Season 4 (1997)
| # | Title | Topic | Written by | Guest star | Original airdate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | "Meets Molly Cule" | Molecules | Ronnie Krauss | Wynonna Judd | September 13, 1997 |
| Wanda's favorite music star, Molly Cule (voiced by Wynonna Judd) is coming to Walkerville. Wanda wants to have the great honor of washing her car. The class set up a car wash. Molly Cule miraculously chooses theirs over automatic car washes. The reason for this is explained when Molly Cule says that she can't afford to have her hood ornament get wet. When Arnold asks what it's made of, she says, "That's my little secret, Sugar." She continues to call Arnold "Sugar" for the remainder of the episode. After they clean the car, she found a tiny blot of tar on the car using a "megamagnifier." The class shrinks down to the size of molecules to find it, and clean it off. However, when they get back Wanda accidentally knocks Molly's hood ornament into a bucket of water. It occurs to Arnold that her hood ornament is made from sugar, from what she said when he asked her what it was made from. The class shrinks down to the size of molecules to rebuilt the hood ornament. After they start, they began to crystallize. The class gets to participate in Molly's concert. | |||||
| 02 | "Cracks a Yolk" | Chickens | Ronnie Krauss | Paul Winfield | September 20, 1997 |
| Mr. Ruhle (from Makes A Rainbow) gave the class the task of caring of Giblets, his pet chicken. However, Giblets "flies the coop" and the class decides to get a new Rhode Island Red to replace Giblets. Naturally, they decide to hatch one from an egg. They learn on their trip that both a male and female chicken are needed to produce a chicken (though it is never explained how, being a children's show.) At the last minute Giblets returns. "I guess he who flies the coop can always fly back again," says Ms. Frizzle. | |||||
| 03 | "Goes to Mussel Beach" | Tidepools | John, May, George Arthur Bloom, Jocelyn Stevenson | N/A | September 27, 1997 |
| The class has gone to the beach, but Ralphie insists on keeping the class in one spot, which the rest of the class think is the most rotten spot on the beach, being crowded with other people. Ralphie, however, insists that this is where they want to be. Ms. Frizzle hears that "Uncle Shelby" needs a special spot saved. Eager to get away from Ralphie's spot, the rest of the class agrees. However, they find the inhabitant of this spot is not a human – it is a mussel. They decide the middle tide zone is too crowded so they decide to find a spot. However, they find worse problems in the low tide zone and the high tide zone, so they eventually come back. When they get back to Ralphie, they try to apply what they've learned to convince him to change spots, but they discover he did have his reasons for picking the spot – the ice cream truck stops there. | |||||
| 04 | "Goes on Air" | Pressure | Brain Meehl, George Arthur Bloom, Jocelyn Stevenso | N/A | October 4, 1997 |
| For the Walkerville space capsule, Ms. Frizzle's class has to put in something on air. Keesha brings an "empty" pickle jar though, "It's not empty; it's filled with air." The rest of the class believes this is extremely pathetic and Ms. Frizzle "accidentally" gets the entire class stuck inside the pickle jar. Conveniently, they have to use air to get out of the jar in time for the space capsule's liftoff. Carmen makes a cameo, since she did not appear with Ms. Frizzle and her class. | |||||
| 05 | "Gets Swamped" | Swamps | George Arthur Bloom, Robert B. Schechter | N/A | October 11, 1997 |
| Walkerville is debating whether to build a mall where the swamp is now, or to build it somewhere else. With the flip of a coin, Ms. Frizzle's class finds themselves defending the swamp and Janet (from The Magic School Bus Gets Lost in Space, Butterfly And The Bog Beast, Gets A Bright Idea, and Works Out) arguing against them. However, the class finds out that the swamp is home to several organisms, but Janet finds this argument little more than a joke and the city agrees. That is until a tree gets knocked over by lightning, blocking off the swamp and flooding the city. After the crisis is resolved, the city realizes that if they were to build a mall on the swamp, it would be washed away. | |||||
| 06 | "Goes Cellular" | Cells | Jocelyn Stevenson | N/A | October 18, 1997 |
| Arnold is about to have the honor of being the first kid to receive one of the Rocky Awards at the annual Granite Awards. However, he has an embarrassing predicament. For reasons that are never exactly explained, Arnold has eaten only Seaweedies for a month and has consequently turned orange. ("It's my favorite color; except when it's my own skin.") He then asks, "What's the difference between my skin and say, Phoebe's?" So, of course, the class goes on a field trip to compare their skin, but they get nowhere since none of Phoebe's cells are orange. The class has to learn about cells and how they get energy to solve the mystery before Arnold is forced to accept the award. It turns out the Seaweedies are high in carotene and Arnold's exclusive eating them has pigmented his skin. | |||||
| 07 | "Sees Stars" | Stars | Noel MacNeal | Dabney Coleman | October 25, 1997 |
