The Lousy Week

Summary
An army of lice has descended on the heads of Lakewood Elementary. Who or what is strong enough to defeat them? Principal Haney? Nurse Flynn? Mayonnaise?

Plot
All day at school, Muffy's head is super itchy, which distracts her from what she's supposed to do in class. When Francine scolds her for not blocking a goal in their gym class, Muffy apologizes and explains that her itchy head has been driving her crazy all day. After hearing this, Francine notes that Muffy might have head lice and advises her to go to Nurse Flynn to get checked out.

While in the nurse's office, Muffy argues that it's impossible for her to have head lice, as her nanny, Suzette, washes her hair every day. But Nurse Flynn reveals that Muffy does in fact have head lice, much to the girl's shock. Muffy begs Nurse Flynn not to tell anyone about this and Nurse Flynn gives Muffy special instructions for her and her family to follow to get rid of the head lice. As Muffy leaves Nurse Flynn's office, Francine's waiting for her and asks for the results. Muffy dodges the questions and leaves to go home, but forgets her hat. Francine tries telling Muffy, but keeps the hat and notices how soft it is, trying it on for herself.

At home, Suzette's washing Muffy's hair with the special medicated shampoo to get rid of the head lice. Muffy's still upset about the fact that she has head lice and claims that it's the worst thing to have ever happened to her. While Suzette is washing Muffy's hair, Muffy's mother, Millicent, comes in and tries to help her daughter feel better, but a flashback to when Millicent was Muffy's age reveals that the same exact happened to her (complete with saying the same exact thing as Muffy). After Muffy's all cleaned up, Millicent notes that they'll really need to clean out Muffy's room to get rid of all the head lice. However, Millicent helps Muffy feel better by pointing out that they could use this as an opportunity to redecorate Muffy's room, which Muffy gets excited about.

At a school assembly the next day, Francine still has Muffy's hat, which gets passed around to all the students, who love how soft it is (much like Francine does) and start trying it on. During this, Nurse Flynn reveals that a student was discovered to have head lice (though she doesn't say it was Muffy) and announces that everyone at the school (students and staff alike) will be required to come down to her office to get checked out for head lice. Nurse Flynn advises the students to not share things like clothing, combs and brushes, as it's very easy to spread head lice that way. Soon, everyone's getting checked out for head lice, and one of the people discovered to have it is Mr. Ratburn.

Everyone has different situations when it comes to the lice outbreak: While Muffy, Francine and Brain are hanging out at a diner together, the girls are arguing with each other about who's fault it is about how the head lice started in the first place. Brain tells them to stop arguing and explains that he's doing a lot of research on head lice since the outbreak started. As it would seem, with how fast head lice spreads, it's pretty much impossible to tell who gave it to whom, so there's no real point in fighting about it. Also, Brain notes that his research shows that head lice can be especially difficult to get rid of if you have long hair. To combat this, Muffy and Francine go to Salon de Beauté and get their hair cut in very short, boyish styles.
 * Arthur's dad uses an old remedy that his mother, Thora, used when he was a kid, and that's putting mayonnaise in the hair of not only Arthur, but also DW, Jane and David himself. Jane also takes all of DW's stuffed animals for the time being, as their could be head lice hiding in their fur. While Arthur's reading in bed, Pal smells the mayonnaise and tries eating it off of Arthur's head. After that, the family switches over to using olive oil for the head lice, as it seems to work just as well as the mayonnaise and Pal doesn't like the taste of it.
 * Binky's watching TV while his mom's busy coming his hair to check for head lice. Binky's initially happy about this arrangement, but soon gets bored with it and tries begging his mom to let him go to bed, but Mrs. Barnes is still busy with combing the head lice out of his hair.
 * At school, Francine's angry with how she has head lice and blames Muffy for starting this whole thing to begin with. Muffy argues that it's not her fault that this happened and expresses happiness that she no longer has head lice, but while the redecorating for her room is being done, Suzette discovers that Muffy has head lice again, much to her shock.
 * Buster's the only one who doesn't appear to have head lice--thanks to his poor hygiene habits, the head lice have trouble surviving on Buster's head.

