An animated Edutainment Show which ran on PBS in The Nineties. It was adapted from a series of books written by Joanna Cole and illustrated by Bruce Degen. It was later made into a set of computer games, as well. The series follows an eccentric/insane schoolteacher as she takes her elementary school class on very exotic field trips which teach scientific topics. These adventures are made possible by (you guessed it) a magical school bus. (And Viewers Like You, of course.) The show's Wacky Homeroom consisted of:
A Day in the Limelight: Different episodes feature different kids/pairs of kids as the main protagonists. Examples:
"All Dried Up": Phoebe and Carlos "Blows its Top": D.A. and Carlos "Gains Weight": Phoebe "For Lunch": Arnold and Wanda "In the Haunted House": Carlos, and a little bit of D.A. "Gets Ants in its Pants": Keesha "Gets Lost in Space": Janet and Arnold "Out of this World": D.A. "Meets the Rot Squad": Wanda "Inside Ralphie": Ralphie "Plays Ball": D.A. and Ralphie
Ageless Birthday Episode: Lampshaded in one episode. It's Ms. Frizzle's birthday and the class goes to a bakery. During the And Knowing Is Half the Battle segment at the end, a kid goes there and tells the baker shown in the episode that one critical piece of information was missing from the show: They never said how old Ms. Frizzle is.
And Knowing Is Half the Battle: The phone segment at the end of each episode where one of the show's producers explains to a child over the phone how the events in the episode couldn't happen in real life, along with summarizing the educational content of the episode. These scenes were adapted from a similar section in the original books that discussed the same thing. When the show aired in syndication on cable TV, these segments were sometimes cut.
Animated Actors: The post-episode Q&A from "All Dried Up" had Phoebe answering the questions, and her responses make it clear they know they're on a show. Although, she's still in character to an extent ("At my old school, kids never answered the phone.")
In "Spins A Web", General Araneus appears in the phone scene. He is portrayed as being an actor, but is still himself and, in fact, is still in black and white.
Animorphism: Just about any time a field trip involves animals, the entire class finds themselves transformed into animals to learn about it firsthand. Foxes, birds, fish, bats, etc. Interesting, even in their transformed state, the kids still can't talk to any animals because they never learned animal language.
Artistic License - Physics: When the kids are falling in "Getting Energized", Miley falls wheels - first. However, if that was drawn realistically, the wheelchair could have crushed him.
Ascended Extra: Most of the kids, who, except for Arnold and Phoebe, were basically a mass of nameless Mr Exposition characters in the original books.
The original book series continued after the show began, and characters from the show were gradually added.
The original kids all had names (as seen on the reports), but only Arnold, Wanda, Tim, Dorothy Ann, Ralph(ie), and Phoebe (who was introduced in the second book) made it into the show.
Asteroid Thicket: Played straight in "Lost in Space", as well as the original picture book which that episode was adapted from. Oddly, the computer game version of the storyline, which didn't include this part, pointed out the unreality of this trope in one of its interactive school reports.
Played straight in the video game adaptation for the Sega Genesis.
Bat Signal: Dunno if it counts or not, but in a lot of episodes, Ms. Frizzle's earrings glow when she's about to lead the class on another wacky trip.
Beach Episode: "Goes to Mussel Beach." Also "Gets Eaten".
Bizarre Alien Senses: Non-alien example: When the students are turned into bats, they experience what echolocation is like, perceiving strobe-like flashing views of their surroundings each time they emit a sonar-cry.
Bizarre Instrument: Carlos tries to create one in one episode, but it initially fails due to his misunderstanding of the principles of sound (and he understands this trope only too well).
Carlos: How about this? I wanted it to have the sound of a lion, so I gave it a mane!
A Bloody Mess: One episode had Ms. Frizzle, in a vampire phase, present the kids' parents with glasses of "blood." Keesha pointed out that it was obviously really tomato juice, but no one listened to her.
Body Horror: The kids tend to change into the animal of the day, even if it's for scientific purposes. There was also more than one episode where they physically entered someone's body.
