Hide and Snake/Transcript

(The episode opens in a space environment as a spaceship door opens revealing Arthur in a Star Trek - like outfit walking down a corridor. He then places his hand on a handprint door lock opening another door, walking into a room where a chest with a special chest with a protective plexiglass around it. Brain is also there, wearing a scientist's coat. Arthur puts a key in that automatically lifts the plexiglass up. Brain briefly opens and closes the chest, which reveals a bright, shining light inside)

Arthur: Everyone loves a good secret. Something only you and your friends know. That can be cool. But you have to be careful. It can be hard to keep a secret.

(Arthur locks the chest up and he and Brain begin to exit the room. Binky Barnes, who's in a trenchcoat, hat and sunglasses, quickly and quietly grabs the key from Arthur's pocket using a small grabber, without Arthur or Brain noticing. Binky gives a quiet, evil laugh. Arthur and Brain walk up to a set of lasers that need to be unlocked using the key, which was taken by Binky)

Brain: Okay. Give me the key.

Arthur: (checks his pockets) Uh-oh. I can't find it.

(Binky unlocks the protective plexiglass getting to the chest. Arthur and Brain are looking for the key, that they think slipped out while they were walking.)

Arthur: It must be here. I just had it!

(Arthur sees Binky about to open the chest, with evil laughter)

Arthur: NO! BARNES, DON'T DO IT!

(Binky doesn't listen and opens the chest, revealing the bright light that causes Binky to run down the hall and through the laser-wall, screaming)

Arthur: Oh, no! Our secret is out!

(Intertitle)

Arthur: Yeah!

Francine Frensky: (V.O.) Hide and Snake!

(Back to the story. Jane Read walks into Arthur's room carrying a mop and a bucket with a sponge inside.)

Jane: Arthur, I'm gonna do those windows as you're finishing cleaning your...

(But Jane sees that Arthur's room is still a mess)

Jane: ...Arthur?

(Cut to Arthur having just run out of the house and up the sidewalk. Jane leans out of the window and calls down to Arthur)

Jane: Arthur! I asked you to clean your room before you went out to play!

Arthur: I'll do it later, I promise.

Jane: And did you give Pal his bath?

(Pal, who's also leaning out the window, sniffs himself and makes disgusted barks)

Arthur: I'll do that later, too! I've got to go! Binky's counting on me!

(Fade to the park where Binky is leaning against a tree, covering his eyes with his arms, counting down to zero. While he's counting the others find their hiding spots: Sue Ellen, behind a bush next to the river; Buster in another bush; Arthur behind a rock. While Arthur's hiding, a snake with red, black and yellow stripes creeps up behind him)

Binky: ...18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Okay, ready or not.

(Binky stands by his counting place and continues standing for some time. After a while, Arthur, Buster, Brain and Sue Ellen come walking up to him.)

Buster: What's going on, Binky? We've been hiding for 20 minutes. You didn't even try to find us.

Binky: Oh, I thought you were supposed to hide and then seek me.

Sue Ellen: (surprised) I don't believe it! Binky, how could you not know how to play hide and seek.

Binky: Fooled ya! (Binky tags everybody around him, laughing.) They don't call me hide and seek for nothing.

(Everyone (apart from Binky) groans in disappointment. Arthur suddenly starts giggling.)

Arthur: Hey! Stop tickling!

Sue Ellen: Nobody's tickling you.

Arthur: Somebody's touching my back.

(Arthur grabs something from around his back. It's the snake from before! Arthur yelps and falls to ground, with the snake on his lap.)

Sue Ellen: Hey, a snake! Cool.

(Fade to the snake in a small shoebox)

Brain: Interesting specimen.

Sue Ellen: He seems lost.

Buster: Maybe he's just hungry. (wraps the snake around his arm) Let's take him to the Sugar Bowl then we could all eat.

Brain: I don't think cheeseburgers are a part of his diet, Buster.

(Thunder suddenly starts to rumble. Everyone looks up at the sky, which is starting to form dark clouds.)

