"Arthur" season 13 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cancer

During lunch, the kids discover that the cafeteria has a substitute chef, and they do not want to eat anything that he cooks because they do not like the smell of it. After several days, Mr. Ratburn tells his class that Ms. MacGrady has cancer. He tells them the good news: that the doctors caught it early and that she will make a full recovery. However, she will be out of school for several weeks. Much of the episode is about how the kids react to the news.

Arthur brings several bowls of chicken soup, made by his father, to Ms. MacGrady. He also brings some oranges for her. D.W. brings her lots and lots of toys. Prunella makes a scarf for Ms. MacGrady. George takes care of Ms. MacGrady's garden while she is sick. Ms. MacGrady's sister Martha get on an airplane and goes to her house to take care of her.

Francine seems to take it the hardest. She thinks Ms. MacGrady might die. She does not feel like doing any of the things she used to enjoy, such as shopping and sports. Muffy's heartless attitude about the situation makes Francine angry. Francine refuses to help Muffy pick out a present for her father's birthday and she does not go to the party. Mr. Crosswire tells Muffy that Francine is right, and he decides to send a care package to her.

Later on, Muffy goes to visit Ms. MacGrady but Francine does not. Francine decides she wants to remember Ms. MacGrady the way she looked like before she had cancer. Muffy brings her father's care package to Ms. MacGrady. Muffy compliments Ms. MacGrady's bandana. Ms. MacGrady explains that chemotherapy made her bald and the bandana covers up her bald head, but her hair will grow back. This is when Muffy begins to realize the seriousness of the situation. Later on, she gets Arthur and D.W. to help her clean up Ms. MacGrady's house.

Binky gives Lance Armstrong's e-mail address to Francine. Binky met Armstrong in the season 12 episode "Room to Ride" and he thought Francine should talk to him. Binky explains that Lance Armstrong had cancer before he became famous. Binky explains that many people thought Armstrong would never ride a bicycle again. Binky explains that after Armstrong recovered, he won the Tour de France seven times in a row. Francine puts the e-mail address in the trash, thinking Armstrong would never respond to her e-mail. Nemo bats it out of the trash and right to her, encouraging her to give it a shot. The first half of the episode concludes with Francine e-mailing Armstrong, though the e-mail goes through a few revisions before she sends it.

Armstrong comes over to visit Francine. He invites Francine to go bike-riding with him and her parents grant her permission to do that. After riding their bikes together for a little bit. They stop to rest at a cliff and talk. Armstrong explains that when he had cancer, his doctors thought he was going to die. He explains that he had lots of medicine and a few operations, and he had a lot of support from his family and friends. Armstrong then encourages Francine to start "Pedal For a Cure", a bike race which raises money for curing cancer.

A lot of people show up for this race. Francine wins the race. Ms. MacGrady shows up and praises Francine's performance. Francine apologizes for being the only kid at school that never visited her. Ms. MacGrady accepts her apology. She gives Francine some hand sanitizer, and then they hug and tell each other that they missed each other.

At the end of the episode, just as the kids are about to start a protest against the substitute chef in the cafeteria, Ms. MacGrady returns. She is not 100% healthy, but she is well enough to cook. It is revealed that the substitute chef is Ms. MacGrady's nephew. He admits that he is bad at cooking and decides to return to his normal job as a banker. The kids celebrate the return of Ms. MacGrady. It is also revealed that Ms. MacGrady's name is now Leah, when it had been Sarah for the first 12 seasons. This is because the writer of the episode was a woman named Leah Ryan, who based this episode on her own experiences with cancer. She passed away before the episode was completed. Ms. MacGrady's first name was changed to "Leah" in her honor and the last thing we see in the episode (before the "A Word From Us Kids" segment and the closing credits) are the words "In memory of Leah Ryan" at the bottom of the screen.

This episode was released in the United States in 2009, when Lance Armstrong's illegal actions were not known by the public. In 2012, Armstrong was convicted of using illegal substances and banned from doing any more cycling races. As a result, PBS stopped showing this episode and all other episodes with him or any character based on him. Despite this, "Binky vs. Binky" and "Room to Ride" are easy to find online. "Binky vs. Binky" is part of the DVD release called "D.W., Bossy Boots" and "Room to Ride" is part of the DVD release called "The Good Sport," both of which are easy to find. It is harder to find "The Great McGrady", but it can be located at the Internet Archive.

