Wall Banger/Western Animation/Arthur (animation)

"And I say HEY! (Hey!) What a wonderful kind of day. If we can learn to work and play, And fix up all these story screw-ups!"

NOTE: Because D.W. caused so many of these on her own over the series run, she now has her own folder. Please regulate all examples regarding her and her alone to said folder. Thank you.

Caused by D.W. alone

 * In the episode "Arthur's Big Hit", An Aesop is made about punching people after Arthur hits his little sister. It, being on PBS, avoids the most obvious aesop ("fighting doesn't solve problems"); but the one we get is broken to the point of insanity. D.W. breaks a plane that Arthur had spent a week assembling, and Arthur hits her for it. His parents then punish him, and his friends at school express disappointment in him. Nobody takes Arthur's loss into consideration; Muffy even says "Because you're wrong" when he attempts to complain. This isn't the first time D.W.'s pulled this, either.
 * There's a throwaway line when Arthur is being called out: he points out to their parents that he warned D.W. not to mess with his model plane. His mom says, "We'll deal with what she did. But what you did is wrong, too." We didn't get to see or hear them call D.W. out, though. And when Arthur has to apologize to her at the end, she still justifies what she did. If her parents did try calling her out on her behavior, then they did a shoddy job at it.
 * Truth in Television: There are elder brothers everywhere that can relate.
 * So the episode is basically telling you that if a relative of yours breaks something you're working on, you must suck it up, no matter what the circumstance is, even if it's almost done?
 * Or to, perhaps, tell your parents instead of hit people?
 * It gets worse. Binky hits Arthur later in the episode. Not one person gets mad at Binky for committing an unprovoked act of violence. Let's get this straight. Arthur hits D.W., who had destroyed his model even though she was told numerous times not to touch it, and gets punished. Binky, who had no reason to hit Arthur (Peer Pressure does NOT count) but did so anyway, gets off scot-free except for the guilt he feels. Arthur's actions may have been wrong, but they were somewhat justified! In other words, we have entered "It's only wrong if you do it" territory.
 * After Arthur came home after being hit, his father said something along the lines of "Well, now you know how D.W. felt when you punched her." WHAT?! What parent says something like that after their kid got punched by someone at school?!
 * It only got WORSE!!! Arthur had a motive for punching D.W. (not a completely good one, but a motive nonetheless) and Binky did it out of the blue, only to be mentioned once more and then forgotten. I will gladly give whoever figures out how this makes sense my 3DS on the behalf of all Arthur fans.
 * The next day, Arthur THANKED Binky for hitting him. There is value in being treated like a dishrag? That easily defeats the purpose of the episode.
 * The Broken Aesop is obvious: Use the Wounded Gazelle Gambit to give yourself permission to be a dick to people.
 * Are we also forgetting the first time D.W. touched the model, ruining the wet paint job, then trying to blame it on Arthur? When she had already been told to not touch it! Going into his bedroom and playing with his plane again just makes her dip into Too Dumb to Live land.
 * The most unbelievable part of this episode was Arthur's friends being disappointed with him for hitting a little girl. I've never seen a child yet who thought hitting a younger sibling was wrong. And just add the impetus of having their toys broken.
 * "Play It Again, D.W.", where she won't stop playing the "Crazy Bus" song (this was established in the previous story, "Buster Baxter, Cat Saver"). Despite Arthur complaining that she needs to stop playing it, their parents don't do anything about it until the end of the episode. Also, when it goes missing and D.W. accuses Arthur of stealing it, despite her lack of proof, the parents and Arthur's friends are willing to take her side of the argument! That's just wrong; whenever I mistakenly accused my brother of stealing my things, my parents always took his side!
