"Arthur" Season Five Trivia Quiz

Answer: Alex Trebek

Alex Trebek, who hosted "Jeopardy!" from 1984 until his death in 2020, hosts a show called "Riddle Quest" in the "Arthur" universe. It's a show where kids answer simple riddles and they try to do it quickly.

Arthur and Buster watch "Riddle Quest" at Buster's house. Arthur answers the riddles easily and more quickly than any of the contestants on the show, which astonishes Buster. Buster convinces Arthur to apply for the show. Arthur gets on the show. His friends are worried that he will be on the show forever (the champion comes back for the next episode just like in "Jeopardy!") and they'd never see him again. They are also worried that his personality will change when he becomes rich and famous. However, they do their best to prepare him for the show. Francine teaches him how to work the buzzer quickly and the Tibble twins ask him some riddles.

On the show, Arthur and his opponent are tied going into the final round. Arthur mentally solves the riddle first, but he does not buzz in and give his answer because he does not like the show and he does not want to be on it anymore. His opponent buzzes in and answers correctly. Arthur's consolation prize was 100 boxes of Choco-sticks. He shares them with his friends, and they raise him up in the air and hail him as a hero.

Answer: Francine

Arthur, Buster, Brain, and Francine are tired of all the homework that Mr. Ratburn gives. One afternoon, they all decide that the next day, they will skip school together so they will not have to do any more homework. Overnight, Arthur, Buster, and Brain feel guilty about this. The next morning, Arthur calls Buster and they agree to change their minds and go to school the next day. Buster calls Brain and Francine to let them know. Brain answers the phone and he agrees with the boys. Francine listens to loud music via headphones when her phone rings and she does not get the message. So, she skips school by herself, angry that none of the boys are with her.

The entire school is locked when it's in session (this surprises me because in all the schools that I attended, the front door was always unlocked and sometimes open during school hours) so Francine cannot get in. She goes to Mr. Ratburn's window and gets the attention of Arthur and Buster without getting anyone else's attention. Buster tells her that they called it off and that he left a message on her phone. She says that she did not get the message (we know that her answering machine indeed got the message and she just did not check it). Arthur tells Francine to meet them at the bathroom window (the boys' bathroom, not the girls' bathroom where Francine belongs) so they can sneak her in. Arthur tries to pull her through the wonder while Buster hangs onto Arthur's pants. Arthur is not strong enough (these kids are eight, which is before puberty, when boys become stronger than girls) and they all fall down. Binky comes into the bathroom and tells them of another plan.

The boys go into the hallway and Binky puts his plan in action. He jumps up and down and repeatedly screams "Ow!" loudly while holding his foot, which distracts everyone else. Arthur and Buster go to the front door and open it. This part of the plan works to perfection, but Francine is at the wrong door and when they call her, she foolishly wastes time argues with the boys over where they were supposed to meet. By the time she gets to the front door, Mr. Ratburn is there. Mr. Haney gets there shortly thereafter and he tells the kids to go to his office.

Francine's father arrives and Mr. Haney explains to him what has happened. Francine gets a week of detention. Arthur and Buster tell the adults that it was their idea and they should be punished too. They do not get detention because they showed up at school on time (Francine is the only one who didn't show up at school on time), but Mr. Ratburn gives both boys an extra homework assignment as a punishment for not doing their homework. The boys are oddly thrilled at getting punished.

Answer: Buster

Buster wants a cybertoy, but his mother says that he has to wait until his birthday. Buster does not want to wait that long. Arthur and Buster go to a toy store together. Buster takes a cybertoy and hides it in Arthur's book bag. As soon as he leaves the store, Buster feels guilty. Buster goes to Arthur's house and shows him what he hid in his bag. Arthur is not happy that Buster did this, and he tells Buster to return it to the store with an apology note. Arthur and Buster work together to get it out of the house without Arthur's parents noticing.

Buster and Arthur go to the store the next morning with the toy and the note, thinking that no one will be there. The store owner is there doing inventory. They hide the toy in Arthur's bag so the owner does not see it. The owner sees the boys and lets them in early, thinking they want to buy something. Initially, they put the toy back with the note attached to it. Buster buys some candy. The cybertoy is not turned off, so before the boys leave, it walks in front of the owner. The owner sees it and the note. Buster confesses his guilt. The owner calls both boys' parents. Arthur's parents tell him that they are disappointed in him because even though he didn't steal the toy, he tried to help Buster hide the crime. Buster's mother grounds him for a month. Buster is not allowed to go outside on sunny days and he is denied dessert.

