D.W. Tale Spins

"D.W. Tale Spins"
Season/Series:	4
Number in season:	6A
Original Airdate:	October 12, 1999
Credits
Written by:	Joe Fallon
Storyboard by:	Stéphanie Gignac
Episodes
Previous "The Rat Who Came to Dinner"	Next "Prunella Gets it Twice"
Read transcript

"D.W. Tale Spins" is the first half of the sixth episode in the fourth season of Arthur.

Summary

The combination of Greek mythology and D.W.'s imagination results in a fantastic tale.

Plot

D.W. told Grandma Thora that Arthur was teasing her about not being able to write which makes her a bad story teller. Once Grandma Thora tells D.W. stories do not have to be written down, she tells Arthur and Buster one. It is a story from ancient Greek mythology. O-D.W.-eus is traveling with her preschool crew. She stole a unicorn belonging to Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. Then, everyone gets stuck in The Layer of the Lotus Eaters (also known as Cyclops Island). They make everyone want to stay. Everyone but D.W. had one. They get stuck in Polyphemus' cave. Since he is dumb, D.W. wraps his ear around his head. The Tibble Twins are eaten alive. Everyone is no longer hypnotized and leaves. Later, they pass the Sirens. The Sirens play music which hypnotizes the sailors into crashing their boats onto the rocks. Later, she passes an Arthur whirlpool. She gets home safely, but with nobody else in her crew.

D.W. looks at Arthur and Buster, feeling quite pleased with herself. "Good story, huh?"

Arthur says he didn't like the story. "No. Nobody fought crime with mutant potato powers or anything. That just proves you can't make up a good story."

"No," says D.W. "It just proves you don't know what's a good story."

She then explains that the story she just told them was told to her by Grandma Thora. "It's called The Odyssey. It's from long ago, and people still read it."

D.W. just changed a few bits in order to test Buster and Arthur; now, when Arthur tells her she's no good, he's just as wrong about that since he was wrong about her story being no good.

Arthur replies, "Oh, what does she know?"

Buster, however, loved D.W.'s story, and wants her to retell him the bit about the Cyclops. Then Arthur says that he wants to hear about Charybdis again, but changes his mind when D.W. and Buster glare at him.

As the story fades out, we hear D.W. start to retell it again. Buster interrupts her, saying, "Start with the Cyclops. He's the best. He eats everything."

D.W. then explains that the Cyclops had only one eye in the middle of his face and lived in a cave—

"And he ate stuff," Buster says.

"He ate everything," D.W. replies, and Buster laughs a little.

Characters

• D.W. Read
• Arthur Read
• Buster Baxter
• Thora Read
• O-D.W.-eus (D.W. Read)
• Cyclops (Buster Baxter)
• Scylla (Muffy)
• Poseidon (Francine)
• Charybdis (Arthur)
• Three Sirens
• Timmy and Tommy Tibble
• Nadine Flumberghast
• Emily
• Amanda Hulser

Trivia

• Timeline:
  • The Crazy Bus song is featured as the song of the Sirens.
  • This episode briefly mentions some of the things from Arthur's Pet Business.

Episode connections

• This is the first episode D.W. wears Arthur's glasses, and the second episode she pretends to be like him, similar to her copying him in D.W. the Copycat.
• This is the second time Arthur displays resentment toward his sister D.W.'s natural talents for a young age. The first was in Arthur and the Crunch Cereal Contest and then in Cast Away three seasons after this episode.
• This is the second episode D.W. wears glasses.

Cultural references

• In D.W.'s version of The Odyssey, Part 1, many of Arthur's and D.W.'s friends are featured as different characters in the story, as listed:
  • D.W. as Odysseus
  • Buster as the Cyclops
  • Francine as Poseidon
  • Muffy as Scylla
  • Arthur as Charybdis
  • Emily, the Tibbles, Nadine, Amanda Hulser and Liam as the Queen's crew
• In addiciton to the characters mentioned above, the story also features the island of lotus-eaters and the sirens from Homer's Odyssey.
• The name "O-D.W.-eus", is a spoof off of name "Odysseus" from the original version of The Odyssey.
• While the Vegemorphs book series is a parody of the Animorphs books, there is an actual "Vegemorphs" book in real life.

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Sources