 * Arthur did nothing except threaten to break the CD if D.W. didn't stop playing it. This was why everyone suspected Arthur of taking the CD. This is understandable, and we are supposed to sympathize with him, but the events leading to this go over the top. When Arthur makes this threat, he had been constantly listening to D.W. playing the song over and over and over again and had unwillingly taken her to the Crazy Bus concert. He made the threat because D.W. blasted it at full volume while he was trying to do his homework. His parents' response to a threat to break a CD so he could finally get some peace and quiet to study? They send him to his room for the rest of the night and ground him from watching TV. "Not fair" does not even BEGIN to describe this.
 * Yet another D.W. example, this time from the episode where she has laryngitis. Basically, she's been bothering Arthur with her non-stop talking; so, when she loses her voice, he's happy to have some peace and quiet, which he tells Francine. She reacts by calling him mean. Oh yes, because perfect Francine's never quarrelled with her sister, and she's never wanted some peace and quiet in her life. The worst part? D.W. starts treating Arthur like a slave; when he discovers that her voice has returned and she's only pretending otherwise so that he has to keep doing whatever she wants, Francine only agrees to help because she wants Arthur to stop complaining, not because what D.W. is doing is dishonest and wrong. At least she does have some form of Laser-Guided Karma that wasn't a punch to the face.
 * The annoying part, is that when Arthur tells his mother D.W. is faking, she immediately jumped to defend DW, despite the fact that DW has in the past faked an ailment in order to get attention and special treatment. She doesn't even investigate the possibility that Arthur could have been right, and immediately blew him off.
 * "D.W. Goes to Washington". Arthur's family decides they want to go to DC. D.W. complains that she'd rather go to "Pony Land", and boy, does she bring it up! She complains all week before they go to DC, barely accepting the trip. Along the way, she annoys the family by talking about ponies at every opportunity. When they're finally in DC, D.W. complains about EVERY LANDMARK. Finally, she decides to escape, causing the family to panic and get help from the secret services. D.W. is found by the president, who LOVES her, and goes on to make Arthur's life miserable. Karma Houdini may as well be renamed "The D.W."!
 * Dad tells a secret service agent to look for a girl named D.W. The agent asks, "D.W.? You didn't give her a proper name? Only initials?" Dad just stammers while Mom rolls her eyes. Newsflash, Mr. Read: HER NAME IS DORA WINIFRED.
 * "Arthur's Chicken Pox". Basically, she spends the entire episode complaining about how Arthur gets "special treatment" just because he got the chicken pox...even after her parents and her grandma tell her that having chicken pox is not fun. So, how does it end? DW gets the chicken pox, and she acts as if it was the best thing in the world. Seriously? No comeuppance for her? No realizing that having the chicken pox sucks?
 * The book version of the episode has a much more satisfying ending. Doesn't make the episode any less of a Wallbanger, though.
 * In the episode "D.W. Flips", DW begs her mom to let her join a gymnastics class. Long story short, after trying to do a flip on the balance beam (which she clearly is too young and inexperienced to do), her mother manages to catch her and reprimand her for her dangerous behavior. How does DW react? Does she apologize and promise never to do it again? Nope, she just tells her mom that she now wants to take horseback riding lessons...Hand meet face.
 * In the episode "Bleep!", DW learns a "swear word"/"curse word" (we have to take the story's word for it, since the producers want to avoid Do Not Do This Cool Thing) and accidentally goes around telling it to everyone without understanding what it means. When her parents find out, her mother tells her it means "I want to hurt your feelings". What? For a show that has handled topics like death, 9/11 (in the form of a school fire), Aspergers, and even cancer with surprising maturity, this is overly childish and insulting. Why not just say "it makes people feel uncomfortable" or "It's an impolite way of talking about something you're too young to understand"? "I want to hurt your feelings" makes it sound like DW was calling people "doody-heads" instead of swearing.