Answer: Performance anxiety

Mr. Ratburn has a contest to determine which of his students get to compete in the school's math-a-thon. Brain volunteers, but no one else does, so Mr. Ratburn has the other kids draw straws to see who Brain's opponent will be. It is Buster, who is afraid of that. In Mr. Ratburn's competition, Brain gets nervous and answers every question wrong and Buster wins.

From this point on through most of the episode, Brain thinks that he is losing his intelligence. He tells the other kids to call him Alan (his real name). He buys a bunch of clown stuff and decides to become a comedian. The other kids are worried about him and Buster does not want to compete in the math-a-thon, so they try to help him. For a while, he's in denial and he wants them to stop helping him. Then, a math book falls out of his clown pants. He admits that he does not want to become a clown and he wants to be in the math-a-thon. Buster tells Mr. Ratburn to let Brain do the math-a-thon. Brain competes in the math-a-thon and he gets nervous again but he manages to hold himself together. We see him get a question right, though we never find out if he wins.

This is not the first time Brain's performance anxiety has been shown to us. In the season one episode "Arthur's Spelling Trubble", Brain visibly sweats during the spell-a-thon and he loses on the first word, when he spells "fear" as "fere." That episode just briefly showed Brain's performance anxiety, though. It didn't focus on it. "It's a No-Brainer" is the episode that focused on it.

In 2021, PBS stopped showing this episode because Brain made a drawing of a noose. It was a joke, but some people think it implies he was contemplating suicide, and PBS decided that was too controversial of a topic for a kid's show. However, the episode was still available for free on dailymotion when I made this quiz.

Answer: False

Arthur and D.W. see a commercial for a new amusement park called Aqualand, and they get their father to come to the TV to see it. They ask him if he will take them there. He does not take them there and instead promises to take them to Marine World, which was his favorite amusement park when he was a kid. Arthur and D.W. find home videos that show this park. Arthur invites his friends to go to Marine World with him and they do.

Mr. Read takes the kids to the beach. When Arthur says that it's the beach and not an amusement park, his father explains that Marine World has been gone for years and they are standing where it used to be. He then tells the kids to pick a buddy to swim together with. He then tells them to see if they can find Ocean Zone.

Brain and Buster pair up and the former shows the latter several different types of creatures on the beach, such as crabs and sea hares. Sue Ellen and D.W. are paired up, but D.W. screams for help when some kelp gets around her leg and she thinks it's an octopus. D.W. stays on the beach and builds a sandcastle with her father. Sue Ellen goes into the water alone. Sue Ellen thinks she sees two sharks. The first one is actually Mr. Ratburn (this is similar to the introduction to every episode, when Brain and Muffy think they see a shark in the pool but it's actually Mr. Ratburn) and the second one is actually a dolphin. Arthur and Binky float on an inflatable chair to a rock. The chair floats away and they get trapped on the rock and they yell for help. Mr. Read gets an inflatable mattress and they use it to surf on the tide.

Evening comes around. At first, the kids tell Mr. Read that they never found Ocean Zone. Gradually, they realize that Ocean Zone is not an amusement park. It is just Mr. Read's name for the ocean, which is where they have been all day. They spend a few more minutes watching dolphins jump before they go home.

PBS stopped airing this episode in 2021. This is because it's part of the same episode as "It's a No-Brainer," where Brain draws a picture of a noose. That picture was considered to be a suicide joke, which PBS ultimately deemed to be inappropriate. It was still available on dailymotion when I made this quiz.

Answer: The world's largest pizza

Arthur shows a book of world records to his friends. They all decide to try and set a new record on their own. None of them have any success or any fun doing it. Eventually, they agree to try and set a new record together. The record they decide to set is making the world's largest pizza.

The kids get enough adult volunteers to build the pizza. They successfully make the pizza and they get themselves into the next edition of the record book.

Answer: Yes

One week, Mr. Ratburn's class studies bats. He assigns them to design a model cave for homework and bring it to class the next day; later in the week they will go to a field trip to a cave filled with bats. Arthur reveals himself to be afraid of bats in school and again at home, so D.W. and Francine tease him all week. Arthur's father suggests that Arthur whistle a familiar and comforting tune when he's afraid. When the kids present their model caves, Brain wants all the lights out so he can fully demonstrate his model cave. Mr. Ratburn is reluctant to turn all the lights off but he agrees and Brain shows off his model cave. When Brain is done, Mr. Ratburn is visibly relieved to have the lights back on.