Arthur: If he's lost, he'll be stuck out in the rain. Someone should take him home.

Buster: Umm... I don't think so.

(Binky shakes his head.)

Sue Ellen: Not me. My mom and dad said they saw enough snakes in the amazon to last a lifetime.

Brain: After that porcupine incident, I can't bring pets in the house without bringing permission.

Arthur: (picks up the box with the snake inside) Then... I guess I'll take him.

Buster: Are you sure your mom and dad will let you keep a snake?

Arthur: Well... they never said I couldn't. Besides, look at him. He wouldn't hurt a fly.

(Arthur enters the house quietly with the box containing the snake. He starts running quietly up the stairs and is just about to enter his room when...)

D.W. Read: (notices the box Arthur's holding) What's that?

Arthur: Ah, oh. It's just a toy... for Pal.

D.W.: (reaches her hand out for a peek) Let me see.

Arthur: (yanks the box away from her) No! I mean... it's a surprise.

(Arthur enters his room and closes the door. D.W. thinks and gives a suspicious glare. Fade to Arthur and his family having dinner, which are spaghetti and meatballs. Kate Read has red sauce on her cheeks and is putting two meatballs over her eyes, giggling. Arthur finishes his dinner and gets down.)

Arthur: I'm done! Can I go --

Jane: (interrupts) You cannot go anywhere until you've cleaned your room and give Pal his bath.

Arthur: I was just gonna ask if I could go up to my room.

David Read: Good boy. Get that work done.

(Kate puts her bowl of spaghetti and meatballs over her head. Arthur's almost out of the room, until he comes back in sight)

Arthur: Speaking of pet care, what would happen if a small animal, like say (lowers his voice briefly) a snake, just to happened to follow me home? Could I keep it?

Jane: (appalled) A snake? Of course, not.

Arthur: What if it were lost?

David: (as he takes Kate's bowl off her head) Arthur! Stop stalling! You've got a room to clean.

(The doorbell rings.)

Arthur: I'll get it.

(At the door appear Buster, Brain, Binky and Sue Ellen)

Sue Ellen: Can we come in? It's important.

Arthur: (waves in his direction as if to say "yes") Just for a minute, I have to clean my room. (whispers) And you have to take the snake out of here.

Sue Ellen: We know. It may be dangerous.

Arthur: Dangerous?!

(Arthur claps his hands to his mouth in horror as the four guests enter the house. Brain is carrying a reptile book.)

Brain: According to my reptile guide, we may have found a poisonous Coral Snake.

Sue Ellen: Remember that rhyme? (recites) "Red band near Black, Venom Black / Red band near Yellow, Bite a fellow."

Buster: I say the red bands were near black.

Binky: (as he puts a finger on Buster) I say yellow.

Arthur: (frightened) Wow. We better check.

(The five friends are halfway running up the stairs until David stops them.)

David: Hello, everyone.

Buster, Binky, Brain, and Sue Ellen: (nervously) Um... Hello.

David: Arthur, you have work to do. You can't play now.

Arthur: They're not staying, they just have to get something from upstairs.

(The friends go up to Arthur's room. Arthur opens his cupboard where the box containing the snake is. Arthur lifts the lid off the box and looks inside.)

Arthur: (in horror) Oh no!

Binky: (frightened) The red bands were near black, right? I knew it! It's dangerous!

Arthur: Worse than that (lifts the box to reveal...) it's gone!

(Buster, Binky, Brain and Sue Ellen all get up on the bed and chairs, looking down at the ground shivering, as they look around as to where the snake may be)

Binky: I'm... just scared I might step on it.

Arthur: Come on, guys. We have to find it.

Brain: How? Look at this mess, it could be anywhere!

(Three objects that look like a snake are shown: a periscope, a sock, and one of Arthur's old shoes. Arthur picks up the shoe, while Buster and Sue Ellen breathe a sigh of relief)

Arthur: See? Nothing to it.

