovered a watch buried in the snow.

She returns the watch to the owner who in turn gives her 4 quarters for returning a watch that was missing for 7 years, which was a little bit upsetting to Ladonna. She decides to get juice from a vending machine & soon she receives a lot of change from the vending machine much to her excitement.

As she's walking along, she sees a hat almost identical to the 1 that the raccoon had stolen from her earlier in the day. She then uses the change she got from the vending machine to buy it. Ladonna then tells everyone about what happened the previous day, but her friends don't believe her & she tells Arthur she'll prove it to him after school.

Meanwhile, Bud's telling a joke to D.W. as they are building a snowman. D.W. noticed the carrot missing & Bud admits that he ate it & he replaces the carrot nose for a rock much to D.W.'s displeasure. Then the Tibble Twins threw a snowball at the snowman they were building knocking the head off & the twins start chortling at the mayhem they caused.

Bud then confronts the Tibbles despite D.W.'s warnings to him that those were the Tibbles. Bud demands them to put the head of the snowman back & the Tibbles questioned what he was going to do about it. Then Bud began staring at them.

The staring proves to be very effective, scary enough to scare off the Tibbles, which is very impressive to D.W. & soon the 2 friends resumed building the snowman. Meanwhile both Arthur & Ladonna were looking to find proof to Ladonna's story by going places that Ladonna visited.

Soon Ladonna realized that there was no way she was going to ever prove her story was accurate, but Arthur tells her that he believes her since she went through all the trouble to prove it to him. Just as they are leaving Arthur spots the raccoon wearing Ladonna's old hat.

Back at Lakewood, she tells everyone about it & shows them the hat too. She gives the hat to Francine who likes the hat & Muffy thanks Ladonna for not giving it to her & states she's really a good friend. Ladonna is delighted. They happily continue a good friendship. Afterward, Ladonna was trying to wrap up the show, but Arthur wrapped it up, ending the episode.

Major characters

 * Ladonna (debut)
 * Arthur
 * Buster
 * D.W.
 * Bud (debut)

Minor characters

 * Muffy
 * Francine
 * Brain
 * Mrs. Compson (debut)
 * Emily
 * Tibble Twins
 * Rapty (debut)
 * Gussie Compson (debut)
 * Penny (debut)
 * Shelby
 * Kara
 * Mr. Haney

Background characters

 * Jenna
 * Sue Ellen
 * George
 * Binky
 * Molly
 * Rattles
 * Kieper
 * Alex
 * Maria
 * 3rd Grade Male Rabbit
 * 3rd Grade Male Rat
 * 4th Grade Male Dog
 * Prunella
 * Madison Compson (debut)

Mentioned characters

 * Rufus Compson
 * Uncle Whitney
 * Aunt Bo

Trivia

 * When Ladonna is telling a story to The Tough Customers, 4th Grade Male Dog and Kieper are present, but Slink is not. The former two are original Tough Customers from Season 1, but Slink did not officially join the gang until Season 6.
 * Bud eating the carrot refers to the fact that he is a rabbit.
 * At the scene where Ladonna writes a story at night to tell at school, she has the word "grizzly" spelled wrong.
 * The sixteen hour drive from Louisiana to Elwood City is a reference to this being the first episode in season 16.
 * This is the first appearance of Ladonna and Bud.
 * Both halfs of this episode were first broadcast separately from each other in the UK; part 1 aired on April 2, 2013 and part 2 aired a day after part 1.

Cultural references

 * Art Radley's pocketwatch is a reference to Boo Radley giving Scout and Jem a pocketwatch in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird.
 * The line which D.W. says to Bud after he scares away the Tibbles, "Bud, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," is taken from the 1942 film Casablanca, in which Humphrey Bogart says the same thing like D.W. at the end of the movie.

Episode connections

 * The soap opera that the alligators watch is the same one that Arthur watches in "Is There a Doctor in the House?," and in fact appears to be a repeat of the same episode.
 * Gussie switches the show to the Crosswire Motors duck commercial from "Flippity Francine."
 * Just like Sue Ellen in "Sue Ellen Moves In", Ladonna moves to Elwood City in the winter.
 * The Treehouse has building materials in front of it, and has two ladders leaning against the tree. This suggests it was recently rebuilt, as it was in "Castles in the Sky".

Production notes

 * This is the first episode produced by 9 Story Entertainment.
 * This was the first installment of Arthur to be broadcast in the United States on PBS Kids in widescreen high-definition, though this option had been available in some non-U.S. markets for at least a couple of previous seasons, and savvy U.S. viewers could find recordings of these broadcasts online.
 * This is the first episode to use flash animation instead of digital ink and paint.
 * This is the first episode when the characters have white tongues again, as they did in season 1.
 * This is the first episode where Drew Adkins, Jake Beale, and Siam Yu voice Arthur, D.W., and Brain, respectively.

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