During the field trip, many of the kids scream when they see a lot of bats in the cave. Mr. Ratburn screams too. They wake up the bats. The tour guide tells them that he will calmly escort them out of the cave. Arthur tells them to whistle a comforting tune while they do so. He whistles "Row Row Row Your Boat" and then they all whistle it too. When they are out of the cave, Mr. Ratburn apologizes for his panic attack, thanks the tour guide for calmly getting them out of the cave, and praises Arthur for the whistling idea.

Francine was scared, too. Binky took pictures of her and Mr. Ratburn with their mouths wide open to prove it. The other kids tease Francine about this because she had been teasing Arthur for being scared of a cave (no one teases Mr. Ratburn for being scared because he didn't tease anyone and he praised the people who helped him through it).

Answer: Buster

The episode begins with Muffy getting head lice. After she leaves the nurse's office, she drops her hat in front of Francine and walks away. Francine picks up the hat and puts it on her head, not knowing that there's lice on the hat. Francine intends to return the hat to Muffy the next day. The hat gets passed around to several people and they all get head lice. The kids' parents, the school nurse, and other doctors have various methods of killing the lice. Near the end of the episode, it's revealed that only one louse is left alive. He's on George's antler. He tries to jump onto Buster's head, but he ends up on the floor and he gets stepped on and squashed.

Buster does not get head lice because he is very unclean (he doesn't take baths, he doesn't brush his teeth, he eats like a slob, etc.), so the lice cannot survive on his head.

Answer: Binky

During a week when Mr. Ratburn is teaching his class about the U.S. government, he decides that at the end of the week, he will hold a mock presidential election. This way, the kids can really learn first-hand how elections work. The candidates are Muffy (who nominates herself) and Arthur (Buster nominates him and most of the kids agree with Buster). Francine is Muffy's campaign manager and Buster is Arthur's campaign manager. The two of them have different methods for running.

The next day, there are posters on the school walls advertising Muffy and she gives all the kids a free button except Arthur. Buster initially plans to have Arthur tell a lot of jokes, but Arthur rejects that plan. After school that day, Arthur and his male friends make posters for him.

The next day, he puts the posters on the school walls. Muffy gives the kids free muffins. Muffy also tells these kids lies about what Arthur will do if he's president (she says he will bring his dog to school, which he never said he'd do). Arthur tells her that's not fair, and she replies that politics are not fair.

In class, there's a debate. Brains asks the candidates what the most important issues are. Arthur answers that he will bring a cleaner school, a fund-raiser to buy more books for the library, and better school assemblies and field trips. Muffy answers that she will bring better lighting for the girls bathroom (why not the boys' bathroom?), a new playground, and better food in the cafeteria. Brain then asks the candidates how they will implement their plans. Arthur answers that everyone will work together. Muffy answers that no one will have to do any work and her father will pay for everything, and then she advertises Crosswire Motors.

When the debate concludes, Mr. Ratburn says that both candidates had exciting campaigns. Binky disagrees. Binky says that both candidates are boring and then he says that if he were president, he'd promise no more homework, snacks would be allowed in class, and kids are allowed to be absent once a week without explaining why. The other kids like Binky's ideas. Mr. Ratburn keeps Arthur and Muffy after class and asks them if it's okay to add Binky to the ballot. Muffy hates the idea but Arthur is fine with it, so Binky is added to the ballot.

The next day is the election. Binky wins. Binky celebrates and talks about all of the things he is about to implement. Mr. Ratburn reminds him that it was a mock election and then Mr. Ratburn explains what "mock" means (it means fake). The most amusing thing about this episode is the number of times Muffy screams "It's not fair!" after she tells Arthur that politics are not fair.

Answer: Ms. Pariso

The Frenskys have a new neighbor, an elderly woman named Ms. Pariso. She bangs on the wall when Francine and Catherine loudly fight. She send a complaint to the landlord telling Francine to stop drumming on the roof (even though she'd been drumming on the roof many times before and no one had complained). Francine tries to get Ms. Pariso to move out, using a few tricks that Muffy and Prunella taught her. None of those tricks are effective.

Mr. Frensky arranges for Francine to have tea at Ms. Pariso's place. At first, Francine is terrified at the thought. When she goes to Ms. Pariso's place, she discovers that she actually really likes Ms. Pariso. Ms. Pariso is new in town and does not have many friends, so Francine asks Ms. McGrady if Ms. Pariso can come to bingo night and Ms. McGrady says yes. Francine then introduces Ms. Pariso to the rest of her neighbors and friends. Ms. Pariso teaches Francine some new horseback riding tricks. At the end of the episode, Francine and Catherine can hear a lot of noise next door. Francine does not mind at all, and when Catherine gets annoyed by it, Francine like it ever better.

