Arthur's Dummy Disaster/Transcript

Muffy Crosswire: I made a purse for small change. See? You open it and close it with this string, and there's a pocket on the outside for credit cards.

Francine Frensky: (about her art project) It's a holder for paper napkins.

Buster Baxter: (about his project) This was a napkin holder. Now it's a coat rack!

Binky Barnes: (about his project) This is a block of wood with two nails in it.

George Lundgren: I um...this is my um....what I've been working on.

Francine: (about George's ventriloquist dummy) You made that in arts and crafts?

George: Ahem. Of course, my dad helped me a little at home.

Wally: Helped? He practically did the whole thing! Hey, aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?

Arthur Read: Whoa! I didn't see George's mouth move at all!

Binky: That's creepy! I love it!

George: Everybody, this is Wally.

Wally: Please to meet ya. You'll have to excuse George here. I may be a dummy, but he's got no manners. Hey, what did the banana say to the elephant? Nothing. Bananas don't talk.

(Laughter)

Wally: Here's another one. On which side of a cat do you find the most fur? The outside!

(More laughter)

(Intertitle)

ARTHUR'S DUMMY DISASTER

Writer: Peter K. Hirsch --- Storyboard by: Mario Cabrera

Francine: (voice-over) Arthur's Dummy Disaster.

Pal: (barks)

Arthur: Yay!

(Back to the story)

#

George has introduced his ventriloquist dummy “Wally” (a giraffe) in class.

Buster: George. I have never laughed so hard in school.

Francine: Yeah, that was really great, George.

Wally: Why are you giving him the credit? I did all the talking. Well, I gotta go.  his neck bends to the side    This stiff neck is killing me.    George leaves.

Buster: Stiff neck!  (laughs) How come we don't hang out with George? He's hysterical.  They go.

Arthur: I don't know. He's always been around, but I don't know him very well.

Muffy: I remember him back in kindergarten. I was just about to drink the fresh mango juice that mommy had packed me, when... 

Flashback: Little Muffy spills the juice over herself.

Little Muffy: (cries)    

Little George gives her his apple juice and runs away.  Flashback ends.

Muffy: And I didn't get a chance to thank him.

Francine: I think I hugged him once.

Arthur: Huh??

Francine: It was in the soccer championship against Mighty Mountain. The score was tied. It was only a minute left in the game.

Flashback: George is the Lakewood goalkeeper. A Mighty Mountain player shoots. The ball bounces off George's antlers and lands in Mighty Mountain's goal.

Elwood Fans: (cheer)

Francine: You did it, George! You saved the game.  

She runs up and hugs him. He looks embarassed and runs away. Flashback end.

Arthur: Weird, isn't it. How can you know all this stuff about someone, but not really know them?

Buster: It is weird. Hey, wait! You don't think he's a spy from a hostile alien nation, do you?

Francine: Buster! Not everyone who's quiet is an alien.

Buster: You're right. I bet there are some loud ones too.

#

In the school cafeteria.

Wally: If that's home cooking, I'm checking into a hotel.

#

George has caught a fly ball with Wally. The team cheers and lifts him up.

Wally: Hey, I think I chipped a tooth. Is there a dentist in the house or a carpenter? Yes, sir, out of the jaws of defeat and into the jaws of a giraffe.

#

At the Sugar Bowl the kids crowd around George.

Buster: Come on, George. How do you do it? Teach us how to be ventriloquists.

Wally: Well, first you gotta get a dummy, something funny looking.

Girl:  holding up a moose puppet    How's this?

Wally: No. That's not funny. Rabbits are funny, aardvarks are funny, mooses are NOT funny.

#

In art class George gets stuck during a Wally monologue, because he can't think of a rhyme for “orange”.

Francine: Has anybody told George that this isn't poetry class?

Buster: Yeah, I can't concentrate. My bananas are starting to look like giraffes.

Wally: Orange, orange...

Arthur: Um, George, you might as well stop, because there is no rhyme for orange.

Wally: Oh, well then I'll use yellow. Thank you, my good fellow.   Arthur rolls his eyes.

#

Buster, Arthur and Francine wait outside as Mr. Ratburn talks to George.

Buster: Mr. Ratburn just told him he can't bring the dummy into class anymore.

Francine: Thank you, Mr. Ratburn. I really like George, but Wally was getting on my nerves.

#

George ran out of a poetry club meeting, after Wally fell apart.

Arthur: George. What happened to Wally?

Wally: Oh, I guess I just, er, lost my head in there. Hehe. It's no use. It'll take forever to fix me. We'll never be invited to a poetry reading again.

Arthur: Maybe you could read your poem without Wally, George.

Wally: What?? No one wants to listen to him.

Arthur: Well, I do, and I never get to really talk to him. It always has to be through Wally.

Wally: But no one paid attention to George before I came along.  Flashback: George has his antlers stuck in his locker.   He was just that shy goofy kid with the big horns, always getting his head stuck in his locker...    George gets free.  ...or knocking coats of the rack.   George comes into a classroom and knocks down a coat with his antlers. Flashback ends. 

Arthur: I never noticed those things.

Wally: Of course you didn't. Nobody ever noticed him at all.

Arthur: We'd all like to get him- you better, but how can we if you- he- Wally is always in the way?

Wally: But what if you all forget about me, when I put him, I mean me, away. I don't know, Arthur.

Arthur: Just try, George. What's the worst that could happen?

George gives Arthur the dummy and goes back in to read his poem.