MSB S1E09: Gets Ready, Set, Dough

Are you ready to take chances, make mistakes, and get baked into a cake on The Magic School Bus? Here's my review on the chemistry episode. Blog, do your stuff!

9. Gets Ready, Set, Dough.

Topic: Chemistry.
Written by: Brian Meehl, John May & Jocelyn Stevenson

Guest Star: Dom DeLuise as The Baker.
Aired: 6 November 1994.

Oops! On Ms. Frizzle's birthday, the kids in the class want to throw a surprise party for her, but they have no cake. The bus is acting up on their field trip to the bakery, and it shrinks. How will the kids make Ms. Frizzle a cake when they are around a millimeter tall?

Turns out Dorothy Ann reminded Arnold and Carlos about the cake when making concrete out of sand, water and cement. This time, I intend to act like her. According to my research, those aren't the only ingredients needed to make concrete. Broken stones and/or gravel are needed too. 

Yeah, The Magic School Bus is having a difficult moment, randomly changing its size due to a faulty shrinkoscope. See its expression here? This implies it is sentient. As I've stated numerous times before, this was the main reason I got into The Magic School Bus as a kid. Because of The Magic School Bus itself. It's an anthropomorphic bus (having headlights for eyes and a front bumper for a mouth), and as a kid, I was always interested in kids' shows about anthropomorphic vehicles, especially ones where vehicles have a face of some sort. 

I think it was cute that this little baby was looking at The Magic School Bus, unaware of the beaters it has out of its roof. Funny how her dad thought the reason she said "Bus! Bus!" was because they would be going home on a public bus, unaware she was looking at a magical anthropomorphic shapeshifting school bus.

"Oh, Phoebe! At your old school, you were never such a butterfingers!"

Phoebe's so lucky not to have Carlos around to make a joke about this. He would've been all "Phoebe's a butter fingers!" to which she would've groaned "Carlos!"

This is one of the reasons to watch this episode. The baker, the very same one from the intro, you know where Little Richard says "You might get baked into a pie!" He's a funny cook, all because of the person on the phone who overheard him say he saw moths in the kitchen said he was crazy. And also, he was voiced by the late Dom DeLuise.

Here's an interesting lesson. It shows Ralphie tasting his mixture, while Phoebe is doing her own chemistry experiment. The difference here is that while some chemistry mixtures are edible, some aren't. And speaking of this lesson, I take it very few people ship Ralphie and Phoebe partly because of this.

"At my old school, we never got baked."

You know, for kids! And this "get baked" term I will discuss a little later in this review. But Phoebe used the right context here. She meant "Get baked" as in get cooked in an oven.

"The gas pressure we need to push us out of here! Dorothy Ann, you are one brilliant chemist!"

Dorothy Ann's expression was just priceless here! I also take it this is another reason almost everyone who grew up with this series ships her with Carlos.

Carlos wasn't the only one who hugged Dorothy Ann in this. Arnold hugged her too, due to the idea she had to get the entire class and the main character out of the cake. And she looked quite surprised here. I am sure there are a few people out there who watched this series as kids who ship Dorothy Ann with Arnold. And believe me, I am one of those few people, especially considering I already stated that I ship Carlos with Phoebe. 

"Chemistry. It's a piece of cake."

Well, it depends on the chemistry. It's this kind of chemistry that's a piece of cake, literally! And funny how the hole in the slice is shaped like a bus. Must've been the very same moth that made the cake. 

Here's a first time thing. We get to see one of the kids who viewed the episode in person rather than hear him/her over a phone call. And the 3rd time in a row it's neither producer answered questions. The previous one was an invisible ghost, and the one before that was Phoebe. Here, it's the baker. And the boy even asked a question we'll probably never know the answer to.

This episode had funny moments, like Phoebe referencing her old school in humorous ways, the baker himself, Dorothy Ann distracting Ms. Frizzle, Ralphie chasing the eggs he had to deal with, Dorothy Ann's expression when Carlos hugged her and when Arnold hugged her.

Sadly, Dom DeLuise, who voiced the baker, was taken away from us in 2009. Rest in peace, Dom. You'll be sorely missed.

This ep also demonstrates how things look under a microscope. Salt pieces are cubes, sugar pieces are diamonds, and flour is strange particles. Although sugar pieces aren't always shaped like diamonds. Some sugar pieces are also shaped like cubes like salt pieces are.

This episode also had a small reference to The Wizard of Oz when Ralphie mistook Ms. Frizzle for the Tin Man, due to the protective outfit she was wearing when she got into the cake. 

The term "get baked" can also mean "get intoxicated". That's why I said "You know, for kids!" when I brought Phoebe's quote up. 

One thing I've barely noticed about this episode is that a few of Arnold's lines had him talking in a rather deep voice, a bit teenager-like, even though he and the rest of the class are supposedly 8 or 9. How deep Arnold's voice was here showed that Amos Crawley, his voice actor for this season, was starting to go through puberty. It's understandable since Amos was 13 at the time this series premiered.

The only headscratcher I have here is that the baker didn't answer the boy's question as to how old Ms. Frizzle supposedly is. But what made the producer segment, or should I say the Baker's Segment, funny was Liz eating all the bakery's profits.

But overall, this was a hilarious episode, and it was a very good way to teach kids about chemistry. I mean chemistry is a sensible lesson to learn in science, since scientists use chemicals to mix things, depending on the science. This also explains why people use chemistry sets. Mix liquids. While the class may not have gotten baked into a pie, they did get baked into a cake on The Magic School Bus! Hilarious because of Dorothy Ann doing her best to distract Ms. Frizzle, because of Phoebe's lines, Ralphie's moment with the eggs, Dorothy Ann's expression when Carlos hugged her, and Ms. Frizzle saying chemistry is a piece of cake. Also, it was cute when the baby noticed the bus. Could go for that cake those moths made.

My rating: 10/10.

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.

5. Hops Home: 10/10.

6. Meets the Rot Squad: 8/10.

7. All Dried Up: 10/10.

8. In the Haunted House: 9.5/10.

9. Gets Ready, Set, Dough: 10/10.

Season 1 so far: 9.3/10.