MSB S1E04: Gets Eaten

Are you ready for me to take more chances, make more mistakes and get messier? Well, get eaten in this review on The Magic School Bus! Blog, do your stuff!

4. Gets Eaten.

Topic: Food Chains.
Written by: Jocelyn Stevenson and John May.

Aired: 2 October 1994. 

Arnold and Keesha were supposed to do a "bring-in" of two beach things that go together for a report, but they had both completely forgotten about it. Keesha brought in a tuna fish sandwich, and Arnold brought the "scum" he got on his shoe when he stepped into a pond. The two have nothing in common...or do they?

Hmm....Why exactly would Tim bring in a picture of a rock to go with Wanda's mussel? Why not a real rock, like how Phoebe brought in real dune grass (at least I think it was real) to go with Ralphie's sun? (really, just a yellow balloon to simulate the sun) Although Dorothy Ann brought a crab possibly made of plastic considering if she or Carlos had brought in a real crab, it would just pinch someone.

"Listen. Don't panic yet, but who's your partner?"
"Arnold."

Of course this should've been obvious to Carlos. I mean he's doing his with Dorothy Ann, Ralphie's doing his with Phoebe and Wanda's doing hers with Tim, so it should've been obvious to Carlos that Keesha's doing hers with Arnold. 

Here's another headscratcher I have. Did Keesha have to remove Arnold's shoe for the whole field trip? She could've just scraped off the scum, placed it in a seal-able bag and given Arnold his shoe back.

Can't get enough of Carlos, can we? Here, he just calls the beach a "Muscle Beach" whilst flexing his muscles, and the first time the entire class calls out "Carlos!" in an amused manner, every time he makes a pun, unlike the previous episode where they called out "Carlos, yuck!"

It's funny that the Producer thought Liz was giving this giant sandwich to him, but actually, she's delivering the sandwich to someone else.

While this episode isn't without any headscratchers, it's an interesting way to learn about food chains, and it shows we're on top of the food chain. It shows that phytoplankton gets eaten by zooplankton, which gets eaten by anchovies, which gets eaten by tuna. That's how Arnold's scum goes with Keesha's tuna. It was all thanks to Dorothy Ann for helping Arnold and Keesha with their report. Makes perfect sense since this is a show meant to teach kids about science, right?

That's an ocean food chain, but there are land food chains too. Tim says that the mouse eats grass seed, Wanda says the snake eats the mouse, and that Carlos finishes that the hawk eats the snake. Arnold even makes a joke about what phytoplankton and grass have in common. "You step on them both!", to which the entire class calls out "Arnold!"

We even get a mention of Ralphie's dad. I take it he was at work during the events of the previous episode? And we also hear this as proof Ralphie hates anchovies, and why he refuses to eat pizza with them.

And this shows Carlos' puns don't always work, like his otter pun, to which he asks "Do you really think they otter?" to which Ralphie replies "Bad, Carlos."

At the beginning, Carlos was all "When there's a will, there's a wave!" at the beginning when he, Ralphie and Wanda were pretending to surf. At the end, Carlos says that the food chain is "E-fish-ent".

And another thing, Carlos didn't have to ask Keesha who she was doing her "2 things that go together" report with. If Ralphie was doing his with Phoebe, Wanda was doing hers with Tim, and Carlos was doing his with Dorothy Ann, then it should've been obvious to him that Keesha was doing hers with Arnold.

There is another thing to note. This is the first time Keesha uses her panicky catchphrase, and all because she forgot about her report, where she's all "Oh bad! Oh bad bad bad! Oh bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad!"

The Producer's segment teaches kids that not all food chains start with plants, and that food webs exist too.

And also, this is one episode where they visit the ocean, another bit of proof these episodes may not be in chronological order, considering in Gets Lost in Space, Arnold mentioned they went to the bottom of the ocean already.

And the last thing, every time bad things happened, Arnold kept saying he "Should've stayed home today." If he did, he would've failed his report with Keesha.

But overall, despite the headscratchers, this was an interesting way to teach school kids about how food chains are connected, and Carlos' puns helped too, except his otter pun.

My rating: 8.5/10.

Season 1 scorecard.

1. Gets Lost in Space: 9/10.

2. For Lunch: 10/10.

3. Inside Ralphie: 9/10.

4. Gets Eaten: 8.5/10.

Season 1 so far: 9.1/10.