The Boy Who Cried Comet

Summary
Buster uses Muffy's new telescope to try to prove that the UFOs he's been seeing are real, but discovers something even more frightening: a comet headed straight for Earth!

Plot
Arthur walks through a desolate area. He tells the viewers to imagine they could go to another dimension where teachers are aliens (Mr. Ratburn appears and pulls his head off, revealing he was an alien), principals who are robots (Principal Haney appears as a robot and explodes) and more UFOs than stars in the sky. He then concludes the intro, saying "Your next stop, the Buster Zone."

The Boy Who Cried Comet Arthur is at his locker and Fern comes by. She accuses him of oversleeping for three reasons: She says it was because of a book for detectives, before Buster comes by. He says something is finally happening. Later, at the cream shop, he says that while sleeping, he saw aliens come by his house and make a peace sign. He goes on to explain he was in an alien zoo, until he reveals the zoo part was a lie. However, he says he really did see aliens. While his friends don't believe him, he acted so realistically, it was almost spooky. To test out Buster's theory, Arthur and Buster bring Muffy's telescope (with a computer attached) to the tree house. As they fix it, a screw falls out. After finishing, Buster, spies Mr. Haney in purple pajamas, but then Arthur tells him to look for aliens. As Arthur leaves, Buster looks at the moon, and two Russian astronauts inside a satellite playing Go Fish.
 * 1) He was wearing two different colored socks.
 * 2) His shirt was on inside out.
 * 3) He didn't brush his teeth.

Next morning, Buster shows Brain his photographed "UFO", but Brain says it's just a shooting star. Then, at the ice cream shop, Buster shows Brain another picture, which Brain identifies as Jupiter. The next one shown, is the Crosswire blimp, according to Brain. Buster shows another photo, with "legs" according to him. Brain says it's just a fly's leg. Later, at the telescope, another picture is printed. Buster looks at it and says it's just a comet. As he reads about them, he realizes comets can hit Earth. Later, when he asks his mom, his mom says how destructive comets can be. That night, Buster dreams of the president (George W. Bush) being told about the Baxter Comet. He then calls on Bionic Bunny, who fails at holding back the comet, because the satellite containing the astronauts pulls at his cape. The comet hits Earth. Buster wakes up, and then screams.

Next morning, Buster tells Arthur to spread the news. Buster also tells some kids himself. Later Arthur meets up with Fern. He asks her whether she heard of the comet. Fern says she had and that "According to Mrs. Marbles, Buster has finally lost his cookies". Later at the playground, Buster warns everyone, but they simply laugh at him. Buster tells Brain to spread the news, but he doesn't believe him. But he starts to believe Buster when the picture is shown to him.

Later that evening, Brain, Francine, Muffy, Arthur, Binky, and Fern are at the tree house with Buster. Brain comes out of the tree house and says that he checked Buster's findings and he was right. Everybody starts to run around frightened, but then Fern steps on a screw, the same one that fell out of the tree house during fixing. She realizes it was part of the telescope. She then climbs up to fix it.

The episode finishes with Fern sitting with Arthur and D.W. at the Sugar Bowl. She tells that was how she solved the case and that without the screw, the telescope was giving them the wrong information. Buster and Brain come and show a newspaper article about Buster (printed as Cat Saver) finding the comet. The article also misspells Brain's name as "The Bran". Buster says that he wished that the comet would come back someday. Brain says that by that time, they would have discovered alien life forms. Buster asks Brain if he believes in aliens. He says that if Buster really is intelligent, there really might be aliens up there (he points to the top of a set). Someone says "Cut!". A tentacled alien holding a megaphone comes to them and asks them where their emotion is. He then says "Okay, Everyone take five!" as several aliens push the set away. "Arthur" pulls off his head/mask, revealing he was nothing but a purple big-brained alien. "Buster" then also rips off his head, revealing he was a red alien with short rabbit-like ears. They leave along with a feathery yellow alien wearing D.W.'s dress, a purple alien wearing Brain's pants and shirts and a blue alien wearing Fern's blouse and pants, as well as retaining the floppy ears of her mask, which she holds in her hands. The screens zooms out, showing the whole alien world is far away from Earth.

Characters

 * Arthur Read
 * Buster Baxter
 * Fern Walters
 * Alan Powers
 * Muffy Crosswire
 * Francine Frensky
 * Sue Ellen Armstrong
 * Binky Barnes
 * Bitzi Baxter
 * Nigel Ratburn
 * Francis Haney

Trivia

 * The name of the episode is based on the story of 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf', where a boy claims many times that he sees a wolf and when there actually is one, nobody comes to help him.
 * The newspaper refers to Buster as "Cat Saver", referring to the name given to him for his actions in "Buster Baxter, Cat Saver"; this is odd, as it had since become known that Buster's actions in saving the cat in that episode were not truly heroic.
 * The telescope part that Fern picked up appears to be a fastening bolt for the telescope tripod and the telescope, however this part does not appear to be a computer part, so the computer shouldn't have malfunctioned without it.
 * The fact that Ratburn pulled off his head to reveal he was an alien in the teaser is a reference to the episode's ending.
 * When Arthur and Buster pull of their heads, their alien forms are seen. However, Brain's, Fern's and D.W.'s alien forms are not seen. However, as the screen zooms out to show Arthur-alien and Buster-alien walking out, if the screen is paused at the right time, the viewers can see a yellow alien wearing a pink dress (D.W.), a purple alien with a white shirt (Brain) and a blue alien with a purple shirt (Fern) walking away.
 * The Justin Bradley version of this episode story is available on the VHS and DVD editions of Arthur Gets Spooked.

Cultural References

 * The opening of this episode is a parody of the opening of the show, The Twilight Zone.

Errors

 * D.W., the Tibble Twins, and several preschoolers are seen briefly in the background when Buster climbs up the jungle gym.

Home Video
DVD: VHS:
 * Arthur Gets Spooked
 * Arthur Gets Spooked

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