Blockheads

Blockheads is the second half of the third episode of Season 16 of Arthur. It aired on October 17, 2012 along with "All About D.W.".

Summary
D.W. and Emily are upset when they get stuck with the blocks at playtime. But apathy turns to obsession when they begin building their dream house. Forget snacks and naptime! They've got a palastle to build!

Plot
The introduction starts in a big city with lots of skyscrapers. At the top of one building, Arthur shows the viewer his imaginary dream house. It has a robotic butler, a hammock, a bone shaped pool (inspired by Pal), and a very expensive television. Suddenly, Buster interrupts with a video call on the TV. Buster says that his dream house is much better, so he transports Arthur there with a beaming device. Buster’s dream house looks a lot like his normal one, but it’s made of cheese. He gets distracted by the cheese while Arthur introduces a story of a girl who built her own dream house.

Blockheads

One day during free choice at Preschool, D.W. and Emily realize that the only activity left is the building blocks. They think that blocks are boring toys, but they decide to make a little barn because there’s nothing else to do. The barn turns into a big palace that they actually enjoy building. The end of the day comes quickly, and Mrs. Read comes to pick up D.W. The girls don’t want to leave because the palace is unfinished, but Miss Morgan promises to leave it up for another day.

That night D.W. dreams that the palace is life sized. It still isn’t finished, but she walks through the completed sections, admiring the giant fountain, the unicorn stables, the Mary Moo Cow golf course, and the museum of Arthur’s mistakes. Emily is also there. The two continue building new parts of the palace until D.W. wakes up, smiling at some new ideas.

D.W. gets out of bed much earlier than normal. She wants to get back to school quickly to build with the blocks again, so she gets herself ready and even makes her mom a breakfast.

At preschool, D.W. and Emily continue with the additions to their wooden block palace. The Tibbles start knocking its walls over, so the girls hand over their own snacks to keep them away. Miss Morgan has the class go outside later that day, but D.W. and Emily don’t want to stop building. They say that they both need to go to the bathroom so that they can continue on the palace. But soon they run out of blocks so they come up with another plan. Emily fakes an injury so D.W. can sneak into the hallway closet, where more blocks are kept for the younger children. With the additional blocks, the palace continues to grow in size. Miss Morgan thinks that D.W. and Emily should let the other children play with the blocks. She asks them to take the palace down, but they convince her to let it stay for one more day.

The next day the Tibbles demand more snacks, so D.W. and Emily give up their raisins for the safety of the palace. But now some of the other students are playing with the blocks; building things that Emily and D.W. don’t want, using the wrong block color, and accidentally knocking sections over.

D.W. and Emily become obsessed with their palace. They don’t want to do anything but make it bigger. Their arms begin to feel sore from the constant stacking, and they skip snack for more building time. At nap time, D.W. dreams that the life-sized palace falls down uncompleted. After waking up, they continue building until a visitor demands their attention. He brings a koala with him for the class to pet, and D.W. and Emily are torn between building more or stopping to pet the cute animal. Suddenly a loose block knocks over the whole palace. D.W. and Emily are upset, but get relieved when they realize that their obsession can stop. The walk over to the koala and Miss Morgan reminds them to pick up their block mess. They shrug, smile, and pet the koala.

Trivia

 * When Emily distracted Miss Morgan so D.W. could go steal more blocks from the 3 year old class, they overlooked the fact that they would need to distract the 3-year-old class teacher as well.
 * In this episode, D.W. acknowledges the fact that mermaids are imaginary much to Emily's surprise.

Episode connections

 * Buster's dream house completely made of cheese is similar to his Tree House design from "Castles in the Sky."
 * The chalkboard is still smeared with paint from "My Fair Tommy."

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