D.W. Tricks the Tooth Fairy

D.W. Tricks the Tooth Fairy is the second half of the 10th episode of Season 3. It first aired on January 11, 1999 with Attack of the Turbo Tibbles.

Summary
D.W. wants a tooth pulled out so that she can get money from the tooth fairy. When her plans don't work, she tries to trick the tooth fairy with a fake tooth.

Plot
The episode begins with D.W. narrating as Arthur, Francine, Buster and the Brain are in the treehouse drawing. D.W. complains that no one pays attention to her, including the audience (since they are looking at Arthur and his friends and not her). The camera moves to D.W. making a snowman in the front yard. She says that she's glad she's not like Arthur and his friends because their teeth are always falling out and they get spaces in their teeth. She then imagines Arthur, Buster, Francine and the Brain in a concert conducted by the tooth fairy where the music is their teeth dancing and falling out. D.W. puts rocks on the snowman for his smile, but two of them fall off to make him look like he's missing teeth too. D.W. hopes that her teeth never fall out.

{Title Card}

D.W. is sitting on the couch with her toy unicorn Fluffy and watching TV. She sees a commerical for My Fluffy Unicorn Dolls advertising the Clothes Horse Horse Clothes Barn: a toy barn with clothes for the dolls. D.W. is amazed and runs to tell Jane. She asks how long she would have to save her allowance to buy the Barn and Jane calculates it to be months. D.W. says she can't wait that long, and happily thinks she'll get it for her birthday. Jane reminds her that her birthday was last month. Later that night, D.W. goes to bed upset. She complains that if the picture she took of the U.F.O that Arthur and his friends made in Arthur's First Sleepover had been real, she'd be rich and could easily buy the barn. As she falls asleep, she tells Fluffy she'll think of a way to get her the barn.

The next morning at breakfast, Arthur comes downstairs and smiles, showing he lost a tooth the day before. D.W. laughs and tells him he looks goofier every time he loses a tooth. Arthur replies that he doesn't care because the Tooth Fairy gave him another dollar. D.W. wonders who the Tooth Fairy is. Arthur answers that she takes baby teeth and leaves money. D.W. asks in awe if Arthur got money for all the teeth he lost and he says yes. D.W. asks if the Tooth Fairy flies to every house on Earth checking for teeth; imagining the fairy pushing Mr. Haney out of his bed to check under his pillow. Arthur replies no, she uses magic and computers to check only for houses with teeth under their pillows. D.W. then asks what the fairy does with all the teeth and Arthur thinks that her castle is made of teeth. D.W. asks where the Tooth Fairy gets the money, but Arthur doesn't answer and tells her she asks too many questions. D.W. wiggles one of her teeth and announces it's loose. Arthur leaves for school and tells D.W. it's not loose because she's too young to lose teeth.

D.W. goes to the bathroom and counts her teeth in the mirror. D.W. wants a tooth pulled out so she can put it under her pillow and get money from the Tooth Fairy in order to buy the Clothes Horse Horse Clothes Barn. D.W. remembers how Arthur tried to make his loose tooth fall out in Arthur's Tooth by tying it and the bathroom doorknob with a piece of string and slamming the door repeatedly. D.W. says she won't make the same mistake as Arthur. When Arthur come home from school, he hears D.W. ordering Pal to run. He sees that D.W. has tied her 'loose' tooth and Pal's collar with a piece of string, hoping that he'll pull the tooth out when he runs. After she explains her plan to Arthur, Arthur unties Pal and tells her she can only get a tooth pulled if she has a toothache. That night at dinner, Arthur tells Jane and David what D.W. tried to do. D.W. exclaims that she has a toothache and it needs to be pulled out. Arthur says she's making it up. D.W. protests she isn't and taps on her tooth with her spoon to prove it hurts. Jane says they'll go to the dentist on their way to the museum the next day if it still hurts. David sadly wishes he could go to the museum too, but can't since he has work.

