The Last of Mary Moo Cow

"The Last of Mary Moo Cow" is the first half of the 8th episode of the fifth season of the animated children's series Arthur. It originally aired on October 23rd, 2000 with Bitzi's Beau.

Summary
When D.W.'s favorite show, Mary Moo Cow, is canceled, D.W. starts a petition to try to force her show to go back on the air.

Plot
Opening At 3:30, Arthur re-sets all of the clocks to say it's 4:00 instead and he sits down to watch Dark Bunny. D.W. comes in and tells him that 3:30 is her t.v. time and he claims it's 4:00, not 3:30. However she doesn't by it and sits down to watch Mary Moo Cow. Arthur begins to say that it's not best to come between D.W. and Mary Moo cow and proceeds to show instances of this.

At the store she rushes her mom, in the sand box she stops playing immediately and runs inside, and even the television repair man is rushed until she grabs the tool herself and quickly fixes it. Arthur then says D.W. would probably go crazy if she didn't have Mary Moo Cow to watch...

Episode One day D.W begins screaming throughout the house and everybody comes to see what happened. D.W says that Mary Moo Cow is coming to Elwood City and a deliberately dubbed-in-sounding announcer says that she is coming on Thursday at Mill Creek Mall and Friday at Petey Pete's Pizzeria. Mary can hardly wait! After Mary says: "Moo to you!", D.W says: "To you too!" and she then goes into a fantasy of Mary and herself as they sing to each other. And she takes D.W to her barn as it comes to an end.

After the fantasy, D.W chooses a costume and says that she will stay with Mary during summer and with her family for the rest of the year, while Arthur is in school. Arthur says that they won't put her in the show, to which D.W says "Not they, she. Mary Moo Cow". Mrs. Read points out that a lot of kids are going to be there to see Mary. But D.W. already knows this, mentioning that this is why she doesn't want anybody to know she is related to Arthur. After she leaves, Arthur and Buster then cheer and begin to watch Dark Bunny!

At the Mill Creek Mall, they observe a string of children and other kids all walking away in tears. D.W. tries to comfort them when they get to the front of the area and Jane apologizes to D.W, informing her that Mary Moo Cow's visit was canceled.

Meanwhile, back at the house Arthur and Buster are about to watch Dark Bunny but the intro gets interrupted when D.W. changes the channel to the Mary Moo Cow Show. After Buster and Arthur question this, D.W. soon chimes in with harsh voice of explanation. "Mary couldn't come! All right, the party's over! It's my turn!". She also steals their popcorn, to their surprised but not objection. Then, everyone finds out that Mary Moo cow is cancelled!

That night, Mom and Dad are trying to comfort D.W. as Jane explains that cancellation happens to all television shows eventually. While Dave reminds her that she owns a few of the video tapes too. D.W asks her parents if they were going to punish Arthur but Dave leaves with the parting advice of "Think of all the other fun things you can do now at 3:30."

However, this just creates an echo effect, which quickly spirals into the fantasy sequence sound effect. In the fantasy, D.W. is sitting at the TV, flipping channels with the remote control, but all they're playing is white noise. She gets up and opens the door, the doorknob of which now bears a face. She walks outside, and we see that the structures now have faces too. She picks up a basketball which happens to be lying in the driveway and tries to dribble it, but it won't bounce. The inanimate objects explain to her that things would not be the same now that Mary Moo Cow has been cancelled.

That next day, Arthur plops down in the chair in front of the television with a bowl of popcorn hoping to watch Dark Bunny. However, D.W. comes up and explains, "Mom says that I get to keep this time until I recover from my trauma!" Arthur comes out with his usual response -- he starts screaming for Mom. The program that's replaced Mary Moo cow begins to play, something involving the stock markets, a show very boring...

Arthur tries to get her to let him watch television considering how boring this show is anyway but D.W. claims it's still her time even if the new show isn't that great. Eventually, she makes a petition to bring back the show and all of her efforts are not wasted. She goes to visit Studio 12, where Mary Moo Cow is performed and she meets a woman who tries to tell her she can't see Mary. Which ends up in tears as D.W then drops the items she was given and runs away in search of Mary. She comes by a door, only to find out it belongs to the boring stocks woman, who tries to explain to D.W that life works like this, and change is usually for the better.

As D.W. leaves she hears someone begin to sing and realizes that boring stock woman WAS Mary...

In the end, D.W's efforts once again pay off, Dark Bunny gets cancelled and Mary Moo Cow came back! It was all thanks to Dora Winifred Read, the Mary Moo Cow fan!

Trivia

 * In D.W.'s daydream when she imagines Mary Moo Cow in jail, and there is a song. The lyrics are "P-E-T! Something Something Something" although with that amount of letters it would only spell "Petiti", not "Petition"
 * In the short scene where the petition paper is seen, Liam's signature is seen. Liam is one of D.W.'s classmate.
 * With the coins that D.W. collect, the come in a variety of the colors gold, silver, and brown, meaning these are the type of coin that Elwood City uses.
 * Arthur's address is revealed to be 526 Main Street.
 * The poster was spelled CANCELLED, but in subtitles when Jane tells D.W., she says "canceled".
 * Arthur breaks the fourth wall in this episode by shouting "Oh, what are you waiting for?! Go to the title card!"