Arthur's Dummy Disaster

Arthur's Dummy Disaster is the first half of the 13th episode of Season 3. It first aired on April 26th, 1999 with Francine and the Feline.

Summary
George becomes more popular with his giraffe ventriloquist dummy, Wally, and starts a short-lived ventriloquism fad at school. He starts acting less rationally as Wally starts falling apart, because before Wally, nobody noticed him.

Plot
Opening scene

In art class the class is showing everybody else what they made themselves when George hesitantly reveals his puppet he's been working on. He proceeds to voice it, causing the others to compliment it and instantly take an interest in George. George proceeds to make some jokes before smiling to his dummy.

Episode

At the end of the school day George is still making jokes with everybody before he mentions having to leave. As he does, he hears them discussing himself and Buster asks why they never hung out with him. Muffy recalls George from Kindergarten when he shared his juice with her, and Francine thinks she recalls hugging him before. But otherwise they don't really know him too well...

Arthur calls it weird and they all begin to question George, including Buster's far-fetched alien conspiracy idea.

The next day, George continues to make his jokes during Lunch. In swim class Muffy and Arthur see George and his dummy swim underwater together. Then eventually George is playing with it in while playing baseball when Wally manages to catch the ball in his mouth. Everybody congradulates him for winning the game and they carry them off.

Later on, everybody asks how they can be ventrilaquist also. And so later on, everybody is trying to control their puppets/dummys also. Muffy reveals hers is actually a special recording doll while Buster's is a stinky old sock. At home, Arthur is trying to practice and ends up upsetting everybody in home until they decide to put away Arty. In bed, Pal steals Arty away from Arthur and he assumes DW stole it from him overnight that following morning. DW still accuses Arthur when suddenly Pal walks in caked with mud...

At school, Buster shows Arthur his now clean, shrunken sock. Muffy then tosses her doll into the trash and they all comment on how they're growing tired of dolls, puppets, and dummy's. They also notice how beat up Wally is but George refuses to acknowledge it and they walk off. During art class, George uses Wally to paint the picture and Francine and Buster discuss how much of a hassle Wally is becoming until Arthur approaches him to tell him there isn't a rhyme for orange.

In Mr. Ratburn's class, George raises his hand in order to answer the math question and gets it wrong. So Mr. Ratburn asks him to stay for class before proceeding to lecture him. Arthur then asks George how he did, when George tells them he can no longer bring Wally to class, but he's still allowed to bring him everywhere else in school..

Later in the Library, Fern announces that it is now George's turn to go over his poem when suddenly Wally falls apart! Instead of staying he leaves the library and Arthur follows him while asking what happened to Wally. Arthur tries to tell George that nobody really gets to talk to George, but George tells him that nobody's noticed him until he brought Wally to school. So without Wally, he's just a nobody again...

With a bit of conversation, Arthur manages to convince George to try to give his poem anyway and hesitantly the moose boy agrees and then proceeds to cheer when he realizes he spoke his poem well. The following day at lunch, Arthur, Francine, and Buster notice that George gives Wally to DW... much to Arthur's immediate shock and fear...

Trivia

 * Buster says he wonders why he never hangs out with George but in previous episodes like "Buster Makes The Grade" he appears to be great friends with him.
 * Arthur calls his stuffed bear "Arty", but in future episodes, he's named Stanley.
 * This the first speaking role of George.
 * It is revealed Francine hugged George when George won a soccer game against Mighty Mountain.
 * Strangely Lisa appeared at Lakewood again along with the 3rd graders. Lisa is suppose to be at Preschool.
 * Despite being given to D.W., Wally again appears in George's possession in all of his subsequent appearances. How this occurred is unknown, but Wally often references his experience with D.W. as being a bad one.