D.W. The Picky Eater (Arthur)

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"D.W. The Picky Eater"
"This is spinach, and I... HATE... SPINACH!!!!!"
Series: Arthur Part of Season: 2 Episode Number: 3a Air Date: October 22, 1997 Writer: Marc Brown (original) Anne-Marie Perrotta (adapted) Director: Greg Bailey Previous episode: Arthur's Lucky Pencil Next episode: Buster and the Daredevils

"D.W., the Picky Eater" is the first half of the third episode in the second season of Arthur. It is based on the book of the same name.

Plot

D.W. is a very picky eater, and her reluctance to eat unfamiliar foods will keep the whole family from celebrating Grandma Thora's birthday at a special restaurant, unless Arthur can persuade her to be more open-minded and learn to try new foods.

‎Why It Should Throw Up Spinach In D.W.'s Face

1. D.W. is very unsympathetic and unlikable character who finds healthy foods gross such as cucumbers, olives, tomatoes, shrimps, mushrooms, onions and especially spinach in which the latter finds out the grossest food in the universe and finds the peanut butter and jelly delicious.
   • D.W. even throws a tantrum by pounding her fist in the plate when she finds spinach in the salad causing the salad to fly and land into the waiter's head causing the waiter to leave his job. Although thankfully, unlike Caillou who threw a tantrum over not getting in the circus and then Boris scolds Caillou without giving him a punishment, in here D.W. gets scolded and grounded for her actions.
   • Also, D.W. never explains why she does not like any of the foods she is picky over, especially with spinach. She just says that onions are smelly.
2. Misleading Title: The title teases that D.W. Is going to be the main character in the episode and that it will be told from her perspective but instead it just focuses on Arthur and his attempts to make D.W. try new foods.
3. Jane and David Read are not likable as they agree with Grandma Thora for the whole family to not go out to any restaurants after they punish D.W. With that ban, bringing the entire family down with her in that regard. This effectively gets Arthur punished with that ban, which is unfair despite behaving nicely and presenting him with a major problem of not being able to go to Once Upon A Restaurant. Jane and David do not think of anything to solve this problem, nor do they apologize to Arthur for the unfair ban on him.
4. D.W's voice especially when gets tantrums can get annoying for some viewers.
5. There are numerous scenes in the episode that are just plain disgusting as listed below.
   • Arthur and Buster decide to make a peanut butter with jelly sandwich that contains spinach in which in turn D.W. vomits up the spinach which is gross.
   • Another scene has Muffy try to eat spinach in front of D.W in the Crosswire mansion but what is disgusting about it is that a fly lands on the spinach just as Muffy is about to eat it? Which makes her freak out.
   • At a scene where Arthur feeds Kate spinach in the form of baby food, D.W. Is goaded into eating the baby food with it almost reaching her mouth in a gross manner.
   • To rub salt in the wound, she vomits directly on the camera and the vomit looks very realistic.
6. Arthur is even more obnoxious and whiny and mean to D.W., particularly near the end. He's only trying to get her to try new foods because he wants to go to the restaurant and for his own selfish reasons, not because he actually wants to help D.W.
7. Even though this episode is one of the few episode that aired after its book counterpart was published, the episode has shown itself to be unfaithful to it’s source material in many ways.
   • For starters, the book gives D.W. The central role as protagonist while the episode makes Arthur the protagonist and D.W. as an antagonist.
   • While Grandma Thora celebrates her birthday in both versions, it is handled differently. Her birthday in the book, occurs in a fancy restaurant with only some of their recipes named after fairy tales and serves as a chance for DW. to redeem herself after being banned from restaurants for her pickinesss. The episode however places her birthday into the role of what’s at stake for Arthur as Grandma Thora does not want to go to Once Upon A Restaurant after D.W. gets punished.
   • The book has D.W actually suffer her restaurant ban with her being forced to stay at home with a babysitter while her family goes out to a Chinese restaurant while the episode renders her ban moot through Arthur’s manipulations as D.W. gets sent to her room with her parents placing her on a restaurant ban only to remove it within a week while not going to any more restaurants in between.

Qualities That Love Spinach

1. Important moral: Be willing to try new foods, otherwise you could be making yourself (and others) miserable due to refusing to step out of your comfort zone.
2. As mentioned in the first pointer, D.W. gets her comeuppance after pounding her fist in the plate of salad causing the salad to fly and land over the waiter's head.
3. Good Ending: D.W. finally loses her hatred of spinach and claims that she loves spinach.
4. Still has some funny moments
5. Buster can be the tolerable character in this episode.

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