Bound and Gagged: Played for laughs in one episode where the kids are inside a black-and-white horror film. Phoebe tries to use a spiderweb to catch a military general who's commandeered their school bus, but he leans back in his chair and bumps into her, causing her to wrap herself in the web instead. When everyone gets out of the bus, Phoebe has to hop after them.
Brains and Brawn: Carlos and D.A. in the episode about volcanoes. Ms. Frizzle later invokes this with the two of them in the episode about light and rainbows.
Dorothy Ann: Me? In charge with him?!
Brake Angrily: In "Lost in Space." Arnold gets sick of Janet insulting Mrs. Frizzle to his face, culminating in an aborted trip to the planetarium. Arnold calls for a bus stopdown, and asks to go someplace else. The next thing you know, the school bus is launched into space.
Cacophony Cover Up: When Arnold tries to hide the sounds of Ms. Frizzle's pinball machine from Mr. Rhule, he does so by stiffly swaying from foot to foot while shouting "Ding! Ding ding ding! Ding ding!"
Canadian Series: The series was produced and animated by Canadian animation studio Nelvananote and further animated by Hanho Heung Up in South Korea, and all the voice actors who played the kids (except for DannyTamberelli) were also Canadian. Viewers Like You in both Canada (on such stations as TVO) and in the US (on PBS) footed the costs, of course.
Ms. Frizzle: Welcome to the magma chamber, the heart of a volcano. Ralphie: How do we get out of here? Ms. Frizzle: Out of a volcano? How do you suppose?
A straight example: "According to my research, after chewing comes swallowing." Really, Dorothy Ann? Haven't you ever eaten food before?
Captain's Log: In the "Out Of This World" (Episode 24), the bus turns into a starship. Cue the homage:
{while the bus is being attacked by white blood cells, mistaken for bacteria} "Ah, the wonders of the human body."
Also, while under attack by a Tyrannosaurus Rex, she bothers to check if her insurance covers dinosaur damage. Way to go, Hero Insurance.
Honestly, the class is screaming, while they are in something like "Informed Danger" because that bus is well more than capable of stopping everything from a T-Rex attack to a volcano to BENDING THE RULES OF SPACE AND TIME. (Well, they take enough damage to that bus.)
Catch Phrase: More than you can count, though the collective catch phrase of "AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" uttered, in terror, by the entire class, deserves a mention.
The Frizz has many:
"Take chances! Make mistakes! Get messy!" "Bus, do your stuff!" "To the bus!" "As I always say..." "Hit it, Liz!" "Seatbelts, everyone!" "Never say never!" "Arnold are you paying attention?" (Lampshaded in the books where the kids are in space, Mrs. Frizzle isn't there, and the line is in her notes).
How about Arnold's infamous "I KNEW I should've stayed home today!"
Which is subverted in the rainforest episode. Can of cocoa beans shows up containing a single bean. An enraged Carlos goes, "We've bean had!" Everyone else is too irate at the company to react.
Keesha: "Oh, bad. Oh, bad. Oh bad, bad, bad." Being the Agent Scully, she'll also use "Let's get the facts..."
Ralphie: "I think I'm gonna be sick..."; also, "Is it just me, or..."
Wanda: "What are we gonna do, what are we gonna do, what are we gonna dooooo?!" Also, "Come on, you bunch of weasily wimps!"
Janet: "Prove it!"
Mad Libs Catch Phrase: Or Phoebe's "At my old school, we never (insert crazy-insane escapade usually not included in any academic curriculum)"
Ralphie: "Is it just me, or (is a scientific process going on right in front of me)?"
Ms. Frizzle: "As my (insert unusually-named relative) used to say, (bad pun)"
E.g: "The more mixed-up things get, the better the solution!"
Celebrity Voice Actor: Lily Tomlin was the voice of Ms. Frizzle, Malcolm-Jamal Warner voiced "the producer", and the Theme Tune was sung by Little Richard. And then there's all the celebrities who voiced "guest" characters (Carol Channing, Dolly Parton, Dan Marino, etc).
