![]() This was the ’90s, back when we could just accept things as they were, especially in a cartoon, but when a show is so wonderfully, memorably focused on real scientific concepts and how stuff works, down to the microscopic level, some questions come up. One has to wonder what the deal is with this bus. Ms Frizzle doesn’t distribute permission slips for parents to allow their children to fly up somebody’s penis, the kids just show up for school and suddenly get to learn what a urethra is. Gone is the wonder of a whimsical trip into an enlightening and thrilling literal science experience, replaced with the cosmic horror of an omnipotent maniac and her eldritch vessel taking the children on involuntary trips through the nightmares of the human body and modern science. They go back in time and Arnold grows giant and has a Kaiju battle with a T-Rex.īut now that I’m older, and existential dread and nihilism have sunk their irrevocable claws into my poisoned adult brain, the idea of a kindergarten teacher and her transforming school bus with fucking eyes becomes significantly more sinister. Frizzle shrinks everyone down to fly in it and they all almost die. Ms Frizzle comes up with increasingly more bizarre objects for the bus to turn into because sometimes it can just literally transform. A famous singer calls Arnold “sugar” for a whole episode as a weird way to tell them what her car’s hood ornament is made of. The episodes most vividly in my memory were two of the originals (I had a VHS of the first three or so episodes), but subsequent episodes were no less wild: Ralphie gets offended and literally creates a storm. As a bonus, the show was unusually stacked with both female and minority characters. By giving the audience character surrogates and taking them literally inside these topics, it made them both easy to understand and very memorable. Exploring concepts through the safe confines of a transforming bus is ingenious. One of the things the show did the best was to link scientific concepts to real-world, relatable things. Eventually, Raphie’s immune system determines that a microscopic bus filled with tiny humans is an abnormal occurrence in the human body and quickly attacks them, imparting a vivid and traumatic lesson to the children on how the immune system works. ![]() The second was “Inside Ralphie” in which Ms Frizzle and the class fly the bus into Ralphie’s cut and drive around inside his body. So, you know, don’t try this at home, kids. Also, Arnold vindictively removes his helmet on Pluto, his head instantly freezes, and later he gets a cold. It’s really clever educational storytelling and a blueprint for the rest of the series. ![]() The plot invests the audience in caring about the rescue of Ms Frizzle and imparts knowledge of the solar system as a byproduct. Eventually, Ms Frizzle disappears, and the class has to save her, learning about planets along the way. Here, each of the characters establish themselves as their respective archetypes (which honestly works) and the class heads up to space. The first was “Lost in Space,” the pilot episode of the show. Two episodes, in particular, stand out in my memory over the rest. How cool would it be to go to school, with no idea what was going to happen because your teacher was a wacky genius with a transforming bus with adorable eyes and you were about to go somewhere you’d never dream of going, all in the name of learning some cool scientific concept? And instead of having to open up some dumbass textbook your parents had to quit weekly date nights to be able to afford, you actually get to experience the subject firsthand? The way The Magic School Bus presented scientific subjects was novel and immensely creative. I was all about The Magic School Bus when I was a kid. This week brings us ER, The Marvel Action Hour, Magic School Bus, Generation X #1, the Pulp Fiction Soundtrack, Veruca Salt’s American Thighs, Soul Coughing’s Ruby Vroom, Dave Matthews Band’s Under the Table and Dreaming, Ween’s Chocolate and Cheese, and R.E.M.’s Monster. PopCulture25YL looks back at the music, shows, comics, books and whatever else we want from the month that was September of 1994 to explore why they’re still relevant to us 25 years later.
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