Freaky Tuesday

"Freaky Tuesday"
Season/Series:	24
Number in season:	3b
Original Airdate:	March 9, 2021 April 16, 2021
Credits
Written by:	Peter Ferland
Storyboard by:	Allan Jeffery
Episodes
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Read transcript

“	Nooo!	”
—Buster Baxter

"Freaky Tuesday" is the second half of the third episode in the twenty-fourth season of Arthur.

Summary

Buster switches bodies with Mr. Ratburn for a day and learns how hard it is to be a teacher.

Plot

Mr. Ratburn hands out a test and goes to the teachers' lounge while the class works on it. Buster remarks that teachers have it easy.

Freaky Tuesday

Buster’s pencil tip breaks as he starts to work on the test. He tries to use the sharpener in the classroom, but it falls apart.

Buster wants to ask Mr. Ratburn’s help so he goes to the teachers' lounge where he finds a lightning-cooked spanakopita on a table, which was part of a science experiment by the new teacher Mr. Rambacher. Mr. Ratburn allows Buster to use the pencil sharpener in the lounge. When Buster drops pencil shavings on the spanakopita, Mr. Ratburn tries to stop him. Both touch the pie pan and switch bodies, though each of them keeps his usual voice.

Miss Tingley arrives and Mr. Ratburn takes Buster back to class. He tells Buster to supervise the test while he goes to find Mr. Rambacher. The class finishes the test unusually early, so Buster improvises a lesson on ancient Egypt.

Mr. Ratburn finds Mr. Rambacher and learns that the transfer may be reversed with another charge of lightning, or possibly the Light-o-Tronic 9000 in the old science lab.

Miss Tingley will not let Mr. Ratburn take the spanakopita, so he runs away with it. She stops him just as he is charging the pie using the machine.

Miss Tingley takes Mr. Ratburn to class, where the class is reenacting ancient Egypt using materials from the classroom. Mr. Ratburn is annoyed that Buster keeps mispronouncing “pharaoh”. Miss Tingley tells the real Buster about the wrong Buster’s exploits and also reminds him to get the tests graded. Meanwhile Mr. Ratburn as Buster gives a Ratburn-style lesson.

Once Miss Tingley is gone, Mr. Ratburn lets Buster continue and runs to the teachers’ lounge. There he distracts Miss Tingley and gets the spanakopita. Since Miss Tingley knows where to look for him, he leaves the pie pan in the lab and only takes two slices with him.

Buster corrects tests while the kids are playing on the playground. Mr. Ratburn brings two pieces of spanakopita. They eat them together, but stay as they are. Mr. Ratburn reasons that the pan is needed to conduct the electricity. He runs away as Miss Tingley approaches. Binky asks Buster how he does the grading. Buster grades penmanship and completeness rather than correctness. Mr. Ratburn returns with the pie pan, but he and Buster just get an electric shock from touching it.

Buster is unhappy, because teachers do not have it as easy as he thought. When the wind blows the tests away, he chases after them and wakes up in the classroom. The body switch had been a dream and Mr. Ratburn is still passing out tests. Buster is so happy to be himself that he is actually happy to take the test. As he starts working, his pencil tip breaks and he yells “No!”

Characters

• Buster Baxter
• Nigel Ratburn
• Cecilia Tingley
• Arthur Read
• Francine Frensky
• Brain
• Binky Barnes
• Carl Rambacher
• Muffy Crosswire (cameo)
• Ladonna Compson (cameo)
• Maria Pappas (cameo)
• Alex (cameo)
• Jenna Morgan (cameo)
• Fern Walters (cameo)
• Sue Ellen Armstrong (cameo)
• George Lundgren (cameo)

Trivia

• Running Gag:
  • Binky asking if they can study outside.
  • People walking/running through the wet cement, with Buster (in Mr. Ratburn's body) warning everyone about it.
• Moral: Cut students some slack.

Episode connections

• Buster goes inside the teachers' lounge. He and his friends previously wondered what it was like in "Buster the Lounge Lizard".

Cultural references

• Spanakopita is a Greek spinach pie.
• The title and main plot of the episode is a parody of the 1972 children's novel Freaky Friday.
  • Instead of being about a mother and her daughter switching bodies, it is about a teacher (Mr. Ratburn) and his student (Buster) switching bodies.
  • Buster and Mr. Ratburn switching bodies via spanikopita references how the mother and daughter did so via magical fortune cookies in the 2003 Disney film adaptation of Freaky Friday.