The next day, Jane, Arthur and D.W. go to the dentist so D.W. can get her tooth looked at. Dr. Sozio tells D.W. her teeth are fine and won't fall out for another year or two. On the way to the museum, D.W. asks why no one believes that her tooth needs to come out and Arthur tells her she's wrong. At the museum, D.W. gets depressed when she sees the teeth on the model dinosaurs, mountain lions and sharks. They stop in the gift shop afterwards and Jane tells them they can only buy one thing. Jane asks D.W. if she'd like a unicorn magnet, but D.W. sadly declines because it doesn't have clothes. Arthur looks at the stuffed animals and finds a monkey that says, in Francine's voice "I'm the best athlete in the whole school!" D.W. sees packs of gum and remembers how Arthur also used gum to try to make his tooth fall out. She also remembers giving Arthur her shark necklace so he could pretend his tooth fell out. D.W. sees the shark necklaces on display and declares that if it worked for Arthur, it'll work for her too. Janes buys the necklace for her and D.W. is in a good mood on the car ride home.

That night, D.W. brushes her teeth humming a song. Arthur comes in and asks why she's suddenly so happy. D.W. tells him she's going to trick the Tooth Fairy by putting the pendant from her shark's tooth necklace under her pillow. Arthur tells her not to do it; if he couldn't even trick his friends with it, the Tooth Fairy wouldn't be fooled. D.W. puts it under her pillow anyway. Arthur has a hard time falling asleep because he fears that D.W. tricking the Tooth Fairy will make the Tooth Fairy so mad that she'll never come to their house again. Arthur decides to leave D.W. some of his money that he got from the Tooth Fairy to trick her. D.W. dreams that the Tooth Fairy is so impressed with the shark tooth, she puts the Clothes Horse Horse Clothes Barn under her pillow instead of money.

As Arthur sneaks into D.W.'s bedroom, he stubs his toes on a bowling ball and accidentally wakes up Kate. Arthur wonders why D.W. has a bowling ball in her room and shushes Kate. Arthur gets the shark tooth and puts the money underneath D.W.'s pillow. D.W. rolls over onto his arm in her sleep and Arthur puts the tooth on D.W.'s night table to free himself. Then Arthur runs in a hurry to leave because D.W. starts to wake up and he accidentally leaves the shark's tooth on the night table. He manages to escape the room, but not before stubbing his toes on the bowling ball again. D.W. wakes up for an instant, but immediately falls back asleep. The next day, Arthur limps to the kitchen table because his toes are still sore. D.W. runs in and shows Arthur the money that the "Tooth Fairy" left her. She skips around singing "I tricked the Tooth Fairy!" Arthur is relieved that D.W. won't talk about teeth anymore. But then D.W. says the Tooth Fairy left the shark's tooth on her night table, so she'll do it again tonight. Arthur turns to the camera and moans as the episode ends.

Trivia

 * This was adapted into a book called "Arthur Tricks the Tooth Fairy" with a couple of differences in comparison to the episode. One example is that Arthur was able to actually take the shark tooth necklace when leaving money underneath D.W.'s pillow and the ending does not end badly for Arthur when D.W. declares she will do the same trick again.

Comments

 * Isn't it great how they can just 'drop by' the dentist on the way somewhere else? In real life, you can't get a dental appointment for several weeks, and when you do make it to the office, the rest of the day is shot waiting.
 * ...but fairly typical for the Reads -- in #12401 - "Arthur's Tooth", Mom said Arthur had to go to the dentist at breakfast, and that afternoon, he was there. Elwood City must have an overabundance of dentists.
 * Another Dad-is-a-simp moment that adds absolutely nothing to the story but just reinforces the point: He whines that he can't go to the museum because he has to work. That's it -- end of scene. Even his family gives a "so what?" look to the camera.
 * The deadpan bored expression on Fluffy Unicorn in her final TV blurb is classic. Very funny.
 * I can help Arthur out -- Why does D.W. have the bowling ball? Maybe D.W.'s trying to practice throwing it! After all, it was you who came up with the idea of throwing a bowling ball as a way of getting into your club, Arthur! :) We saw that in #12901 - "My Club Rules".
 * Why indeed would D.W. have a bowling ball in her bedroom? As a cheap gag to victimize Arthur, that's all! Even the writers seem to openly admit this.
 * The talking ape that sounds like Francine deserves a comment. Think of the kind of wacky hijinks Arthur could have had with it. Then again, since we know what Francine's temper is like, Arthur's right to leave it on the shelf. Also, wouldn't a toy like that be ever-so-slightly offensive to Francine? Just wondering...
 * Even though this episode was basically a rehash of #12401 -- "Arthur's Tooth", if you will... :) this was a pretty good episode. I get the feeling that this episode could have gone on longer, but there wasn't time... it feels a little unfinished at the end.