| It's Dorothy Ann's birthday, but unfortunately she's sick and has to stay home. The class doesn't know what to get D.A. as a present until they see Horace Scope (Dabney Coleman) on S.S.N. (the Star Shopping Network) who's selling the stars for seven dollars each. Tim reasons that if every student puts in a dollar, they will be able to buy Dorothy Ann a star and name it after her. However, Keesha refuses to put in her dollar, as her grandmother was once duped by a similar organization (the Home Mopping Network.) Therefore Ms. Frizzle takes the class on field trip to see the three stars being sold by Horace Scope for themselves. | |||||
| 08 | "Gains Weight" | Gravity | George Arthur Bloom | N/A | November 1, 1997 |
| Phoebe has been chosen to do a slam dunk for the whole school. How can she do that? She's not tall enough. She reasons that maybe if she just knew how it felt, then maybe she could do it. Therefore, Ms. Frizzle takes the class into outer space and transforms the school bus into a planet with adjustable gravity. With little gravity, Phoebe finds a slam dunk easy, but with no gravity it is impossible to even make the ball go through the basket. However, when the lever accidentally falls into the position of heavy gravity the class has trouble even standing up. They'll have to get the gravity back to normal in order to return to Earth in time for Phoebe's performance. | |||||
| 09 | "Makes a Stink" | Smell | George Arthur Bloom | Bebe Neuwirth | November 8, 1997 |
| Flora Whiff (Bebe Neuwirth), the famous expert on smell — whose "nose knows" — comes to school to judge the First Annual Smell Search. Ms. Frizzle's class creates a unique smell which is bound to take first prize, but Arnold's cousin, Janet (from Gets Lost in Space, Butterfly And The Bog Beast, Gets A Bright Idea, Works Out, and Gets Swamped), determined to win by herself, changes their smell to an odor only a skunk could love. The kids discover the secret to what makes things smell... now they have to make sure their creation doesn't make a big stink. Michael makes a cameo, since he did not appear with Ms. Frizzle and her class. | |||||
| 10 | "Gets Charged" | Electricity | Suzanne Bolch, George Arthur Bloom, Jocelyn Stevenson | N/A | November 15, 1997 |
| It's Valentine's Day, and the class is selling light bulbs as a fundraiser. They decide to go to Ms. Frizzle's house to see if she'd like to buy some, but her doorbell isn't working. Tim and Wanda go to find her, and they overhear her reading a "love letter". The class now has to fix the doorbell before Ms. Frizzle's "big connection" comes over. | |||||
| 11 | "Gets Programmed" | Computers | John May, Ronnie Krauss | Paul Winfield, Malcolm McDowell | November 22, 1997 |
| Mr. Rhule, the principal, gets a new computer, and it's Ms. Frizzle's class' job to open up the school and set up his computer. Carlos's brother, Mikey (from Getting Energized), is a computer expert. After he sets the computer up to raise the flag, make the coffee in the teachers' lounge and ring the bell, he goes on his own trip to see the inner workings of the computer. Carlos records his voice with a handheld microphone. As usual, something goes wrong (along with the replay of his recorded voice), and Mikey has set the computer to do the tasks every minute instead of everyday. Can the class get to Mikey to have him fix the problem? | |||||
| 12 | "In the City" | Urban Wildlife | Noel MacNeal, George Arthur Bloom, Jocelyn Stevenson | N/A | November 29, 1997 |
| On the class' first "normal" field trip to the zoo, they wonder how the animals could live in the city. Ms. Frizzle then turns the kids into various city animals (Tim, Arnold, and Phoebe into foxes; Ralphie, Wanda, and Keesha into possums; Dorothy Ann and Carlos into peregrine falcons, and Ms. Frizzle a raccoon), but the bus thinks it's a bear, and with Liz inside, leaves the class. Worse, the city authorities are after the bus, thinking that it is a lost animal needing to return home. Will the class make it to the bus in time, or will they be animals forever? | |||||
| 13 | "Takes a Dive" | Coral reefs/Symbiosis | Jocelyn Stevenson | N/A | December 6, 1997 |
| The series finale. For their coral reef projects, the class each worked in partners. Wanda hates partnership, and instead of working with her partner, Dorothy Ann, Wanda does her own project. Ms. Frizzle tells the class about her great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Redbeard the Pirate leaving treasure in a coral reef, and Wanda, a wannabe pirate, is for looking for it. Ms. Frizzle tells them to go two-by-two with their partners, which Wanda teams up with Dorothy Ann, Keesha teams up with Ralphie, Tim teams up with Carlos, and Arnold teams up with Phoebe. They learn about ocean partnerships, such as hermit crabs and sea anemones, snapping shrimp and gobie fish, sharks and remoras, etc. However, they are forced to work together when one part of the reef has been bleached out by none other than the treasure chest. They then go back to school, and open up the treasure chest, which has a portrait of Redbeard, and a model of the ship that can change shape much like the bus. |
Read more about this topic: List Of The Magic School Bus Episodes
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