Arthur and the Real Mr. Ratburn

Arthur and the Real Mr. Ratburn is the first part of the second episode of the first season in the Arthur TV series. It first aired on September 9, 1996 along with Arthur's Spelling Trubble.

Plot Outline

Arthur and his friends are waiting for Mr. Haney to put up a list of what teacher they will get in the third grade. Mr. Haney arrives, but goes back for he forgot a tack. Arthur tells the audience the three teachers for the third grade: Mrs. Sweetwater, who is very nice, Mrs. Fink, who is very fun, and Mr. Ratburn the toughest teacher in the whole school. Mr. Haney finally comes and puts up the list. Francine reads the list and finds that they are in Mr. Ratburn's class. The kids start screaming in fear. {Title card} The kids are still screaming, they stop and Arthur rechecks the list again, but is disappointed that Francine was right. During a baseball game, Buster is dreading over Mr. Ratburn and doesn't pay attention to anything that's going on. Same happens to Francine while she is playing soccer, she ends up getting hit on the head with a soccer ball yet she still dreads over Ratburn. Arthur and his friends walk down the street, passing Brain's Mom's ice cream shop. She offers free samples of her new flavor, but they are still miserable and don't notice. Francine suggests they ask Prunella about Mr. Ratburn for she was in his class last year. She scares them silly with false stories about Ratburn, that he eats nails for breakfast (without milk), and that if anybody answers a question wrong he would send them to death row. Arthur imagines him in death row, forced to do heavy school work. She also claims he's a vampire with dark powers. Buster imagines Ratburn as a vampire, hypnotizing the students to hate recess. Prunella wishes them good luck and leaves. The first day of school starts, Mr. Ratburn enters the classroom and welcomes everyone to the third grade, but quickly starts passing out a math review quiz on what they learned from last year. While working on the review, Arthur looks at Mrs. Fink and Mrs. Sweetwater's classes and notices them just having plain fun. Mr. Ratburn reminds Arthur to keep working. Class is over and everyone runs out of their classrooms except Mr. Ratburn's, who has everyone walk out in an even file. He grabs Arthur' attention and tells him to get in his proper alphabetical place. At a game of baseball, Arthur and Buster comment that Mr. Ratburn gave them homework on the very first day. A ball is hit far over them. They run to find it but then hear Mr. Ratburn talking on the phone about needing boys' heads which scares Arthur and Buster. They scream and run away to the Sugar Bowl. Francine, who is also there, notices them and asks them what they are hiding from. They explain to her about Ratburn looking for boys' heads. Francine thinks they heard incorrectly, for she thinks vampires don't need heads. Arthur believes that Mr. Ratburn is much worse than a vampire. Just then, they notice Mr. Ratburn walking into the hardware store. They watch him closely and see him taking a box of nails, they believe it's for breakfast. Mr. Ratburn then takes a saw. Francine wonders what it's for, although the two boys figure why. Buster remembers a book about kids finding a spooky mystery a becoming detectives to figure it out. He suggests they should find out what Mr. Ratburn is up to. Arthur makes an excuse of them needing to do homework, but they ultimately decide to 'face horrifying, scary danger'. A montage is shown with Arthur, Buster, and Francine spy on Mr. Ratburn around town to see if he does anything unusual. He does nothing out of the ordinary, but they do see him do many different things such as being a writer for the newspaper and being the basketball coach. Francine decides to stop and goes home to do homework. Just after she leaves, Arthur and Buster see Mr. Ratburn carrying a case with him, but when he's pushing it down the stairs, an arm hangs out of the case, scaring the boys.