Arthur's Chicken Pox (episode)

Arthur's Chicken Pox is the first half of the 18th episode of Season 1. It originally aired on January 20th, 1997. It is based upon the book of the same name.

Summary
Arthur gets chicken pox and it is unknown whether he can go to the circus. DW is jealous of the attention Arthur gets and fakes chicken pox. Will Arthur recover from the chicken pox, and will D.W get away with faking the chicken pox?

Plot
The circus is coming to Elwood City on Saturday, and Arthur's family is excited, especially D.W. At school, Arthur and his friends are painting pictures of different things, when suddenly, Arthur sees the blue elephant that he painted come to life before his very eyes. Then it disappears back into the painting, when Arthur realizes that it was just a hallucination. He was then sent to the nurse who checked his temperature and then had him sent home.

When D.W. saw that Arthur was already home before she was, she asked him what was wrong with him, to which Arthur plainly answered that he was sick. D.W. thinks that he has big test coming up or Binky was going to pound him, but Arthur dismissed both claims, saying that he had to go to the nurse. Later that night, Arthur gets to eat his dinner on the couch, while D.W. has to eat hers at the table with Mom and Dad, which makes D.W. jealous. To make matters worse, D.W. has to eat spinach while Arthur gets to eat soup, again because he is sick. D.W. dismisses this as Arthur faking it. Later on, Arthur has a dream that he has to walk a tightrope on a unicycle while being taunted by D.W. Then he goes through a swirling vortex as he wakes up, only to find out that he has spots all over his face. When he screamed from the bathroom, he garnered the attention of his Mom, Dad, and D.W. After feeling Arthur's forehead, Dad finds out that Arthur has the chickenpox, and Mom arranges for Grandma Thora to come over to take care of Arthur. Grandma Thora treats Arthur very well, including giving him an oatmeal bath and letting him drink with the crazy straw, which makes D.W. very jealous, so she comes up with a plan: she used her crayons to make herself look like she has the chickenpox so that she would get some attention. This works, however, until she has an oatmeal bath and the colors are washed away, and as a result, she is caught and scolded by her grandmother.

The next day, Arthur is found to be well enough to go to the circus, while D.W. has to stay home because she has caught the chickenpox, which she shows off to Arthur, but Arthur tells her that she will miss the circus. D.W. doesn't care, saying that the circus comes every year, but you only get the chicken pox once. Arthur then turns to the camera and smiles.

Major Characters

 * Arthur Read
 * D.W. Read
 * Grandma Thora
 * Jane Read
 * David Read

Minor Characters

 * Kate
 * Pal
 * Buster Baxter
 * Binky
 * Sue Ellen Armstrong
 * Muffy Crosswire
 * Ms. Bryan (debut)
 * Francine Frensky
 * Ms. Flynn (as Ms. Kromer)

Background Characters

 * Fern

Differences from the book

 * Right before Arthur catches the chicken pox, Arthur has a circus nightmare; and after he catches it, he finds out in the bathroom as he looks in the mirror (not shown), and then his family finds out over the night. In the book, Arthur did not have a circus nightmare, but his family walked into his room the following morning, and found out he caught the chicken pox.
 * Ms. Bryan is introduced in this episode; although in the book, Arthur was the only one shown in the art class.
 * In one scene, Arthur was communicating with Buster can-to-can from his room window to outside. In the book, Arthur's friends were giving him get well cards and bringing his homework.
 * D.W. was seen putting calomile lotion on Arthur after he caught the chicken pox. This did not happen in the book.
 * When Grandma Thora gives Arthur a back rub after his bath, Arthur was lying on his stomach on her lap and was topless. In the book, Arthur was lying on his stomach on the sofa, his legs were behind Grandma Thora, and he was still wearing his pajama top while she was rubbing his back.
 * When D.W. fakes the chicken pox and runs down the stairs, Grandma Thora picks her up and brings her back upstairs for the bath. In the book, Grandma Thora was taking D.W.'s temperature after D.W. came downstairs, and before giving D.W. a bath.
 * In the book, when Arthur's chicken pox heals up, he goes out to dinner with his family. In the cartoon, he and his family did not go out, and Grandma Thora made sure that "all systems are go".
 * When D.W. finally catches the chicken pox from Arthur, she runs down the stairs, prances around and surprises everyone (which causes them to laugh at her), and even knocks over Pal's bowl. A healed-up Arthur tells her that she is going to miss the circus, but she doesn't mind a bit. In the book, D.W. comes down the stairs while her family gets ready for the circus, and surprises them when she finally caught it; only Arthur laughs at her. Then Jane tells D.W. to go back to bed, and D.W. cries over missing the circus; Arthur promises to her that he will bring her home a balloon if she was good and didn't scratch.
 * In the book, Arthur was wearing a bowtie with his clothes while he and his family were ready for the circus. In the cartoon, Arthur did not wear the bowtie.
 * The scenes where Arthur's family goes to dinner, D.W. pretending to call her friend Emily, the scene where Dad and Grandma Thora bring Arthur some treats and the scene where Arthur's classmates bring him get-well cards and homework were not shown in the episode.

Goofs

 * During art class, Arthur is wearing his yellow paint shirt backwards: the front side has the buttons and the rear side has the "B" logo.
 * It's strange for D.W. to refer to her older brother Arthur who is eight years old as a "little boy", since she is his little sister who is four years old, and that Arthur is already maturing. Later, the parents referred to D.W. as a "big girl", even though she is the little one while Arthur is the big one.
 * When D.W. takes a bath after faking the chicken pox, her hair was in its dry, styled look behind the curtain; but when Grandma Thora opens up the curtain, her hair is wet and straight.
 * D.W. putting spots only on her face would not be enough to fake the chicken pox. This also happened in the book as well.
 * This is one of the episodes from the first season with the characters have white tongues. This was a coloring error, and this was fixed later with Buster's Dino Dilemma.
 * When Arthur's family finds out he got the chicken pox, D.W. said Arthur has polka-dots on his face, but chicken pox isn't polka-dots, it's bumps.
 * It is very easy to tell apart chicken pox from lip-stick since lip-stick is just polka-dots and real chicken pox is bumps.
 * When D.W. is clashing the sauspans together, it is the same noise she makes from Arthur and the Crunch Cereal Contest.

Home Video
VHS:
 * Arthur's Chicken Pox

DVD:
 * Arthur's Chicken Pox
 * Hooray for Health
 * Arthur: The Complete Series One