Episode | Gallery | Transcript | ||||
|
Inside Ralphie |
|
- "Any good doctor knows—the best cure is complete rest."
- —Dr. Tennelli
Inside Ralphie (Human HealthVHS/GermsDVD & Digital) is the third episode of the first season of The Magic School Bus. It first released on PBS stations in the USA on September 24, 1994.
Recap[]
Inside Ralphie[]
It's Broadcast Day and the class is counting on Ralphie to help them come up with an idea for the two hours of live television they're doing. The trouble is that he's sick and coughing, so his mother, Dr. Tennelli, tells him that he can't go to school. So she calls Ms. Frizzle to tell her he won't be at school, and Ms. Frizzle takes her class to Ralphie's house.
When Ms. Frizzle says that there is an amazing battle going on inside him, the class decides Broadcast Day should be about whatever is making him sick. They go back to The Magic School Bus, making him believe they are leaving him. It later returns as a shrunken helicopter through his window. Ms. Frizzle tells him to say, "Ahh!," and it enters his mouth, approaching his red and swollen vocal cords, but he coughs, sending it flying out. Afterwards, it enters via a cut on his leg, to which Carlos jokingly says "It's a shortcut! Get it? Short cut?" causing the other students to groan "Carlos, yuck!". The Magic School Bus travels up his bloodstream to his throat. While watching a video of his bloodstream, he notices that the blood inside is clear rather than red and that the cells are red and white blood cells and the jagged cells are called platelets, which help the body heal scrapes and cuts. Meanwhile, Dr. Tennelli returns and notices the television. She remarks that the stuff on it is "remarkably realistic".
As The Magic School Bus enters the throat tissue, the students attempt to do the report. Ralphie and his mother watch this on television and notice that bacteria are destroying his throat cells, making him sick. Ralphie doesn't want her to know that the Magic School Bus and the students are inside him. Just then, the white blood cells come around and try to eat the bacteria. Unfortunately, they multiply and begin chasing the students. Dr. Tennelli then turns off the television and tells Ralphie that the best cure for a bacterial infection is complete rest. As she leaves, Liz turns it back on and the inside story continues, where the medicine Dr. Tennelli gave Ralphie earlier destroys the bacteria. The white blood cells also see the bus as a threat since it's covered with antibodies and attempt to devour it. The others call for help, but Ralphie doesn't notice since he's sound asleep. The bus barely manages to escape from the white blood cells' grip and ride off, with the white blood cells chasing after it. They make it to Ralphie's nose, and thanks to Liz banging a gong, he wakes up just in time to listen to the report on television.
The bus travels through Ralphie's nasopharynx, and through the footage on television, he is shocked to see that this is what the inside of his nose looks like. After Liz tries tickling his nose with a feather, Ralphie initially yells angrily that he's trying to think, but then says, “I get it — I got to sneeze them out” but then looks puzzled while adding “But I don’t feel like sneezing.”
Liz solves that problem by sprinkling black pepper in his face. The students, still small, are now back in his room and interview him. They tell him that his body is built to keep out things such as germs, his throat is sore because of his body sending extra blood there to fight off the infection, and the white blood cells almost ate the bus because his body thought it was bacteria. They also tell him that his body was doing all this to protect him.
As he finally gets some rest, the other students hop on the bus and leave through the window.
Is This the Magic School Bus?[]
At the office, the male producer is using a stethoscope to listen to Liz's heartbeat, only to tell them that he can't hear anything. Just then, he gets a call from a girl who was wondering why the students would take a trip inside Ralphie's ill body, to which the producer responds he wasn't infectious. The producer then gets a call from a kid who reminds him that if the Bus could find its way through Ralphie's scab, then so could more germs. The producer agrees and states bandages are made not just to heal cuts and wounds, but to also keep germs out of the body as well. The boy also adds that viruses, parasites, and fungi are other diseases that could make a person sick. The producer also adds that some sickness is not only caused by infections, but also due to the body not working correctly. The producer later gets a call from a girl, who informs that medicine can be dangerous and children should never take medicines unsupervised. The producer also informs that Ralphie became robust sometime after the episode. The girl then adds that keeping the body healthy should include things like eating better and exercising. The producer also adds that getting shots is another way to keep healthy, as they are to help the person be prepared for tougher germs. When asked if Ms. Frizzle ever gets sick, the producer says Ms. Frizzle takes care of her body and "is magic". When the producer pulls up a photo of the Frizz on the monitor, Liz reaches over and gives the screen a kiss.
