Episode 105: The Last of Mary Moo Cow

"**Last of Mary Moo Cow**" is the first half of the thirty-third episode in the second season and first half of the fifty-third episode of Arthur in Viewer’s World.

## Summary

When D.W.'s favorite TV show is canceled, she starts a petition to try to force her show to go back on the air.

## Plot

At 3:30, Arthur resets all of the clocks to say it's 4:00 instead and he sits down to watch *Dark Bunny*. D.W. comes in and tells him that 3:30 is her T.V. time and he claims it's 4:00, not 3:30. However, she doesn't buy it and sits down to watch *Mary Moo Cow*. Arthur explains that it's not best to come between D.W. and *Mary Moo Cow* and proceeds to show instances of this. At the store she rushes her mom, in the sandbox she stops playing immediately and runs inside, and even the television repair man is rushed when she grabs the screw herself and quickly fixes it. Arthur then says D.W. would probably go crazy if she didn't have *Mary Moo Cow* to watch; or rather, even crazier. Within seconds the *Mary Moo Cow* theme restarts, and Arthur calls for the title card to appear.

One day, D.W. begins screaming throughout the house and everyone comes to see what happened. D.W. says that Mary Moo Cow is coming to Elwood City, and an announcer says that she is coming on Thursday at Mill Creek Mall and Friday at Petie Pete's Pizzeria. Mary says she can hardly wait. D.W. then goes into a fantasy of Mary and herself as they sing to each other before flying to Mary's barn. After the fantasy, D.W. chooses a dress and says that she will stay with Mary during summer and with her family for the rest of the year, while Arthur is in school. Arthur says that they won't put her in the show, to which D.W. says Mary surely will. Mrs. Read points out that a lot of kids are going to be there to see Mary. But D.W. already knows this, mentioning that this is why she doesn't want anybody to know she is related to Arthur. After she leaves, Arthur and Buster cheer and begin to watch *Dark Bunny*.

At the Mill Creek Mall, they observe a string of children all walking away in tears. D.W. tries to comfort them by saying "Mary can't take everybody." Finally, they reach the door, where Mrs. Read apologizes and tells D.W. that Mary Moo Cow's visit to the Mill Creek Mall was cancelled.

Meanwhile, back at the house, Arthur and Buster are about to watch *Dark Bunny*, but the intro gets interrupted when D.W. forcefully changes the channel to *Mary Moo Cow*. After Buster and Arthur question this, D.W. soon chimes in with a harsh voice of explanation. She also steals their popcorn, to their surprise. Then Mary announces that this is their final episode, and Buster and Arthur cheer that *Mary Moo Cow* is cancelled.

That night, Jane and David try to comfort D.W. as Jane explains that cancellation eventually happens to all television shows, while David reminds her that she owns a few of the VHS tapes too. D.W. asks her parents if they were going to punish Arthur, but David leaves with the parting advice of "Think of all the other fun things you can do now at 3:30!". In her fantasy, D.W. is sitting at the TV, flipping channels but all she finds is static. She walks outside, and we see that everything now has a sad face. The inanimate objects around her explain to her that things would not be the same now that *Mary Moo Cow* has been cancelled and that the only TV show to watch would be *Dark Bunny*, to their disgust.

The next day, Arthur plops down in the chair in front of the television with a bowl of popcorn, hoping to watch *Dark Bunny*. However, D.W. comes up and explains, "Mom says that I get to keep this time until I recover from my trauma!" Arthur comes out with his usual response—he starts screaming for his mom. The program that's replaced *Mary Moo Cow* is the first edition of *$tock Market Today*, which discusses financial matters. D.W's imaginary friend Nadine tries to get her to let Arthur watch television considering how boring this show is anyway, but D.W. claims it's still her time even if the new show isn't that great and that "If D.W couldn't watch *Mary Moo Cow*, Arthur couldn't watch *Dark Bunny*." Even when Nadine tries dressing up as Mary Moo Cow to cheer D.W. up, it doesn't work.

Eventually, the new show gives D.W an idea: When the anchorwoman mentions a historic building saved from demolition because "concerned citizens obtained five hundred signatures on a petition.", she makes a petition to bring back the show by getting her friends from preschool, sets up a booth to charge people 5 cents to sign the petition and even tries to enlist the help of Arthur to sign. However, he quickly decides not to since he is not a fan of *Mary Moo Cow* and D.W. instead gets Baby Kate to sign with her chocolatey handprint. D.W. mails the petition, and has a fantasy sequence about Mary Moo Cow and her child actor sidekicks being freed from jail and claiming D.W. has brought them cheer. Sometime afterward, a response arrives in the mail. D.W. wants to know what it says. The letter thanks D.W. for the petition, and contains an invitation to visit the studios of Channel 12. Arthur believes that D.W's petition didn't work since the show was still cancelled.

D.W.'s parents take her to the studios of Channel 12, where they explain that Mary's barn is part of a set, and this is where it is filmed. Inside, while *$tock Market Today* runs its next episode, a tour guide leads D.W and her family on a tour of the studios and points out where Mary Moo Cow always filmed her soft puppet shows. D.W is offered a Moo Cow soft puppet to add to her collection, but isn't very interested. She gets to what she believes is the point of her visit and wishes to see Mary, but she doesn't when the tour guide tells her that Mary is very busy and loses it. She cries out that she already had some of the stuff that the tour guide gave her and then runs off to try and find Mary.

D.W then finds the dressing room that Mary Moo Cow uses, which is all decorated in cow-print fabric, and looks around to find Mary. Suddenly she hears somebody come in. It is not who D.W expects; it's the host of *$tock Market Today,* who replaces the Mary Moo Cow dressing room sign with a "Patty Jones" sign that was lying on the ground, having fallen off. She talks to D.W. with lots of interest. Initially, D.W believes that the woman was responsible for taking Mary Moo Cow off the air by asking Patty, "What have you done with Mary?". Patty tells D.W that life works exactly the way that D.W is experiencing it — that sometimes people need a change, and that Mary Moo Cow would return to TV someday. Once Mary did come back on TV, D.W would have the pleasure of knowing that her efforts with the petition helped.

It's at this point that Jane, David, and the studio tour guide enter the dressing room. David tries to lay down the law by telling D.W that "You don't just barge into people's dressing rooms." Patty Jones doesn't seem to mind, though. They begin to leave, and Patty says goodbye in Mary Moo Cow's voice by accident, to D.W.'s delight, switching back to her normal voice immediately afterwards. They then go home as Patty sings to the tune of "Frère Jacques", "Oh D.W., Oh D.W., I love you, Yes I do." "Mary," D.W. dreamily says, happy she got to meet the woman who played Mary Moo Cow.

Later at home, D.W. enjoys *$tock Market Today* for a while, but then relinquishes control of the remote to a surprised Arthur, telling him that she'll catch Mary some other time. Pleased, Arthur settles in to finally watch *Dark Bunny* and changes the channel just in time to hear an announcer state that *Dark Bunny* has been cancelled in favor of reruns of *Mary Moo Cow*. This, of course, does not go well with Arthur, and the episode finishes with him screaming at the television while Pal eats popcorn.