The Magic School Bus Gets Programmed
It's the class's turn to open the school, but there is an enormous list of chores. Fortunately, the custodian, Mr. MacClean, has just brought in a computer that was ordered by Mr. Rule. Carlos decides that it would be much easier to automate the basic chores of opening the school using the computer, but the class needs somebody who knows how to work it. Fortunately, Mikey is here to save the day, and programs some basic instructions for ringing the bell, playing a recorded message, running up the flagpole, watering the garden, and opening the doors.
Mikey is curious to see what actually happens to his programs inside the computer, so the Friz sends him into the computer on an audio tour field trip of his very own. Unfortunately, Mikey's program seems to have gone haywire, and every task he has programmed seems to be happening over and over again. The class follows him inside the computer to find out where he is.
Tropes
- Broken Record: Thanks to the programming error, Carlos's greeting is heard on repeat again and again through the course of the episode.Carlos: Hi, how are you? Nice to see you! Thanks for coming to school and...enjoy your day!
- Gratuitous Spanish: Mikey has a moment of this almost immediately after he shows up.Mikey: ¡Hola, Frizzlers!
- Red Herring: The class jumps inside the computer to find out what's causing the school to go haywire, but it turns out the hardware is working just fine: the problem was a programming error that caused the setup routine to run every minute instead of every day.
- Running Gag: The school system tasks go on and on due to an error Mikey made in the programming.
- Undisclosed Funds: A variation. Rather than avoiding saying how much something costs, Ms. Frizzle uses metaphors to explain how powerful the computer is, such as "more RAM than a traffic jam."
