Prunella and the Haunted Locker

"Prunella and the Haunted Locker"
Season/Series:	13
Number in season:	8b
Original Airdate:	April 7, 2010 February 27, 2009 April 23, 2009 November 29, 2012
Credits
Written by:	Gentry Menzel
Storyboard by:	Nick Vallinakis Sylvie Lafrance
Episodes
Previous "Fernlets by Fern"	Next "Paradise Lost"
Read transcript

"Prunella and the Haunted Locker" is the second half of the eighth episode in the thirteenth season of Arthur.

Summary

Prunella is assigned a new school locker, which is rumored to be haunted!

Plot

The episode starts as a game show called Face Your Fear, hosted by Brain. There are three contestants (Buster, D.W., Prunella), and the objective is to state your worst fear and face it on camera. A fear-o-meter then judges your reaction on a scale of one to ten. Buster goes first, stating his fear of poached eggs. A covered platter suddenly lowers from the ceiling and Buster screams a 7.5, but he ends up finishing them. D.W. is next, fearing a made up creature (half octopus, half kitten). Brain says her fear is fake, and he walks away leaving her to think of another fear. Then Brain leads Prunella to a backstage curtain covering her fear. The curtain opens and Prunella screams loud enough to break the fear-o-meter. Her greatest fear turns out to be a normal school locker. Buster ends the introduction by saying, "You'll see why."

Prunella and the Haunted Locker

Prunella goes to school one morning, and notices that her locker door is missing. Principal Haney explains that it has to be repaired and she'll be using locker number 237 temporarily until hers is fixed.

Fern overhears this, and tells Prunella a story about locker 237's previous owner: a Lakewood student from the 1950s named Jack Murphy, whose smelly locker gave him bad luck and eventually made him disappear.

Prunella tells Fern she doesn't believe the story, and she goes to the locker anyway. Locker 237 stands alone at the back of a maintenance hallway. It looks extremely old and dirty, but Prunella puts her stuff in it anyway, scoffing at Fern's story.

At recess that day, Prunella collects a popsicle stick from Buster for her shop project, which is due tomorrow: a model of the Eiffel Tower. Francine suddenly jumps in to get a picture of Prunella for a story about the haunted locker in the school newspaper.

Prunella storms off, angry at Francine for believing the story. After school that day, Prunella notices that her temporary locker smells like onions, but she pretends she just imagined it and heads home.

Marina helps Prunella with her shop project that afternoon, but Prunella stops working and starts to worry about the haunted locker. She asks her crystal ball if any bad luck will come because of it, but knocks the ball over, wrecking the popsicle tower.

Shop class is cancelled the next day, and Prunella is very upset because she had to stay up late to repair her project. When she gets to locker 237, she smells cabbage and hears laughing.

Prunella starts to get nervous about the locker, and decides not to store her popsicle tower in it. She carries the project with her all day, and various mishaps cause it to get crushed.

At home that night, Prunella gets a call from Francine. Francine no longer believes Fern's story, because she found what she thinks is locker 237's original owner: a boy from the 1970s named Jay Mayberry. Prunella is initially relieved, but gets worried when the school records say that Jay only attended the school for one year.

She has a dream that night about locker 237 coming alive and eating her, along with her shop class project, but Marina convinces Prunella to ignore it and face her fear the next morning. Now the locker smells like apple pie, and Prunella hears more voices.

She nervously asks what the ghost wants, and hears "more salt!" as a reply. Confused, Prunella discovers a vent behind locker 237 that leads to the school kitchens. She talks to Mrs. MacGrady and realizes that she was just hearing voices from and smelling the food of the kitchen.

Francine updates her story, now titled "Prunella Unlocks Haunted Locker Mystery." It makes the front page of the paper and forces Fern to finally reveal that she made up the story of Jack Murphy, and there is no such person. However, the episode finishes with a swing seat moving by itself in time with a child's laughter.

Characters

Major

• Prunella Deegan
• Marina Datillo
• Fern Walters

Minor

• Binky Barnes
• Buster Baxter
• D.W. Read(intro)
• Francine Frensky
• The Brain
• Francis Haney
• Leah MacGrady
• Little Jack Murphy

Cameo

• Patrick (4th grader)
• Helen
• Jack Weasel
• 3rd Grade Female Aardvark (Number 2)
• 3rd Grade Male Dog (Number 3)
• Jessica
• 3rd Grade Female Aardvark
• 3rd Grade Male Rabbit
• Mary
• Jenna Morgan
• Maria Pappas
• 3rd Grade Male Rat
• Beulah McInnerny
• 3rd Grade Male Dog
• 3rd Grade Female Cat (Number 2)
• Kenny
• Alex
• Jay Mayberry
• Arthur Read (title card only)

Trivia

• The "Prunella Sees the Future" title card was supposed to be the title card for this episode, but the storyboard artists replaced it with the "Big Bird Foot" title card for unknown reasons
• Buster is not really afraid of poached eggs, but he was afraid of cat whiskers.
• Timeline:
  • D.W.’s fear of octopuses from “D.W. All Wet” is referred to and subverted, since she is now afraid of “octopussies”.
  • Posters can be seen in the background for the Kids' Cook-Off with Ming Tsai. This means that this episode takes place within the time frame of "What's Cooking?".
• Moral: You can't jump to conclusions.

Episode connections

• Like "War of the Worms", this episode tells the story of an elaborate prank by Fern.

Errors

• In the final scene, during Prunella's line, "So? Admit it. You made up that entire story just to scare me", the animation loops halfway through.

Cultural references

• Locker 237 is a reference to Room 237 from the movie The Shining.
• Little Jack Murphy may be a reference to the actor Jack Nicholoson who played the character Jack Torrance in the 1980 movie The Shining, as well as Nicholoson's character Randle McMurphy in the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
• D.W.'s fear of "octopussies" might be a reference to the James Bond book and movie.

Gallery

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