Headscratchers / The Magic School Bus

Who's the Narrator?

• Who narrates the books? Most of the books (the original ones from before the TV show) are narrated in the first person. . .but all of the characters—the kids, Ms. Frizzle, even Liz— are all referred to in the third person at various points in them. So who's the one telling the story?
  • Maybe the whole class is working together to write the stories as part of a group project or something?

Just Regrow the Bus

• In the episode "Plays Ball" the class gets trapped inside the book after the wind blows the pages and cover on top of them. While, yes, this does tie into the lesson about friction, why didn't they just make the bus big again if their first focus was to get out? The pressure of the book doesn't prevent the bus from getting bigger.

Sunken Consistency

• In the episode "Ups and Downs", the class struggles to make the bus-sub sink. They eventually make it sink by crumpling it. Then Wanda leaves, making it lighter so it floats. They compensate by letting water into the pontoons, making it sink again. Then they want to make it float again, so they fill the pontoons with air. This works, but it shouldn't. At this point we have the bus crumpled, the pontoons full of air and Wanda on-board... the same combination which previously caused it to sink.
  • It's a magic bus, remember? A Wizard Did It.
  • Yeah, but they had a lever to make the bus sink and it was broken. That's why they went to all the trouble of making it sink manually. If the bus could have sunk or floated on its own in any capacity, then the whole plot of the episode would be pointless.
  • When they filled the pontoons with air, Wanda and three other kids were outside the bus holding the hoses in place. The bus started to rise. The villain reached out with her sub's robot arms and removed the corks in the pontoons, allowing the air to escape. The kids then ultimately got the bus to float by uncrumpling it. Uncrumpled with all the kids on board were the conditions that prevented it from sinking earlier.
  • They boarded the bus before the corks were removed and that didn't stop it from rising.
  • While we're in the general vicinity of the subject ... where did the air they pumped into the pontoons come from?
    • Either magic, or use of electricity to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen, then venting some of the excess volume out. The later case would have been too complex to explain to the kids.
    • Or maybe the same place it comes from in real submarines-compressed air tanks. The point is to force the heavy water out of the tanks. If you're asking where the compressed air tanks are, that's magic.
  • They had to teach the kids about the concepts of floating and sinking in water somehow...

Ridiculously Rich Reporter

• Speaking of the above episode, where does a small-town reporter on a ratings challenged show get the resources to buy her very own helicopter, submarine and a giant inflatable plesiosaur to perpetuate a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax with? No wonder her show was failing if that's how she spends her money.
  • Also, why doesn't she question the fact that a group of kids have a submarine that they're using to try and stop her?
  • This is the same woman who's dumb enough to think that she has any chance of not getting cancelled and possibly sued after airing her using what is presumably her station's production budget to hoax a sea monster all because she awkwardly apologizes after being exposed. It's doubtful she spends much time in the thinking department.

Why is Frizzle So Stoic?

• It always bugged me that Ms. Frizzle would stay calm no matter how dire the circumstances were. What exactly does she know about the future that no one else does? I never did trust her, even as a kid.
  • I always assumed that every episode was a Xanatos Gambit orchestrated by the Frizz to make the kids learn their lessons. No matter what happens they learn about the digestive system or the solar system etc; if all else fails she can fix it herself. She was calm because the kids were never in any danger.
  • This could also just be The Artifact from the book series, where there was less apparent danger, and Ms. Frizzle was instead just preternaturally calm about the incredibly bizarre events going on... because she caused them.
  • Alternatively, Ms. Frizzle could be in control of everything the whole time and can pull the plug if anyone is actually going to die.
  • Maybe she is so one-track minded that she considers the risk of losing a kid or getting whole bus (including her) wiped out an acceptable sacrifice in the name of teaching SCIENCE!
  • There's a more mundane explanation that, as a somewhat multidisciplinary teacher, she knows how stuff works in a "seen it already" kind of way.
  • There were a few episodes where she did show fear. The one I remember was during the one where they learned about erosion. A boulder was barrelling towards the children. Ms. Frizzle seemed genuinely shocked and rushed to their aid.
    • And in Under Construction, when Wanda's hands slipped off the floss, leaving her dangling over the tub with the aligator, the Friz showed genuine concern that she would fall.
  • There is also the possibility of basic psychology in that as an adult working with children, you are taught to always remain calm (at least in behaviour regardless of actual emotional state) so you don't alarm them. If a child sees that you are calm, then they are less likely to panic. Admittedly, this isn't done with travelling to space or the inside of a planet in mind, but it can still apply.
  • Works with adults too! The idea is that if the authority figure is calm, cool, and collected, than everyone under his/her stead can feel assured that at least someone knows what's going on and knows exactly what to do. That's probably what Ms. Frizzle was doing: keeping herself calm so the kids don't freak out any further than they already were when crap starts happening.
  • One episode involves Arnold interacting with a student who'd had Miss Frizzle the previous year. Odds are, she's been doing all of this for a while, with many of the same lessons. So she probably HAS seen it many times already and knows exactly what she's doing the whole way through.
  • I agree with the above ideas, and also think that many circumstances while they're in the bus, she knows that the bus is indestructible and thus feels entirely safe. To add to the "acting calm for the kids" thing, there was an episode where she was in a race on a strange recumbent bike-like machine, and she wore out her muscles. Instead of acting sore or in pain, she very calmly explained "My muscles are worn out. I cannot move." If I recall correctly, the few times she shows concern for students in danger are episodes that are relatively realistic, like when they're up in the mountains trying to carve a statue and the bus' magic isn't in effect.