Chick Magnet: While any crushes in the series are only hinted at, Arnold seems to get Ship Teased with other female characters the most.
Class Trip: Basically the whole premise of the series.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: In "The Holiday Special", the un-recycling ray is red and the re-recycling ray is blue. Sound is also color coded red and blue based on how fast the vibrations. Positive and negative charges, too. It happens a lot.
Color Motif: Each character has a general color they can easily be associated with. Wanda with red, Arnold with yellow, Ralphie with green, etc...
Continuity Nod: In the last season, the kids would often reference a field trip that took place in an early episode so as to build the current lesson on top of something they'd already learned.
Cool Car: That bus is almost as adaptable as a certain cartoon cat's bag. It also has a face, for no apparent reason.
D.A., particularly towards Carlos (Tsundere, anyone?). Like this exchange from "In the Haunted House", when Carlos is working on his instrument in the broken-down bus while the rest of the class have got out to push it:
Carlos: (explaining that the strange noise that everyone just heard was his instrument) I want my instrument to have the power of a thunderstorm, so I put an umbrella on it! D.A.: That sounded more like drizzle, Carlos. Carlos: (enthusiasm undiminished) Oh...how about this? I wanted it to have the roar of a lion, so I gave it a mane! (instrument emits strange, sad sound) D.A.: It's a kitten, Carlos.
At least 50% of Keesha's dialogue is sarcasm or snark.
Arnold also has his moments.
Dead Pet Sketch: Giblets in "Cracks A Yolk", although he only "flew the coop".
Different In Every Episode: Ms. Frizzle changes her dress in every episode to reflect the subject covered.
Her earrings and shoes, too.
The bus also changes pattern and sometimes shape to reflect the adventure.
Early Installment Weirdness: The very first episode, "Gets Lost in Space" features Janet as a protagonist. D.A., Tim, Ralphie, Arnold and Keesha don't use their catchphrases. Phoebe only gets "On my old planet, I couldn't jump so high." Carlos doesn't get a First Name Ultimatum. Arnold and Janet's personalities are shown in full, but while D.A.'s intelligence, Ralphie's Agent Mulder tendencies and Wanda's determination are hinted at, the non-Perlstein kids are basically wallpaper. The relationship dynamics between the kids (beyond the fact that everybody hates Janet) aren't explored and the plot is more episodic than usual. By Season One Episode Two, "For Lunch", the tone had switched, with all the kids abilities, personalities, catchphrases and relationships explored or at least hinted at.
Eaten Alive: Often, if titles like "Gets Eaten" are any indication.
Editorial Synaesthesia: In one episode they had goggles that let the kids see sound with "The Producer" later explaining that seeing sound is impossible and was just done for the episode.
Ensemble Cast: The show really has no one single protagonist, giving the students a mostly equal role in any given episode occasionally taking turns in the spotlight.
Everybody Laughs Ending: Normally played straight. However, it was lightly spoofed in the bat episode. At the end, Ms. Frizzle and Ralphie burst out laughing over his ending joke while Ralphie's mother looks back and forth between them with a deadpan expression.
Excuse Plot: Common in many of the tie-in computer games, where some form of simple event would be used to motivate the class into going on their field trip and giving the player a bit more of a sense of purpose. In this case it was probably for the better, since the one game that didn't do it (Magic School Bus Explores The Human Body) can get pretty confusing. But in reality the purpose of the games was to explore different locations and learn about whatever the game in question was about- the "plot" was just there to give the player more to do than just "stand around in an area and click on stuff".
While space may not be cold, Pluto actually is, resting at an estimated −230 °C. And unlike space, there's (sometimes) an atmosphere present on it. This may be a simple continuation of the misconception, or a stealth example of Shown Their Work.
Face Palm: Arnold's inevitable reaction to the news that they're going on a field trip. D.A. reacts to something Carlos does with a Face Palm about Once an Episode.
