The Magic School Bus Goes Cellular
Original airdate: October 18th, 1997
Subject: Cells
Focus Student(s): Arnold, Wanda, Phoebe
Arnold has been selected to win a huge geology award... except he doesn't want to show his face to anyone. He's turned orange, from head to toe! The class investigates what can be causing the problem, especially when soap and water won't wash it off. The orange goes deep inside Arnold, right down to his skin cells, so the class at the cellular level has to find out what's wrong.
Producers Segment
Liz brings the male producer some food from the awards banquet but he keeps getting interrupted by phone calls before he can eat it.
Tropes
- An Aesop: Don't eat only one type of food, because your cells won't respond to it too well.
- Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Arnold and Phoebe in this episode. Arnold was understandably moody and angsty, as he was orange on the night he was accepting a big geology award. Phoebe, on the other hand, stayed optimistic and even tried to help mask his orange skin... with flour.Phoebe: There. You don't look nearly so orange now. (giggles)Arnold: Phoebe, I can't go out there covered in flour! I look like a pumpkin pie!
- Call-Back:
- Arnold and Phoebe's skin cells push out the classmates exploring them, the way that Ralphie's cough reflex pushed out the bus three seasons earlier.
- Seaweedies, the snacks that were introduced several episodes earlier, end up causing Arnold's new tint.
- The bus enters Arnold's digestive system once again to find out what's making his cells orange. Arnold even says "Not again!" when Phoebe tells him.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The seaweedies that Arnold is snacking on throughout the episode end up being the cause of his new orange look.
- The class on seeing that villi absorb nutrients like carrot tint think that if they absorb all the tint as a villi bus, that it will turn Arnold back to normal.
- Comfort Food: Implied. Wanda comments that Arnold has been eating nothing but seaweedies for weeks, suggesting he's been stress-eating his favorite snack in anticipation of the award ceremony.
- Dark Reprise: Just before the reveal that seaweedies are orange on the inside, and therefore the cause of Arnold turning orange, the background music plays a lower-pitched version of the seaweedies jingle that Ms. Frizzle has been trying to remember the whole episode.
- "Fantastic Voyage" Plot: Once again, the class goes inside Arnold's body, though Phoebe has a turn as well.
- Feghoot: Carlos experiments in this form of lame pun.Carlos: Orange you glad you're not orange anymore?
- Forced into Their Sunday Best: Everyone is in formal evening wear for the award ceremony.
- He Cleans Up Nicely: Even when orange, Arnold looks dapper in his suit.
- Here We Go Again!: The class is relatively nonchalant about revisiting Arnold's stomach and intestines.
- Jingle: Ms. Frizzle just can't remember the words to the one about Seaweedies. Until much later, when the class is in Arnold's stomach.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!": The class when Arnold and Phoebe's skin cells push them out of their respective paths.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Arnold eating Seaweedies all the time ends up causing his orange look.
- Not Me This Time: Arnold briefly suspects that Janet might have had a hand in turning him orange, given that she recently came to visit. Although it would be in-character for Janet to be that petty, given she invokes Kick the Dog and uses Arnold as an Unwitting Pawn in her pranks, this time she is completely innocent.
- Oh, Crap!: Arnold when he realizes he's turned orange. Also when the chef catches him and Phoebe hiding under the table.
- Oh, No... Not Again!: Arnold's response when he learns that he's swallowed the bus.
- Once More, with Clarity: Ms. Frizzle reintroduces the class to villi in Arnold's small intestine, and pulls out a microscope to show them that the villi are made up of cells as well.
- Performance Anxiety: Arnold was excited to receive his award, up until he looked in the mirror when it was the big day.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Seaweedies are this for Arnold, to the point where he nicks a bowl of them from the party and nibbles them compulsively. At the end, he decides to cut back on them significantly after having found out that constantly eating them was what turned his skin orange.
- Truth in Television: Arnold is suffering from Carotenosis
, an oranging of the skin caused by an excessive consumption of carotene. - Wham Shot:
- The bus in tiny form landing on Arnold's Seaweedie crisp and ending up swallowed.
- The dissolving Seaweedie that is revealed to be orange on the inside from carrots.
- A Wizard Did It: Ms. Frizzle turns the bus into a giant villi cell to absorb all the orange tint from Arnold's skin cells.