How Did Arnold Catch a Cold?

• Speaking of which, what sense does it make that Arnold gets a cold from the Pluto incident? There are no germs in space and it's a scientific fact that you can't catch a cold from being cold. Did they just violate a scientific fact on a science show?
  • Maybe the damage made his system particularly vulnerable to the germs he encountered when he returned to Earth.
  • A space wizard did it.
  • It was obviously a weaker species of the Andromeda Strain.
  • Placebo affect.
  • The freezing and subsequent thawing of the tissues of his lungs and nasal passages resulted in severe irritation, thus imitating the sneezing, sore throat, and draining sinuses of a cold. Yeah.
  • It's also a scientific fact that you can't survive on Mercury and Venus without space-suits from the future designed to withstand high atmospheric pressure and temperature but Magic School Bus seems to give that scientific fact a Hand Wave too. You also can't go anywhere near Jupiter without getting crushed by the gravity, yet that fact seems to be ignored as well. And what about somehow being able to travel the entire solar system with all the planets perfectly aligned within a normal school day? Shouldn't you be complaining about those violations of scientific fact before nitpicking at a Science-And-Story-Segregation?
  • In the Producer segment for that episode, he says that if they were being realistic, Arnold should have suffered from health consequences far worse than a common cold.
    • Um, yeah. Arnold would be DEAD!!!
    • Perfect place for that to happen, too...
    • Now, now, you know we don't use that word on kids shows...
    • Not to mention, they'd probably get sucked into Jupiter and would get crushed before hitting the liquid gases.
  • As I recall, cold viruses are "hidden" viruses that await in your body until a large dose of stress (like cold temperature or lack of sleep) tells them to activate. I imagine being frozen solid would count. This could mean he caught the disease on Earth, but Pluto brought it out of its incubation period.
    • It is true that hypothermia impairs immune function. We still have no good explanation for why he didn't freeze to death, suffocate, or explode, but I'd say we have the part where he gets sick covered.
    • The idea that you would explode if exposed to a vacuum is a myth. In actuality you'd lose consciousness in less than a minute and be dead not long after.
  • Maybe the Bus's powers kept Arnold from dying. Ms. Frizzle is never bothered by the danger they get into on multiple occasions. Perhaps the Bus magically keeps everyone safe from any injury, but its power has limits. It was able to keep Arnold from dying, but it wasn't strong enough to keep him completely unharmed, so some manifestation of the consequence of exposing himself on Pluto had to occur. Being frozen and having a cold afterward are just the damage that could get through the Bus' protection.

Why Isn't the Frizz in NASA?

• If we have to nitpick, how come Ms. Frizzle isn't working for NASA? She can somehow supply her students with space-suits that can enable one to survive the conditions of Mercury and Venus, and travel the entire solar system in a day...yet she's working for an Elementary school?! Dude! You can help people way more instead of just inspiring a couple children to maybe study to become astronauts.
  • NASA tends to frown upon the use of "magic" in their projects (with the exception of that "gravity" thing they keep complaining about but can't explain). It looks bad on the press releases.
  • How do we know she isn't? She's a teacher, she must be doing something in the summers...
    • Like being on the rodeo circuit? Or doing play-by-plays for baseball games?
  • Well, she did lead an expedition to prevent an asteroid from crashing into Earth. That has to count for something.
  • Reed Richards Is Useless. Full stop.
  • Same reason the Doctor would rather be a universal tour guide than tied down working for organizations like UNIT. NASA has their own agenda, and they would place severe restrictions on how Ms. Frizzle could use her bus. She'd rather have the freedom of using it at her discretion, and it seems pretty clear to me that she'd much rather use it to teach children who are open-minded and hungry to learn rather than stubborn adults set in their ways. There's only room for one superiority complex on that bus.

Why Only Eight Students?

• Why are there only eight kids in the entire class?
  • Their school has a high budget and a great student/teacher ratio.
  • The original book series had more kids; they just picked out the ones with the most personality for the show.
    • And racial diversity.
    • At least half the cast in the old book series was rather bland.
  • Hey, I used to study in a small private school. His class had six people, of which only one was a girl. It happens!
    • I was actually in a class full of around 6-10 students. During the time when flu hit around, there was once only about three.
    • My Consumer Math class had four students, including me. Granted, it was a rural town.
  • Well, all the kids in the class are bright, so I assumed maybe they were some special class for gifted kids or something.
  • Or they could live in a slightly rural or low-populated area. The elementary school I went to had around twenty kids in total, ten to a class. If a K-5 school had eight kids in each grade, that's 48 kids.
  • The school is shown to be pretty large (in the episode with the hot coco) so, maybe it's the Alternative school for children with "special needs"...?
    • It's entirely normal to have a class of eight students...if you're a special education teacher.
    • That alone explains everything.
    • Because: There are only eight kids because the rest of them didn't make it through her deadly field trips. Or alternatively, the others went insane.
    • A Magic Bus Did It?
    • Many Advanced Placement classes do have far fewer than the normal 25 to 30 kids.
    • My class had only 13 kids, in a public school. Its not that much of a stretch for there to be only eight.
    • Agreed, also at a public school. Mind, this editor went to a school far enough in the boondocks that the entire 8th grade class was the valedictorian, the salutatorian, and Bubba.
    • Because Time Lord.
  • I go to a private school in New York City, and my classroom has seven kids in it (excluding me). It may be a private school, a rural area, special ed (mind you, special ed isn't just for kids with disabilities), just a small classroom, etc.
  • Ms. Frizzle herself handpicks only the most worthy.
  • Of course she's a special education teacher. The education she provides is in a very special way.
  • A headscratcher below asks about permission slips, with one suggested answer being that the Friz hands out a general "I can take your kids on these fantastical field trips on a whim" permission slip at the beginning of the year. In one episode (I think the Bat one), we see her taking all of the kids' parents on a field trip, and they're all on board with it. Taking this all together, it could be that the kids we see are the only kids whose parents were willing to sign that slip; those whose parents weren't got put in a different class so Ms. Frizzle wouldn't have to keep making last-second arrangements for them when she took the others on a field trip.