 * To drive the Wall Banger further, let's compare "Bleep!" with a similar episode of The Berenstain Bears in which Sister learns a pseudo-swear word in the form of "Furball". In that episode, the whole "It hurts people's feelings" explanation actually works since, in the Bears' universe, the term "Furball" is something of a bear-esque racist insult and therefore would be emotionally offensive for someone to be called that. In "Bleep!", however, since the word is never revealed (nor do they simply go with the pseudo-swear approach), we are never given ANY indication as to why the word D.W said "hurts peoples feelings". See, people, you can't just go "Swear words make people feel bad, Mmmkay?" You need CONTEXT to give people an idea why the word is considered offensive.
 * From the same episode, DW complains that her parents "treat Arthur better than her". Huh!? Since when!? It may be in character, but it defies Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
 * The episode "D.W's Very Bad Mood". Throughout the episode, D.W. acts like a total Jerkass Bratty Half-Pint (even worse than usual, hard to believe though it may be) and annoying Arthur to no end. Francine decides to go find out why D.W. is acting brattier than usual. So, what's wrong with D.W.? She wasn't invited to a birthday party some random kid in her class was having. But the real head-banging fact was that we are supposed to feel sorry for D.W. Wait, WHAT!?!?!? We're supposed to feel sorry for the character who spent the entire episode bitching just because she wasn't invited to a party by some person she hardly even knew?
 * WORST OF ALL, we never saw the random kid before, NOT EVEN IN A CAMEO!!
 * In the episode "Prove It", D.W. drives the Brain and Arthur crazy making up ridiculous fake science to force them to take her to a science exhibit. She is lying to her friends, making them GIVE HER MONEY to lie to them, and generally being a terrible little child, all of which the parents did nothing to prevent. The Brain is unable to counter her 'science.' One would expect him to at least own a prism. There are many things he could have done to show how her science was untrue. Instead of "science is based on evidence, and lying is wrong," we got "if you can con your way into something, it is perfectly all right, no matter who gets lied to in the process - as long as you are D.W., miniature sociopath."
 * The episode "D.W., Go To Your Room" has her declare the fact that she is running away from the rules, only to stop at the corner realizing that it was against the rules to cross the street alone. What the heck? Crossing the street alone is a rule and she is FREE from them, and THIS gets her to stop!?! She completely has the Idiot Ball now and cannot lose it!
 * This is actually one case where her age could be an excuse. She simply may not have been able to cross the street alone, as few four-year-olds are (if there is an episode where she does, then feel free to correct me because I haven't seen the show in years). Also, perhaps she meant the HOUSE rules? Not being allowed to cross the street alone is a street rule, not a house one.
 * The only thing that drove me batty about the episode is why D.W. allowed Kate to play with her toys that the heads could pop off pretty easily. CHOKING HAZARD, PEOPLE!!
 * "D.W's Perfcet Wish". D.W. is upset about her birthday coming because she's afraid of getting any older. Arthur helps her by recapping all the things she'd done at this age, telling her to cherish those memories, and make new ones when she gets older. And how does D.W repay this act of love from her brother? By making a birthday wish that Arthur gets humiliated by landing facefirst in her birthday cake! Wow, what a little Ungrateful Bitch!
 * How about the episode "More!" where DW receives her first allowance, and is initially happy, but then learns not only do her friends get an allowance, but they also get more than her, and having been getting one longer. It was mentioned by Arthur that DW thinks she should receive equal shares of everything her friends have, but her "my parents were probably saving up so I could receive more than you" comment to Emily makes it seem as if she feels a need to be superior to her "friends". Not to mention she basically demands that her parents give her more money. Luckily, she gets called out on this behavior, but DW really shows her Ungrateful Bitch and Bratty Half-Pint side in this episode.

Caused by anyone else.

 * In the episode "Sue Ellen Chickens Out," the owner of the local ice cream parlor decides to sell it. This greatly upsets Sue Ellen, so she tries to convince the owner not to sell, right? No. She finds out a KFC equivalent is buying it, and she spends the whole episode blaming and protesting them. Not a single person suggests that the fast food franchise didn't do anything except buy a building already for sale; they don't join Sue Ellen's crusade against them, but they believe it's justified. She even takes a few shots at the "KFC" for selling unhealthy food -- and ice cream parlors don't? What's more, in the end, Arthur's grandmother goes to the owner of the ice cream parlor and tries to convince him to stay....... And it works!
