Based on a True Story

"Based on a True Story"
Season/Series:	16
Number in season:	1
Original Airdate:	October 15, 2012 April 2–3, 2013 December 12, 2012
Credits
Written by:	Peter K. Hirsch
Storyboard by:	Gerry Capelle Cilbur Rocha
Episodes
Previous "The Trouble with Trophies"	Next "Flippity Francine"
Read transcript

"Based on a True Story" is the first episode in the sixteenth season of Arthur. It is a two-part episode.

Summary

There's a new kid in town: Ladonna Compson, the Louisiana native with the gift of gab. Ladonna charms Arthur and friends with her amazing "true" stories. But are her stories really fact...or fiction?

Plot

Arthur tries to introduce a new friend of his, Ladonna Compson, to the viewers, but she keeps interrupting the intro. Arthur and Ladonna then decide to just start the show.

Based on a True Story

Part 1:

After the title card, Ladonna and her family are seen leaving their home in Louisiana for a sixteen-hour move to Elwood City. They soon arrive and unpack their things at their new house, which is a few houses away from where the Read family lives. Arthur and D.W. walk down the street to meet the Compson family.

When they get there, Ladonna invites them into the house. After introducing one another, Arthur then gives Ladonna a rhubarb pie that his dad made. Ladonna likes the pie and begins to tell stories to Arthur and D.W., but the pair have to go to Grandma Thora's house. After Arthur and D.W. leave, Bud shows up, revealing that he had been spying on Ladonna and says that she talked too much and scared them away. Ladonna tells Bud that he shouldn't spy, since it's against the law, but Bud blames his toy dinosaur Rapty instead. Bud goes on to tell Ladonna that she shouldn't be herself and act less "Ladonna-ish".

The next day at Lakewood Elementary, Mr. Haney introduces Mr. Ratburn's class to Ladonna, their new classmate. Ladonna is nervous until she sees Arthur inviting her over to sit next to him. At lunch in the cafeteria, Arthur and his pals ask Ladonna questions about where she is from and what she does. Ladonna tells them a story about when her older brother Gussie was working at an alligator sanctuary one summer, until Mr. Ratburn calls the class back for history.

Over the next week, everyone starts listening to her stories. Many are impressed with her stories and she even went as far as telling the Tough Customers her stories.

Meanwhile, Bud tries to impress D.W. with his animal sounds, doing a pig sound and a whale sound. D.W. isn't impressed and subsequently leaves. Bud feels upset that D.W. didn't like his animal sounds, claiming that she said his pig sound was "too oinky". Ladonna tells him that it takes time to make friends. Bud then questions how Ladonna made friends, and even asks if she is paying them. Ladonna tells him that her new friends like her partially because she tells great stories. Bud then asks what will happen to her if she runs out of stories to tell, and Ladonna claims that the Atlantic Ocean will dry up before she runs out of stories.

The next day at the playground at school, Ladonna is telling stories, but this time Arthur and Buster have heard of her stories before. Soon, Arthur and Buster start talking about an episode of Dark Bunny that they saw the night before, and Ladonna feels sad and left out. She soon starts to leave, but her friends ask her where she is going, to which she replies she is going to get her mittens. Arthur and Buster look at each other concerned.

Later that night, Ladonna is sleeping and she soon dreams about what may happen if she no longer has any interesting stories to tell her new friends. She then wakes up and starts writing down a made-up story to tell her friends.

The next day at school in the cafeteria, Ladonna starts to tell her "new" made-up story to her friends. After Brain corrects a flaw with her story, some of the others start to question it, as she didn't tell them in advance that her story was made-up in the first place. Eventually, Ladonna admits that she fibbed the story, and most of her new friends abandon her.

Part 2:

The next day at school in the cafeteria, Arthur wants to give Ladonna a second chance, but Francine and Muffy disagree with his idea. Arthur and Buster decide to give her another chance, and move over to the table where Ladonna is sitting. They tell her that they like her just the way she is and to just be herself. Arthur, Buster, and Ladonna are once again friends.

Meanwhile, D.W. and Emily are having a "tea party" with Bud. Bud isn't sure how to play and instead changes the pretend tea to tomato soup. D.W. tells Bud that they are playing a tea party not lunch and Bud asks why not. Soon after playing Bud thinks D.W. doesn't like him. Soon Rapty talks to him and Bud decides to try telling jokes to D.W. to impress her.

The next day Ladonna is going to explore and her mom makes her wear a hat her aunt made that she states is itchy. As Ladonna is walking she sees an eagle and pulls out her cellphone to take a picture of it, but she ends up missing it.

She turns to get her hat that she threw to the ground after it kept slipping over her head, but discovered to see a raccoon had taken it. She chased the raccoon, but tripped on a tree branch and soon discovered a watch buried in the snow.

