Fernkenstein's Monster

"Fernkenstein's Monster"
Season/Series:	8
Number in season:	4A
Original Airdate:	September 18, 2003 December 20, 2007
Credits
Written by:	Stephanie Simpson
Storyboard by:	Ivan Tankushev Patricia Atchison
Episodes
Previous "Bugged"	Next "D.W., Dancing Queen"
Read transcript

"Fernkenstein's Monster" is the first half of the fourth episode in the eighth season of Arthur.

Summary

Fern's scary story is a little too scary — now the other kids are afraid of her. So she sets out to prove her skills as a writer by creating a story that is fun instead of frightening.

Plot

On a rainy day, Fern is telling the story of how Mary Shelley created Frankenstein. Shelley participated in a scary story contest with her friends and won by writing, and telling, Frankenstein. Fern says that she wants to "scare the world with [a] brilliant story" as well.

Fernkenstein's Monster

Arthur, Buster, Muffy, and Fern are bored while eating lunch at school. Fern suggests telling really scary stories. Buster starts with a story about a "giant radioactive vampire lizard" and ends his story due to getting scared. Muffy tells a story about a girl getting punch spilled on her dress, which Arthur doesn't think is scary. Arthur tells his own scary story, which is about a boy who rips his underwear in front of the class.

Fern describes her story as a true story that happened to her uncle, who is an entomologist and studies bugs. While unpacking insects from the Congo, he notices a box that has already been opened. Looking for an umbrella, he finds "the thing." It opens up and does something to Fern's uncle's assistant, whom was never heard from again, then flies off into the night. Arthur, Buster, and Muffy are horrified by this story.

On the playground, they recall being unable to sleep due to being scared of the story. Fern tells them that the story was made up, and that she does not even have an uncle, but Muffy is disturbed that Francine can even think of something that scary. Fern says that she can think of even scarier stories and starts telling one, but Arthur, Buster, and Muffy run away.

Fern's friends are now scared of her and run away when she approaches. She donates all her Scare-Your-Pants-Off Club books to the library for the book sale, having found them not scary after reading Frankenstein. Arthur, Buster, Muffy, and D.W. arrive and are initially scared by Fern until she changes the story to make the thing not scary. Muffy wants it to be a platinum dragon that knows the way to a cave of treasure, Buster wants it to be a nice alien, and Arthur wants it to give him superpowers.

D.W. tells Fern that she's "ruining" the story, having heard about how scary it is from Arthur, and gives her ideas to make the thing even scarier. Arthur and Buster cover their ears and shout that they cannot hear her as D.W. says that the thing should split up into spiders or scorpions.

Characters

Major

• Fern Walters
• Arthur Read
• Muffy Crosswire
• Buster Baxter

Minor

• D.W. Read
• Paige Turner

Cameo

• Nigel Ratburn
• Maria Pappas
• Brain
• Francine Frensky
• George Lundgren
• Binky Barnes
• Sue Ellen Armstrong
• Prunella Deegan
• John
• Jenna Morgan
• Francis Haney
• Alex

Trivia

• Timeline: Arthur's story references "Arthur's Underwear," which Muffy says happened months ago.
• When the title is read by Binky, Arthur can be heard faintly saying "Yeah!"

Cultural references

• Fern references Mary Shelley and Frankenstein multiple times.
• Fern begins her second story with "It was a dark and stormy night". That is how Snoopy (another cartoon dog with floppy ears and literary ambitions) begins most of his stories.
• The book titles that Paige Turner mentions to Fern include Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman and Old Yeller.

Gallery

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References