(Binky puts on a hockey goalie's mask and looks under the bed while the friends begin looking in different places of the room. Sue Ellen looks through the toy chest; Buster looks behind several books; Sue Ellen and Brain move the bed that Binky's still looking under. Arthur cleans up his room as well, picking up an old sock to put away. Cut to downstairs where David and Jane are cleaning the dinner table. Jane is wiping Kate's face off as they hear movement noises from upstairs.)

Jane: Listen to them playing. I am going to have a serious talk with that boy about handling his responsibilities.

(Fade to Jane knocking on Arthur's bedroom door.)

Jane: Arthur, it's time for your friends to go home right now! (She opens the door to the room) You promised to clean this... huh?

(Jane sees, to her surprise, that the room is all clean. Sue Ellen elbows Binky to take off the hockey mask, so he would be recognizable.)

Arthur: (giving a nervous laugh) All clean.

Jane: (speechless) Well, very good.

(Suddenly, the snake slithers out of one of the cupboards and out of the room. Arthur and his friends notice, but not Jane. Binky yelps.)

Jane: What's wrong, Binky?

Binky: (running over to the shelves and cupboard) I... uh... wait... that book is on the wrong... shelf?

(Binky puts the book on the right spot again. Jane glares in wonder for a moment, then walks out of the room. As she does Arthur closes the door behind her. Everyone sighs in relief.)

Buster: I thought we were in trouble for a second.

Arthur: We are in trouble! The snake is now loose in the house!

(At the moment, lightning flashes. The thunderstorm begins! The friends peek out from the door as they open it.)

Arthur: Think of it as a game: whoever finds the snake wins.

Binky: I forfeit...

Brain: (signals) Binky, Buster, go downstairs. The three of us will cover this floor.

(Cut to Arthur, Brain and Sue Ellen in D.W.'s room. Arthur reaches an arm out from under D.W.'s bed and feels an object that's the same shape as the snake.)

Arthur: Hey, I think I got it.

Brain: (as he cowers behind a hamper) Don't forget, it may be venomous!

(Arthur pulls out the object, which turns out to be a jump rope. Pal barks madly at it.)

Arthur: Pal, it's just D.W.'s jump rope.

(Sue Ellen and Brain climb up to the top of the attic's stairs and look around using flashlights, but there's no sign of the snake. They climb back down and walk up to Arthur.)

Arthur: If you were a snake, where would you go?

Brain: They're attracted to water...

(Suddenly, they hear D.W. scream in terror as she runs out of the bathroom and down the stairs wearing only a bath towel around her body.)

D.W.: A sea serpent! A sea serpent!

(Arthur, Brain, Sue Ellen, and Pal run into the bathroom. Brain quickly shuts the door from behind. A loud crash of thunder erupts as the scene goes dark.)

Arthur: Ah! The power's out!

(The lights come on again)

Brain: Oh, sorry. I leaned on the switch.

Sue Ellen: (points at a place in the bathroom) There it is.

(The bathroom goes dark again.)

Arthur: Brain!

Brain: Sorry!

(Cut to downstairs as David and Jane are cleaning the plates and putting them in cabinets.)

David: ...So they helped him clean his room. What's suspicious about that?

Jane: Would you clean one of your friend's rooms? Even now?

(D.W. runs into the kitchen)

D.W.: There's a sea serpent in the bathtub!

(Fade to Jane walking in the bathroom.)

Jane: Okay, what's going on?

(Arthur, Brain, and Sue Ellen are cleaning Pal up in the bathtub that's filled with water, which was originally from D.W.'s bath.)

Arthur: Hi. D.W. left, so... we're washing Pal. Why waste water?

(Pal shakes the soap suds off of him in disgust as he feels something. Arthur, Brain, and Sue Ellen notice the snake again as it slithers out of the bathroom, unknown to Jane as she leaves, heading back downstairs. Arthur is carrying Pal, with a small towel over him as they and Brain and Sue Ellen leave the bathroom.)

Sue Ellen: (spotting the snake going into another room) There!

(The friends walk nervously to the room.)

Arthur: (whispers) We shouldn't go in there, it's my mom and dad's room.

