Revenge of the Chip

"Revenge of the Chip" is the second half of the 5th episode of season 3 of the animated children's series Arthur. It originally aired on November 2nd, 1998.

Summary
D.W. doesn't like to be reminded of the events in "The Chips are Down." Throughout the day, all of the kids and adults tease about D.W.'s incident. D.W.'s furious that this went public, and she blames Arthur, but she finds out that it was really her mom who told other people. Jane apologizes, but D.W.'s upset again and she runs off when Jane starts telling the story to someone else.

Plot Outline
Arthur, Buster, and Francine are watching a new episode of You Do the Most Embarrassing Things. On the show, the host asks a young boy about a time he ate a sandwich, only to find half a worm left in it. When asked what he did, the kids panic and insist that he should've spit it out or been hospitalized, but the boy admits to eating the rest of the sandwich. They then show a live reenactment of the event, prompting Francine to try to turn off the show out of disgust. Buster then queues the episode to begin, as there are "eleven more embarrassing minutes to come".

During lunch, Arthur and his family are discussing getting Arthur tickets to go to "You Do the Most Embarrassing Things Live" at Wonder World, and D.W. wants to go too. Arthur insists no, as she would only embarrass him in front of his friends, but she says otherwise. Arthur brings up a time D.W. went to the movies with Arthur, but in trying to get a better view dumped a large popcorn on Mr. Haney's head, much to Arthur's embarrassment. D.W. claimed that that was too long ago when she was little, so Arthur brings up the time she thought that she would die from eating a green potato chip. D.W. does not like to be reminded of the events in "The Chips are Down," and tries to prove she's grown up enough to attend the show.

At the library, D.W. comes in wheeling a squeaky wagon that disrupts the patrons, but the two carry on to find some "grown-up" books for D.W. She rents the largest book in the entire library as a bedtime story called "Macro Economics", only she does not know what that means. At the ice cream parlor, D.W. declines to buy her favorite ice cream and instead gets "something vegetarian". While there, Mrs. Powers remarks that she heard the cutest thing about D.W., and is hoping that she is well. Confused, D.W. asks Arthur what that meant. At the park, Mrs. Deegan and Mrs. Barnes call to D.W. hoping that she is feeling better, as they "wouldn't want to lose her". The Tibble twins then show up laughing at D.W., mocking her for thinking green potato chips would kill her. Angered, D.W. accuses Arthur of telling everybody the story to make her look like a little kid so she couldn't go to the show. Arthur denies this and tells her to talk to his friends to see that they don't know about it. Unfortunately, Francine and Muffy tease D.W. too, and D.W. promises to expose Arthur for his prank.

D.W. spends the week trying to eavesdrop on Arthur every time he's hanging with Buster, hoping to catch him in the act of telling the green chip story to his friend. However, Buster foils her every time with a jolly "Hello, D.W.!", catching her off guard. Later in the week, Arthur shows D.W. an article in the newspaper's "Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella" column, telling the story of how D.W. ate the green chip after Arthur tricked her into thinking that it was in fact poisonous. D.W. then has a fantasy of herself as the President of the United States, and is mocked in front of the press by a reporter (Who happens to be Francine) for her fear of green potato chips. Desperate, D.W. begs Arthur to help her stop the word from getting out, and he agrees to, but only to avoid her torturing him with her nagging and wailing.

The two go around town collecting every newspaper with the story in it, and send them to the recycling center. Unfortunately, everybody calls for a re-delivery due to the missing papers, ruining D.W.'s plan. At home, she puts on a football helmet hoping nobody would recognize her, and again accuses Arthur of lying to her (And for stealing Crazy Bus and her snowball). Suddenly, D.W. overhears her mother in the dining room cutting out the story from the newspaper, remarking that the green chip story was so funny she had to share it with the town, and was going to forward it to the rest of the family. Horrified, D.W. bursts in and realizes it was her mom the whole time, and breaks down in tears. Jane sees her mistake and apologizes for letting it get out, and promises never to repeat the story again. D.W. apologizes to Arthur for accusing him, and Arthur gives her a ticket to the show to make her feel better. Jane then asks Arthur to send the papers to the recycling center, much to his dismay.

At the lineup for the show, D.W. continues to lie low to avoid embarrassment, as the story is still fresh in everyone's minds. Arthur's friends encourage her, saying that parents can sometimes be embarrassing. D.W. then overhears her mom telling somebody about the story again! Distraught, she runs away, not realizing that her mother was telling her friend Mrs. MacGrady that it's best not to mention the story to her again. At the pier, D.W. runs into Binky practicing for a ballet, and she asks him what he does when someone does something he doesn't like. He explains that he stares at them intently and that usually gets them to stop. Jane runs in to explain to D.W. that Mrs. MacGrady had asked about the story and that she was merely explaining to her not to bring it up, and decides that the best thing to do is "never to talk about it because she wants to respect her daughter's feelings". D.W. calms down and with the air clear decides to enjoy the show.

At the show, the host calls out a kid "who ate a green potato chip and thought it was deadly!" Thinking that meant her, D.W. ducks for cover but it turns out to be Binky, who stares at the audience dead in the eye when they laugh at his experience, shutting them up. Binky then displays his new ballet rendition, "Don't Eat the Green Ones!" Binky dances with his friends, dressed as potato chips until his friend Molly enters in her green chip outfit. Binky then takes a bite out of the chip, much to Molly's confusion.

Trivia/Goofs

 * It's strange that Jane would publish the green chip story when D.W. made it very clear in the beginning of the episode that she was deeply embarrassed by that incident, and Jane was in the room at the time.
 * At lunch, Arthur is seen inspecting his food for any worms, referring to the show's intro where he saw a kid eat a worm on T.V.
 * D.W. accuses Arthur of stealing her snowball....again!
 * D.W. accuses Arthur of stealing her Crazy Bus CD in Play it Again, D.W., but is reminded that it was Mom and Dad who took it.
 * Binky is doing ballet again, as he took it up in the previous episode The Chips Are Down.
 * Arthur keeps saying that D.W. "thought" she was gonna die from eating the green chip; he seems to forget it was he who tricked her into thinking just that in the previous episode.
 * Binky's ballet partners are actually the Tough Customers, as Molly MacDonald is among those in the group.
 * This is one of the few episodes to feature a gun onscreen (However, it was a laser gun, as Arthur's flashback to the movie theater involved an astronaut preparing to fight alien space invaders).
 * Mr. Haney has another spate of bad luck in this episode; D.W. dumped her popcorn on him in the movie theater flashback.
 * Buster says his mom used to call him "Boo-Boo" and accidentally embarrassed him by saying it in front of his friends on one occasion
 * You Do the Most Emberrasing Things (the show playing in the intro) is a spoof of Kid's Say the Darndest Things