"The Great MacGrady" was remade in season 24. The remake was released in the U.S. in 2021. The main difference is that instead of Lance Armstrong, the remake features a fictional celebrity named Uncle Slam, a wrestler that Binky loves. Because Uncle Slam is fictional, there will never be any scandal involving him that causes the episode to get banned. Besides that, there are a few minor differences, but it's mostly the same as the original episode.

Answer: Sue Ellen

George feels like nobody ever notices him. Sue Ellen is the first to notice this and she convinces her friends to throw a party for him. It's a surprise party, so the other kids intentionally avoid talking to him, which makes him feel more alone. He goes to a bridge with Wally to be alone with his thoughts. Sue Ellen finds him and calls for him. George is so surprised to see that somebody cares, he accidentally drops Wally in the river. Sue Ellen gets Wally out of the river, then invites George to his surprise party. Binky plays a song on his clarinet that he calls "A Song For George", except it's actually Mozart's "Alla Turka".

I guess Binky got away with plagiarism because he wasn't selling the song and because only a few people heard it and they didn't tell anyone. At the party, they give George his first place prize in the woodworking competition. This baffles him because he did not enter the competition, but his friends entered his sculpture into the competition because it was far superior to their sculptures. This proves to George that his friends value him, and the episode ends with them playing Hide and Seek.

Answer: False

A chart in Mr. Haney's office is blown out the window. Buster finds it. That chart has a list of names and there is a number next to each name. The kids do not know what the chart is. Francine thinks it's the class ranking. There are 24 names on the chart and she is at the bottom with the number 24 next to it. This makes her upset. She decides to compliment Mr. Haney all the time and do whatever Mr. Haney wants her to do, including dressing up in a pumpkin costume for the school's fall festival. She thinks this will improve her ranking. Mr. Haney eventually finds the chart and he tells the kids that it's the seating assignments. There are chairs in front of a stage where Francine will give her speech, each chair has a number next to it, and the kids are supposed to sit in the chair with the number next to their name. Francine is upset to learn that the chart is not her class ranking. This means that she agreed to wear a costume that she hates and give a speech that she does not want to give, and she did it all for nothing. Mr. Haney wasn't expecting Francine to give the speech and wear the costume when he made that chart. After she agrees to it and after he finds the chart, he re-assigns the students to different chairs than what the chart says.

Other kids also have misperceptions about the chart which they thought was a class ranking. Arthur has a two next to his name. He thinks he no longer has to study because he's the second-best student in the class. In Brain's ice cream shop, Arthur tells Buster that Capetown is the capital of Denmark. When Brain corrects him (it's Copenhagen), Arthur tells Brain that he must be wrong because Arthur is ranked higher (Brain has the number five next to him on the chart) and Arthur shows Brain the chart to prove it. Brain just says it's just a chart with numbers next to it and it's probably not their class ranking. Arthur does not respect what Brain says. Arthur gets a C- on his next quiz and Brain is proven correct about the capital of Denmark and he is also proven correct that the chart is not their class ranking.

Buster has the number 11 next to his name and he spends much of the episode trying to convince everybody that 11 is his lucky number. No one is impressed by any of the things that he says.

Answer: Fern

Brain gets hooked on a TV show. He spends so much time watching the show, he neglects to do his homework and he gets his first "C" ever. Mr. Ratburn gives him a chance to re-do it for a better grade. Fern is also a fan of the show and she warns Brain not to watch too many episodes at once because it's addictive. One day, Fern comes over and sees that Brain needs some serious help. Fern turns off the TV and takes the remote, then she gives him a history book.

The next day, Brain gets an "A" on his make-up assignment and his previous "C" gets discarded.

After this, Brain watches the final episode of season one and he is disappointed with the end. Fern calls and starts to tell him what happens in season two. When Brain realizes he does not like what Fern is telling him about the show, he decides that he is no longer hooked on it.

Answer: Emily

Binky is raising money so he can go to a wrestling match. One of the things he does is babysit Emily. That does not go very well at first because he cannot do any of the things that her French nanny normally does (cook, fold napkins into swans, or read French). After he tucks Emily in bed, he goes downstairs and watches wrestling. She cannot sleep, so she goes downstairs to find him. This is when he teaches her what wrestling is. She loves it.

The next day at school, Emily hangs out with the Tibble twins and she impresses them by teaching them some of the wrestling moves that Binky taught her. D.W. is mad to see that Emily has changed. Arthur tells D.W. that Binky has been babysitting her. This is when D.W. realizes that Binky's influence is rubbing off on Emily.

