D.W. Blows the Whistle

"D.W. Blows the Whistle" is the second half of the 16th episode of season 2 of the animated children's series Arthur. Together with Love Notes for Muffy, it first aired on March 16, 1998. It was written by Barry Rinehart and Ian Saunders and the storyboards were done by Robert Yap.

Summary
D.W.'s overzealous safety patrolling and whistle blowing is annoying everyone. Arthur and his friends worry she may ruin the upcoming soapbox race. At the race, D.W. finds herself in an unsafe situation when she is stuck at the top of a large pine tree after she climbs to get a better view.

Plot
The episode begins as Arthur and Brain are racing in a rally off-road truck through a canyon. Arthur's the driver, and Brain's the navigator. They're racing against a truck being driven by Muffy with Francine as her navigator.

Thanks to Arthur's deft driving skills, they manage to pull ahead just before the finish line. Then they hear a siren. D.W. is portrayed as a highway patrol officer on a motorcycle who pulls them over, and starts reading off a list of infractions such as no license plate, no turn signals, and the big numbers on the side of the car are a distraction.

Francine and Muffy race past to victory, laughing as they go. Arthur tries to explain that the car they're driving is a race car and they're in a race! Moments later they are thrown in a jail cell for their long list of charges.

D.W. walks off after locking them in, saying that they obstructed justice too. There's a skeleton in the jail cell as well. Brain says that D.W. is pretty strict when it comes to safety.

D.W. and the rest of her preschool class are given a presentation on safety by "Officer Safety" from the fire department. He tells them to "Always Be Careful". At the end, all of the preschoolers, including D.W. are presented with her very own "Safety Whistle" on a string to go around her neck, and is made a "Junior Safety Officer".

D.W. imagines that she's made a "princess of safety" in a grand presentation inside a castle, and in addition to the whistle, and flowers, receives a "safety pony" complete with its own bike helmet and rollerblade kneepads.

D.W. takes her role as "Junior Safety Officer" very seriously. On the way home, D.W. asks Mom if she can take the whistle to when they go to see "Mary Moo Cow on Ice". Mom says ok, as long as she doesn't blow it.

Then D.W. spots something that isn't safe! D.W. blows the whistle as a young boy walks out onto the street. The boy's mother thanks D.W. for being so alert. Her son, Matthew could have been hurt if it wasn't for D.W.'s whistling. D.W. beams.

Arthur meanwhile has got other things to worry about. With the Brain, Arthur is working on a soapbox cart for the "Ratburn Rally", which is a soapbox cart race that Mr. Ratburn holds annually on a steep hill in Elwood City.

The race is arranged in side-by-side heats, with the faster of two cars going on to the next round. Among the other vehicles entered is one that looks like a biplane, and another which looks like an old pram. When D.W. finds Arthur at work in the garage with Brain, she starts blowing her whistle, saying that the vehicle is unsafe because there aren't any seatbelts for one thing.

Arthur gets mad, but Mom admits that seatbelts would be a good idea. Brain agrees, saying the car would benefit "from some sort of biomechanical restraint system." However, over the next few days D.W. becomes too strict.

Arthur's having a bath, and while he races his toy rally race cars around the rim of the bath, he can hear D.W. blowing her whistle and annoying everyone.

First D.W. says that Dad is cooking dinner using a hot stove, which is dangerous, since he could get burned then Mom's reading a magazine without wearing gloves because she could get a serious paper cut then exclaims that Pal ran down the stairs without holding on to the handrail. Arthur shouts that Pal doesn't even have hands...

D.W. rushes into the bathroom. Arthur gasps... D.W. blows her whistle at him, saying that he should be wearing a personal flotation device if he's having a bath...

All of Arthur's friends are in the race too, and like Arthur, they're sick of D.W.'s whistle-blowing and being a nuisance...

Arthur comes up with the clever idea of blowing the whistle on D.W. by finding her doing something unsafe.
 * D.W. told Muffy that her long hair was a safety hazard.
 * When Binky said hi to D.W., she told him off for talking to strangers...

