Ladonna Compson: Party Animal

Summary
Apple picking, bake sales, craft classes...there is so much to do in Elwood City in the fall! And Ladonna plans to do it all. But when you're juggling so much at once, you're bound to drop a ball......or five.

Plot
In the introduction, Ladonna juggles apples while her friends invite her to various events. More and more apples appear until Bud mentions that Ladonna cannot juggle and all apples fall down.

Ladonna Compson: Party Animal

Ladonna admires the fall in Elwood City. Fern suggests making a leaf collection and also invites Ladonna to a craft class on Saturday to make gourd persons. Ladonna has a fantasy of creating a Frankenstein-like gourd monster.

At school, Muffy and Francine invite Ladonna to go apple picking, also on Saturday. Binky invites Ladonna to a charity event on Saturday for which she has to make a pie and rake leaves.

That evening, Ladonna plans her Saturday so that she can do everything. She declines Bud’s help to make the pie, since he does not know how to bake, though neither does she.

Ladonna gets up early on Saturday and tries to make a pie. She only succeeds in making a mess.

Ladonna makes a half-finished gourd person in craft class, but has to leave early to go apple picking.

Ladonna tires herself out picking apples and cannot stay to make candy apples. Back at home her mother helps her make the pie, but Bud eats off the crust. He suggests calling it a crumble.

Ladonna takes the crumble to the charity event, but a racoon causes her to swerve and the crumble flies in Binky’s face.

Ladonna rakes leaves in the Tibbles’ yard with some other kids, but wind and the twins scatter the leaves. At home she lies down on her bed and falls asleep. She has a nightmare in which her friends are angry at her for leaving early and her gourd person attacks her.

When she wakes up the next morning, Bud informs her that she missed the hayride and that Arthur is waiting outside. Ladonna apologizes, but Arthur tells her that no one is angry and that everybody sometimes bites off more than they can chew. He invites her for a walk. Ladonna collects a new leaf for a scrapbook in which she intents to preserve things like that moment.

Characters

 * Ladonna Compson
 * Fern Walters
 * Muffy Crosswire
 * Arthur Read
 * Binky Barnes
 * Francine Frensky
 * Cisely Compson
 * Bud Compson
 * Rapty
 * Bailey
 * Timmy and Tommy Tibble
 * Carl Gould(cameo)
 * Prunella Deegan(cameo)
 * Sue Ellen Armstrong(cameo)
 * Buster Baxter(cameo)

Trivia

 * This episode takes place in the fall, but there are other Arthur episodes that take place in future seasons (nature) without Ladonna, suggesting a time loop.
 * Alternatively, she simply wasn't part of the events of those episodes (in reality of course she didn't exist as a character yet).
 * When Ladonna goes to the Elwood City Community Center to work on a project together with Fern, Carl is seen there, which hints it's either Tuesday or Thursday on that particular day.

Episode connections

 * The plot of this episode is similar to "Prunella Packs It In".
 * Ladonna asked Fern for permission to "copy" her idea of pressing leaves in a scrapbook, referring to their previous experience with copying in "Fern and the Case of the Stolen Story".

Errors

 * The ABC website's episode description cuts the title short as "Ladonna Compson".
 * When Binky says "All right, I'll put you down for an apple pie", the trees behind him are green. When he says "Well, I can't do everything!" the trees behind him are autumn colors: red and yellow and brown.