Arthur and D.W. talk to Binky to let him know that he is a bad influence. Emily is getting in trouble at school (she used to never get in trouble) for playing the way Binky taught her. The next time that Binky babysits Emily, he tells her to be herself and not be like him. She tells him that she still loves all the things that she used to love, but now she loves wrestling too. Emily then invites Binky to an ice skating show. Binky initially turns it down because it's the same day as the wrestling match and the whole reason that he babysat Emily was to get money for that. Emily then tells her that she will ask her mother if they can go to the wrestling match instead. Binky is afraid that her mother will be mad if she knows that her daughter loves wrestling and Binky taught it to her, so Binky decides to go to the ice skating show. Binky ends up loving the show because the ice skaters do some moves that remind him of his favorite wrestlers. Emily teaches Binky some things about ice skating. The end of the episode makes it clear that they both taught some new things to each other.

Answer: Fern

William Fillmore Toffman (a parody of Philip Seymour Hoffman and that's who voices him) is doing a production of "It Began With a Whistle" in Crown City. Muffy and Francine audition for the role of Lucie. They invite Fern with them for moral support. Fern hadn't planned to audition for the role, but when Toffman sees her, he tells her that he looks perfect for the part and encourages her to audition. Fern gets the role.

Fern isn't thrilled to see that Lucie only has one line in the whole play, but she feels better when Toffman tells her that it's the most important line in the play. During rehearsals, Hoffman notices that Fern isn't listening to the other actors. He tells her to do so. When the play actually happens, Fern says "Thistle" instead of "Whistle," but then she improvises and adds some lines. She gets universally praised. Toffman praises Fern for improvising so that the audience didn't notice her mistake.

Muffy was initially horrified when Fern got the part. Muffy had been practicing for so long, working so much on her appearance, and even bought Hoffman a few gifts to try and get the part. She did not feel good when she lost to someone who wasn't even trying to get the part. She gets over her disappointment and ends up supporting Fern as much as possible. After the play, Muffy lauds Fern's performance and admits that Fern played the part much better than she ever could. Additionally, she initially thought that Fern intended to say "thistle" and that the script was edited to give her some more words. When Fern told Muffy that wasn't the case and she had flubbed the line, Muffy is even more impressed with Fern's performance.

Answer: They read the book too fast

Prunella and Marina end up getting in a competition to see who will finish the final "Henry Skreever" book first. They both end up thinking that they finished the book, but it does not matter who won. They are unable to answer the other kids' questions about the ending of the book.

In fact, the other kids point out details that Prunella and Marina had missed. They both end up realizing that they read the book so fast that they were skimming pages and not really reading it. They decide to read the last few chapters of the book together at a slower pace.

Answer: Asperger's Syndrome

George's father teaches a woodworking class at the community center. He asks George to get some glue from another classroom. In one of the other classrooms, George meets Carl. Carl is doing a jigsaw puzzle that'll be a picture of a train when it's finished. When George praises Carl's work on the puzzle, Carl tells George some information about trains. Carl shows George a picture of a train in France, which is actually a picture that Carl drew. George is amazing by Carl's drawing skills and he introduces himself. Carl introduces himself too. Carl inadvertently makes George laugh so hard, he bumps into the table and a piece of the puzzle falls off of it. George leaves the room, unsure if Carl likes him or not.

That night, George discovers that the puzzle piece is in his pants pocket. George tells Wally about Carl. George decides to bring the puzzle piece to Carl. George also decides to bring Wally with him and show it to Carl.

The next time that George sees Carl, Carl says that he remembers George by name and he remembers that George was bringing some glue to his father. Carl's mother is there and she tells George that Carl had told her about him. After she leaves to get some apple juice for Carl, George shows Wally to Carl. This makes Carl upset, but his mother gets back in time to calm him down. George asks what he did wrong. Carl's mother says that George did nothing wrong and that Carl has Asperger's Syndrome, which causes him to get upset in unfamiliar situations. Carl had never seen a mannequin before, so he didn't know how to react when he saw Wally and he couldn't help but get upset. George leaves the room and apologizes.

George goes to Brain's ice cream shop and tells Brain what happened. George struggles to say the name of the disability that Carl's mother said that Carl had, but Brain figures it out. Brain says that his uncle also has it. Brain then shows a picture of his uncle winning the Crown City Physics Prize, a picture that Brain had hanging on the wall of his ice cream shop. George asks Brain if his uncle is a genius. Brain then explains what Asperger's Syndrome is like.