Fan Dumb: Many of the callers in the phone segments seem to fall into the "Culture Alien" variant. "Hey, you showed a bus turning into a snail on a show called The Magic School Bus. That can't really happen. Your show sucks!" invoked
Fantastic Voyage Plot: Several episodes. Including three in a row, involving Arnold, Ralphie, and a tuna fish.
Five-Token Band: When the class size was trimmed down from the books, it seems like they picked the eight kids who would give the class the most ethnic diversity. Keesha and Tim are black, Carlos is Hispanic, Wanda is Chinese, and even within the white kids, Arnold is Jewish and Ralphie is Italian.
Foreshadowing: Originally, each book ended with Ms. Frizzle setting up classroom decorations and donning an outfit relating to the subject of the next book.
Series Fauxnales ended with Ms. Frizzle wearing a dress covered in question marks.
Friend to Bugs: Again, Phoebe. Of course, that's to be expected being that this is a science-themed show aimed at children...
Fun with Flushing: Happens twice in two episodes, one where they go through the water cycle and travels through drain pipes to reach the girls bathroom where the water overflows, and in another episode, they cross over an open toilet bowl in order to escape from the bathroom window.
Gallows Humor: During one episode, it is suggested by one of the hysterical students that Wanda might have been eaten by a sea monster; Phoebe reacts with disappointment, citing that she wanted to feed the monster, immediately followed by the usual "Car-los!" reaction.
Green Around the Gills: This occurs with Ralphie in "The Magic School Bus For Lunch", a shade of green appears on each of his cheeks, as he can't "stomach" being inside Arnold's digestive system.
Hair Color Dissonance: The color Arnold's hair is drawn makes it hard to tell whether he's supposed to be a blond or a redhead.
Can also be said for Phoebe, who looks either brunette or redheaded.
Halloween Episode: "Going Batty", "Gets a Bright Idea" and "In the Haunted House".
Hammerspace: The amount of things Ms. Frizzle can carry on her person.
Harmless Freezing: In "Gets Lost in Space," Arnold took off his helmet on Pluto and froze. When they got him back to Earth, he had a cold. The ludicrous nature of this was actually pointed out in the And Knowing Is Half the Battle-type ending that usually gets cut out in syndication. The writers know he should end up with a lot worse than a cold, but killing off a main character isn't very kid friendly. Or possibly The Friz Did It.
Inexplicably Awesome: The eccentric Ms Frizzle's awesome and bizarre powers drive the stories: she can take the class anywhere from the solar system to a digestive tract. She purposefully never receives an explanation. In fact, the original name for Inexplicably Awesome was "The Frizzle".
Insistent Terminology: DA would like to let you know that her book isn't purple, it's violet.
Ironic Echo Cut: "I'm sure your class can do broadcast day without you." (cut to classroom) "We can't do it without him!"
Irony: Ms. Frizzle uses a bus powered by magic to teach kids about science!
It Came from the Fridge: One episode has a competition about the most spoiled food. Wanda brings some green bubbling mass that stood in the fridge for years. Nobody even remembers what it is. She won.
It's Always Spring: Maybe justifiable in that you can spot the kids living nearby a beach, so maybe they live in a town where it's always relatively warm or mild....although the episode about freezing shows that they do have a classic winter where it snows.
It's a Wonderful Plot: In "Holiday Special", Wanda wishes recycling didn't exist. The Friz shows her what Walkerville would be like without it.
The books had something similar, typically people complaining that their bus adventures tended to be of the very mundane "we got lost" variety, and saying that school buses can't turn into fish.
It was also done in-episode from time to time. Like when they were inside the filament of a light bulb, traveling along with the electric current:
Dorothy Ann: "According to my research... which is very hard to do when going around like this..."
Also in the "Goes On Air" episode, when D.A. offers up her hair bands for the sake of science. Her hair stays in the pigtails, and minor Hilarity Ensues.
Arnold: "D.A.- your ponytails can stay in without-"
Keesha: "Nevermind that-!"
Light and Mirrors Puzzle: One episode revolved around this, a game of 'Light Pinball'. The objective was, using mirrors and prisms, to split a beam of light into the colors of the rainbow and redirect them into like-colored eyes.
