D.W.'s Perfect Wish

Summary
D.W. fears that she has frittered away her preschool years, so she is determined to come up with the perfect meaningful wish for when she turns 5.

Plot
The opening begins as Arthur is marking a calendar and mentions to the viewers it's not hard to make themselves a calendar and shows the viewers the one he drew himself before coming to March.

He reveals D.W.'s birthday is on March 1 and goes on to talk about how D.W. kept mentioning it the previous year. As he flips the calendar to the current day, Arthur notices that it is D.W.'s birthday, and yet she has not said a word. He then talks to her when she suddenly throws her toy unicorn at him. Arthur then wonders why D.W. isn't excited about her birthday.

D.W.'s Perfect Wish

Arthur heads into D.W.'s room and asks her why she's not excited for her birthday. She asks him if he actually wants to know or not, then goes over what happened. Beginning when with she was telling their dad what sort of cake she wanted: a plain old, normal, every day cake.

Then a bit later, D.W. plays a game with Emily. Emily mentions that turning five is really serious, and goes on to say that a child can not do the same things as he or she used to, and that soon they'll be going to kindergarten, and that they'll never be a young child ever again...

So now, D.W. is moping about as Arthur asks her the problem with this. D.W. begins to wonder if this is a big mistake and asks if she's wasted her childhood and Arthur tries to convince her that she's done plenty of great stuff.

Such as fooling the tooth fairy from the episode D.W. Tricks The Tooth Fairy taught the entire family about fire drills from the episode D.W. All Fired Up, got to get stitches at the hospital from the episode Attack Of The Turbo Tibbles, and so many other things!

D.W. goes over this and does not feel too happy and Arthur continues, telling her about how she learned to do flips on the balance beam from the episode D.W. Flips, her deer friend from the episode D.W.'s Deer Friend, meeting Mr. Rogers from the episode Arthur Meets Mr Rogers, met the President from the episode D.W. Goes To Washington, built a chicken coop from the episode from the episode Grandpa Dave's Old Country Farm, saw Crazy Bus Live from the episode Play It Again D.W., and caught chicken pox from Arthur from the episode Arthur's Chicken Pox(which D.W. mentions wasn't fun despite what she had initially thought)...

She also saved Cousin Lucy's ring from the episode D.W. Thinks Big, took care of Kate upon her birth from the episode Arthur's Baby, saved a special snowball D.W's Snowball Mystery, the latter of which D.W. remembers (and then mentions that someone took it). She then stops and blames Arthur, but he denies it yet again...

After hugging Arthur, D.W. thanks him for helping her be happy again this day and Arthur tells her that he wants her to be happy, and reminds her about the special birthday wish.

Later, D.W. and Arthur notice how dark the house is; upon reaching the kitchen, D.W. then sees her parents, Kate and Grandma Thora with the cake and presents and yell, "SURPRISE!" D.W. then blows out the candles to make her wish. Arthur asks her what she wished for last year and she reveals that she can't remember that wish.

Her parents try to inspire her, but it's no use; D.W. considers wishing for a pony, but is convinced not to do so as Arthur tries to rush her, claiming Kate is really hungry as a result. Grandma Thora tells D.W. that she does not need to fret over her birthday wish, since she made a nice wish for both Arthur and D.W. on her birthday. After hugging her, D.W. then realizes her birthday wish!

After D.W. finally blew out the candles, everybody digs into the cake. D.W. compliments the cake as Arthur asks her what she wished for and then he asks her that she tells him the wish once it happens.

Suddenly, the bowl of cake goes flying and Arthur narrowly misses it. He then slips and lands right into the remaining cake! As D.W. laughs, she secretly reveals that it was her wish, without directly saying it... Then Pal licks Arthur.

Present Day

 * Arthur Read
 * D.W. Read
 * Emily
 * Kate Read
 * Pal
 * Jane Read
 * David Read
 * Thora Read

Flashback

 * Timmy and Tommy Tibble
 * Lisa
 * Kyle
 * James MacDonald
 * Amanda Hulser
 * Maryann
 * Lucy
 * Edwin
 * Ms. Morgan
 * Fred Rogers
 * President
 * Dave
 * Ed Billings
 * Lucy
 * Unknown Male Adult Rabbit (Number 3)
 * Unknown Female Adult Rabbit (Number 4)
 * Buster Baxter
 * Francine Frensky