This part of the episode shows a fantasy that explains what Asperger's Syndrome is like. In this part of the episode, George plays the role of the kid with Asperger's Syndrome and Brain is the voiceover narrator. George is in a space ship that crashes into another planet. The planet has completely different colors from Earth. Additionally, the residents of the planets all have megaphones (a metaphor for how normal people speak too loudly for autistic people). George does not have a guide book to the planet so he has to learn things all on his own. He finds one plant that fascinates him and studies just that. He then paints a picture of the painting. Arthur takes away his megaphone and compliments the painting. George thanks him and compliments his appearance. When Arthur walks away, George laughs.

After listening to Brain's explanation of Asperger's Syndrome, George decides to go to the community center again to meet Carl. This time, he does not bring Wally and he brings a book about trains and the puzzle piece. Initially, George fantasizes that Carl had gotten upset when he noticed that the puzzle piece was missing. However, Carl shows up happy. When George shows him the piece, Carl explains that he had noticed it was missing, so he and his mother built another piece just like it. However, the original piece fits better. So, Carl takes out the piece that he built and he throws it on the floor and he puts the original piece in the puzzle. George also gives Carl the book about trains and Carl is instantly fascinated by it. As George leaves, he picks up Carl's discarded puzzle piece and he takes it home with him as a memento of the day that he and Carl met.

This episode came out in the U.S. in 2010, which is why it uses the term "Asperger's Syndrome." That term was discontinued a few years later. The DSM-Five, which came out in 2013, uses the term "Autism Spectrum Disorder" instead.

This is one of my all-time favorite episodes. Its description of Asperger's Syndrome is brilliant. One of the reasons "Arthur" is such a successful show is that it covers topics that most other children's shows do not dare to cover. No children's show had ever covered Asperger's Syndrome or autism before. Since this episode came out, other children's shows have followed suit and added autistic character. "Sesame Street" made an autistic character named Julia. "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" made an autistic character named Max. Pixar made a movie called "Loop" in 2020 which has an autistic character named Renee. The subject became more common in children's shows after "Arthur" did this episode.

Carl and George are my two favorite "Arthur" characters. I even prefer them over Arthur himself. If I have one bad thing to say about the show, it's that it took 13 seasons for them to introduce Carl. Even from the time they introduced him, there are only seven episodes in which he has more than a silent cameo appearance (unless the show was rebooted after this quiz was made in 2026). If I were a writer on the show, he definitely would have had more appearances than that. Nonetheless, the few appearances that he had were memorable.

George is also an under-utilized character IMO. He is not as under-utilized as Carl, but he is still under-utilized. He made a few cameo appearances in the first two seasons, but he was not properly introduced until "Arthur's Dummy Disaster" in season three. After that, he didn't have another major role until "The Boy With His Head in the Clouds" in season six. After that, he didn't have another major role until season eight. From season eight through season 25, he became as much of a semi-regular character as Buster, Francine, Muffy, and all of the semi-regular characters outside the Read family. Still, I say that there are too many episodes that focus on D.W. or Muffy (characters that many fans dislike) and not enough episodes that focus on George.

Answer: Emily

D.W. and James are practicing for a swim race. They both want to win a giant trophy. Their older siblings, Arthur and Molly, become their coaches. Arthur and Molly end up overworking their younger siblings. It gets to the point where D.W. and James no longer care about winning the race and they just want it to be over so their older siblings will stop bugging them.

When the race happens, James' flipper gets caught in the rope, which makes Molly mad. D.W. swims back to help him get unstuck, which makes Arthur mad. Emily wins the race. D.W. and James tie for second place. D.W. and James give their second-place trophies to Arthur and Molly because Arthur and Molly wanted those trophies more than D.W. and James did. D.W. and James get back in the water just to have some fun. Arthur and Molly feel guilty about the way they treated their younger siblings.

The episode ends by showing us Emily carrying the giant trophy. The weight of the trophy seems to be making her unhappy, taking all of the joy out of her victory.

Answer: Arsubia

Arthur, Sue Ellen, and Binky discover a beautiful place that does not appear to have been discovered by anyone else. They think they are the first ones to discover it, so they decide to give it a name. Arthur comes up with the "Arsubi" part of the name, which is the first two letters of each of their names. Sue Ellen decides to add an "a" at the end. The three kids agree to the name "Arsubia" and they agree to never tell anyone about this place. Arthur nearly reveals the secret to Buster, but then Binky stops him. Arthur give Buster the name of a phony website to get off the hook. Later, Buster finds the other three kids at the Super Bowl and tells them that the website does not exist. The three of them run off and avoid him, which makes him suspicious. One day, he spies on them and catches them in the place. It turns out that Buster and his father already knew about the place, had been there before, and had considered it their private place until the other three kids discovered it. At the end of the episode, Buster shows the other three kids a cave that they didn't know about.