Magic Skirt: In "The Magic School Bus Kicks Up A Storm", when Ms. Frizzle and her class are descending from the sky as part of the rain cycle, her skirt gets in a draft, which causes the pleats to become wavy, but her rear is away from the direction of the viewers.
D.A. wears one too.
Magitek: The bus is revealed to have several exotic components under the hood, with such names as "mesmerglobber", the "shrinkerscope" and the "dew-dinger".
Market-Based Title: The early books were published as The Magic Bus in Britain because Britain doesn't have American-style school buses and Viewers Are Morons.
Melodrama: "...And Ms. Frizzle's happiness will be ruined... forever!" * Insert Tears of Remorse here*
Milestone Celebration: The book The Magic School Bus and the Science Fair Expedition came out 20 years after the first book. As a result, it boasts a holographic cover, and includes appearances from several of history's most legendary scientists.
Morphic Resonance: The kids, Ms. Frizzle, and the bus will keep their identifying characteristics even when transformed into something else.
Never Say "Die": References to death are avoided even though there have been numerous instances where the class was clearly in mortal danger.
Though, in "All Dried Up", Ralphie was clear in his meaning when, after spotting a vulture, he says, "Is it just me, or does this look like the final field trip?"
At least one outright exception: In "Spins a Web", Phoebe tells General Araneus that "You can't kill the praying mantis!" (He replies "Don't be so negative. I'll get it.")
Nobody Poops: Even when the subject is digestion. The producer, though, provides good reason:
"It's natural. It's normal. But do you really think they'd let us show it on daytime TV?"
No Name Given: The last names of Dorothy Ann and Tim were never mentioned.
Not Allowed to Grow Up: Naturally, though peculiarly, one episode ends with a completely random, older student pointing out and explaining the thermo-mechanics of Arnold's Thermos (the subject of that episode), and when asked, "How did you know that?" replied, "I was in Miss Frizzle's class last year."
There are only fifty-two episodes — they could easily all take place within one school year. Granted, they would be going on about twenty times more field trips than any real class.
Over the course of the "year", all four of the boys' voices break, leading to the hilarious line by post-pubescent-sounding Arnold about being able to stand "four feet tall again".
Off Model: In "The Magic School Bus Spins A Web", when Keesha lifts the lid of a vacant spider's nest on the ground under which she and the others retreat, she's in her usual purple outfit with the thick, teal stripe on it. But when the scene cuts to a far away shot, her outfit is gray instead, but the color of the stripe stays the same.
Oh, No... Not Again!: Arnold reacts this way verbatim to eating the bus and class in "Going Cellular."
Once an Episode: Early in an episode, Arnold will generally say "I think I should have stayed home today..." By ten minutes into the episode at the latest, he will have said "I KNEW I should have stayed home today!"
Once a Season: Arnold's Alpha Bitch cousin, Janet, shows up to make life worse for Ms. Frizzle's class.
Out-of-Character Moment: In a book about deserts, Carlos, of all people, is the only member of the class to have heard of the "rain shadow effect," which is cited as one primary cause of the classical desert (basically, differences in pressure mean mountains get a lot of rain which then fails to go on to the area which is now desert due to lack of rain). Even the book hangs a lampshade on how unlikely it is that Carlos is the one in the know. (And you'd think out of all the class...It'd be Dorothy Ann.)
Or how 'bout in "Blows Its Top", when he starts reading D.A.'s books, prompting Arnold to actually see him as her?
Not to mention the Friz herself. As many a disgruntled cosplayer has noted, Ms Frizzle is stacked.
In the episode where they go to space, they are going past Uranus. Arnold sits on his cousin's lap to prevent her from leaving her seat, to which she says, "Uranus doesn't do a thing for me, so please get off!" Arnold replies, "Sorry, Janet, but I have to stay on top of the situation."
In "Gets Ready, Set, Dough", while the class is stuck in an oven, Phoebe says, "At my old school, we never got baked."
In the episode "For Lunch", Wanda thanks Arnold for "Giving me the ride of my dreams" after a field trip through Arnold's digestive tract.
