| "What Scared Sue Ellen?" | |
| Season/Series: | 3 |
|---|---|
| Number in season: | 12A |
| Original Airdate: |  December 29, 1998 March 15, 1999 March 8, 2002[1] |
| Credits | |
| Written by: | Bruce Akiyama |
| Storyboard by: | Stéfanie Gignac |
| Episodes | |
| Previous "Arthur's Almost Live Not Real Music Festival" |
Next "Clarissa is Cracked" |
| Read transcript |
"What Scared Sue Ellen?" is the first half of the twelfth episode in the third season of Arthur.
Summary[]
Sue Ellen, who is not afraid of much, hears a really scary howling noise in the woods and tries to get the gang to help her investigate.
Plot[]
Arthur is seen sitting in the living room that's dark while reading a book called "Very Scary Tales". He then tells the viewers that sooner or later, we're all afraid of something, like heights or big spiders. Arthur then says to the viewers about someone who isn't afraid of anything: Sue Ellen. Nothing seems to scare her, such as oral reports, the daily special at the cafeteria, and not even scary movies. Then Arthur says them after what happened in the woods, she is still not easy to scare. Just then, he hears a creepy voice saying "What about you, Arthur?" and runs off; the voice turns out to be D.W. with a megaphone.
After the title card, we open up to the tree house on an autumn day where Binky is telling his friends a scary story. In the story, people driving in a car are scared by this strange squeaking noise that keeps following them. When they get out of the car, they discover the source of the noise stuck to the car door handle: a big, sharp, book! He holds up a book, and scares Buster. Arthur says he knows this story, and that the thing stuck to the car door was a hook, not a book. Binky explains that he didn't have a hook, so he used a book as a substitute.
Buster says Binky's story was still really scary, and asks Sue Ellen, who has been reading a book, if she found the story scary. She dismisses the story as made up, saying it didn't really happen. Arthur says that stories that are made up can still be fun. Sue Ellen says real things are fun, like traveling and sight-seeing. As she leaves the tree house, she passes behind Binky, who is working on putting together a scarecrow, and yells "boo!", startling him. Watching her climb down from the tree house, Buster remarks how "tough" Sue Ellen is.
As Sue Ellen walks through the woods, she stops and looks up at a cawing crow. She hears a strange howling sound, just as she approaches a spooky looking tree. She thinks it is just her friends Binky, Buster and Arthur, and she calls out that if they're trying to scare her, it's not working. She hears the howl again and trips over a root. She lands on what looks like a large, three-toed footprint. She runs off and stops on a bridge. She looks down, and appears to be spooked by water lapping against some rocks. She runs off the bridge and finally makes it safely home and locks the door. Turning around, she gets frightened by some scary looking abstract faces. It turns out her parents are painting on easels in the hallway.
That night, as Sue Ellen is in her pajamas, she looks out her window and gets scared when she sees falling leaves. She closes the window, thinking that "this is silly", and says that there's no such things as monsters- at least not in Elwood City. The wind blows open her window and knocks over the lamp on the end table, causing the light to go out. She thinks that maybe her family is being followed by something from somewhere overseas — perhaps Baba Yaga, "the scary ogre lady from the Russian Backwoods". She picks up a book and looks at a picture of Baba Yaga. She imagines walking up to the tree house, which transforms into Baba Yaga's hut on fowl's legs. Baba Yaga, who is in the door, refers to Sue Ellen as "lunch" and the hut starts chasing her. Sue Ellen drops her book, which opens up to a picture of the Baba Yaga's footprints. They look just like the footprint she saw in the woods yesterday! Sue Ellen gasps.
The next morning, Sue Ellen wakes up and walks over to her window. But as she opens it, Baba Yaga appears. She tells her not to be late for school, and cackles. Then Sue Ellen wakes up for real; it was just a dream. She wonders what's gotten into her.
As Sue Ellen is walking to school, she is startled, first by a black cat running in front of her, and then Binky, who taps her on the shoulder. He chuckles at the fact that she "can get spooked". He tells her that he and his friends just finished making the scarecrow and asks if she wants to see it. She declines, saying they'll be late for school. Binky tells her they won't, because they can take a shortcut though the dead woods. Sue Ellen tells him "no thanks" and "maybe later".
Later, at the playground, Binky tells Arthur and Buster that Sue Ellen was scared. Arthur wonders what could have been able to scare Sue Ellen. Binky thinks for a second and suggests a mummy. Arthur says that mummies are too slow, and Sue Ellen can outrun one. Binky says Sue Ellen wouldn't be able to if the mummy had a mountain bike! Buster says that nothing on Earth can scare Sue Ellen, so this must mean that the thing that scared her is from outside of Earth, and that Sue Ellen encountered an alien! Sue Ellen shows up and tells them that it wasn't an alien- it was worse!
Sue Ellen shows Binky, Arthur and Buster the book about Baba Yaga. Binky wonders what's so scary about an old lady living in a house that "walks like a chicken." Buster makes a joke about just barbecuing it, and he and Binky laugh. Sue Ellen tells them to stop, saying that this is real. Arthur wonders why one of her stories is more valid than one of theirs, and asks Sue Ellen if she ever saw a Baba Yaga while she was in Russia. Sue Ellen uses the fact that Buster believes in space creatures despite never seeing one to defend her believing in the possible existence of Baba Yaga. Arthur says they don't have proof that it was a Baba Yaga, and Sue Ellen agrees, saying it could have been "something else".
