Arthur's Family Feud

Official summary
Arthur and D.W. tell conflicting and imaginative versions of what exactly happened to Dad's perfect soufflé, and Mom and Dad try to sort things out.

Plot
Dad finished making his special soufflé and invited Mom to see it. However, when the couple walks into the kitchen, the soufflé was toppled onto the floor and messed up, with Arthur and D.W. standing over it, while Pal was licking up the mess.

D.W. and Arthur blame each other for causing the accident and get sent to their rooms. Whilst upstairs, Arthur daydreams that he would have to take the blame for everything D.W. did; in this case, he would get arrested by the police as D.W. had stolen a supply of Crazy Bus merchandise. While Arthur is biding his time in jail, D.W. brings him a yellow radio with a Crazy Bus CD for him to listen to; however, Arthur feels terrible. In the next room, D.W. dreams that in the future when they are in a retirement home where they will be continuing the argument of who ruined their father’s soufflé.

The Tibbles come over and ask if D.W. is still going out with them, and when she says that she is unable to do that, the Tibbles begin to fight about who gets blamed most for the other’s trouble.

On finishing their dreams, Arthur and D.W. choose to go downstairs to sort the problem out, but passing each other in the hallway, they continue bickering once more.

Mom and Dad agree to settle this dispute by getting each of them to tell their story of what happened. Arthur does this by drawing and suggests that he was trying to complete his homework when D.W. kept bothering him to play; when Arthur wouldn’t play with her, she plans to throw the bacon toy at Pal. D.W. was doing this in the wrong way and Arthur planned to show her how to actually throw it. Going into the corridor, Arthur throws it to D.W., who misses the throw. D.W. runs for the bacon toy and Arthur tries to warn her about Dad’s soufflé, but he was too late, and D.W. knocks into it.

D.W. then tells her version of the story using toy animals. She agrees with Arthur saying that she was asking him a question, but only for the time being. Arthur gets offended and throws the bacon toy to Pal. D.W. then begins to throw the bacon toy to Pal, and everything was fine until Arthur threw the bacon toy, which went too far. D.W. ran into the kitchen to get the bacon toy, and not destroy Dad’s soufflé, but Arthur pushes her into the table.

After both stories were finished, Mom blows on her whistle when Arthur and D.W. call each other liars, causing both of them to stop and look at her. After Mom asks D.W. if she actually saw the soufflé fall, D.W. says no; Dad says that they were both in the kitchen when it happened. Mom then looks under the kitchen table. She tells Arthur and D.W. that neither of them are wearing shoes, and says that the kitchen floor is pretty slippery in just socks. Arthur and D.W. think back to what happened, and Arthur says that maybe they both kind of made the soufflé fall onto the floor. They apologize to their father, so D.W. can go to the petting zoo with the Tibbles, and Arthur can go to the arcade.

Dressed to go out, D.W. and Arthur saw Dad eating ice cream in the den. They notice that he is glum and plan to make a soufflé on their own. However, Arthur and D.W. begin to tussle in their skill of trying to make the soufflé and in hearing the noise, Dad walks in. When he realizes what the kids were trying to do, he smiles and helps them make another soufflé.

The soufflé looks just as good as the previous one was, and Mom notices how good Dad's new soufflé is. However, he corrects her and smiles while saying it was a team effort. Then the family begins to eat the soufflé, and mention about how good it tastes.

Major

 * Arthur Read
 * D.W. Read
 * David Read
 * Jane Read

Minor

 * Timmy and Tommy Tibble
 * Pal
 * Cheryl Featherfoffer

Trivia

 * This episode has the Rashomon effect; something that occurred is witnessed by a small group of people, and they tell varying accounts of what happened.

Cultural references

 * The Freddy Sprangler Show is a parody of the Jerry Springer Show.
 * The policeman says "Book ’em, Charlie". This might be a reference to Steve McGarret's famous line "Book ’em, Danno" from the TV series Hawaii Five-O.

Episode Connections

 * The elderly Arthur seen in D.W.’s imagination has a Love Ducks poster in his room at the Shady Pines Retirement Home; a show he has been a fan of since That's a Baby Show!.

Production notes

 * This is the last episode where Arthur is voiced by Michael Yarmush, not counting Arthur's Perfect Christmas.
 * This episode is made into a song on the album Arthur's Really Rockin' Music Mix (called "Two Sides of the Story").