Ralphie Tennelli

Ralphie Tennelli

General Information
First Appearance	The Magic School Bus at the Waterworks (1986)
Catchphrase	"Is it just me, or...?" "I think I'm going to be sick."
Production Information
Voiced By	Stuart Stone

Ralphie Tennelli is a fictional character on the animated children's series The Magic School Bus. He is voiced by Stuart Stone.

Background

Ralphie is the class athlete and daydreamer. He plays a lot of sports, and when he's not, he's daydreaming about playing sports. He's of Italian American descent, once mentioning that his mother's calzones "go down like rocks." He has a distaste for anchovies, which his dad puts on pizza to keep him from eating it. He mentions in "Kicks Up a Storm" that he hates roller coasters and shows to have a weak stomach in "For Lunch". Despite his occasional machismo, he has no problem showing when he's afraid. He loves superheroes and comic books, and he appears to be a science-fiction fan (as shown by his pajamas). However, he might be reading too many after he believes that Ms. Frizzle is a vampire.

Storyline

Season One

Ralphie is upset he hasn't come up with an idea for Broadcast Day as he types on his computer, and he's even more upset when his mother tells him he's staying home due to being sick ("Inside Ralphie"). The class comes to him, and their Broadcast Day becomes about his sick body. Irritated when Dorothy Ann interrupts the class baseball game to talk about her physics book, he sees it would make the perfect home plate ("Plays Ball"). They continue to butt heads when Ms. Frizzle takes the class inside the book to play a frictionless baseball game, but they stop their fighting long enough to get the bus unstuck when the wind blows the book shut. He comes up with a superhero persona in "Kicks Up a Storm" named "Weatherman." He and Keesha argue over who knows how storms are made, and using the bus, he eventually makes one, realizing he may have made a huge mistake.

Season Two

Tired of having to do class chores, which keep him from playing sports, Ralphie decides he wants to build a robot to do all the chores for everyone ("Flexes Its Muscles"). When the bus acts up, he gets his chance when Ms. Frizzle takes the class to her mechanic. In "Going Batty," he is convinced she is a vampire due to many coincidences, and he fears she plans to eat their parents during the parent-teacher conference, which is taking place not only off-campus but also at night. Six hours before the "biggest soccer game of the year," he is aggravated when Phoebe wants to name the team the Butterflies ("Butterfly and the Bog Beast"). He's the last in the class to finally agree to the mascot, at one point saying he'd rather play for the other team.

Season Three

On a class trip to the Arctic, Ralphie is trapped on an ice flow with Liz, Phoebe, and the bus, and he worries that he'll never hear another bad joke from Carlos and never go on another field trip ("In the Arctic"). In "Goes Upstream," he's in charge of bringing fish to the school's annual Fish Fry. Unable to catch any salmon at the spot he and his uncle used to fish, the class finds out that the salmon have migrated. Up until realizing what a hard journey it is, he is determined to bring back some fish to the school. He's Ms. Frizzle's trainer for the Teacherathlon in "Works Out". Seeing that her competitor is the heavily muscled gym teacher, Mr. Sinew, he wonders how she'll ever beat him.

Season Four

The class is enjoying a nice afternoon at the beach, but Ralphie wants to move away from their peaceful spot to a more crowded one ("Goes to Mussel Beach"). They find out later that the reason he chose the spot was so they'd be first for ice cream when the truck comes. In "Goes on Air," he's upset that their contribution to the Walkerville space capsule is an empty jar of air. He's an opossum, along with Wanda and Keesha, in "In the City".

Relatives

Ralphie's mother is a doctor and appears in "Inside Ralphie" and "Going Batty." She appears to have a playful relationship with him, such as remarking "Even your jokes are sick" when he makes a lame joke when he's sick and telling him with a smile to stop being "such a pain in the neck" before she goes to talk to Ms. Frizzle.
He mentions his father once in "Gets Eaten," telling about how he puts anchovies on pizza to keep Ralphie from eating it.
His grandfather is mentioned in "Inside Ralphie," being at the house while Ralphie's sick and his mother's at work.
In "Shows and Tells" he makes a side comment about there being a round photo of his Uncle Ed in his house, whose head is kind of pointy.
In "Goes Upstream," he mentions going fishing with his Uncle Brian.