This is one of my favorite episodes.

Answer: Muffy

Fern makes a Mother's Day card for her mother while Muffy buys one for hers. They literally bump into each other and their cards get swapped. Muffy accidentally gives Fern's card to Muffy's mother. Fern discovers that she has the wrong card and does not give it to her mother for Mother's Day. Muffy loves Fern's poem, so she decides to start a card-making business with Fern, in which Fern writes the poems and Muffy draws the illustrations. Fern likes Muffy's drawings and agrees to this. Their card sell pretty well. However, there's more and more demand for the cards. This means that Fern has to write more and more poems, and this exhausts her. At one point, Fern tries experimenting with new kinds of poems, but those do not sell. Muffy fires her.

Fern had forgotten about her mother's birthday. She decides to give Muffy's Mother's Day card to her mother for her birthday. Fern's mother notices that the poem in the card does not seem to be as good as Fern's regular poems. Fern admits that she gave a store-bought card to her because she was running out of ideas. Fern's mother tells her to write for fun and not for money. Later at the Sugar Bowl, Muffy begs Fern to come back because her new partner is Binky and no one buys his poems. Fern agrees on the condition that they make cards just for fun and not to sell them. Muffy reluctantly agrees to that condition.

Answer: Kitchen

Prunella's regular locker is being repaired, so she is moved to locker 237. Fern overhears this and tells a fictional story about a boy who went to Lakewood Elementary school many years ago, had that locker, and had a lot of bad luck. Prunella initially brushes off the story, but she starts to believe it when she notices strange smells and strange voices from near the cafeteria.

She ends up being afraid of the locker for most of the episode. Near the end of the episode, she discovers that the smells and voices are coming from a vent behind the locker.

She goes to the place where the vent leads to. She discovers it leads to the kitchen. The voices that she heard were Ms. MacGrady's voices and the smells were the food. Ms. MacGrady lets her try some of the food.

Answer: Dolly Llama

Kate is growing up. This makes it harder for her to understand animals. Sometimes, when Pal speaks to her, it sounds like barking. Amigo explains that this is part of growing up. Eventually, Kate will not be able to understand Pal at all and she will only hear barking. This makes Kate and Pal sad. They decide to visit a wise llama at the zoo, whose name is Dolly Llama. Unfortunately, Dolly Llama cannot help them. She just tells them the same thing that Amigo did. Later on, they are at Grandma Thora's house, and they notice that Killer seems to understand her. Killer tells them that Grandma Thora does not hear what Killer is saying, but she understands what Killer means. So, Kate will still be able to understand what Pal means when she grows up, even if she doesn't hear exactly what he says.

One bright spot of Kate growing up is that she can now communicate with the human members of her family. She speaks words and they understand.

"Arthur" uses a floating timeline, which means that over the years the characters do not age very much. So, after 25 seasons, we never saw Kate get so old that she cannot understand Pal. This episode is the closest that ever comes to happening.

Answer: Guitar

Dean Lomax, an old friend of George's father, goes to the Lundgren residence to have his guitar repaired. His guitar is named Bonnie. Buster has heard of Lomax and Bonnie and he tells George an urban legend about how Bonnie was made. One night, Buster goes to George's house for a sleepover without ever telling George. Buster's mother drives off, so George decides to let Buster sleep over so he has somewhere to sleep. Buster convinces George to go to the garage to see Bonnie.

There are several guitars in the garage. One guitar catches their eye and they think it is Bonnie.

They both pluck the guitar and have a fun daydream. In the morning, Lomax tells them that they were looking at the wrong guitar. He shows them the now-repaired guitar that actually is Bonnie.

He tells them that Buster's urban legend is untrue, but he plays some music for them.

Answer: Arthur

Arthur notices that the actors who play his favorite superheroes all appear in ads for food or drinks that have an unhealthy amount of sugar. Arthur wants to find a superhero that does not do that. He goes to a comic book store and the owner shows him a big book of superheroes, but none of them are what he wants.

When Arthur asks the owner who his favorite superhero is, he answers "Jack Kirby." The owner explains that even though Jack Kirby isn't technically a superhero, his ability to invent so many famous superheroes is a superpower in and of itself.

This gives Arthur the idea to create his own superhero. He calls it "Supernova" and he designs the outfit for it mostly by himself with a little help from D.W. He goes to a comic book convention dressed up as Supernova.

He is surprised when all of his friends love it.