Arthur's Big Hit

Arthur's Big Hit is the 2nd half of the 1st episode Season 4. It first aired on September 6, 1999 with "D.W.'s Library Card." Its education value is somewhat misleading.

Summary
D.W. breaks Arthur's model plane, and he punches her. He doesn't see why his action was wrong until The Tough Customers force Binky to punch Arthur. He realizes that hitting someone not only physically hurts but also hurts their feelings.

Plot
The episode starts in a boxing arena with Francine as the referee. It is Arthur vs. D.W. in the ring. Buster helps Arthur and Nadine helps D.W. Arthur and D.W. have their mouthpieces put in. Then Arthur sees D.W. on a seat and also in the ring, and finds out that the one in the ring is actually Binky Barnes in a D.W. costume! Binky says that he had figured Arthur would rather fight someone his own size. The real D.W. laughs while Binky chases Arthur.

After the episode title card, Arthur's about to build a scale model of the Bell X-1 Model Plane; which broke the sound barrier. D.W. thinks it's a game and was smashed up because it is in pieces. Arthur kicks D.W. out of his room. The next day, he is in the middle of building the plane, but all of a sudden, D.W. spills one of his paint bottles and ran out of his sight. After a few days, D.W. plays with his plane while the paint is still drying and gets fingerprints on it, making Arthur have to repaint it. The next day, Arthur completes his project and is thinking about receiving a blue ribbon for his model plane and getting to fly the real one. Arthur and Pal celebrate his completion of his model plane. After being told multiple times not to touch his plane, D.W. disobeys him. She flies it (while holding it), then the plane falls out the window, with D.W. thinking that it flies. The model then crashes to the ground, so D.W. goes and tells Arthur that he made the plane all wrong since it doesn't fly at all, and Arthur's about to reply that he made it exactly right, only to stop short and exclaim in shock, "What?!" So Arthur and D.W. go outside and when Arthur sees his plane destroyed, he gasps and picks up one of the broken pieces, shocked, angered, and devastated. D.W. says that if the plane broke the sound barrier, then falling out of a window shouldn't break it. Arthur angrily tells D.W. that he warned her continuously not to touch his model, but D.W. keeps telling him that he made the plane wrong since it didn't fly, asks him if he even read the instructions, and that it's not her fault if he made a plane that doesn't fly. Arthur gets extremely mad and he punches D.W. with his fist directly on her arm while screaming, "I TOLD YOU... NOT TO TOUCH IT!!!!!". D.W. cries loud enough for their parents to hear. Jane yells for him to come in the house for his punishment while David heals D.W. with ice, but she cries when he puts it on her wound because it's cold.

Jane tells Arthur to apologize to D.W., but he refuses to because she destroyed his plane, which took him a week to build, and that she should apologize to him since he already told her millions of times not to touch his plane. As David passes by holding D.W. in his arms, she bitterly says to Arthur, "You're BAD!". Then Arthur and his mom and dad go into the living room, Arthur sits in the time-out chair, and his parents sit on the sofa. David tells Arthur that he is now grounded from watching TV for a week for what he just did. He thinks that his parents don't even care what D.W. did to him and his plane model, which Arthur found to be absolutely unfair. Jane tells him that they will deal with what D.W. did, but that what he did was wrong too. Arthur still disagrees.

The next day, the Tough Customers hear about the case and dare Binky to hit the next person that walks by (which happened to be Arthur) to prove that he is still tough. Binky refuses to hit Arthur, so he avoids looking at Arthur for the rest of the school day so he wouldn't have to hit him. Arthur discusses it with his friends, and Francine asks him why he wouldn't apologize. After second recess, he discusses it with Fern, and she tells him that D.W. is "just a little girl," and that most kids her age don't know how to compare models with actual things; but he compares what she's said about D.W. to "a tornado being just a little wind".

After school, right by the Sugar Bowl, Arthur runs towards Binky and the Tough Customers and tells Binky that he dropped his pen when he ran out of school. So Binky is told to hit Arthur, which he does, making Arthur feel hurt and embarrassed. When Arthur is home, he learns that Binky kind of did him a favor by showing that it was very mean for him to hit D.W. because her feelings were hurt. In the hallway, Arthur says he's sorry to D.W. for hitting her and she says she's sorry for wrecking his plane. She asks him what kind of a plane doesn't fly, and he tells her, "A model plane." Now, D.W. has learned her lesson and she responds by saying that she didn't know and that she's just a child and to give her a break.

The next day, Binky apologizes to Arthur, who has learned his lesson, and Arthur thanks him. Then Molly invites Arthur to join the Tough Customers, but Binky dissolves the club and tells them that making someone to do something they don't want to do is wrong. Binky founds a new club with no violence, and will beat anyone who breaks that new rule.

Trivia

 * This episode was rated TV-Y-7 for Arthur punching D.W.
 * Arthur's middle name is revealed to be Timothy.
 * Both Arthur and D.W. got hit on the left arm.
 * During the week in which Arthur made his plane, he wore more different outfits than he's usually seen wearing in most of the series.
 * Arthur saying that Binky's huge is a reference to "Bully for Binky."
 * In the later episode "Bleep," Arthur was working on another model plane as a replacement for the one D.W. broke in this episode. But in that episode, D.W. said the curse word, which made him drop and break the second plane.