The Anachronistic School Bus

• According to the holiday special, the bus is made from recycled materials, since it "unrecycled" itself. However, the design of the bus seems to suggest it was made in The '50s, before recycling was invented.
  • It's a modern bus made of parts recycled from the fifties. <_<
  • Using a fifties design doesn't mean it was made in the fifties. But Ms. Frizzle has the power of Time Travel anyway.
  • What part of MAGIC School Bus don't you understand?!
  • A '50s bus (or any other vehicle) would be fairly easily recycled compared to a '70s/80s one. Mostly steel, cast-iron engine block, tempered glass side and rear windows all easily melted down; with the only composite materials being the tires, the laminated windshield and the fabric-backed vinyl upholstery.
  • It's a TARDIS.
  • Metal was being recycled well before the nineteen fifties, due to the fact that it's much cheaper to reforge scrap than to mine and smelt virgin ore (there's a reason scrapyards can afford to pay people). Since most of the nonmetal parts of a vehicle wear out in less than fifty years, it's reasonable enough to believe those parts were installed after recycling other materials became common.
    • Not to mention that recycling was a BIG deal in the WWII era. Metal was especially a big deal since it could be used to make weapons.

Teaching Physics by Breaking It?

• Has anyone else noticed the irony in Miss Frizzle teaching the children about science, but is doing so by using magic, which contradicts everything she teaches them?
  • I always assumed it was just a way into brainwashing kids into thinking "science is magical" so they'd be more interested in it.
  • Maybe it's set in an alternative universe where magitek was used to construct everything from the ground up. She's starting them off with stuff that acts like our science because that's the highest level of abstraction to the magitek. This is why atoms are little balls instead of quantum... cloud... things... Granted, the fact that this isn't common knowledge makes no sense unless you assume that she's, like, God or something, training successors.
    • Actually, that would make a lot of sense.
  • I figure it's Clarke's law. The bus is science, just VERY ADVANCED science.
    • "Magic is just science we do not understand yet"
  • Or the bus could have stole (lots and lots of) energy from somewhere, then turned it into mass.
  • Long story short, they're in a grade school. The workings of the Magic School Bus are university material at least.
    • Um... which ones? I recall learning almost everything he saw on Magic School Bus before even entering High School!
    • No, not the lessons we learned on the show (recycling is good, this is how yeast works, etc) - How exactly the Magic School Bus itself works.
    • Oh... wait, does that mean I'm not able to breathe before I learn how breathing works? This doesn't make sense!
    • No, you can breathe, you just can't engineer a more efficient lung or pass a test on the inner workings of the respiratory system without knowing the mechanics of the lung or the oxygen molecule flows of blood. Likewise, until you understand Applied 12-level hypermath, you may be able to be shrunk, but you're not going to understand how you shrink in any terms besides "magic".
    • Not necessarily university level... they probably got it from their sister school in Hogsmeade, Scotland.
    • ...So the kids go to Ilvermorny?
  • The reason magic contradicts science in reality is because it doesn't exist. But in The Magic School Bus, magic does exist and thus there wouldn't be a contradiction.

No Other Classes?

• When do the kids ever learn all the important stuff besides science?
  • Offscreen, in the classroom, in a non-entertaining manner. Probably by another (more conventional) teacher.
  • I like to think they have a lit teacher who has a magic bookmark that takes them inside famous works of literature. Because Arnold in the Scarlet Pimpernel would be fantastic.
    • They must be one of the schools that separates spelling/grammar (and possibly but not necessarily vocab.) from Lit. History for the early grades as well as the later ones, then, since it would just make those things even harder to learn without books.
    • Who's the Social Studies teacher then? Carmen Sandiego?
    • Professor Waldo, who favors striped shirts and spends his summer and winter breaks Swiss Trekking.
    • Well, there is a book series (One is called "Humbug Holiday", and they're by Tony Abbott) where two kids get sucked into books by way of... Magic. Maybe the same thing works here?
  • Well the bus does have a time travel function, so we know how history would be covered.
  • "Spins a Web" clearly showed the Bus could enter the world of a B-Movie. Ms. Frizzle should start teaching a film class in which she takes students on field trips inside say... 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Godfather.
  • Reading this particular thread has led me to imagine the kids as they progress through school studying Social Studies with Carmen Sandiego and then English with Thursday Next. I may need to go write that fanfic now.
  • IIRC, there was a spinoff show/book series/cave painting/skywriting/something where Ms. Frizzle used the bus to teach social studies, mostly by going back in history to important dates, but it wasn't as popular as the classic science based show.

