Arthur's Big Hit

Arthur's Big Hit is a second half of the first episode in season 4 of Arthur. It was aired on October 4, 1999.

The episode was more intense, combative, mild, fantasy, and comedic violence, and had a TV-Y7-FV rating, in English, in the United States, instead of the show's original TV-Y7 rating, in English, in the United States. But the episode still had a C8 rating, on TV, in English, in Canada, and a 8+ rating, on TV, in French, in Canada, and Quebec, while the show still had a C8 rating, on TV, in English, in Canada, and a 8+ rating, on TV, in French, in Canada, and Quebec.

Eventually, the scenes where Arthur Read punched D.W., and then Binky Barnes punched Arthur became very popular memes.^[1]

Arthur was seen building a scale model of the Bell X-1 Model Plane, which broke the sound barrier. D.W. thinks the set, which is still mostly in pieces in its container, is a broken game. Arthur scornfully kicks D.W. out of his room. The next day as Arthur is putting together the plane, D.W. accidentally spills one of his paint bottles and runs off, out of sight.

A few days later, D.W. plays with the plane while its paint is drying, which forces Arthur to repaint. The next day, Arthur completes the plane and fantasizes about receiving a blue ribbon for it and perhaps getting to fly the real thing.

Despite being told multiple times not to touch Arthur's model plane, D.W. consciously defies. She holds it up and pretends to fly it around his bedroom, then allows the plane to fall out the window, under the mistaken assumption it will actually fly. The model plane crashes to the ground, then accidentally got a little broken, and D.W. finds Arthur to tell him he made the plane all wrong since it doesn't fly. Arthur is about to reply that there's nothing wrong with the plane, only to stop short when he realizes the implications of what D.W. has said, and exclaims in a shocked voice, when he realized what D.W. had said.

The two of them went outside the house to survey the destruction. When Arthur sees his plane on the ground, he gasps and picks up one of the pieces, shocked, trembled, stern, annoyed, and wasted. D.W. tells Arthur she couldn't understand why, if the plane broke the sound barrier, falling out of the window won't break like this.

Arthur loses his mind, and sternly chides, and withstands D.W., telling her not to touch it, but D.W. doesn't acknowledge how infuriated he was, and continues going on about how Arthur obviously made the plane wrong since it didn't fly. She asks him if he even read the instructions, and says it wasn't her fault if he made a plane that doesn't fly. Arthur, reaching his breaking point, punches her in the arm, after he furiously yells to her, when he tells her not to touch it. D.W. falls to the ground, then gets up, and walks off, and goes inside the house, crying. A few moments after that, Jane sternly calls to Arthur to come inside the house while using his name, and he realizes that he was getting a little screwed, tense, and apprehensive saying about his middle name.

In the kitchen, David is about to apply ice to the spot on D.W.'s arm where Arthur punched her. She asks him if they'll amputake her arm. He says no, and that the correct word is amputate. She asks again, this time using the right word, and he says no; he will just put ice on the sore spot. She shrieks, screams, and roars, in pain, when he puts it on her wound; when he asks what was the matter, she was restlessly, crying in pain, saying that the ice was cold.

Jane tells Arthur to apologize to D.W. for being hostile, but he withholds to apologize to her, because she accidentally demolished his plane, which took him a week to build, and then claims D.W. should apologize to him, since he repeatedly warned her not to touch it, and her failure to comply resulted in the destruction of all his hard work. As David passes by holding D.W. in his arms, she bitterly says to Arthur that he was bad.

Arthur and his parents go into the living room to further discuss what happened. Because Arthur withholds to own up to his deeds, David mildy, and gently chides, and rebukes Arthur for mistreating D.W., and his deeds by telling him that he can't watch TV for a week. Arthur thinks that was unfair, and that his parents are not even acknowledging what D.W. did to his model plane. Jane tells him they will deal with what D.W. did, but what he did was wrong too and didn't solve his problem. Still, Arthur misunderstood that he was overreacted by being harsh to D.W.

The next day, on the walk to school, Arthur talks with Buster about what happened the other day, and gently provokes about the discipline he had. Buster, however, withholds to listen to Arthur's side of the story. Binky overhears Arthur and Buster's conversation, and thinks it's shocking that Arthur hit his sister. One of the Tough Customers asks how Binky had been shocked, given his difficult report. Molly realizes that she just couldn't remember the last time that Binky did hit somebody. Later, Binky's friends dare him to hit the next person that walks by (which happened to be Arthur). Molly severely says that if Binky doesn't, he will move out of the Tough Customers club, in no time. Binky protests that he is the one who founded the club in the first place. Molly tells him that since there are other members in the club, Binky can't have everything his way. She orders Binky to punch Arthur the next time he sees him. Binky withholds to hit Arthur, so he avoids looking at Arthur for the rest of the school day (reasoning that if he doesn't see Arthur, he won't be forced to hit him.)

Francine asks Arthur why he didn't apologize to his younger sister. Arthur objects that no one was taking on his side, and Muffy replies it's because Arthur was the one who was wrong. Francine discusses with Binky what Arthur did, and Binky says that he hasn't seen Arthur and, as far as he knows, Arthur isn't there. Francine thinks Binky is avoiding Arthur because he's disgusted by what he did to D.W. At lunch, when Binky won't eat near Arthur, Buster thinks Arthur and Binky need to be brought together.

After second recess, Arthur talks with Fern, trying to get her to sympathize with him. She tells him that D.W. was just a young girl, to which Arthur retorts that calling D.W. a little girl is like calling just a little tornado wind.

After school, right by The Sugar Bowl, Arthur runs towards Binky and the Tough Customers and tells Binky that he dropped his pen when he ran out of school, in which kind of sideways. Binky's friends urge him to hit Arthur — although reluctant at first, he finally does, making Arthur feel hurt and ashamed.

When Arthur is home and getting an ice pack from David, he reflects on the embarrassment he felt, and his dad tells him that maybe D.W. felt the same way, when Arthur punched her. Arthur tries to reject that there's a comparison, saying Binky was very huge, but then admits he understands.

Now knowing that hitting her was never the right way to solve his problem, Arthur finally apologizes to D.W., and she apologizes to him in return for accidentally scuttling his plane. She asks him what kind of plane doesn't fly, and he tells her about his model plane. D.W., now having learned her lesson, responds by saying that she didn't know and that she was a child, after all, and to give her a break.

The next day, Binky tells Arthur he wants to apologize, and Arthur ends up thanking him for making him understand how bad he made D.W. feel. The other Tough Customers stop by, and think Arthur is tough, because he survived being hit by Binky. Molly invites Arthur to join the Tough Customers, but Binky dissolves the club and tells them that making someone to do something they don't want to do is really, really wrong. Binky decides to found a new club with no aggression, and will clobber anyone who breaks new rules.