Trivia

 * Although D.W. turns five years old in this episode, she is still referred to being four years old in the later episodes, unless there is a calendar on display that says the date after her birthday, such as in "For Whom the Bell Tolls."
 * It is revealed that Emily is older than D.W., because she says she is five years old already.
 * This episode marks the first time Arthur actually refers to "Crazy Bus" by name, when recalling the time they went to the Crazy Bus Live concert. In prior episodes, Arthur's hatred of "Crazy Bus" was so strong he'd usually just refer to it as "that song", or on one occasion, "stupid 'Bus'."
 * D.W. calls "no" a "three letter word" and holds up three fingers when she says that she'll never be four again.
 * In the flashback of the events of "D.W.'s Baby", Kate's crying sound effects from that episode are replaced with the sounds used in most other episodes.
 * This is the last Season 3 episode of Arthur to air in 1998 in the US.
 * Timeline: The episode takes place on D.W.'s birthday, which, according to this episode, is March 1st. Other episodes disagree (see Errors).
 * Karma: Arthur wants to get to eating D.W.'s cake. Then he ends up smashing his face into it by accident.

Episode connections

 * This episode is one of only a few "clip shows" from Arthur. Others include: "Arthur's Almost Live Not Real Music Festival" and "The Best Day Ever." The clips from this episode are from the following previous episodes:
 * "D.W. Tricks the Tooth Fairy"
 * "D.W. All Fired Up"
 * "Attack of the Turbo Tibbles"
 * "D.W.'s Deer Friend"
 * "D.W. Goes to Washington"
 * "Grandpa Dave's Old Country Farm"
 * "Play it Again, D.W."
 * "D.W.'s Snow Mystery"
 * "D.W.'s Baby"
 * Mister Rogers did sing Please Don't Think it's Funny as a lullaby for D.W. in "Arthur Meets Mister Rogers". Then, however, D.W. was awake and Buster was also in the room. Here, D.W. is asleep.
 * The flashbacks from D.W.’s fourth birthday and Grandma Thora’s birthday were not previously shown, though Thora did celebrate her birthday at Once Upon a Restaurant in “D.W. the Picky Eater”.
 * D.W. also turns five in the special "D.W. and the Beastly Birthday". The events of this episode and the special contradict each other.
 * In "," D.W. was happy when she finally got chicken pox, though the episode did not show how she liked actually having them. Here, she says that it wasn't fun. Also, the clip that is used from "Arthur's Chicken Pox" isn't from when D.W. actually had the chicken pox, but rather from when she faked having the chicken pox and fooled Grandma Thora.
 * Arthur is seen reading The Mysterious Hand from "Arthur's Lost Library Book", hinting that he either checked out the book after the waiting list ended or he bought his own copy.
 * The flashbacks from D.W.’s fourth birthday and Grandma Thora’s birthday were not previously shown, though Thora did celebrate her birthday at Once Upon a Restaurant in “D.W. the Picky Eater”.
 * D.W. also turns five in the special "D.W. and the Beastly Birthday". The events of this episode and the special contradict each other.
 * In "," D.W. was happy when she finally got chicken pox, though the episode did not show how she liked actually having them. Here, she says that it wasn't fun. Also, the clip that is used from "Arthur's Chicken Pox" isn't from when D.W. actually had the chicken pox, but rather from when she faked having the chicken pox and fooled Grandma Thora.
 * Arthur is seen reading The Mysterious Hand from "Arthur's Lost Library Book", hinting that he either checked out the book after the waiting list ended or he bought his own copy.

Errors

 * In the flashback of D.W.'s fourth birthday, Jane is shown to be pregnant with Kate; yet in the earlier episode "Arthur's Baby" (as well as its direct sequel "D.W.'s Baby") where Kate was born, Arthur was seven years old and in the second grade and D.W. was three years old, therefore making the flashback in this episode a continuity error.
 * In the flashback of D.W. painting the new hen house in "Grandpa Dave's Old Country Farm", the audio description incorrectly refers to Ed Billings as David Read ("her dad").
 * Arthur refers to Lucy as his cousin, but she is actually his aunt.
 * In "Arthur's Birthday", Arthur said that D.W.'s birthday was six months away, even though his birthday was May 25. D.W.'s birthday was confirmed to be March 1 here, which is 280 days (281 days if a leap year) after Arthur's, and Arthur's birthday is 85 days after D.W.'s.
 * When Jane and David are advising D.W. not to waste her birthday wish on a pony, the birthday candles are still at their original height. But in the very next shot, the candles are shown to have suddenly melted down by three quarters (when Arthur comments, "I'm not going to eat cake with wax all over it.")

Cultural references

 * Mr. Read decorates a cake that looks like.

Home video
DVD: VHS:
 * Arthur's Celebration (DVD)
 * Arthur: The Complete Series 4
 * Arthur's Celebration (VHS)