Wanda and Tim — Author Avatars?

• So are Wanda and Tim supposed to be the Producers' kids, or self-insert characters?
  • I like to think that Tim is the Producer's kid, they look similar, but then again Tim has a father in-show?
  • Please don't tell me you thought this just because they are the same ethic background
    • Not the OP, but according to the wiki they have the same last name.
    • Except Tim doesn't have a last name we know of. We never learn his (or Dorothy Ann's) last name in canon.
  • My personal headcanon is that the producers are Tim and Wanda from the future. Don't ask her how or why this works; she hasn't thought it through that much.
  • I always thought they were self-inserts - and that it would explain why Tim was the quiet one.

Mrs. Frizzle's Opinion on Pluto

• What did Ms. Frizzle think when Pluto was demoted?
  • Perhaps she took the kids on a trip to see Eris and show them that we're ALWAYS learning new things about the solar system. Her catchphrase is "Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!" so she obviously doesn't mind the fact that scientific knowledge and classification isn't static. Basically, she probably thought it was fascinating that scientists are always finding out new things. She seems like someone who likes that aspect of science, the exploratory part where you might have to revise classifications and theories. Rather than Pluto's classification being changed, she would probably be more excited about all the new Kuiper belt objects and extrasolar planets being discovered (now that would be an interesting sequel where they go to another solar system!)
    • God, you made me miss her SO much...
    • You, dear sir/ma'am, just won a big ass Heartwarming Moment AND a Moment of Awesome! <claps enthusiastically>
  • I can confirm that she would say this. In fact, she would say something similar for all science subjects, not just astronomy.
    • How can you confirm? Are you some form of Word of God for Magic School Bus?
    • From OP of "confirm": Well, as close as I believe I can — I talked with Lily Tomlin at the 2011 New York Comic Con and asked her this question.

Keesha's Clothes

• Okay, just what is with Keesha's outfit◊? As far as I can tell, she wears a sweatshirt, blue pantyhose, no other bottoms and ballet flats.
  • Looks like a mini dress rather than a sweatshirt.
    • I see a sweater and purple shorts.
  • There's clearly a skirt underneath that sweatshirt of hers. In "Kicks Up a Storm", you'll see she was wearing a T-shirt instead of the sweatshirt due to the heat, and underneath that shirt, she's wearing the same skirt.

Who Is Mrs. Frizzle?

• I know it's not a show to be taken seriously, but who the hell is Ms. Frizzle, and where did she get that bus? Or is she the real spellcaster or alien or whatnot and the bus just her equivalent of a magic wand? And how about the setting around her—there was a picture book that revealed the kids' parents were in on the secret after being temporarily turned into bats, but does the world at large know about her? Has anyone in-universe tried to figure out how she's doing what she's doing? Are there any other characters like her in that setting? And what ethnicity is a name like "Frizzle" anyways?
  • She's a time lord. Her ethnicity is obviously Galifreyan.
  • Also, look at the fact that in Doctor Who the known time lords are named "The Master" and "The Doctor." What is the nickname Ms. Frizzle has? "The Frizz."
    • I wonder if we could call this Doctor Who for children without the aliens and a sonic screwdriver? After all, this was before New Who aired, right??
  • Great, now you've just given me one of my more wackier fanfic ideas: Magic School Bus Meets Who!.
  • I hold two theories: Ms. Frizzle is either a witch, a time traveller, or possibly both. Assuming she's a witch, her pet lizard is actually her familiar, and the titular school bus is her greatest magical creation and she wanted to use it to help people.
  • The most popular headcanon online is she is River Song. same hair, Eccentric personality, travels through time....
  • The bus is her Stand of course!

Sex Ed

• How would Ms. Frizzle teach sex ed?
  • Disturbingly.
  • Why, she would encourage her students to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy, of course! ...Oh.
  • She did teach sex ed. Remember the chicken/egg episode? That's pretty much a very tame children show sex ed lesson. If you really want an answer about a hypothetical human sex ed lesson, same way she taught about digestion, sickness, and the egg-laying process. Go inside!
  • *Ahem* It's a fourth grade class. She wouldn't need to teach them sex ed! Now, if you'll excuse me, I am going to try and repair my newly destroyed childhood...
  • Fourth grade is precisely when my school district and most others I know started teaching sex ed.
    • Not the "Ahem" poster, but mine did it in 5th Grade. It also wasn't done by any of the regular teachers.
  • Considering Rule 34, odds are there is a fan fic somewhere that shows exactly this scenario.
    • I haven't seen and fanfics, but I have seen pictures... Let's just say Frizzle is frizzy at both ends.
  • I'm not sure where I should put this brain bleach. In my eyes for reading this entry, or in my brain to destroy the image?
  • There was that salmon episode though. Look at your own risk

