Citizen Frensky

Summary
Sensational headlines and embarrassing photos make Francine's new newspaper, the Frensky Star, a great success — except that now none of her friends are speaking to her.

Plot
When Mr. Ratburn enters the classroom, he announces that there is no school, and the students will be going to work with one of their friends' parents. Mr. Ratburn gets the students to take out a card from the top hat and they will find out who they will be working with: Buster will be working with Francine's father Oliver at the Elwood City Dump, Arthur finds he will be working with Muffy's father Ed at Crosswire Motors; although he becomes disappointed with it, he gets a cross look from Muffy, and admits he will go. Francine is displeased to find that she will be working with Buster's mother Bitzi at the Elwood City Times, and claims it might be boring.

At Mrs. Powers's ice cream shop, Muffy suggests to Mrs. Powers to color-coordinate the ice cream flavors in order to boost business, but Mrs. Powers ignores Muffy's suggestions. At Crosswire Motors, Ed tells Arthur to never overestimate the intelligence of a customer, and then tells Arthur about the other day that he convinced his cousin to buy something worthless. At the Reads' house, the Brain goes to help Mrs. Read on the computer, but actually takes over the computer and installs a new software called Speedo Accounting and deletes her old version by moving it into the Trash, disappointing Jane. In Oliver's garbage truck, Buster presses the red button with the trash can symbol on it, not understanding that it will dump out the garbage. Much to Buster's surprise, the garbage gets dumped out in the center of the intersection. In the aftermath, the kids end up getting fired.

Francine then meets with Bitzi at the Elwood City Times. Bitzi explains to Francine that the building was built in 1949 from brick and limestone, and then shows her around the building where each of the rooms are. Then they enter the news room, and Bitzi introduces Francine to her boyfriend Harry Mills, a sports writer. Harry then hands the camera to Francine and makes her a substitute for the previous photographer before they go to Erie to take pictures of the horse race. As they watch the horse race, a goat appears, and Francine takes pictures of when the goat was ruining the race. She brings the photos to the Elwood City Times and lays them on the desk, and Bitzi is very pleased (as well as impressed).

The next day at school, Francine shares the news to the class and then uses her father's old camera and blue high school reporting cap. Then as Mr. Ratburn turns around, he knocks the books onto the floor. When he starts picking them up, Francine takes a picture of him bending down, causing the class to laugh. Mr. Ratburn then tells Francine that she should wait until after class to take the pictures. Francine then apologizes, but a picture comes out of the camera slot, showing a very embarrassing picture of Mr. Ratburn.

At Francine's apartment, in her and Catherine's bedroom, she made it into a news room, and then she puts the typewriter on the desk. Catherine then walks in, and becomes displeased over what Francine did to their room. Catherine then threatens to make Francine get rid of all the news-related stuff she considers "junk", but Francine points out it's something important she needs to do for the news. Francine then takes a picture to tell Catherine to shut up. Catherine then threatens to tell Francine to give her that camera, and Francine takes multiple pictures to put down Catherine some more.



Then Francine and Muffy go to the Elwood City Times, and an newspaper article called "THE FRENSKY STAR" is being published. Francine and Muffy start laughing as they look at the article. Then at school, Francine, Muffy, Arthur, Buster and Binky start laughing as the read "THE FRENSKY STAR" article. There is a picture of Catherine which looks like a werewolf's expression and it says "KATHERINE CRACKS!" There is also a picture of Mr. Ratburn bending down which says "No ifs ands or Buts!" Buster agrees and remarks that it makes the news very interesting, but funny. Francine chooses to capitalize on this success, and later takes a picture of Binky petting a rabbit.

After school at the Loring Cinema, Arthur, D.W., and their mother walk out after they saw Mary Moo Cow: The Movie. Arthur was unhappy to see the movie, and says that he should have stayed at home and done his homework. D.W. points out that Arthur lost the bet, because her imaginary friend Nadine can hold her breath, but Arthur states that if Nadine is imaginary, she can't hold her breath. Mom then says that next time, Arthur can pick the movie he wants. Then Francine takes a picture of Arthur after she hears he went to see Mary Moo Cow: The Movie, which he didn't like. At the soccer field, Francine sets down Nemo, and then Nemo runs across to scare Arthur, Buster, and the Brain, causing them to run into each other and Francine takes the picture.

At the Crosswires' mansion, Francine asks Muffy where Millicent found all the items. Muffy then steps in front of Francine and asks her what she thinks about the new outfit she is wearing. Muffy then walks back to find the pearls. Francine then takes a picture to surprise Muffy. Francine then jokes to Muffy that there might be a storm coming and then leaves. Francine then brings in the pictures and another article gets published.

At school, Prunella and some other kids start laughing as they read the newspaper articles. But then Arthur, Buster, Muffy, and Binky start reading the articles and become embarrassed. Arthur tells everyone that D.W. tricked him into seeing Mary Moo Cow: The Movie, which he completely disliked. Muffy then complains that she would never wear polka-dots and stripes together, and points out that she was just kidding around. Binky mentions that he thought of petting a rat instead of a rabbit. Then everyone repulses Francine for the insolent moves she has done.

At lunch, Francine asks if she would like to sit with Arthur, the Brain, and Muffy, and they respond by saying "No comment", instead of just saying "no". Francine then claims they are not false stories, but situations she reported. The Brain suggests that Francine could do an article that she took all the photos out of context. Francine disagrees and says that it is not a very good story. Muffy then proves that Francine is making tabloid articles that are insulting everyone, and asks Arthur and the Brain to join with her at another table away from Francine, then making Francine be ashamed for what she has done. Mr. Ratburn then hands Francine the newspaper article, and tells her it is not very good grammar, because it has all run-on sentences.



