Arthur Vs. The PianoEveryone is preparing for solo recitals. Arthur knows Fur Elise backward and forwards, but has a nightmare about missing a single note towards the end and becoming a homeless man. The next day he develops Performance Anxiety and can't do his solo with the kids, and resolves to figure out how to fix his confidence.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Analogy Backfire: The music teacher says that performing is like "ear-painting" as the kids file out of class. Binky pauses and goes Comically Missing the Point, saying if he gets paint in his ears, his mother gets mad. Stunned, the music teacher tells him to forget about it and focus on the music.
- Anxiety Dreams: After hearing everybody else's horror stories of the times they had an Epic Fail with their instruments on stage, Arthur dreams of a worst-case scenario where he messes up on his piano solo, to the point where society ostracizes him.
- Butt-Monkey: Poor Mr. Haney in the flashback; Buster accidentally hit him with spit valve liquid, Francine's drum sticks break and whack him on the head, and Binky lands on him. You can tell this all happened at the same recital.
- Epic Fail: Buster, Francine, and Binky recall having this when their performances went wrong onstage:
- Buster forgot to empty his spit valve before his recital. When he opened it for a bridge part, the liquid hit Mr. Haney.
- Francine didn't tape up her drum sticks. They snapped while she was doing a solo, and whacked Mr. Haney on the head.
- Binky's tongue got tied up in knots from playing the clarinet. He had a Freak Out and fell off the stage, landing on Mr. Haney.
- Hiccup Hijinks: D.W. has the hiccups for most of this episode. Arthur scares them away temporarily, while Grandma Thora solves the problem by feeding D.W. some peanut butter. As a Brick Joke, Arthur finally gets them at the end of the episode when the recital is over.
- Noodle Incident: The way Binky words his response to the music teacher about "ear-painting", he makes it sound like he's done this before, and his mother wasn't pleased.
- Performance Anxiety: Arthur starts developing trouble playing in front of people. Francine assumes that it's because he didn't practice, but Grandma Thora gets to the heart of the problem: Arthur is worried about people judging him. She reassures him that the audience is there to see a show and they won't see him fail.
- Sincerity Mode: Arthur's nightmare has Binky saying that Arthur stinks when he hits the wrong note on the piano. Ironically, when Arthur does it for real onstage, Binky comes up to him and praises his improvisation. He says that Arthur has mean jazz talent.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Arthur has this reaction at the end of the episode when he starts hiccuping. He gives a little "oh no".
The Big Blow-UpArthur recounts how Francine and Brain are competitive and constantly arguing. Normally, their friends are willing to humor them or watch the fireworks. Then Francine and Brain let a silly argument about if she was out-of-bounds during practice devolve into sabotaging each other during games. With the risk of losing the playoffs imminent, Arthur and Buster strive to take drastic means to reconcile the two.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Adaptational Nice Guy: In the novelization, while Francine still calls Arthur a "Buttinsky" for faking the apology letters and thinking that he knows best, she also acknowledges that he meant well. She and Brain also aren't really mad at them.
- Beyond the Impossible: Arthur and Buster try to get Francine and Brain to let off steam by playing ping pong. When Francine becomes aggressive, Brain retaliates, and the ball goes too fast for their friends to see. After they stop to catch their breath, Francine asks where the ball is. Brain concludes it must have vaporized.
- Brick Joke: Francine notes that "Brain" for some reason doesn't know how to spell soccer. At the end of the episode when Arthur and Buster get caught, Arthur asks Buster that he uses "two ks and a q!?" with an incredulous tone.
- Cool, but Stupid: Brain and Francine discuss if a hockey player could play golf while driving a Nascar vehicle. In the subsequent Imagine Spot, we see that said hockey player manages a hole-in-one but crashes into the water hazard. He doesn't look worse for wear.
- Love Letter Lunacy: Rather, apology letter lunacy. Arthur and Buster get the idea from D.W. to have Brain and Francine write letters to each other. They find out the words are insulting and will lead to more fighting. They write fake notes instead.
- Not So Above It All: Class genius Brain regularly gets into arguments with Francine about petty matters, mainly about who is the better person at sports. Arthur points out they can even argue while being on the same team.
- Out-of-Character Alert: Francine and Brain eventually figure out the apology letters they received were fake because neither would admit that the other is better at sports. With that said, they do make up and instead say they're mad at Arthur and Buster for meddling.
- Running Gag: D.W. keeps asking Arthur for help with writing a letter to Santa, at the start of summer.
- Tempting Fate: After going through many contact sports to help Francine and Brain let off steam, Buster says out loud that there's nothing violent about cards. Francine proves otherwise.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Arthur tries to call out Francine and Brain for their argument by pointing out if they lose too many games, they'll be knocked out of the playoffs. They don't listen.