Pretending to Put the Pet in Peril

• I know this is mild compared to some of the entries here, but ... you know the episode about reptiles? Ms. Frizzle let a class of ten year olds believe that their pet lizard was in life threatening danger just to teach them about reptiles. And nobody even called her on it. That's gotta be somewhere on the Moral Event Horizon.
  • So all the times she puts her students in mortal danger don't cross the Moral Event Horizon, but a (admittedly mean) head game does?
  • Her explanation was, "I just love it when you find things out for yourselves."
    • Right before said explanation, she says she was about to tell them the truth, and you can actually tell where that point is at the beginning of the episode before being interrupted. And to be honest, Herp Haven was one of the safer field trip locations, so she played along with it (although she never alluded at any point that Liz was ever in danger).
  • This is what I thought:
    • The kids knew Frizzle cared about them and wouldn't let them die.
    • The kids can also talk and defend themselves. Liz is a lizard and as far as the kids know, is completely incapable of defending herself.
  • I always thought she didn't plan that one. When it came up she just let the kids draw their own conclusions. But then again, I haven't seen the episode a long time. BTW I think she didn't plan the bat thing either.
    • What was really happening with Liz? I missed out on that concept.
    • Liz was getting her "lizard-house" fixed, and being put in hibernation in the meantime. The kids thought the owner of Herp Haven intended have her be cooked and eaten.
  • So why couldn't she just say something like, "Kids, they're not going to eat her! Now learn about hibernation while they fix up her house."
  • Uh... no one mentions that time when they went inside Arnold? I remember back in school they wouldn't even let us take asprin without at least two parental consent forms, and asking the kids if they need it... and she just violates his privacy against his will like that? I'm thinking at least one lawsuit is in order.
  • Or when they got into Ralph's body when he got sick. That may have been in the books, though. But yeah, Mrs. Frizzle doesn't really let a little thing like privacy, law, etc. get in the way of science. She's like a anti-hero when it comes to that sort of thing.

Why Don't the Kids De-Age?

• In The Busasaurus, they claim to have gone so far back in time that the fossilized egg has been turned into a living egg. How exactly does this work? Especially given that the egg changed by going back in time but none of the kids are affected by it.
  • Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey. (If the Doctor Who episode "City of Death" is anything to go by, the time field is reversed but only the bus and its passengers are stabilized. Presumably somehow the rock was replaced by the original egg as the timestream was going backwards.)

That's a Dinosaur, Not a Rock!

• From the same episode, Arnold and Phoebe find the egg lodged in "a rock". How do they not notice that the "rock" is very clearly a sleeping tyrannosaurus rex? There was nothing hiding its face save a tiny bush, and even if there was something that kept them from seeing its sharp teeth you'd think they'd still be able to identify the claws and tail or at least see something suspicious in the fact that the surface of the "rock" was soft and moving, or even to tell the difference between a rock and a living thing. Heck, they weren't even clued in by the fact that it was snoring.

Unfazed Mother Dinos?

• Related to "Busasaurus"; I get it was part of the Aesop, but why the HECK did all the herbivorous dinosaurs just let all the kids be near and even touch their babies!? Any normal animal would at least try to scare them away. They may be "friendly herbivores" but they're still mothers. Unless they were born without natural instincts, I don't think these dinosaurs would be so okay with the kids getting that close to their young.
  • If all they were doing was being close without actually attacking, the mother dinosaurs might have let it slide.

Pigtail Problem

• Okay, this one's a bit nitpicky, but why does D.A. never take out her pigtails? In fact in one episode she actually removes her hairbands and they're still in place (how does that work exactly? Arnold even points out the absurdity of it). Whenever the current field trip requires her to wear a hat, hers is always specially customized with little holes for her pigtails to fit through. Wouldn't it be easier for Ms. Frizzle to just ask Dorothy Ann to lower her hair?
  • Rule of Funny. Plus as you said, Arnold points out the absurdity of it.
  • That could actually depend on D.A.'s hair thickness, or if it was styled when wet and then dried. My extremely thick (and granted, partially African) hair can hold a shape after it's been together for a while and dried that way.
  • Perhaps Dorothy Ann left her pigtails up when bathing or showering the night before and forgot to dry her hair? And when she wore a hard hat in "Under Construction", her pigtails were nowhere to be seen.

Baffling Bookworm, Pt. 1

• How is it that D.A. always just happens to have a book on the subject of whatever is going on in the current episode? Did Ms. Frizzle just give her a Gallifreyan handbag that's bigger on the inside allowing her to store an entire library.
  • Each episode shows that the characters are already studying the subject in question, for example, "Gets Lost in Space" shows them building their own solar system at the start of the episode. Therefore, as D.A is The Smart Girl, it makes sense that as soon as they start a new topic, she would go to the library to research it. She doesn't have all of those different books at the same time, just loads of books on the subject current to the episode.
  • Or she's carrying around her school-issue science textbook...

Baffling Bookworm, Pt. 2

• Speaking of D.A. and books, how is it she is always able to produce one from a bag? In Goes to Mussell Beach, she somehow gets a book out despite being turned into a mussel and having no arms, hands, or any other limbs to reach into the bag, grab a book, and open it.

Ralphie's Hat

• This one's a bit nitpicky as well and a pretty minor fact, but generally most schools I've been to generally say you're not allowed to wear hats in class most of the time with the exception of cultural or religious customs (i.e. your culture requires you to wear a turban). So how exactly is Ralphie able to get away with always wearing that same hat in class, letalone backwards like he always does. Heck, he didn't even take it off when he got sick and was confined to his bed.
  • Mrs. Frizzle is just that laid-back enough to not care about Ralph wearing his hat indoors.

Only the Kid Saw the Asteroid?

