D.W. All Fired Up
D.W. gets excited on learning her preschool class will be hosting a fire drill... until she learns it's a drill used in case of a fire. Soon D.W. is testing the smoke alarms around the house and refusing to go back to school. Jane and David resolve to help D.W. face her new fear.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Ms. Morgan can't help but giggle when the Tibbles say that D.W. might be playing "hockey" and clarifies that they mean "hooky".
- Comically Missing the Point:
- D.W. at first thinks a fire drill refers to the kids witnessing blacksmith work with a literal fire drill. She's quickly disavowed of that notion.
- Arthur tells D.W. that they don't actually burn down the school during a fire drill. D.W. assumes that it's because he went to preschool in "the olden days".
- Foreign Re-Score: More like a foreign sound effects re-edit. The version of the episode produced for airing in the United States has the fire alarm at D.W.'s preschool be a pulsing electromechanical horn (sounding somewhat like a scoreboard buzzer, like several older fire alarm systems in the USA utilized). The version produced for airing in Canada (since the show is an International Co Production between the USA and Canada) has the fire alarm be a bell ringing continuously, as fire alarm bells are much more common in Canada than the United States.
- Irony: The Tibble twins are the most excited about the fire drill. When it actually happens, Tommy has a panic attack and thinks he's choking on smoke. D.W. of all people goes to him, reassures him there's no smoke, and helps him get outside.
- Laborious Laces: During D.W. and her classmates' first fire drill, one of the children said that her shoelaces were undone. She gets bumped into another kid.
- Literal-Minded: When Ms. Morgan first announces to the class they will soon be having a fire drill, D.W. assumes that they will be doing woodworking with a literal fire drill (an electric drill-like device with a jet of flame in place of the drill bit.) She thinks it's neat, until Ms. Morgan explains what a fire drill really is.
- Playing Sick: D.W does this to avoid going to school. The second day she tries it, Jane isn't fooled as she loves school.
- Skipping School: D.W. tries this for one day; the next, she spends the whole day outside, much to Ms. Morgan's bemusement. Even Jane finds it amusing but is concerned that D.W. is scared of being in school.
- Tempting Fate: After D.W. spends most of a day at preschool being apprehensive about the impending fire drill, she begins to feel more upbeat while playing with Emily, prompting this exchange...D.W.: Hey. Maybe it's not gonna happen today!
Emily: What's not gonna happen?
(Right on cue, the fire alarm starts sounding, and the kids gasp in shock.)
Ms. Morgan: It's a fire drill. You know what to do! Everyone line up.
I'd Rather Read It Myself
The Tibbles are spending the day with D.W. She rather wouldn't, since they are aggressive and competitive. Arthur gives her an idea, however: read a story to the Tibble Twins. Since they can't read, and neither can she, she picks up a book and starts making up a tale on the fly.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Arthur was listening to the story when he was done with his homework and was amused by how D.W. was improvising that he was a shapeshifting supervillain.
- Adaptational Villainy: In D.W.'s story, Arthur and Buster's counterparts are robotic supervillains instead of regular kids.
- The Cake Is a Lie: The snowball and blankie were not real; they were illusionary traps from Villain Arthur.
- Continuity Cavalcade: The episode has a lot of callbacks to D.W.'s previous episodes including Spanky's death, her octopus phobia, Walter the Deer, the balance beam, her dislike of spinach, and saving Aunt Lucy's wedding.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Spanky the Eagle dies shortly after rescuing "B.W." from Villain Arthur and Buster.
- Eleventy Zillion: In the teaser, Arthur brings up how the Tibble twins claimed they knew how to tell time before D.W. could learn. Timmy points to the grandfather clock in the Reads' living room and says that the time is "eleventy-twelve," when the clock actually read ten past four.
- Forced Transformation: In D.W.'s story, spinach turns people into Plant People called Spinach Heads. Even "B.W."'s parents end up becoming Spinach Heads that constantly moan "Duh... duh... duh..."
- Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": D.W.'s counterpart "B.W." has her own pony, all her friends, and is a superhero where she does everything right. The twins even say that the name is close to hers.
- Idiosyncratic Wipes: The "B.W." story features these, all of which feature a "B.W." logo swirling towards and away from the screen. Earlier in the episode, a wipe featuring a giant spinning and laughing Tibble head is used for scene transitions.
- Left Hanging: In-universe, Mrs. Tibble comes to pick up the kids right when "B.W." and the President are attending a funeral for Spanky and B.W.'s parents are still spinach heads, and her snowball and blankie are still missing. Predictably, the boys don't find out what happened next because D.W. was making it up and the book was actually about Leonardo Da Vinci.
- Mass Transformation: D.W.'s story about "B.W." includes a visit to a restaurant where all of the adults—including her parents—eat spinach, which turns them into "Spinach Head" zombies. B.W. has to find a magic ring to bring everybody back to normal.
- Refuge in Audacity: Towards the end, the Tibbles end up borrowing the book about "B.W." because they want to finish the story about her at home. Arthur figures that once they read it, they'll figure out D.W. was lying about knowing how to read. Later that night, their grandmother starts reading the book about Leonardo Di Vinci, naturally confusing them. Then it dawns on them: it's a magic book! And the story changes each time you read it. At least for one more night, D.W. got away with her lie.
- Shapeshifting: In D.W.'s story, Arthur's counterpart is an evil Transformers-esque shapeshifting robot. His sidekick Bust-Trantor is also apparently capable of some shapeshifting as well, as he uses this to disguise as Pickles the Clown as part of Villain Arthur's Crazy Bus impersonation for fooling "B.W."