 * While This Editor thought that the "April 9th" episode was brilliant, I did have one big Wall Banger moment with it. Sue Ellen's plot starts when the school is evacuated due to fire, and she has to leave her bag behind, which has her prized diary in it. Eventually the firemen bring out her bag, which is only somewhat charred and smoking, and extinguish it by turning a fire hose on it at full blast, destroying the bag. That's what Fire Extinguishers were created to do, with much less destruction.
 * In the episode "A is for Angry", Arthur has been competing in the all-school checkers competition, and many of his classmates decide to encourage him. That sounds okay; but they form a publicity campaign and keep following him around, which ends up disrupting his concentration at the competition. When he finally loses his temper and blows off some steam by yelling at them (which is rude but justifiable, since they kept bothering him), they turn on him and act as though they had done nothing wrong. Francine eventually apologises to Arthur when she realizes that maybe they HAD been bothering him too much, but even so...
 * There was also the episode "Draw!", where Francine insulted Fern in front of and behind her back, calling her a "mouse" because of her timid behavior. Fern gets revenge by making fun of her and getting her classmates to join along in the fun by making insulting comics about her, causing Francine to almost break down in tears. While the episode did the right thing in teaching Fern and the gangs the repercussions of petty vengeance, the general episode made it seem as though the whole situation was entirely Fern's fault. Francine started the insults, never apologized to her, and got off scotfree because she briefly was The Woobie!
 * Francine's mean to everyone else, even in this episode. Buster was standing with everyone else on the basketball court, reading Fern's comic. Buster's just barely standing on the edge of the court, and Francine yells at him, "GET OUT OF MY WAY, BUSTER!" She had plenty of room to walk and seems to yell at him for no reason.
 * Binky becomes an incredible Jerkass in the episode "Brother, Can You Spare a Clarinet?" Simply because his Clarinet won't play correctly, he orders all his "Tough Customers" to take everyone else's instruments by force and MAKE THEM NOT WORK simply by growling at them. His other excuse is that he wants to stop being a wimp and return to being "Binky". He then tries to ruin the other instruments AGAIN when everyone is trying out for a big band honor. Luckily, his plan fails; but because he's annoyed at Muffy's playing, he decides to show her up and GETS THE PART. Arthur, one of his victims, praises him for being Binky as he trips George. Oh, and when Mr. Haney tried to punish him, he was too senile to make it work; Binky got off scot-free for the ENTIRE EPISODE.
 * Great, not another "Be Yourself even if you are a complete jerk" aesop...
 * The episode where Buster drops Bionic Bunny for a reality show about grocery store baggers because "it's more true to life" (yes, the guy obsessed with aliens now decides that a show being too fictional is bad). At the end of the episode, Arthur is the one to learn An Aesop about being friends with someone with different taste than you. Never mind that this difference comes out of nowhere and is completely out-of-character!
 * Not to mention that Buster went back to watching Bionic Bunny in later episodes and completely forgot all about his new favorite show, "Top Supermarket Clerks".
 * "The Big Dig" is wrong in a number of ways. First off, Grampa Dave's story about Uncle Blacktooth. Are Arthur and D.W. really gullible enough to believe that, and go all the way to do that digging? And then there's the "treasure" bit - Grampa Dave had planned to bury some money and candy for them, but why didn't he at least try to keep them off it for a while? The way it turned out, they ended up going on the hunt before he had a chance.