• In the episode "Out of This World" D.A. claims to have spotted an asteroid heading toward Earth with a children's telescope. If she was able to calculate exactly where the asteroid was going to hit, just how exactly did it not get seen by NASA? Furthermore they actually try to call NASA to tell them, but since they apparently don't already know what really makes them think that NASA will believe some kid calling and saying "I just found out a meteor's going to crash into my school".
  • Perhaps the reason they couldn't get through is because the people at NASA were running around in a panic like chickens with their heads cut off, leaving the kids to take care of the threat themselves.
  • That and, in real life, NASA would've already seen a giant asteroid headed toward Earth, so unless D.A. had any new information to give them, she'd basically be stating the obvious to them.
  • It's also possible that D.A. was wrong about the asteroid and there was nothing to worry about, and Ms. Frizzle just used it as an opportunity for a field trip.

Destination in the Titles

• The opening credits. I know it's just a kids show's theme, and I should relax, but... where the hell are we supposed to be going? How do you take a left at your intestine and the your second right at Mars in the first place? Where was the first right? Out of sanity?
  • Sesame Street
  • The colon of an Astronaut.
  • Via a wormhole. Well how else do you explain the bus traveling the solar system in the course of half an hour?

No Indigo

• Did Word of God give a specific reason indigo was omitted from the rainbow pinball machine?
  • Because racism.
    • What?
  • Not really. But the true reason is because science usually omits indigo anyway. Originally, Isaac Newton identified five colors, but changed it to seven as an analogy to the seven notes of the musical scale and because his culture figured seven was such a special number (seven continents, seven planets, seven seas) so he figured light was made up of seven colors.

How is the Gila Monster Allowed?

• How did Wanda's mother get away with keeping a venomous reptile in the sandbox? Does social services not exist in Walkerville? While gila monsters have no known fatalities among adults who are bitten and probably can't kill adults because of their minuscule amounts of venom, they can make adults very sick, and the bite is painful. So imagine what it could do to a curious two-year-old! Letting a toddler play in a sandbox with an animal whose venom is as toxic as that of a coral snake can't be considered good parenting. Even if it is for science.
  • I don't recall Ms. Li allowing her two-year-old son in the sandbox at that time - I would think she just kept him indoors while the gila monster was at their home.

Why Carlos?

• In the first episode, Ms. Frizzle talks about Jupiter and describes it, then randomly says, "But don't worry Carlos, because I'm not on it." Why single out Carlos? Is this a gag/reference to the original books or something?
  • No. After disappearing with Liz, Ms. Frizzle radios the class and tells them she's on one of the outer planets. The navigational system had been damaged and only shows the inner planets. Carlos thus says "But that's the half of the map we don't have!" Frizzle then says "Good! You can fill it in as you go along." Her not being on Jupiter means they have to fill in more of the map. Apparently Ms. Frizzle thought Carlos was more interested in completing the map than finding her.

No Bystanders

• There are numerous times when the Bus transforms in the middle of a road in the middle of a city. How come there are never any bystanders to notice that?
  • In one episode we meet a student that was in Ms. Frizzle's class the year before (or several years before, I can't remember), who is well aware of her teaching methods. It's possible that a good deal of the town knows about it, and just thinks, "oh, there's goes that wacky Ms. Frizzle again". Either that or the bus has a Perception Filter.
    • There's an episode where Miss Frizzle is shown doing her normal magic teaching with the kids' parents. Pretty much everyone's in on it.

How was the Show Edited?

• The Magic School Bus is a kids show, so (as far as I know) it has no fan forum. I guess the best place to ask is here. How was the show edited and finalized? From what I hear, the video quality the complete series dvd set (a misnomer, it's not complete unless it contains the 60 minute version of Holiday Special and the other unreleased stuff...) is low, some say vhs quality. Does that mean the show is stuck in Standard Definition, like classic Doctor Who serials, or does it use film and was edited in a SD format, like the newer star trek shows (TNG, DS9, and VOY), or was it completely produced on film, like the original Star Trek series, and someone is too lazy to make a new transfer?
  • I have a few DVD's that were released around the time the complete series was put out in those DVD's have very bad audio on some episodes where the music is very quiet in the talking and sound effects are a lot more clear. Video Quality on episodes also varies. I myself don't know how the series was edited or transferred.
  • The show was done with traditional cel animation as was shown in the behind-the-scenes feature of the Holiday Special; this likely meant the animation was shot on traditional film. Most shows of this era that were shot on film had a transfer process called telecine; it's the process of converting 24fps film to a 480i SD videotape fit for the old analog broadcast TV standard. In some specific cases, a bit of post-production might have been done on a computer, but it seems like the only area that was done here was for inserting in the credits (they look a lot more digital than the rest of the show). Given the fact that it's a children's show and I can't imagine demand is super high for a high-quality remaster, they likely just used the old transfers they already had on hand, which falls under the limitation of them being low-res and interlaced. A pity, but sadly that's just how business works. Also, worth mentioning, VHS quality is probably a major exaggeration — while VHS is limited to 480i at the highest, its picture quality is still far inferior to that of DVD or even broadcast TV.

What Seat Belts?

• At the start of the opening Ms. Frizzle yells "Seat belts, everyone!", but like a lot of school buses, the Magic School Bus doesn't have any.
  • There were a few episodes where the kids are seen putting on seat belts.
  • To be fair, some public buses have seatbelts.

