Helen, T.D., Truman, and Martha are in the Lorraines' yard on a snowy day, having just built a snow robot... but then, it turns out to be on a set, and the production people want to change it to correct the history. However, Martha and the kids wheedle them into keeping it intact.
Then, Martha, Skits, and the kids complete the snow robot for real, in addition to a snow dog. T.D. wishes it would snow every day so there'd be no school, but Truman thinks that people would be too busy shovelling snow to do anything else, resulting in essentially another Stone Age. T.D. isn't fazed by this and says he would make a great caveman. Martha then claims that dogs helped humans make many discoveries and inventions, and tells everyone else a story called "the Oral History of Dogs", which all dogs apparently learn as puppies.
She starts with two Stone Age children — a cavegirl named Huh and a caveboy named Tuh, who appear as looking like Helen and T.D. — fighting over a bone. They had a tendency to fight, especially over bones, and they also had a prehistoric dog, who looks like Martha, as a pet who played the voice of reason. She claims that this dog could speak, but humans hadn't developed language yet, which confuses the real-life kids, because it implies that dogs developed language before people, only to lose their linguistic abilities.
Martha claims that this is true but how dogs stopped talking is "another story", then continues her story. The prehistoric dog buries Huh and Tuh's bone (which is apparently why dogs bury bones) and goes into a cave, where a caveboy named Troo, who resembles Truman, is drawing on a wall. However, Huh and Tuh dig up the bone, so their dog decides to have them have a stone-banging-together contest instead of fighting. Huh ends up breaking her rock and using the sharp fragment as a cutting tool, while Tuh discovers fire after his rock gives off sparks. Then, the dog discovers cooking after trying to use a piece of raw antelope meat to smother the fire.
Back in reality, no one believes the story, but Martha is unfazed and goes on to explain about how dogs apparently invented philosophy. She begins her story in Ancient Greece, focusing on Socrates, who is very grumpy. He had a dog, who looked like Martha, named Bernicetome, who'd tease him by asking dumb questions, which led to Socrates genuinely becoming curious.
The kids still don't believe Martha, but they humour her, and then the kids drink some hot chocolate. Truman points out that there's no mention of Socrates having a dog, but Martha claims that dogs were too busy helping humans with science to learn to read. She then claims that a dog helped Galileo, and begins another part of her story.
The story starts with Galileo working, and he has a dog who looks like Skits, named Skitileo, who worries that Galileo isn't getting any exercise. He then decides to drop his ball from the Tower of Pisa to get Galileo's attention, and notices a bowling ball at the top. Because he was clumsy, Skitileo accidentally knocked the bowling ball down at the same time as he dropped his ball. He then said, "Hey, Galileo, look up!", so Galileo did, and then made the discovery about everything falling at the same speed.
In reality, Truman asks why dogs can't talk now, and Martha claims it was because of Skitileo's cousin Sir Skits, who lived in England around the same time. He was walking around London, when he saw a sad boy, who turns out to be William Shakespeare as a kid. He explains that the reason he's sad is because he promised to write a play for the Queen but has writers' block. Sir Skits gives Shakespeare the idea for Hamlet, so Shakespeare writes it.
Helen, in reality, is confused as to why this made dogs stop being able to talk. Martha explains that Sir Skits helped write all of Shakespeare's plays, but people soon suspected "something was up". Shakespeare didn't like being shown up by a dog, so he consulted a magician named Prospero, who hexed the dogs to make them unable to speak. Back in reality, the kids still don't believe Martha and they go out and play in the snow again. The next day, T.D. uses Martha's story as a report, and gets an A, but only because it wasn't a history report.
This episode provides examples of
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal:
- Huh and Tuh's dog wears a bone around her neck.
- Bernicetome wears a laurel wreath.
- Sir Skits wears a green hat and a frilled collar.
- Accidental Discovery: In Martha's story, Huh invents a rudimentary knife after a rock she was banging against another rock splintered, Tuh discovers fire after his rock gives off sparks, and the prehistoric dog discovers cooking after trying to smother said fire with raw antelope meat.