She returns the watch to the owner who in turn gives her four quarters for returning a watch that was missing for seven years, which was a little bit upsetting to Ladonna. She decides to get juice from a vending machine and soon she receives a lot of change from the vending machine much to her excitement.

As she is walking along she sees a hat almost identical to the one that the raccoon had stolen from her earlier in the day. She then uses the change she got from the vending machine to buy it. Ladonna then tells everyone about what happened the previous day, but her friends don't believe her and she tells Arthur she will prove it to him after school.

Meanwhile, Bud is telling a joke to D.W. as they are building a snowman. D.W. noticed the carrot missing and Bud admits that he ate it and he replaces the carrot nose for a rock much to D.W.'s displeasure. Then the Tibble Twins threw a snowball at the snowman they were building knocking the head off and the twins start chortling at the mayhem they caused.

Bud then confronts the Tibbles despite D.W.'s warnings to him that those were the Tibbles. Bud demands them to put the head of the snowman back and the Tibbles questioned what he was going to do about it. Then Bud began staring at them.

The staring proves to be very effective, scary enough to scare off the Tibbles, which is very impressive to D.W. and soon the two friends resumed building the snowman. Meanwhile, both Arthur and Ladonna were looking to find proof to Ladonna's story by going places that Ladonna visited.

Soon Ladonna realized that there was no way she was going to ever prove her story was accurate, but Arthur tells her that he believes her since she went through all the trouble to prove it to him. Just as they are leaving Arthur spots the raccoon wearing Ladonna's old hat.

Back at Lakewood she tells everyone about it and shows them the hat too. She gives the hat to Francine who likes the hat and apologizes for not believing her and Muffy thanks Ladonna for not giving it to her and states she really is a good friend. Ladonna is delighted. They happily continue a good friendship. Afterward, Ladonna was trying to wrap up the show, but Arthur wrapped it up, finishing the episode.

Characters

Major

• Ladonna Compson (debut)
• Arthur Read
• Buster Baxter
• D.W. Read
• Bud Compson (debut)

Minor

• Muffy Crosswire
• Francine Frensky
• Brain
• Cisely Compson (debut)
• Emily
• Timmy and Tommy Tibble
• Rapty (debut)
• Gussie Compson (debut)
• Penny (debut)
• Shelby
• Kara
• Francis Haney

Cameo

• Jenna Morgan
• Sue Ellen Armstrong
• George Lundgren
• Binky Barnes
• Molly MacDonald
• Rattles
• Kiefer
• Alex
• Maria Pappas
• 3rd Grade Male Rabbit
• 3rd Grade Male Rat
• 4th Grade Male Dog
• Prunella Deegan
• Madison Compson (debut)

Mentioned

• Rufus Compson
• Uncle Whitney
• Aunt Bo
• Bionic Bunny

Trivia

• The sixteen hour drive from Louisiana to Elwood City is a reference to this being the first episode in season 16.
• Both halves of this episode were first broadcast separately from each other in the UK; part 1 aired on April 2, 2013 and part 2 aired a day after part 1.
• In Korean, this episode is called "거짓말쟁이 라도나," which translates to "I'm a liar."
• As revealed by Arthur in this episode, Bionic Bunny's real name is Sue.

Cultural references

• Art Radley's pocketwatch is a reference to Boo Radley giving Scout and Jem a pocketwatch in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird.
• The line D.W. says to Bud after he scares away the Tibbles, "Bud, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," is taken from the 1942 film Casablanca, in which Humphrey Bogart says the same thing like D.W. at the end of the movie.

Episode connections

• The soap opera that the alligators watch is the same one that Arthur watches in "Is There a Doctor in the House?" and appears to be a repeat of the same episode.
  • Gussie switches the show to the Crosswire Motors duck commercial from "Flippity Francine" and "Invasion of the Soccer Fans."
• Just like Sue Ellen in "Sue Ellen Moves In," Ladonna moves to Elwood City in the winter.
• The Tree House has building materials in front of it, and has two ladders leaning against the tree. This suggests it was recently rebuilt, as it was in "Castles in the Sky."

Errors

• When Ladonna writes a story at night to tell at school, the word is "grizzly" spelled wrong.

Production notes

• This is the first episode produced by 9 Story Entertainment.
• This was the first installment of Arthur to be broadcast in the United States on PBS Kids in widescreen high-definition, though this option had been available in some non-U.S. markets for at least a couple of previous seasons, and savvy U.S. viewers could find recordings of these broadcasts online.
• This is the first episode to use flash animation instead of hand-drawn animation.
• This is the first episode when the characters have white tongues again, as they did in season 1.
• This is the first episode where Drew Adkins, Jake Beale, and Siam Yu voice Arthur, D.W., and Brain, respectively.
• This is the first episode in the U.S. of Arthur to use a scene from the episode in the title card. In seasons 14 and 15, scene title cards were only found in episodes broadcasted outside of the U.S.

Gallery

:Main article: Based on a True Story/Gallery