Arthur's Underwear (episode)

Summary
Binky rips his pants in class, revealing his underwear. Arthur cannot stop laughing every time he thinks of it, but he is having nightmares when he is not wearing pants.

Plot
In class, after Binky solves a difficult math problem on the blackboard, he drops the chalk and bends down to pick it up, but accidentally rips his pants at the butt, revealing his pink underwear with green polka dots to all of his friends. The kids find this hilarious, much to Binky's embarrassment, though Mr. Ratburn uses his coat to cover the rip before telling Binky to get over to Ms. Tingley to have his pants fixed. Arthur, of course, can't stop laughing every time he thinks of it. Then Mr Ratburn tells everyone "Yes Binky is wearing underwear just like everyone else in this room."

However, that night after going to bed, Arthur has a nightmare where he oversleeps and is late for school. When he arrives, the class laughs at him; Mr. Ratburn points out that Arthur being late is one thing, but not wearing pants is quite another, Arthur looks down and realizes his white underpants are exposed.

He wakes up screaming and at school tells Buster about it. During class, Arthur's class watches a movie about microscopic organisms, and during a discussion about amoebas, Arthur has a nightmare in which he's an amoeba and his body splits in two, with one half being his pants running off.

Buster wakes him up when the movie ends. Arthur is scared he'll have the dream again, so Buster suggests he not sleep at all. Arthur does this and preoccupies himself with comics, singing, and his action figures until he finally falls asleep.

He then has a nightmare where his class is being held hostage by the Verminator (Mr. Ratburn), Bionic Bunny's nemesis scratching the chalkboard with his fingernails. Hearing their screams, Arthur rips off his suit to reveal his Bionic Bunny outfit (just like Clark Kent when he turns into Superman), and faces the Verminator. Unfortunately, the class and the Verminator laugh at him when they see he's got no pants yet again but he hides his underwear with the corners of his cape, and Arthur wakes up just as his mom throws him a pair for school.

At the Sugar Bowl, Arthur asks Buster for more help, so Buster suggests he sleep in his pants. Arthur tries this at night, but D.W. comes in and asks why. He says he's trying to break into them since they're "stiff".

She likes this idea and decides to wear all of her uncomfortable clothes to bed, much to Arthur's chagrin. The next day at the Laundromat, Buster tries to hypnotize Arthur into not being afraid of losing his pants. But he has a nightmare where he not only loses them, but they come to life and try to eat him. Arthur tells Buster to keep the whole thing a secret, to which Buster agrees.

However, at school, Arthur sits with Francine and Muffy, who are laughing because he may not have his pants on. They say Buster told them about it, but he denies this. He then eats with the Brain, who says Buster told him the dream and that he wanted to help him with his embarrassment. Arthur panics and goes to Buster for help.

To his shock, Buster admits that he told a few people, hoping they could offer a better solution. In his panic, Arthur's pants get caught on the tray rack and he accidentally rips them open, partially revealing his underwear.

The entire school laughs at Arthur, much to his embarrassment, but Binky comes to the rescue by using two lunch trays to cover him up and leads him to the kitchen. There, Mrs. MacGrady sews them back up for Arthur, and Buster apologizes for breaking his promise but Arthur forgave him, saying Buster didn't mean to do it on purpose, he was just trying to help.

Soon enough, Arthur's pants are finally fixed, and when Mrs. MacGrady tells him that "a banana without its peel is still a banana". When Arthur asks what that means, Binky explains that it means everyone gets embarrassed all the time — grownups, too. It was then Mrs. MacGrady states that Arthur's embarrassment won't make him any less than who he is. No matter what, he's still Arthur, even without his pants.

One week later, Arthur is relieved that he has not had another underwear nightmare, and Buster is amazed that of all things, ripping his pants was the cure. Just when they leave the Sugar Bowl however, Arthur points out something to Buster; he's wearing nothing but boxers! Buster wakes up screaming, and realizes that now he's having the nightmares, much to his dismay.

Major

 * Arthur Read
 * Buster Baxter
 * Binky Barnes

Minor

 * Francine Frensky
 * Muffy Crosswire
 * The Brain
 * Nigel Ratburn
 * D.W. Read
 * Jane Read
 * Leah MacGrady

Cameo

 * David Read
 * Sue Ellen Armstrong
 * Alex
 * Jenna Morgan
 * George Lundgren
 * Fern Walters
 * Pal
 * Bitzi Baxter
 * Miss Morgan
 * Maria Pappas
 * Dave
 * Thora Read
 * Patrick
 * Luke
 * 3rd Grade Male Dog (Number 3)

Trivia

 * This is the only time we see Mr. Ratburn without his jacket on.
 * At the end of the 2000 rerun intro on PBS Kids before this episode, Arthur’s crashing sound changes to a big splash of water.
 * Arthur's Underwear became adapted into a book in the Arthur Adventure series and published in 1999. There were some changes made, including the type of underwear some of the characters were wearing on certain pages.
 * Karma: Buster blabbed to everyone, so he got afraid in his dream.
 * Moral: A banana is still a banana, even without its peel." Or, as Binky puts it, embarrassment will happen in your life, but that doesn't make you less of a person.

Differences from the book

 * In Arthur's first nightmare in the episode the person (animal) that saw his underwear was a policeman but in the book there is also an old lady.
 * After Binky rips his pants in the classroom, Arthur imagines him playing baseball in boxers; even though Arthur didn't imagine it in the episode, and it didn't reveal if Binky was wearing boxers or briefs, but it only partially showed his purple underwear with green dots from the bottom.
 * In Arthur's nightmare about being dressed up as Bionic Bunny and saving his friends being held captive by Mr. Ratburn as Verminator and then gets laughed at when he arrives, Arthur had white briefs on; but in the episode, he had white boxers on with red dots with the Bionic Bunny "B" on them.
 * Also in the dream, Mr. Ratburn as the evil Verminator was dressed in purple; but in the episode, he was dressed in green.
 * When Buster has an underwear nightmare in the end, he was wearing orange Saturn boxers in the episode, but he was wearing white briefs in this book.
 * Jane brought Arthur his pants instead of D.W.
 * The laundromat scene was shown in the episode, but was removed from the book for some reasons.

Errors

 * In Arthur's first underwear nightmare, he wakes up before putting his glasses on; but when he truly wakes up, he is wearing his glasses.
 * When Arthur is seen wearing his underwear and no pants on, the white shirt he wears underneath his sweater doesn't have the bottom ends visible, which appears to be tucked into his underwear.
 * During the 3:33 mark, Alex can be seen walking on Buster (which is the result of a layering error).
 * In Arthur's first nightmare when he arrives at school and everyone is laughing at him Binky isn't seen among the kids laughing at him.

Episode connections

 * Later in the season 16 episode "The Best Day Ever," Arthur rated the events of this episode as his fourth worst day ever.
 * Muffy mentions this episode in "Fernkenstein's Monster."
 * Arthur splits his pants in this episode, similar to James splitting his pants which is not seen kept as a secret by D.W. in "The Secret About Secrets."

Cultural References

 * "Prelude in C-sharp minor" by Sergei Rachmaninoff is a famous piano piece.

Home Video
DVD:
 * Arthur: The Complete Series 2