The Bus's Gender

• Is the Bus male or female? On one hand, the episode "...Revving Up" has Mr. Junkitt call the bus "she", yet in the episode "...Sees Stars", we hear the bus (or at least its "ship's computer") speak with a male voice. What do you think?
  • Actually, a lot of people would give their vehicles female pronouns, and some mechanics actually do that.
  • The Magic School Bus is possibly male since it makes masculine panting sounds when exhausted.
  • Maybe the gender depends on which form it's taking.

Why Trust Janet?

• How exactly does Arnold ever give Janet the benefit of the doubt? Especially after the butterfly episode, with her not-too-subtly accusing Phoebe of sabotaging the class because they're playing her old school's team, what could feasibly be called her personal Moral Event Horizon given how upset and scared Phoebe is when her friends turn on her. On the word of Janet. Seriously; if that happened in the real world, I'd be worried about Phoebe's continued health, both mental and physical.
  • Arnold is Janet's cousin. Apart from loving her as a member of his family, he's probably seen better behavior from her more often than the rest of the cast. It must be why he vouched for her in the first episode.
    • That explains the first episode. It does not explain why he bought her trick in the theater or why he believes her over Phoebe in the butterfly episode; in the episode where he turned orange, he fully believes Janet screwed with him just because she wanted to humiliate him. I may not have the order correct but "she's nicer outside of school" doesn't account for the fact that even as he was defending her, he seems aware that she's kind of a total jerk. And nothing explains why the rest of the class jumps to "Phoebe is a traitor" on Janet's word; none of them like Janet at all, all of them have only really seen her at her worst and Keisha at the very least should have been at least a little on her side, what with being Phoebe's best friend and all.
    • Though, Arnold was the only one who didn't entirely turn against Phoebe. Granted, it was because he didn't know what was bog beast was, but still, he didn't get nasty with Phoebe like the others did. "Bog Beast" was the second time we see Janet, the light episode being some time after. "Goes Cellular," when he thinks she turned him orange, comes after both.
  • The first episode lifts several quotes directly from the books. Among them are Arnold's "She's really nice once you get to know her." In the book, Janet was just a braggart, but also resourceful, and redeemed herself by managing to turn the bus around and finding Ms. Frizzle. Arnold remarks, "I told you, she's a good kid." Indeed, she was a good kid in the book. As the show was just getting started, everyone's personalities and roles hadn't fully settled in, including Janet not yet being the bully she'd become by the second season. The first episode shows her just being really pushy, stubborn, and dangerously ambitious, but she and the class are quite amicable in the end. So this is either an example of Early-Installment Weirdness, or Janet became a bully at some point between Lost in Space and Bog Beast and the class never really saw her transformation.

No Permission Slips?

• Maybe my education experience was anomalous, but don't you need permission slips to take kids on field trips? Frizzle seems to take the kids on field trips whenever it strikes her fancy.
  • There's heavy implication that Ms. Frizzle's field trips aren't exactly officially sanctioned. They take pretty big steps to hide the fact that Ms. Frizzle has a magic school bus from their own principal, for instance.
  • Some of the games imply permission slips.
  • The Friz issues a single all-encompassing permission slip at the beginning of the year.
  • With one quote in the haunted house episode, Arnold confirms that they exist, but also that Ms. Frizzle oversteps their authority: "But our permission slips didn't say anything about haunted houses!"

Disease Divination

• In the episode where they go inside Ralphie...how did Ms. Frizzle know Ralphie was going to be sick? She's shown wearing her medicine dress before Ralphie's mom calls in, so...how did she know?
  • It's possible Ralphie was showing mild symptoms the day before - at that point he and/or his mom might not have thought it was bad enough yet to keep him home.
    • That would mean she put his classmates and teacher at risk of contagion.
  • Alternatively, there was a cold going around the class and Ralphie was the last one to get sick. Probably also why she had no qualms about taking the entire class into a sick kid's room (since you generally can't catch the same cold twice).
  • In the Producer segment at the end of the show, a caller points out that kids shouldn't hang out around their sick friends, and the producer assures them that "Ralphie wasn't contagious." Given that his symptoms were mainly a sore throat and fever, and the disease was specifically caused by bacteria and not viruses, it's likely that Ralphie had strep, which isn't as contagious as a cold. Ms. Frizzle might have recognized the early warning signs of the illness and made the necessary arrangements.

What About Rain?

• How can Molly Cule have a hood ornament which is dissolved by water? What happens when it rains?
  • The hood ornament dissolves. More seriously, Molly is fully aware of this, and apparently has decided to use a hood ornament made of sugar because she can have one end she finds sugar fascinating.
  • As for if it rains, that's what garages are for. Hardly a stretch to believe that a successful pop star like Molly Cule has more than one car.

Why Not Change?

• If Arnold dislikes going on most of the field trips The Magic School Bus takes the class on, especially considering he always says that he "should've stayed home today!", why doesn't he move to a different class, or a different school, or get homeschooled?
  • Arnold is fond of Ms. Frizzle, so he probably comes to school at least reasonably certain that things will go well. He just panics in isolated moments, when things get really bad. In fairness to Arnold, so do Keesha, Wanda, and to a lesser extent, Ralphie.
  • He's a child. Children don't have that kind of power over their lives.
    • Maybe not on their own, but ideally his parents would take the necessary steps to get their son out of that class if he admitted he felt unsafe. (And before anyone claims that he doesn't want to blow the secret of the Magic School Bus to his parents, or is silent because he doesn't think they'd believe the adventures he gets put through: there was an episode where Ms. Frizzle took everyone's parents on a field trip and they experienced the usual craziness firsthand, so they definitely know and would believe him if he spoke up.)