Bus Forms[]
Home Video[]
VHS[]
- Inside Ralphie (Warner Home Video, 1995)
- Body Basics (20th Century Studios, 1999)
DVD[]
- Body Basics (20th Century Studios, 1999) - Region 4
- Human Body (Warner Home Video, 2005/Radical! Group, 2011/New Video Group, 2012) - Regions 1 and 2
- TMSB: The Complete Series 1, "In the Haunted House!" disc (Delta Leisure, 2011) - Region 2
- TMSB: The Complete Series, Disc 1 (New Video Group, 2012) - Region 1
- TMSB: Season One, Disc 1 (New Video Group, 2015) - Region 1
- Greatest Classic Episodes (New Video Group, 2017) - Region 1
Allusions/References[]
- The white blood cells' would-be consumption of the Bus is a reference to Fantastic Voyage.
- The song that plays while Arnold is whistling to himself is Ed Haley's "The Fountain in the Park", famously sung by Schmitt and Cernan on the Moon during the Apollo 17 mission.
- The FNN station is a parody of CNN (Cable News Network).
- The Ride of the Valkyries plays when the bus flies through Ralphie's window and into his bedroom.
- The William Tell Overture plays in one scene where Ralphie's medicine destroys the bacteria. This song also plays during "In the Haunted House" as the concerto for Carlos' invented instrument.
Trivia[]
- Ralphie's illness and the medicine his mom gives him are not specified in the episode, however the illness may very well be strep throat, with the bacteria being streptococcus ("coccus" means "ball" and "strep" means a long chain). The medicine is most likely an antibiotic.
- The events of this episode are the cause of the Bus's dented fenders, as mentioned by Mr. Junkett in "Revving Up".
- This is the first episode with the Carlos gag in aired order.
- Music from the Producer Segment is reused in Works Out.
- The Bus's pedals do not have the "purple foot" design; instead they are rectangular and black like in any other vehicle. This error is also present in "Goldstealer" when Ms. Frizzle hits the brakes.
- This episode and "Flexes Its Muscles" are the basis for "Ralphie Strikes a Nerve" because they travel inside the human body (former) as they struggle to build a robot (latter)
- Ralphie's last name is revealed when the Friz talks to his mom on the phone (albeit spelled Tinelli in the captions, which is also a corruption of Tonelli). His middle name is revealed in "Kids in Space". This makes Ralphie's full name Ralphie Alessandro Giuseppe Tennelli.
- This is the second episode to take a field trip inside a human body and the first episode to do so other than Arnold's which was first seen in For Lunch.
- Ralphie is the first of Ms. Frizzle's students to get sick. The second is Dorothy Ann in "Sees Stars"., and the third is Carlos in "Carlos Gets the Sneezes". However, Ralphie's illness is more prominent, as this episode is about the immune system and germs while "Sees Stars" is about stars, and it wasn't explained how Dorothy Ann was sick. In the latter episode, Carlos has an allergy to pollen and does not have an illness.
- This is the only episode in which the class (except for Ralphie and Liz) doesn't return to normal size at the end (not shown).
- This is the second time the bus shrinks, but the first where it shrinks with Arnold and without Ralphie or Liz.
- This may not be true, but Mr. Junkett (Revving Up), mentions about the Bus's fenders being dented in the next season, but nobody knows where it's from, it could maybe be from the white blood cells trying to tear the Bus apart. Assuming they're bacteria, they spray antibodies on it to mark the Bus as a threat, which attracts more white blood cells to mark it break or "destroy" it, and in the process of doing so, the white blood cells could possibly have put damage on or around the Bus while attempting to destroy it.
- Kevin Zegers who would later voice Mikey is heard as one of the callers in the Producer Says.
- The computer in Ralphie's room appears to be a PC compatible bearing some resemblance to the IBM PC/AT judging from the darker notch on its right side.
- In this episode, Ralphie sneezes his class out like he does in the theme song.
- In the intro, he's wearing his regular clothes when he does this where his signature "R" shirt has the crewneck collar, while in this episode he has on his space-themed pajamas that has a V-neck collar.
- This is the first episode to feature blood.
- This is the first episode to feature the name of the episode in the episode, at the end when Wanda suggests a name for a mini-series of exploring Ralphie's body.
- It could be argued that Gets Lost in Space was the first to do so, however the word "gets" is omitted in exchange for "we're", so it's not so much of a title as it is a slight paraphrase.
- This is the first time Ralphie does not wear his standard clothes other than his trademark red baseball cap being worn backwards for the entire episode.
- This episode was technically the first to be aired, as it was shown as a special sneak-peek on Fox Kids in September 1994.
- The book adaptation features a different Carlos joke, about Ralphie being a pony because "he's a little hoarse". Wanda scolds him for it, because that joke was starting to make the others feel sick.
- This is the first episode not to feature the classroom at the end. However, the class except Ralphie is seen headed back to school at the end.