After school, Francine practices drumming on the roof of the Westboro Apartments complex, once again attempting to do so while singing at the same time with the same terrible results. Then Catherine secretly takes a picture of Francine, and then publishes an article titled "THE INQUIRER" and showing an embarrassing picture of Francine drumming under the title "DUMB OR DRUMMER?". Then Catherine puts them in people's mailboxes across Elwood City, then passes them to people who come by, and to the customers at Mrs. Powers' ice cream shop while she passes out ice cream dishes.

The next day at school, "THE INQUIRER" is being passed out to everyone, and when Francine sees it she hears everyone laughing, and then she walks over to the Brain, Binky, and Muffy and scolds at them by telling them it is not news, but rather revenge. They insist they did nothing, even though they would have been happy to do it. Francine then blames Buster, but Buster says he's just passing out the newspapers. Francine then blames Arthur, but Arthur points out that he and the others weren't the ones to get revenge. Embarrassed, Francine then walks out of the building and goes home.

Back at home, Francine looks at the article, knowing how embarrassing she looked. Catherine then walks in, and Francine asks her if she was The Inquirer. Catherine admits she was, and then tells Francine that the reason she did it was because Francine would understand what it feels like to be made fun of and that she didn't want Francine to lose her friends; Francine replies that she thinks she did but Catherine told her that everything should go back to normal the next day. Their father then takes a picture of Francine and Catherine for they finally are having a moment where they're not fighting; and an article is published, showing their picture on the refrigerator.

Francine opens the refrigerator and takes out a can of Sarah Soda, but Catherine quickly grabs at it, too, and they begin fighting who gets the last soda.

Major

 * Francine Frensky
 * Catherine Frensky
 * Arthur Read
 * Buster Baxter
 * Nigel Ratburn
 * Muffy Crosswire

Minor

 * Oliver Frensky
 * Binky Barnes
 * The Brain
 * D.W. Read
 * Jane Read
 * Nemo
 * Ms. Baxter
 * Harry Mills

Cameo

 * Leah MacGrady
 * 3rd Grade Female Cat (Number 2)
 * 3rd Grade Male Dog (Number 3)
 * 3rd Grade Female Aardvark (Number 2)
 * Jessica
 * Norman Hedgehog
 * Nancy
 * George Lundgren
 * Maria Pappas
 * John
 * Alex
 * Helen
 * Luke
 * Steve
 * Brian
 * Jenna Morgan
 * 3rd Grade Female Aardvark
 * 3rd Grade Female Rat
 * Jack Weasel
 * Patrick
 * Otis
 * Prunella Deegan
 * Little Boy

Trivia

 * This is the first episode to be written by Jacqui Deegan.

Cultural References

 * In the final scene where Francine and Catherine bicker over who should drink the can of Sarah Soda, Catherine referring to Francine as a "Squirt" is a reference to the popular decaffeinated citrus soda that is a Dr. Pepper product in reality.
 * The newspaper titled THE INQUIRER is a play on NATIONAL ENQUIRER.
 * On THE INQUIRER article, the phrase "DUMB OR DRUMMER?" is a play on the title of the 1994 film, Dumb and Dumber, but didn't really have anything to do with the film.
 * The title of the episode is referencing the film "Citizen Kane".
 * When Catherine is chasing Francine, Francine says, "Sorry, Charlie", which was a line from all of the Star-Kist commercials.

Episode connections

 * The scene where the Brain is at the Reads' house on the computer with Jane Read is a reference to a scene from The Perfect Brother, where he helped clean out the computer for Jane by deleting some files so that everything on it ran faster; in that episode, she thanked him for doing so. However, in this episode, he was taking over the computer without giving her a chance to understand it all.
 * When Catherine takes revenge on Francine for her sensationalist news reporting, she does so by taking a picture of Francine while she's drumming and singing at the same time on the roof of their apartment building. This is a referenced to To Beat or Not to Beat, where Francine tries to sing and drum at the same time for a school talent show, with terrible results as she can do both by themselves, but not at the same time. In this episode, it is shown that she still isn't able to do them simultaneously.
 * Mr. Ratburn's class previously visited parents' workplaces in "My Dad, the Garbage Man".

Errors

 * After Francine takes an embarrassing picture of Mr. Ratburn, the picture is already shown when coming out of the camera slot, despite the fact that pictures that come out of the slot actually start out blank and gradually become revealed in the following seconds.
 * While Francine is taking a picture of Catherine in their bedroom, the picture does not come out of the slot and then she clicks repeatedly, but the sound of a picture coming out of the slot in that scene can be heard when she and Catherine start running out of the room, with Catherine chasing her.
 * As Catherine is getting revenge of Francine and passing out articles, she is also seen at Mrs. Powers' ice cream shop and passing out the ice creams at the same time she passes out the articles; although in other episodes, Catherine is unemployed. However, the Powers' ice cream shop is a family-run business and doesn't employ anyone else.
 * In an article of "THE FRENSKY STAR", an embarrassing picture of Catherine titled "KATHERINE CRACKS!" has Catherine's name misspelled with a "K" despite that her name is supposed to be spelled with a "C".
 * In one angle of the bedroom scene near the end of the episode, Catherine's shirt is the same color as her jacket.
 * One the lines during Francine and Catherine's fight over Sarah Soda has Francine saying "They'll bury me with this soda!" according to the closed captioning, but it sounds like she's saying "I'll just burn you with this soda!"
 * Brain mentions child labor laws, and says they are not allowed to work, but he has a very consistent job.