Buster's Growing Grudge

Summary
Buster's convinced that his great joke will be the difference between a successful oral report and failure. But when Binky steals his material, will Buster stay mad forever?

Plot
The show opener for this episode has Arthur talking about how everybody, ranging from D.W. to the Brain, gets upset at least once.Then the show opener ends when Arthur introduces Buster as "one person who's always happy", but when he opens a curtain, Buster is shown upset, turning his back on Arthur, and unwilling to talk.

Buster's Growing Grudge

The episode begins as Buster watches a Bionic Bunny episode. Buster misses the rest of the episode while his mother reminds him of writing his history report before watching TV. On the way to school the next day, Buster asks Arthur about the episode, but Arthur says he missed it because he was working on his history report. Buster then says he did a weak one since it was done quickly after Bionic Bunny, and hopes that starting with a relevant joke he wrote himself will make his report "a guaranteed 'A'". He tries his joke out on Binky, and Binky, Buster and Arthur all laugh at it. In Mr. Ratburn's class, Binky does a lackluster report on Christopher Columbus. Anxious to give his report, Buster then gets shocked when Binky tells Buster's joke in front of the class, at which the entire class (even Mr. Ratburn), except Buster, laughs.

Upset, Buster starts his report on King Tut with a cliché joke, to which the class uninterestedly responds. Later that day, Buster is still upset with Binky taking his joke and he complains about it everywhere, from the movie theater to the Sugar Bowl, and even during a Talent Show at school.

Arthur tries to convince Buster to forget about Binky saying his joke, but Buster refuses. When Arthur says that it was Buster's fault for doing a report on eggnog rather than Egypt, Buster says that it's the dictionary's fault for putting those two words next to each other. Buster then finds Binky and apologizes, but Binky's confused as to why. When Buster tells him, Binky pays Buster for telling the joke. Buster then realizes that he can get paid for telling jokes and wants Binky to do a comedy act with him.

Major

 * Arthur Read
 * Buster Baxter
 * Binky Barnes
 * Francine Frensky

Minor

 * D.W. Read
 * Alan Powers
 * Rattles
 * Bitzi Baxter
 * Nigel Ratburn

Cameo

 * Muffy Crosswire
 * George Lundgren
 * Fern Walters
 * Sue Ellen Armstrong
 * David Read

Trivia

 * As the episode ends, Binky thinks that Buster and he could have their own TV show, but not Arthur, thinking that people wouldn't want to watch him on TV, although ironically, "Arthur" is the main character and title of this entire TV series.
 * This is one of the earliest instances where George wins a contest, which would become a running gag throughout the series as he became more prominent.
 * Buster suggests that he can go back in time by flying a rocket faster than the speed of light around the sun. This is a reference to Star Trek, where such a method has been employed for time travel on several occasions.
 * An interactive storybook based off of this episode was released on the PBS Kids website. It can be seen here.

Episode Connections

 * Buster's banana peel joke was first told in "Arthur's Lost Library Book", but it has since fallen out of favor with the kids.
 * In the show opener, involving D.W.'s worst moments from past Arthur episodes, clips of D.W. were shown from D.W.'s Blankie, Play it Again, D.W., D.W.'s Snow Mystery, D.W. All Wet, D.W.'s Imaginary Friend, and So Long, Spanky.

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