It's time for class projects. Mr. Ratburn pairs up students and assigns them to give a report on different animals. Each one brings out different sides of the class, for better or for worse.
Tropes for both segments include:
- Synchronous Episodes: It's implied that both are happening at the same time, though Brain appears in both of them playing very different roles.
Arthur Goes Crosswire
When Arthur and Muffy are assigned as partners, Arthur quickly gets bored trying to watch for dolphins on Muffy's yacht. After a chance encounter with Wilbur Rabbit, Arthur starts hanging out with Muffy more and starts imitating her mannerisms. His other friends get worried.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Acquired Situational Narcissism: Arthur starts acting as haughty as Muffy does.
- Cassandra Truth: Muffy originally believes that Arthur is joking when he says that he sees Wilbur Rabbit on a boat needing help.
- Comically Missing the Point: When everyone imitates Arthur's newfound arrogance, Arthur catches on what they're trying to say to him. Meanwhile, although Muffy understands they're pretending to be Arthur, she also takes it as a flattering sign they want to be like her. And to top it off, she talks down everyone that "there can only be one Muffy Crosswire", clearly too blinded by her ego to see it's not about her.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The "Planet Smasher" video game Francine plays at the arcade features Earth being blown up.
- Got Me Doing It: Played for Drama. Arthur doesn't realize until the end that he's been acting like Muffy at her worst.
- Here We Go Again!: Brain imitates Muffy by saying that his baseball glove doesn't go with his outfit at all. After all is said and done and Arthur snaps out of his behavior, Binky starts picking up on Muffy's behavior, genuinely finding his glove to be a mismatch and uttering, "Vomitrocious!"
- Jerkass Realization: Arthur isn't pleased when Muffy points out that the kids at the baseball game are acting exactly the way he is.
Sue Ellen And The Brainosaurus
Sue Ellen and the Brain agree to present the T-Rex. They decide to build a model. Sue Ellen gets concerned, however, when Brain won't let her do any of the work. She's worried that he'll overwork himself. Meanwhile, Francine tracks down Buster to make him work on their report.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Armor-Piercing Question: Francine asks Brain how he would feel if Sue Ellen treated him the way he treated her, with condescension.
- Blatant Lies: Brain says that Sue Ellen's skull for the T. Rex is proportionally wrong. She compares them and finds they're exactly the same.
- Chained Heat: At the end of the episode, Francine handcuffs herself to Buster to make sure he doesn't skive off on the report.
- Control Freak: Sue Ellen certainly thinks Brain is being one throughout their entire project, and is angry that he doesn't trust her to uphold her end of the assignment. Buster also seems to feel this way about Francine, and tries to squirrel his way out of working with her until she cuffs him to her wrist.
- Didn't Think This Through: Brain holding his model dinosaur in the manner that he did was just begging for disaster, as he has his arms slung over the platform on which it was standing as opposed to securing it by cradling it underneath. Sue Ellen's alarm at this before he ends up dropping it in the mud was pretty justified.
- Faux Horrific: Happens in the Brain's imagine spot of bringing a T-Rex back to life. When the living dinosaur is raised up on a platform snarling, the audience starts to freak out while the Brain urges them to stay calm... and then the dinosaur takes the Brain's microphone and begins doing a Groucho Marx impression (complete with the classic "elephant in my pajamas" joke)... which manages to cause the audience to run screaming from the auditorium!
- Imagine Spot: Brain has two regarding what might happen if he lets Sue Ellen help on the project even once. The First is how Sue Ellen would be frivolous enough to make their T-Rex model out of cakes and sweets, which would be bad because (A) all their classmates will somehow lack the self-control to resist eating it up and (B) Mr. Ratburn would surely be too strict to accept it because "this isn't a cooking class". The Second is how, if Brain trusts Sue Ellen to recreate the T-Rex skull with clay, she will embellish it with clay blonde hair and clay wax lips. And as such, they'll be the laughing stock while a disappointed Mr. Ratburn tiredly remarks what a long year it will be.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Francine tells Brain that Sue Ellen was right to call him a report hog, because he has been doing that for years.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: To avoid Francine, Buster disguises himself in a beard, hat, and trenchcoat while at the library. He nearly outs himself, but Francine seems on to his game.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Arthur and Muffy get an A on their report after all the hijinks of the previous episode.
- Time for Plan B: When their model falls in the mud, Sue Ellen tells Brain to follow her lead. She takes the class outside and explains it as an archaeological dig. Everyone is impressed, especially Mr. Ratburn, at the creativity. The Brain gives Sue Ellen the credit, as he should.