On the bridge, they look down at the water that spooked Sue Ellen, and Buster says it's always noisy at this time of year. Sue Ellen thinks it could be a Kappa, a hungry water demon from Japan. The only way to defeat is to make it bow. She and her friends imagine themselves in Japan on a bridge drinking water until a Kappa shows up and then they are frightened. Buster tells the Kappa that he sees a $5.00 bill and the Kappa bows down to look, causing himself to spill water from the dish in his head, making him stuck.
As the friends walk on through the woods, Arthur says the sound might have just been a bird, but Sue Ellen comes up with another possibility- a banshee from Ireland, whose wail foretells doom for anyone she visits. They imagine warming up by a fireplace in a castle and hearing a wailing from outside. A banshee floats off of a carriage drawn by a headless skeletal horse, and comes up to the door. Binky slams the door on the banshee, causing it to exclaim "that hurt!"
Binky thinks dealing with a banshee wouldn't be so hard. Then they all hear the howling sound. Binky says he thinks that was his mom calling him, and tries to leave. Sue Ellen grabs his hand and forces him to keep walking. They hear the sound again and hide behind a tree. Buster thinks it could be an intergalactic creature of some kind- or a chipmunk. Sue Ellen asks what Arthur thinks, and he replies that he wants to leave! Binky shouts out to the thing making the sound, telling it to go away and that it doesn't scare him. He walks out from behind the tree, but then stops when he hears the noise again. Sue Ellen suggests they run, and they start to do so. Arthur then asks what are they afraid of, noting they didn't see anything. Buster thinks he sees Baba Yaga in her hut, but it turns out to just be the tree house. Sue Ellen says they can't go on being scared of everything, and Buster blames her stories for scaring them all in the first place. Arthur feels that they shouldn't be scared by the stories because they're exactly that- just stories. Sue Ellen protests that the howling sound is real, since they all heard it. Arthur thinks there must be a logical explanation for this, and the howling sound occurs again. Sue Ellen says when they find out, to let her know, and she runs off. The boys follow after her.
When Sue Ellen gets home and locks the door, her parents tell her to join them in viewing a slideshow of their old Swiss Alps adventures. Her mother tells Sue Ellen about how they were afraid before climbing their first mountain, and Sue Ellen asks how her parents were able to conquer their fears. Her dad explains that, with preparation and the right equipment, they were able to face their fears head on. This gives Sue Ellen an idea. She phones Binky, who is eating chips while watching a scary movie in his bedroom, and gets startled by the phone. Sue Ellen tells him they need to face "that thing" and they need to be prepared and have the right equipment. She goes to her closet and puts on rain boots, her swimming goggles, a rain hat, and a karate belt. She also takes a tennis racket and a flashlight by the time. She goes to Binky's house and tells him to come along.
Arthur and Buster join in with Sue Ellen and Binky and arrive at the woods, all of them wearing protective gear and carrying a "weapon". Sue Ellen tells them not to scream, no matter what happens. As they search, she hears that howling sound again and it turns out that it's coming from the dead tree by a bunch of rocks. She turn on her flashlight and finds out the source of the howling sounds: Mrs. Wood's dog, Perky, who had been trapped in the roots. Everyone is surprised that it was a dog that had been scaring them all along.
Gunky saws away one of the roots, and Perky is reunited with Mrs. Wood. She tells the kids how, if they had been scared of Perky's howling, Perky would have still been stuck. She says they're "a brave group", and tries to give them all a kiss, but they run away.
Back at the Treehouse, Sue Ellen was telling a scary story about a two-headed Wolf-Man, but it turns out that Binky couldn't find a wolf's head and instead used a cow's head; Francine notices, and says Sue Ellen said 'Wolf-Man', not 'Cow-Man.' Brain remarks he didn't know Sue Ellen liked scary stories, and when Francine asks how she could think of something so cool, Sue Ellen just smiles.
Characters[]
Major[]
Minor[]
Cameo[]
- 3rd Grade Male Dog (Number 3)
- Kenny
- 3rd Grade Male Rat
- 3rd Grade Male Rabbit
- 3rd Grade Female Aardvark (Number 2)
- Jenna Morgan
- George Lundgren
- Fern Walters
- Maria Pappas
- 3rd Grade Female Aardvark
- Nigel Ratburn
- Muffy Crosswire
- Prunella Deegan
Trivia[]
- At the end of the 2000 rerun intro on PBS Kids before this episode, Arthur’s crashing sound changes to a big splash of water.
- This is the last episode to depict George as a background character before officially becoming a main character
- This is the third episode Mrs. Wood and Perky appear from Arthur's Pet Business.
Cultural references[]
- Baba Yaga and her hut on chicken legs appear in various Slavic folk tales.
- Kappas are Japanese river demons. According to folklore, if a kappa bows and spills water from the dish in its head, it is unable to move.
- Banshees are Irish spirits that wail when somebody is about to die.
- Arthur starts quoting the motto from Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers: "One for all, and all for one".
Errors[]
- After Sue Ellen tells the gang about the ghoul, Binky switches from his gray jacket to his regular orange shirt.
- When Sue Ellen goes through the woods in her imagination, her hair changes to orange.
Video[]
VHS:
DVD:
Gallery[]
Screenshots