Why Not Just Dorothy?

• Dorothy Ann is always referred to as such or just her initials "D.A.", but the one thing that puzzles me about her is this: Why doesn't anyone refer to her as just "Dorothy"?
  • Hers is a first name with two parts, so "Dorothy" is only part of it . It's kind of like the deal with Sue Ellen on Arthur; no one calls her "Sue" because it's not a nickname for her, and part of her name would be missing if they did. Perhaps the best answer to the question is that they aren't called by only part of their name because they don't want to be. Dora Winifred Read certainly doesn't want to be called "Dora."
  • I was referred to by my own equivalent of "D.A." (first and middle initials in my case) until 8th grade; and it only changed because I was getting sick of getting confused with someone with a similar nickname. A lot of kids have nicknames they'd rather be called by instead of their legal name. In fact, it's not uncommon for teachers to ask students if they'd rather be called by something else during the first attendance check of the school year.
  • Maybe when she was little, other kids used to tease her about having the same name as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. That could be a good reason for her to prefer "D.A."

Missing Parents?

• The only aspects of Wanda's family we saw were her mother and her brother William, and of Phoebe's family her blind dad. There's one thing that puzzles me; Where are Wanda's father and Phoebe's mother? Did they not want to go on that field trip with bats? Is Wanda's mother a widow, and is Phoebe's father a widower? Are their parents divorced?
  • They could just be working late that night. Growing up, it was pretty much always my dad who did the back-to-school nights as my mom basically worked late all the time.
  • Considering the show has never shied away from displaying diversity, its possible Phoebe and Wanda are raised by single parents, and the show just never commented on it.

No Rock?

• In "Gets Eaten", Tim brought in a portrait of a rock to go with Wanda's mussel in their "2 Things that go together" report. Why exactly would Tim bring in a picture of a rock? Why didn't he bring in real rock?
  • Because he's an artist and because it's funny maybe?

Who's Watching Evan?

• It's possible that Carlos' mother didn't go on that field trip in "Going Batty" because she had to look after Mikey, and I've just been thinking that Wanda's father didn't go either because he had to look after William, but who was looking after Evan while Dorothy Ann's parents were on that field trip?
  • A babysitter? They do exist, even in worlds as mundane fantastic as this one.

Why Not Scrape it Off?

• Another headscratcher from "Gets Eaten". Wouldn't it have been wiser for Keesha to have just scraped the scum off of Arnold's shoe and stuffed the scum into a resealable bag?
  • She was already stressed from both herself and Arnold forgetting about the report and wasn't thinking straight.

Why the Flippers?

• In "Makes a Rainbow", why does the pinball machine have flippers if it doesn't use a physical ball?
  • Presumably there are reflective mirrors on the surfaces of those bumpers to reflect the light beams back into play. Pinball is more than just luck, it's about timing you hitting the bumpers just so not only to prevent the beams from getting past you but also to send the beam exactly where you want it to go.
  • Perhaps the flippers are moving the obstacles in the machine? Between light pulses, the kids are seen pushing the obstacles around to get the lights to reflect.

Why be Inaccurate?

• Another from "Gets Eaten". Near the end of the episode, the class is taught that all food chains begin with plants. During the producer's segment, a caller points out this isn't true, that some food chains begin with oxygen or molecules. The producer then confirms this. So, if the people making this show know that not all food chains begin with plants, then why are they presenting that as a fact within the actual episode?
  • Cause that's how you would teach this concept to primary school kids. You start with the basics and then go into the exceptions.

Inside Ralphie Inconsistencies

• In "Inside Ralphie", the class is partaking in Broadcast Day. As such, they record footage of the Magic School Bus shrinking, going inside Ralphie, showing the faces of the class, and dropping Ralphie's name, all on live TV where at the very least Dr. Tennelli (Ralphie's mom) saw it. However, in later episodes, the class and Ms. Frizzle take care to not show the world that the bus is magic, including hiding it from Mr. Junkett (Revving Up), Mr. Ruhle (Makes a Rainbow), and Mrs. Li (Under Construction); in fact, Mr. Ruhle states the class didn't go on a school-sanctioned field trip once (Cracks a Yolk). Inside Ralphie seems to generate multiple inconsistencies when it shows the Bus's capabilities to the world. If Dr. Tennelli was asking questions, just who else in Walkerville (or the Pentagon, for that matter) is asking questions?
  • We might have to chalk this one up to Early-Installment Weirdness, since "Inside Ralphie" was the third episode produced. It's also worth noting that the class never films the bus itself transforming, instead focusing on Ralphie's body and the cells inside.
  • As an above poster mentions, it's possible that Miss Frizzle's bizarre class trips are an Open Secret in the town, given that one episode features a student who had Miss Frizzle the previous year and is fully aware of her field trips.

What if the Bus was a Nutrient?

• Also from "Inside Ralphie", what would have happened if Ralphie's system had "considered" the bus a nutrient instead of a waste product?

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