In "Upstream", Ralphie points out the salmon are changing before their eyes, and Ms. Frizzle says he will go through the same phase as a teenager. Later on, you see the male salmon ejaculating on the eggs.
Panty Shot: Dorothy Ann has two in (ep.11, and ep.2)
Pepper Sneeze: Used to get the bus out of Ralphie's nose.
Pinball Zone: They spend an episode inside a pinball machine, learning about light, lasers, and reflection.
Ironically, it's actually a bit possible to make a pinball machine like that; just not exactly like what you see in the snow. (You have to use a laser)
Plot-Driven Breakdown: The bus tends to do this, like in "Flexes Its Muscles" and "Haunted House". Of course, its implied in both that Ms. Frizzle deliberately caused the breakdown to allow the kids to learn on their own.
Plot Sensitive Button: Pulling the big red lever in the center of the dashboard apparently causes the bus to turn into whatever the plot requires. The button next to the steering wheel, too.
Punny Name: Mr. Ruhle, the school principal. Also Mr. McClean, the school janitor, and any other single episode character. Molly Cule, Radius Ulna Humerus, Carmina Skeledon, Harry Arm, Cornelius C. Contralto, Mr. Junkett...you see where this is going.
Rainbow Lite: In the episode about rainbows, indigo is dropped as usual, leaving six colors.
Recursive Adaptation: There were books based on the book-based TV series. Don't remember that? It's all right; they were pretty awful.
Reed Richards Is Useless: Ms. Frizzle's bus can go to the edge of the Local Group and back inside of a school day, and she uses it to take kids on field trips for Pete's sake! Lampshaded by the general in "Spins a Web" after he discovers the bus's transforming abilities:
General: Does military intelligence know about this bus?
Scary Shadow Fakeout: In "Gets Lost In Space", Ralphie and Keesha see the shadow of an alien advancing through a cloud of dust towards them. It turns out to be Arnold, in a spacesuit, carrying a load of stuff for Janet.
In "The Busasaurus", Ms. Frizzle says that Tyrannosaurus Rex was the biggest meat-eater of all time. Too bad the discovery of the slightly larger Giganotosaurus was published in the same year the episode aired. In the same episode, Troodon is portrayed with scales rather than feathers.
Weirdly, "Gets Eaten" has Ms. Frizzle state that all food chains begin with plants, which had been a discredited fact since the discovery of hydrothermal vents in 1977, seventeen years before the episode aired. Even weirder, this error is pointed out in the phone segment, so it's not carelessness. The fictional producer's justification for excluding hydrothermal vents creatures is "Yeah, but they're weird."
Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Besides the lampshaded issue of the planets aligning, to make it to Pluto and back in a single school day would require Faster-than-Light Travel. The star life-cycle episode makes it explicit that the bus is fully capable of this, but introduces another problem: the second star they visit is a billion billion miles from the first one, which is over 17 million light years. That puts it well outside the Milky Way.
Scooby-Doo Hoax: "Ups And Downs" has a talk show reporter creating a fake lake monster to bolster her ratings. The kids manage to discover the truth and expose the hoax.
Another one occurs in "Gets A Bright Idea", in which Janet uses a clever light trick to make it look like Arnold is a ghost. Since this is Janet, she doesn't have a motivation other than being her usual Jerkass self.
Secret Keepers: The fact that the bus is magical is guarded.
Soft Water: Played straight, but lampshaded in the book - during a trip to study the weather, Arnold manages to get sucked out of the bus during a hurricane and falls into the ocean several hundred feet below and only gets soaked for his troubles. A sticky note points out that, in reality, this would have gotten him severely hurt.
Stock Foreign Name: Carlos. Averted with Wanda and with Carlos' brother Mikey.