 * There's one episode, "Arthur's Lost Dog", where Kate starts crying at the fair because she wants a balloon and, not understanding, the family just goes home where she continues to cry. The only one who realized what she wanted was Pal, and he runs off, nicks a balloon, and runs back home. Pal jumps in Kate's crib, right in front of her mom, mind you, gives her the balloon, and she stops crying and starts giggling. The Wallbanger here is that nobody knows what did it. Arthur's mom actually says that "I guess we'll never know what Kate wanted." Oh, really now?! You just saw her stop crying when she was given a balloon, and you still have no idea why she was crying?!
 * In the episode where Francine takes in Nemo, Arthur (and presumably the viewing audience) learn a lesson about how cats aren't evil, and that cats and dogs can get along. So why, in the episodes where Pal and Kate talk, did they slip back into Cats Are Mean? Perfect opportunity to fight back against the mainstream media's hatred of domestic felines, and they throw it out the window just so they can have an antagonist in the "Pal and Kate can talk" episodes. Tacky.
 * Another from "Arthur's Eyes", the very first episode of the series, where Arthur first gets his iconic glasses. After he gets them, he's mocked the very moment he walks into class, with Francine starting a short-lived trend of calling him "four eyes". Not only is this a somewhat self-esteem-damaging thing to put in a kids' show, but it also never happens in Real Life. People may tease people who wear glasses for being nerds, but not for simply wearing glasses.
 * Uh... I got teased for wearing glasses in kindergarten, even though it was just brief (probably because the glasses were really big on my face at the time). My brothers were also teased for having glasses. So it does happen in real life, if for stupid reasons.
 * In the 2010 episode "The Agent of Change", Francine, Muffy, & Molly set out to make an animated film starring Molly's original female spy character, on the grounds that females in animated movies are always the girlfriend or the mom of The Hero. Ignoring the idea that the girls haven't seen an animated movie in 2 decades, one of the films Francine cites as an example, is a version of Kung Fu Panda. That movie did have a male protagonist, but the females were as far removed from those stereotypes as possible (though it is possible that movies in the 'Arthurverse' may be different than ours, as the movie that they complain about is basically a Tastes Like Diabetes version of Cars).
 * "Arthur vs. the Very Mean Crossing Guard". Does Ted honestly expect third graders to know that he's joking when he says it'll be $10 to cross the street and that he's going to send "goons" after him?
 * To be fair to Ted, the things Arthur and Brain said to him actually did make it seem like they were going along with his game ("We didn't perpetrate any criminal acts!") And even after they find out he was just joking, they still seem to be playing it. And third grader or not, Brain really ought to have known the $10 fine was a joke.
 * "Arthur's Mystery Envelope". Arthur is called to the office and is given a rather large envelope from Mr. Haney. His friends all make fun of him, saying he must be in trouble and will probably go to summer school. D.W. takes it Up to Eleven and tortures him to no end. When Arthur finally gives his mom the envelope, it turns out to be Mr. Haney's tax returns, something Mom was trying to get from him all day. The problem is, why didn't Mr. Haney simply tell Arthur what was in the envelope and save him all that torture, or say "It doesn't have anything to do with you, but please don't open it" if he doesn't want a third grader looking at his tax returns?
 * In "The Secret Origin Of Supernova", Arthur decides he's no longer a fan of Dark Bunny (A Batman parody) just because the "energy drink" that Dark Bunny sponsored (IE: Was in an in-universe commercial for) was really just sugar water. Now, false advertising is nothing new and neither is endorsments from celebrities or fictional characters. However, Arthur just flat-out deciding he doesn't like a character just because the product he was sponsering wasn't as advertised? Arthur does realize that Dark Bunny is a fictional character, right? It's not his fault if the advertisers lied about their product. That's like blaming Mickey Mouse just because he appeared in a commerical for fruit-flavored snacks that claim to contain real fruit but really don't. It's about as childish and immature as Arthur gets. Even D.W., Bratty Half-Pint galore, wasn't this immature when she found out Mary Moo Cow (Her absolute favorite TV character) was just a person in a costume and met the person who played her. To his credit, Arthur learns his lesson at the end, but it was still dumb to have to go through.