Though Muffy's initially upset with their new hairstyles, Francine notes that it's probably a good thing, as there are probably lots of benefits to having short hair (namely in that it's much easier to take care of than long hair). The girls also use their new hairstyles to play pranks, such as pranking Binky into thinking that he's in the girls' bathroom after Muffy and Francine have somehow snuck into the boys' bathroom.

At the end of the episode, George is going to get his head checked for lice, and it turns out that there's now only one surviving louse on the very top of George's antler. As George is walking down the hall to Nurse Flynn's office, he passes by Buster. The remaining louse tries getting onto Buster's head, but misses and falls onto the floor. As the bell rings and people begin filling up the hallways, a student (presumably Fern) steps onto the head louse, ultimately killing him.

Main

 * Francine Frensky
 * Muffy Crosswire
 * Arthur Read
 * Buster Baxter
 * Lice army

Minor

 * Binky Barnes
 * The Brain
 * David Read
 * Jane Read
 * Mrs. Barnes
 * Millicent Crosswire
 * Jessica
 * D.W. Read
 * Mary
 * Suzette

Cameo

 * George Lundgren
 * Fern Walters
 * Sue Ellen Armstrong
 * Nigel Ratburn
 * Francis Haney
 * 3rd Grade Female Cat (Number 2)
 * Pal
 * Alex
 * Maria Pappas
 * Kenny
 * 3rd Grade Male Dog (Number 3)
 * Beulah McInnerny
 * 3rd Grade Male Cat
 * 4th Grade Male Dog
 * Billy
 * 3rd Grade Male Rat
 * Jenna Morgan
 * 3rd Grade Male Dog
 * 3rd Grade Female Aardvark
 * 3rd Grade Male Rabbit
 * Ms. Krasny
 * Mary
 * Jessica

Mentioned

 * Catherine Frensky
 * Thora Read

Trivia

 * Francine and Muffy had their hair buzzed off for purposes of lice elimination, but in all later shows, they still have their long hair.
 * D.W. said that she did not have "mice", which rhymes with lice.
 * There was a toy marketed for Insight Pharmaceuticals based on this episode which was released in 2006. It resembles Arthur with mayo on his head with a string on his back, a 8-inch hole in his head, and many things that remove lice from someone's hair that can be put into the hole. When the string is pulled, an odor will appear and get rid of the lice on that person's head. It was discontinued in 2007.
 * Both Muffy's mother and Catherine had lice when they were younger.
 * Mr. Ratburn's first name is changed from Emil to Nigel starting with this episode. Later, in "Bitzi's Beau" in the same season, his middle name Charles is revealed.
 * The lice army is all in the kids' imagination.
 * Muffy is the only character shown itching with head lice, even though the main symptom of head lice is itchiness.
 * The South Park episode 'Lice Capades' (which first aired in 2007) shares a lot of parallels with this episode, including a humanization of the lice themselves, the humiliation of one particular student with lice (Muffy in this episode and Clyde in the South Park episode), the eventual outbreak of lice throughout the school and the eventual defeat of the lice.
 * Stuff like mayonnaise and olive oil can actually be used to help get rid of head lice.

Cultural references

 * The General of the Louse Army greatly resembles United States General Douglas MacArthur.
 * The Louse General's line "I love the smell of hair gel in the morning. It smells like a-" is a reference to the movie Apocalypse Now, in which the character Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore says "I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like victory."

Episode connections

 * The Salon de Beauté that previously appeared in "Francine's Bad Hair Day" is briefly seen where Muffy and Francine get their hairs buzzed off to eliminate the lice. However, Flossie did not appear in this episode.
 * A clip of this episode is shown in the season 16 episode "The Best Day Ever".

Errors

 * When the general lice says that the comb took off its fifth leg, it was mistaken as its fourth leg.

Home video
DVD VHS
 * Arthur Goes to the Doctor (DVD)
 * Arthur Goes to the Doctor (VHS)