Answer: Buster

Buster enters a pizza-eating contest at Pizza Paula's Pizza-land, an amusement park made entirely out of pizza. He gets so excited about the contest that he cannot sleep, no matter what any of his friends suggest. He ends up going down to the kitchen, where he sees that the other contestants also cannot sleep because they are too excited about the contest. Buster realizes that the trick to getting more sleep is not to make a big deal out of the contest.

He then falls asleep in the kitchen. The next day it is ready for the contest, but Pizza Paula could not sleep either (she too was kept awake because she was excited about the contest) so the contest is postponed for a day.

The next night, Buster has trouble sleeping again.

Answer: He's allergic to milk

Francine goes camping with her family for a weekend and she asks Binky to take care of Nemo while she is gone. Francine leaves a list of instructions. Binky does not read the instructions. Binky's cat-sitting ideas are not very good at first (he builds an obstacle course). Eventually, Nemo plays with Binky's shoe strings. Binky show Nemo some balls of yarn, which he enjoys playing with. The next morning, which is the day that Francine comes home, Binky feeds milk to Nemo. Nemo does not drink it and he hides under the table. Binky concludes that Nemo does not want to go home because Francine is mean to him. Binky tries his best to hide Nemo from Francine, who wants him back.

Nemo ends up being terrorized by a big mean dog named Crusher, but Nemo slaps the dog and the dog runs off. Nemo then returns to Francine's hands and starts purring. When Francine enters Binky's house, Francine is horrified to see a bowl of milk on the floor. Francine tells Binky that Nemo is allergic to milk and her instructions said that. Nemo finds the discarded instructions on the floor and bats them to Francine to let her know that Binky did not read them. Binky apologizes to Francine and to Nemo. Because Binky learns his lesson, Francine makes Binky her official cat-sitter whenever she goes away, to which Binky agrees.

Answer: Harry Mills

Harry Mills writes the sports sections of the Elwood City newspaper, which Bitzi (Buster's mother) owns. He is introduced in "Bitzi's Beau" and he becomes her new boyfriend. Buster is initially nervous about a new father figure in his life and he's also worried that his mother will spend less time with him and more time with Harry. Buster and Harry really hit it off because they have similar personalities (they both tell jokes, they both love Boston Cream Pie, and they both believe in aliens). Buster, Bitzi, and Harry end up going to sporting events together.

This is the episode where we learn Mr. Ratburn's first name. At first when Buster learns that his mother has asnew boyfriend, he thinks it's Mr. Ratburn. His mother tells him that he has a new boyfriend but then she says "that's not Nigel Ratburn" and that's when we learn the first name of a character that has been around since the second episode of season one.

Answer: Arthur

Arthur's father makes a big cake, and Arthur is excited to try some. Mr. Read says that the cake is not for the kids, but it's for a wedding. Arthur's parents go to the wedding and they leave Grandma Thora to babysit. Arthur is not thrilled at the prospect of eating something his grandmother cooks, because he knows his grandmother isn't a good cook. Buster takes Arthur to a candy store where Arthur buys lots of candy. He eats all the candy before dinner.

At dinner, it turns out that Arthur's father cooked dinner and left it for the kids. It looks great and Arthur regrets eating so much candy before dinner. Arthur eats dinner and feels pretty full. It turns out that there's a surprise: Arthur's father left a few pieces of the wedding cake for him and D.W. Arthur reluctantly eats some cake. All this food gives him a stomachache. His grandmother reads him some fairy tales and gives him some pills to help him out. Arthur re-imagines the fairy tales as being based on what he ate. In the middle of the night, he wakes up and burps. Then he feels better.

Answer: Grandpa Dave

Before the title card, Arthur and D.W. are thrilled to know that Grandpa Dave is coming to live with them for a while. After the title card, a week passes and they are not happy to have him there anymore. He sleeps in the living room so they are not allowed to watch TV, and all he wants to do is play checkers and sleep. They get tired of playing checkers with him, especially since he falls asleep after every move.

At one point, he makes up a story about an ancient relative who was a pirate who left treasure hidden in Elwood City. He says he has the map. That night, Arthur and D.W. wake up, find the map, and look for the treasure. They do not find the treasure. Grandpa Dave comes to look for them, thinking they were lost. It turns out that there was no pirate cousin and there was no treasure. Grandpa Dave was going to hide a treasure chest full of candy for the kids to dig up, but they found the map and started looking for the treasure before he could hide it. The kids are mad that Grandpa Dave lied to them. He makes it up to them in the end by telling a true story about an ancient relative of theirs.