All Worked Up

Summary
Arthur aces five quizzes in a row, but then his luck suddenly runs out when Mom takes a new job. Did his streak end because Mom's new schedule is disrupting his perfect routine?

Plot
In the introduction Arthur is in a space station preparing to take Pal for a walk. Mission control (Mrs. Read) gives advice and fixes a technical problem.

Title Card

Arthur gets his fifth “A+” in a row. Francine tells him that he should not change a thing, in order to keep the streak going. Arthur does not believe in streaks.

At home Mrs. Read tells the family that she has accepted an assignment that requires her to work in an office downtown for three weeks. D.W. is upset, but Mr. Read and Arthur assure her they can handle it.

The next day Mr. Ratburn has the class do a quiz on a reading assignment that Arthur did not finish. Arthur tries to believe in streaks but ends up getting a “C”.

The days pass. Buster and Binky discuss the pros and cons of having a working mother with Arthur. Buster suggests that Mrs. Read might like the work so much that she will do it for more than three weeks.

Arthur has a nightmare in which the house is a mess, and his mother spends all of her time at home on the phone.

Arthur and D.W. plan to stop their mother before she becomes unrecognizable. Just then Mrs. Read comes home with a new hairdo.

Mrs. Read tries to mollify D.W. by making D.W. her “personal assistant” at the house. She then helps Arthur with his homework and assures him that being mom is her most important job.

The next day D.W. “assists” her mother by calling her every couple of minutes until Mrs. Reads sends a fax telling D.W. to stop. When Arthur wants to use D.W.’s desk (the dinner table), she accidentally breaks the timer he was going to use. They work out that D.W. acts as the timer by counting quietly to ten while Arthur memorizes answers for a quiz.

The morning after the quiz the kids jump on their parents’ bed and Arthur presents his mother with another “A+”.

Major

 * Arthur Read
 * D.W. Read
 * Jane Read
 * David Read

Minor

 * Buster Baxter
 * Francine Frensky
 * Nigel Ratburn
 * Binky Barnes

Cameo

 * Muffy Crosswire
 * Maria Pappas
 * Alex
 * The Brain
 * Pal
 * Kate Read
 * Jenna Morgan
 * George Lundgren
 * Sue Ellen Armstrong
 * 3rd Grade Female Aardvark (Number 2)
 * Kenny

Mentioned

 * Mr. Claapword

Trivia

 * The quiz Mr. Ratburn returns at the beginning of the episode is on Cameroon, a country in Africa.
 * Arthur claims to be on a streak, although his quiz reads "Quiz 1: Geography."
 * This is the only episode in which Mrs. Read wears a different hairstyle.
 * It is revealed in this episode that Mrs. Read sometimes works for Mr. Claapword of Claapword Associates.
 * This is the last Season 9 episode of Arthur to air in 2004 in the US.
 * Moral: 
 * Dont get addicted to work for your own benefits.
 * Dont overreact for your own benefits.

Errors

 * Plot hole: Although Arthur says this is the first streak he's been on, the first was actually in "Arthur's Lucky Pencil."
 * The speed of D.W.'s counting to ten to replace Arthur's timer is about twice as fast as real seconds. In order to count ten seconds, she should have counted higher or at a slower place.