They arrange a stakeout, and watch what she does in secret as she goes for a walk one morning. They all have Bionic Bunny walkie talkies which they use to contact one another. Francine and Muffy are hiding in Muffy's limo, Binky hides behind a fence, and Arthur hides in a garbage can with a periscope.

They all keep track of D.W.'s movements... D.W. doesn't do a single thing wrong. Binky thinks he almost has her at one point, when her shoe comes unbuckled, but D.W. stops and fixes it before they can bust her for it.

She skips past Muffy's limo -- Muffy thinks they may have her for skipping without a helmet -- but Francine comments that they do that too... and then towards Arthur in the garbage can. On the way, she picks up an ice cream that had been dropped.

Thinking that it could a slipping hazard, she picks it up and dumps it in the garbage can, and walks off. The gang meets up, and is forced to admit that their stakeout attempt was a bust.

Everyone is following D.W. waiting for her to make a mistake and do something unsafe. They conveniently ignore the fact that she's wandering the neighborhood alone. They just hope D.W. won't spoil the race. Arthur imagines. The race is about to go, when D.W. stops everything due to safety infractions.

After D.W. fixes everything, the race stinks. Mr. Ratburn has to use a quiet popgun instead of a starter's pistol, and the two racers have cushions mounted all over them, and soft under-inflated wheels to slow them down.

Mr. Ratburn looks miffed as he shoots his gun, and the cars begin to slowly along a level stretch of pavement (not a hill!). The drivers look very annoyed at having to go so slowly. Then we focus on two snails which are managing to outpace the vehicles. One says to the other that this is their kind of a race... and then D.W. tells the SNAILS to slow down too!

Come the day of the race, there's bad news for Arthur as he eats his "Crunch" cereal at breakfast. Mom and Dad are going to drop Baby Kate off at Grandma Thora's and then come to see Arthur at the race.

So Arthur will have to take D.W. with him. But D.W. isn't to bother Arthur. Arthur can't believe it. He still believes that D.W. will ruin everything. Once Arthur arrives at the race location, a very steep hill, there's already a gigantic crowd of spectators and competitors.

Francine and Muffy are getting their vehicle ready; when they see Arthur with D.W., they aren't very pleased. Arthur tells D.W. to go away while he gets his car set up with the Brain. D.W. can't see much with all of the people around, and gets bored.

Then she sees a large pine tree. If she was to climb that, then she could see everything. So she does. Only once she's at the top, it's a lot different; it's hard to hold on in the wind, and it's a long way down. Then she drops her whistle.

D.W. begins shouting for help. Everyone turns to see her. Muffy runs off to get Mr. Ratburn, and tells everyone not to move. The fire department is summoned, and D.W. is rescued by a friendly fireman. When he gets her back on the ground, he picks up her whistle and gives it to her. Just after the excitement is starting to die down, Mom and Dad finally arrive. They wonder what happened.

Arthur tries to protect D.W. by saying that some girl got stuck in a tree and got rescued. D.W. can't contain her guilt, and tells Mom and Dad the whole story. Mom and Dad are a little upset, but not much. D.W.'s sorry for going up in the tree, which was a very unsafe thing to do, and Arthur's sorry for not keeping an eye on D.W.

But it's then Arthur's turn to race. The family comes to watch him compete. Arthur gets into the car, and Brain is behind, ready to push it to get it started. They await Mr. Ratburn's starter's orders. D.W. suddenly notices that Arthur's helmet isn't fastened.

Only this time, instead of making a big show of Arthur by blowing her whistle, she quietly goes over and mentions it to him. Arthur thanks her for pointing that out, since it'd slipped his mind. Arthur fastens his bike helmet, and again is ready for the race. Mr. Ratburn waves a flag, and Arthur races off down the hill.

Trivia

 * This is the first episode in which D.W gets stuck on a tree.