Strawman Has a Point: Invoked in-universe. In "All Dried Up" Carlos comes across as particularly unfeeling because he spends most of the episode winding Phoebe up about desert creatures dying of thirst. At the episode's climax, Phoebe decides to give water to all the animals. Carlos tries to dissuade her, pointing out that they have survived this far without her help. Phoebe choses this moment to Take a Level in Badass and call Carlos out on his casual cruelty. However, he looks up, sees the clouds on the horizon and has to try to get her to stop yelling at him for long enough to realize that (1) he's right and (2) they need to run. Fast.
Swamps Are Evil: Subverted. In the episode about wetlands the kids start by believing in this trope but eventually learn the importance of a swamp in the ecosystem.
The episode "In The City" where the kids are turned into animals (D.A. and Carlos have Feather Fingers, and The Bus becomes a bear) to learn about animal life in an urban environment. They keep things like their glasses, hair, and faces, but everything else is animal.
Liz gains a voice in the computer games to serve as a help file for how to play them.
Technology Marches On: As with most things of this nature, the computer episode went out of date the moment it aired. The fact that the computer has a "gajillion gigabyte hard drive" (something we don't even have yet) AND still has a floppy disk.
In "The Family Holiday Special" the whole plot revolves around an item being lost while the kids are sorting the school's recycling. As recently as 2007, many modern recycling plants no longer require manually-sorted inputs ("single stream recycling," a.k.a. one big bin for it all).
Terrain Sculpting: One episode had Ms. Frizzle and the class attempt to carve a statue of their town's founder, Captain Kraznik P. Walker, out of stone without using their bare hands. (Captain Walker wanted his statue built "without human hand.") When the statue breaks away from its place, they make a mad chase after it down the mountain. Since the episode focused mainly on erosion, it turned out that they already made a statue of their founder out of stone while chasing after the statue they had been making, by shifting the water flow through different directions of the mountain that formed the face of their founder.
Title Drop: Very first episode, "Lost in Space". Ralphie screams it repeatedly after they lose their map of the solar system and Janet sends Ms. Frizzle rocketing into nowhere.
In a less severe example, Discovery Kids had the full theme song play, then end with a freeze frame of the bus before cutting to commercial. The title card that originally closed the title sequence appeared after the break.
Too Dumb to Live: The catapult jammed, and it has enough potential energy to throw a rock over a mountain - Get on top of it to unjam it. You're lucky to be alive!
Trampled Underfoot: Janet does this to a mothball that was to be entered by the class for a smell competition in one episode. She was representing a rival class, so it's unclear if this was an accident on her part or not.
Unlimited Wardrobe: Ms. Frizzle's clothes, shoes, and earrings, which change each episode and feature vaguely psychedelic patterns themed to the subject of the field trip.
Unnamed Parent: The kids' parents are always referred to by other adults as "Mr. Perlstein," "Mrs. Li," etc.; even in situations where first names would ordinarily be used. Oddly enough, their last names are never used anywhere else, so it's not like this was for the viewers' convenience.
Though this could be to keep the audience's attention and point of view. After all, most of the kids watching the show would call other children's parents by "Mr." and "Mrs." [last name]. Though that's just speculation.
Useless Superpowers: The bus' "magic" always fails whenever it could easily resolve the plot.
Valentine's Day Episode: Possibly the least romantic Valentine's episode ever, with the focus being on electrical wiring, and Ms. Frizzle's "beau" turning out to be just her electrician.
Walk Through The Camera: In the episode "Lost in Space", Arnold does this when he gets fed up with his cousin Janet and marches to the back of the bus to Ms. Frizzle.
Wraparound Background: Seen in a number of episodes if you watch out the windows while the bus is driving somewhere. Justified in "Makes a Stink", where the bus is circling Flora Whiff's head.
Wrong Parachute Gag: Happened during the desert episode. Arnold tries to avoid his usual complainer status by being Crazy-Prepared. When the Friz puts the bus-plane into a steep dive when the arrive in the desert, Arnold asks Liz for his parachute.
Arnold: That's not a parachute! That's a pair of shoes!
You Are in Command Now: D.A. has to take charge of the bus to rescue Carlos and Ms Frizzle from the surface of an asteroid and prevent said asteroid from hitting the Earth. Needless to say, she succeeds.
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