Francine and the Feline

Summary
Francine falls for a cute little kitten, only for Arthur to overreact and claim that cats are evil, which would cost their friendship.

Plot
Francine starts the intro by trying to choose which pet she would like, first a Komodo Dragon, then a Narwhal. Next, Buster goes on to say that he wants a Pterodactyl. Then, Arthur claims the only pet to have is a dog before he's interrupted by Binky, who claims to want an Ameoba. Arthur tries again, but Brain wants to talk about virtual hamsters. But both are interrupted by Francine who claims its her intro and how Arthur keeps selfishly hogging it.

Francine and the Feline At the junkyard where he works, Francine's dad finds a creature hissing at him during lunch. He comes home later to reveal his surprise, a kitten. Francine goes to pet him back Catherine interrupts and grabs him, nuzzling him and hugging him and so fourth.

Both girls go on to argue about the cat and later Francine tells the guys about her new cat. Arthur claims they're smelly and mean, Brain thinks they're too cute, and Arthur tries to convince her that Pal, a dog is the perfect pet. Pal then proceeds to steal D.W.'s cookie and wrecks her tea party. Arthur however makes silly nonsense claiming that Pal was teaching D.W. not to leave her food lying on the ground.

Later, Francine comes in to see Catherine dressed up the kitten, who particularly didn't seem to like it very much. She then reveals his name "Rosepetal". Catherine then sees Rosepetal laying with Francine the following morning and accuses her of trying to steal Rosepetal's affection.

The cat is a bit wound up and Catherine does not understand as she tries to feed him. Francine, however, seems to be enjoying this behavior as she tries to catch up and play with him.

Later, Francine plays cards with the guys and Brain compliments the intelligence of the kitty, while Arthur manages to upset/frustrate Francine to the point of leaving. Arthur does not plan on changing his mind anytime soon though, and keeps calling the cats stupid while beginning to worry that she may end up getting a lot more cats.

Eventually, he imagines that and him and the cats licking his ears until seeing Francine suddenly turn "cat-like" when he snaps out of it. Later, Francine comes over and has Pal and Nemo meet.

Arthur tries to convince her that Pal doesn't need a cat for a friend, but he won't listen and keeps yelling at Francine because he thinks Nemo was trying to kill Pal. But he suddenly notices Pal is behaving weirdly.

Later, he goes over the story with Buster. Who claims Pal looks fine to him... The next morning, Francine shows Nemo to their friends at school. Arthur is even more spiteful of Nemo, now that he ate his lunch. Francine turns the tables on Arthur with the same weird nonsense he said earlier over D.W. having a tea party and Pal eating her food.

After school, Arthur still notices that Pal is behaving weirdly when the doorbell suddenly rings. Francine lets Nemo go play with Pal before asking Arthur what they should study for first. It's then Francine and Arthur begin to argue and fight.

The pets listen before Francine angrily storms out and slams the door. Arthur tries to figure out why Pal is so upset when he tells his dad what they were doing earlier and his parents reveal that the animals were playing, not trying to fight. And so Arthur, who refuses to listen, then goes to take Pal on a walk when he sees Nemo and Francine.

Nemo and Pal then proceed to unhook themselves from their leashes and run around, making Francine and Arthur chase them. Suddenly Arthur gets knocked over!

He begins to laugh as Nemo licks his ear and the two animals continue on playing. Francine and Arthur resume arguing about which species of pet is better as both pets smile and simply watch their owners.

Characters

 * Francine Frensky
 * Arthur Read
 * Nemo (debut)
 * Pal
 * Buster Baxter
 * The Brain
 * Oliver Frensky
 * Laverne Frensky
 * Catherine Frensky
 * David Read
 * Jane Read
 * D.W. Read
 * Binky Barnes

Trivia

 * Nemo's appearance is noticeably different in this episode than later ones.
 * On the front cover of Arthur's Pet Follies, Nemo's original design from this episode was used.
 * At the end of the episode, Arthur (supposedly) changes his opinion about non-anthropomorphic cats, but in later episodes is not shown to be much more comfortable around Nemo than he was in this episode; in addition to this, Nemo and Pal have truly become bitter rivals, thus this episode's conflict was never truly resolved.
 * In this episode, after Oliver discovers the stray cat (who would be named Nemo by Francine) he brings home the cat right away as a surprise for his daughters. This is ironic, and such animals (even stray ones) would need to be adopted via legal paperwork that would go through the court system which can take time, so technically they would have adopted Nemo illegally.
 * Moral: Dont judge pets for your own benefits.
 * Irony: Arthur said the cat is playing rough with Pal but Pal is sad when he is not with Nemo.

Episode connections

 * Francine's room still has its lacy decorations from "Francine Redecorates."
 * The tea set D.W. uses is the same one Francine gives Catherine in "Francine Redecorates."

Home Video
VHS: DVD:
 * Arthur's Pet Follies (VHS)
 * Arthur's Pet Follies (DVD)
 * Arthur: The Complete Series 4