D.W. All Fired Up

"D.W., All Fired Up" is the first half of the 2nd episode of season 3 of the animated children's series Arthur. It originally aired on September 28th, 1998.

Summary
D.W. is afraid of the upcoming preschool fire drill. She and her family practice fire drills in their house to prepare her, but will she be ready for the real thing?

Plot
D.W., Emily, the Tibbles, and the rest of D.W.'s preschool class are playing with toys, messing about, etc. when a teacher pops in and talks to their teacher, Mrs. Morgan, for a minute. When he leaves, Mrs. Morgan tells everyone that during this week, they'll be learning about fire safety and sometime soon, they're going to have a fire drill.

D.W. imagines a "fire" drill, an electric drill with a long jet of flame where the drill bit should go. D.W.'s class, all outfitted with welder's hoods look on as their teacher uses the drill to make a rocking horse out of wood. That sounds pretty neat, thinks D.W..

However, D.W. finds out soon that that's not what a fire drill is. The preschool class goes out and practices "stopping, dropping, and rolling". When D.W. wonders why they're doing this, the Tibbles tell her that this is what she should do if her clothes catch on fire! The Tibbles relish the thought of having a fire drill with a great deal of sadistic glee... but not D.W.

She doesn't want to be in the school if it's going to go on fire, and so D.W., who usually loves going to school, decides that she'll have no part of this.

That night, D.W. wakes up, and looks up at the smoke detector in her room. She then tests it by poking it with a broom, so that it starts going off. Then she goes around the rest of the house, setting off the others.

Mom and Dad rush downstairs, half asleep, (since it's the middle of the night) and tell D.W. that smoke detectors aren't toys, and she should be messing with them.

Back in bed, D.W. continues to worry, and has a nightmare where she can't escape from her bedroom, since she's suddenly only very tiny. When she manages to get out of her room, she finds that it's not her regular hallway, it's the school hallway, and it's on fire! The firefighters are the Tibbles! They laugh, repeatedly shout "Fire Drill, Fire Drill" and run off into a big cloud of smoke.

She fakes feeling ill at breakfast the next day in an attempt to miss the fire drill. Arthur is pretty sure that she's faking, and when Mom says that D.W. can stay home for the day, asks if he can do the same. Mom knows that Arthur's got a math test today, so no dice.

D.W. spends the day at home with Nadine (D.W. is dressed in her dungaries, as opposed to her normal outfit) and sees the Tibbles walking home that afternoon. She asks if anything important happened today. The Tibbles tell her they did some coloring and glued some sticks together. D.W. finds out as well that there wasn't a fire drill. Her subterfuge didn't work then... she'll have to face the fire drill eventually.

The next day, D.W. has to go to school. She's still a little concerned about the impending fire drill, and doesn't really want to leave the car when Mom drops her off. Mom asks if D.W. will be OK at school, and D.W. says yes. As D.W. walks up to the school, Nadine tells D.W. that Mom would have come into school with her if she wanted, but Mom's too nice to have to suffer through the "crazy fire drill stuff."

In class, the teacher asks if anyone's seen D.W., since she hasn't come into class yet. The Tibbles think that she's "probably playing hockey"... "playing hooky" corrects the teacher. Then they spot D.W. hiding outside the classroom window. D.W. says that she will not be part of the "insanity."

Back home that afternoon, Mom tells Dad the situation, and then to quell D.W.'s fears, Dad has a surprise for her -- a special firefighter's hat with D.W. painted on it. Mom and Dad tell D.W. that she's going to be the Read family's fire warden.

D.W. then tells Arthur to go back to his cell! Not that kind of warden, they tell her. D.W. is going to be responsible for ensuring everyone's fire safety.

D.W. starts to patrol the house. They practice home fire drills, and test out a fire-escape ladder. Later, D.W. notices what looks like smoke coming from the bathroom. She opens the door to find out it was just Arthur steaming up the bathroom by having a shower. She tells him she wants his wet towel when he's done. Later, she sits watching TV with the wet towel, because a wet towel is a good thing to have in the case of a fire. Arthur tells her she's being silly, and that she shouldn't worry about the fire drill.

The next day, on the way to school, D.W. is a bit nervous, being sure the fire drill will be that day, though Mom reassures her, saying it'll be like the fire drills they did at home. D.W. just answers with a "Yeah, I know."

All goes smoothly at the school, until they hear an alarm going off -- The Fire Drill!

D.W. acts pretty calmly, probably due to all of her additional fire drill duties. She correctly tells Emily to not pick up a load of blocks, but to leave everything behind, as the class leaves the classroom under the guidance of the teacher. The Tibbles overreact, acting as if there really is a fire, and some of the other kids are a bit concerned (James says that he has to go to the bathroom.)

Nadine and D.W. walk through the front entrance of the school, and D.W. is very pleased with herself as she exits. This wasn't so bad. D.W. with Nadine, line up with the rest of the class outside. Not everyone fared as well as D.W. though... Tommy Tibble panicked and started hyperventilating... he's comforted by Mrs. Morgan. However, D.W. is sort of disappointed, in that the fire drill wasn't such a big deal after all. In fact, she'd like to have more drills, such as a "sudden loss of gravity drill"...

Trivia

 * Fire alarms will be heard again in "April 9th".
 * Canadian airings of this episode use a bell for the alarm instead of the electric buzzer-like horn, since bells are more commonly used for fire alarms in Canada.
 * It seems unlikely Arthur would come out of the shower to say something to DW, when he could just holler to her from the bathroom.

Home Video
DVD: VHS:
 * Arthur's School of Hard Knocks
 * Arthur's School of Hard Knocks