Sue Ellen: You want them to find the snake?

Arthur: Good point.

(The room is filled with stacks of boxes.)

Brain: Snakes like baskets and boxes are kind of like baskets. We have to search them all.

(They start searching as soon as Jane walks into the room.)

Jane: Uh... looking for something?

Arthur, Brain, and Sue Ellen: Aah!

Arthur: Did you want us to carry these boxes downstairs?

Jane: (as the trio run out, each carrying a box) If you don't mind, that would be very helpful.

(The friends are halfway down the stairs when the snake pops out of Arthur's box. Arthur lets out a yell as Sue Ellen and Brain bump into him, which causes the snake to fly out and slither between the stair banisters, climbing down.)

Arthur: Oh, no!

(Once the trio reach the bottom steps, they put the boxes down and enter the dining room. Buster and Binky come out from the kitchen eating some of the leftover spaghetti.)

Buster: Well, it's not in the fridge. What happened?

Arthur: It's down here! Everyone split up!

(Everyone begins searching the bottom floor: Binky looks up the chimney, Sue Ellen, behind a chair and Brain looks inside the piano. Arthur looks around when he hears David moan in disappointment. Arthur quietly gasps. Arthur walks into the room, seeing David and D.W., who's wearing her pajamas, sitting on the sofa, trying to watch TV, but the screen is blank and static.)

David: (sighs) The picture on this TV's getting worse.

(Arthur looks behind the TV and sees that the snake has wrapped itself on the TV's cord. Arthur leaps behind the TV to try and catch the snake and shakes the TV's desk briefly with a grunt. The TV's picture comes back, putting a soccer game on the screen.)

David: Hey, you fixed it.

(The snake has escaped from behind the TV and slithers quickly out of the living room. D.W. sees the snake briefly and gasps as Arthur drags her out of the room. The picture on the TV goes blank again, much to David's disappointment again. Cut to the kitchen. The snake slithers into one of the kitchen's cabinets as Arthur and D.W. walk in.)

D.W.: I knew I saw a sea serpent. I'm gonna tell!

Arthur: D.W., if you help me, I'll read you that book about the Frog every night for a month.

D.W.: (gives a thumbs up) You've got a deal, brother.

(Arthur and D.W. start looking through the cabinets and oven and other places around the kitchen. When Arthur opens a cabinet that has Pal's dog food, Pal barks.)

Arthur: Not now, Pal.

(Pal whimpers disappointedly as he walks over to his food dish. Pal barks again. Jane walks into the kitchen.)

Jane: I really do not like seeing you kids playing hide and seek in the house, and would you please take that snake out of Pal's dish.

(Arthur and D.W. look up in shock. Jane suddenly realizes what she just said.)

Jane: Snake? Where?!

(Buster, Binky, Brain and Sue Ellen hurry into the kitchen at the same time)

Buster, Binky, Brain and Sue Ellen: Where?!

(The snake is indeed sitting inside Pal's dish. Brain picks it up.)

Brain: Look, his red bands ARE near his black ones. He's NOT dangerous.

Binky: See, told ya.

(David walks in a picks the snake up)

David: Hey, nice looking King Snake. I used to see these around here all the time when I was your age. You know, because of his coloring, some people confuse with him with the very dangerous Coral Snake. How did it get in here?

(Everyone looks at Arthur)

Arthur: Well...

(Fade to Arthur, Buster, Binky, Brain, and Sue Ellen are back in the park letting the snake free. The storm has passed.)

Binky: You'd think we should let him loose here?

Arthur: Dad said to let it go where we found it.

Binky: But we found it in your shirt.

Buster: (as he watches the snake slither off into the bushes) There goes the world's greatest hide and seek player the world ever knew.

Arthur: Hey, want to finish that game of hide and seek.

Binky: Only if you swear not to pull out a snake just when you're losing.

Arthur: Never again. I'm it.

(Everyone else laughs happily as they run off to find hiding places, while Arthur counts down from 100.)

THE END