- Ambiguously Related: Huh and Tuh apparently live together, since Martha says that her prehistoric counterpart was their dog, which means they might be siblings. However, their appearances are based off Helen and T.D., who are not related, so it's ambiguous.
- Apocalypse How: Discussed when Truman thinks that if it snowed every day, society would regress to being primitive due to the time-consuming task of shovelling snow.
- Artistic License – History: Lampshaded when the intro acknowledges that the history is inaccurate, and justified since the story was written by dogs, who likely don't know the actual historical facts.
- Bait-and-Switch: At the end, T.D. tells Helen that he used Martha's speech as a report in school, but Mrs. Clusky said it seemed like he learned history from a cartoon... yet, he still got an A, since it was an English report.
- But You Were There, and You, and You:
- The dogs in Martha's story are portrayed as looking just like herself and Skits.
- The Stone Age kids Huh, Tuh, and Troo look just like Helen, T.D., and Truman respectively.
- The young William Shakespeare looks just like T.D.
- Comically Missing the Point: Helen calls Martha's depiction of Galileo irresponsible. She's referring to him leaving his dog (Skitileo) unattended, but Martha thinks he's referring to not telling anyone about Skitileo.
- Constantly Curious: Subverted. Bernicetome, Socrates's dog, asks him why she shouldn't track mud through the house, then why he likes to live in a clean house, then why clean houses are better than dirty ones. However, it's then revealed that she only did it to tease him and didn't really want to know.
- The Discovery of Fire:
- Discussed when T.D. imagines being the caveman to discover fire.
- In Martha's story, Tuh the caveboy (who incidentally resembles T.D.) makes the discovery, not just of how to use fire but of fire itself, after the stone he was banging against another sparked. The prehistoric dog subsequently discovers how to use it after realising it's hot, trying to put it out with a piece of meat, and thus discovering cooking.
- Edible Theme Naming: Sir Skits gives Shakespeare the idea to write Hamlet, though he names the title character Ham instead until Shakespeare becomes too distracted by hunger from having a character named Ham.
- Family Theme Naming: Martha's story features two dogs who are cousins named Skitileo and Sir Skits.
- Formally-Named Pet: One of the dogs in Martha's story is named Sir Skits.
- The Gadfly: Bernicetome the dog used to tease Socrates by asking him stupid questions, like "Why are clean houses better than dirty ones?".
- Invisible Parents: We never see Huh, Tuh, and Troo's parents.
- The Klutz: Apparently, Skitileo was clumsy, so he accidentally knocked a bowling ball off the Tower of Pisa.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: At the end, T.D. claims that Mrs. Clusky described his report, which was made from Martha's story, as seeming like he learned history from a cartoon.
- Left the Background Music On: When the Queen appears in the story, choral music plays... which turns out to be being sung by three women next to her.
- Nightmare Fetishist: According to Martha's story, Shakespeare took Sir Skits's idea for a play (which ended up as Hamlet) because he thought skulls were cool.
- No Name Given: In Martha's story, the Stone Age lookalikes of Helen, T.D., and Truman are named Huh, Tuh, and Troo, however, Martha's prehistoric counterpart is unnamed.
- Shout-Out: Sir Skits gives Shakespeare the idea to write a play about a prince who thinks his father was killed by his uncle, pretends to be mad to get the uncle to confess, talks to a skull, his girlfriend goes crazy, and everybody gets into a big swordfight, which describes the plot of Hamlet.
- Talking Animal: As well as Martha, she claims that dogs used to be able to speak in the past.
- Tap on the Head: In Martha's story, Galileo gets hit on the head with Skitileo's ball and is knocked unconscious, but seems perfectly fine when he wakes up.
- Uncatty Resemblence: Downplayed. Galileo's dog Skitileo didn't have much in common with him, but their names both ended in "-ileo".
- Writer's Block: In one part of the story, a young William Shakespeare is sad because he promised the Queen a play but had no idea what to write.
- You No Take Candle: When pretending to be a caveman, T.D. says, "Me T.D. Me invent tool. Me discover fire."
