The Magic School Bus Trivia Quiz

Answer: Janet

Janet is Arnold's cousin, who always brags about how great she is. Her bragging is so annoying, even the skeleton in the classroom covers its ears (so apparently the bus isn't the only thing that's magic in Mrs. Frizzle's classroom)!

Arnold brought her to class one day because she asked him to prove his claim this Mrs. Frizzle has the best field trips. At first, Mrs. Frizzle surprisingly takes the class on a normal field trip to the planetarium. When the planetarium is closed, Mrs. Frizzle decides to return to class, but then Janet starts bragging again. She goes too far and says "My teacher is better than your teacher." Surprisingly, Arnold, who normally complains most about the field trips, angrily says "There is no better teacher than Mrs. Frizzle!" and he then asks her to take a field trip to outer space. She then agrees, and the class goes on a field trip to outer space, to all the planets.

Janet wants to brag to her class about having been to all the planets, but then Dorothy Ann reminds her that they'll tell her the same thing she told Arnold. "Prove it!" So she gets proof from every planet, such as part of Jupiter's red spot. At the end of the field trip, the stuff that she collected from all the planets weighs so much, the bus can't move. Janet decides to stay on Pluto forever, because she doesn't want to go home if she can't prove to all her friends and family that she visited all the planets. Arnold then takes off his helmet to show her what will happen if she stays on Pluto. Arnold's head turns to ice, but he somehow survives with merely a cold. Janet then decides that she is going to brag about that field trip anyway, not caring if anyone believe her. She thanks Arnold for proving how good Mrs. Frizzle's field trips are, and she gives him a tissue to help with the cold she accidentally gave him.

This episode doesn't make sense as the first episode, because in this episode, Arnold tells Janet about some of the past field trips, such as a field trip inside a rotten log and a field trip to the bottom of the ocean, but those field trips happened in future episodes. However, for whatever reason, this is the first episode that aired on TV.

Answer: Arnold and Ralphie

The second episode is called "For Lunch." In this episode, Arnold begs Mrs. Frizzle to allow him to stay behind. Mrs. Frizzle was actually happy to hear that because she needed someone to stay behind anyway. Arnold stayed at the school, and the rest of the class went on a field trip inside his digestive system. The bus shrinks and flies on a Cheezie Wheezie snack that Arnold ate, not knowing the bus was on it. The bus went through Arnold's mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, and large intestine. The bus nearly got pooped out, but the class didn't want that so instead they went backwards through his digestive system, and then Wanda got a speaker phone and talked to Arnold, telling him she was his conscience and telling him to drink her seltzer water instead of Ralphie's malloblaster "because Wanda's a nice little girl. Ralphie's mean." Arnold is of course confused that his stomach is talking to him, but he obliges, and he burps out the bus. At the end of the episode, Wanda told Arnold that he broke the record for being the best field trip ever. This is when he learns that the rest of the class was on a field trip inside him, and he promises Mrs. Frizzle that he will never miss another field trip. He doesn't keep that promise though. There's a couple episodes in season 3 where he stays behind, and in season 4 the class goes on another field trip through his digestive system, only this time it's to help him with his skin condition not to learn about his digestive system.

In the third episode, Mrs. Frizzle's class is supposed to broadcast two hours of live television, but Ralphie's mom won't let him go to school because he is sick. Ralphie clearly either didn't know that he was sick or he didn't care, because he was very upset when his mom wouldn't let him got to school. The class is upset too, but Mrs. Frizzle instead takes the class on a field trip to his house and they go on a field trip inside his body to find out why he is sick and to help him get better. The class's TV broadcast then takes place inside Ralphie's body. The bus at first goes into his mouth, but when it gets too close to his vocal cords, he coughs out the bus. The bus then decides to go into a cut on Ralphie's knee. We then learn that he is sick because he cut his knee playing baseball and bacteria entered his body through the cut. At first thing, it looks like the bacteria are winning the war with Ralphie's immune system, but then the medicine that Ralphie's mom gave him comes to the rescue. The bus nearly gets eaten by a white blood cell, but it escapes and goes into Ralphie's nose and gets sneezed out.

Answer: Because there was too much stuff on it

Carlos invented a new instrument for his class's orchestra, which is going go give a recital at Carol Channing's sound museum (the character isn't actually Carol Channing, but a fictional character played by her). His instrument sounds noticeably awful.

This has the rest of the class worrying that they were going to sound terrible. The class then goes on a field trip to the sound museum where the recital is being given. After Carlos says he needs more time, Mrs. Frizzle drives faster and the bus breaks down.

The class are then trapped at the sound museum, which looks like a haunted house. Carlos keeps trying to add things to his instrument, like an umbrella and a lion's mane, but it still sounds bad. The class then hears an eerie sound. At first they think it's from Carlos's instrument, but he denies it. So, against the wishes of the rest of the class, Carlos goes into the museum, determined to find the source of the sound.

In the museum, the class learns all about sounds. They have to spend the night at the museum, and they are scared to find that there are 8 kid-sized beds and one teacher-sized bed, like someone were expecting them. Carlos falls asleep, but then wakes up to find that his instrument is missing.

He and the class then search for the instrument and the source of the eerie sound. It turns out the eerie sound came from an organ that Carol Channing was playing, and she took this instrument because she wanted to help make it sound better. Carlos, using all the information he learned about sound during the episode, learns that his instrument coulnd't vibrate because it had too much stuff on it. He takes off all the unnecessary stuff, and then his instrument sounds great during the recital. Carol Channing decides to buy the instrument and add it to her museum.

Answer: Mikey

Mikey is a genius who knows a lot about designing things. He appeared in two episodes during the show's original run in the 1990's.

In his first appearance, the rest of the class is horrified when Carlos calls his brother for help, because of a previous disaster involving a marshmallow roaster that gave Dorothy Ann a heat rash (this incident was never shown in any episode, it was only mentioned). However, things go much better the next two times Mikey is called on for help. First, he helps the class make their Ferris Wheel work by getting falling rocks to run it. Then, he helps program the principal's new computer. His two appearances on the original show are two of the funniest episodes ever since they involve things that wouldn't work in real life (A ferris wheel that runs of falling rocks? A computer that can run the whole school and do all the chores?).

Answer: To save the school from an asteroid

Dorothy Ann likes to watch the sky at night with her telescope. In one episode, she discovers that an asteroid is about to destroy the school, so she warns the class. At first they don't believe her because it wasn't on the news, but they go to outer space anyway to investigate it. They also call NASA, but NASA doesn't respond until the "Talk to the Producer" part at the end. There they see a meteor burn in Earth's atmosphere. They also melt a comet using a large mirror they had to reflect sunlight on it. When they finally find the correct asteroid, they have difficulties melting it. Eventually, they figure out that they can turn the bus into a large moon so that the asteroid will orbit around it just like they orbited around the moon. Then they shrink the bus at just the right time so that the asteroid is re-directed into the sun.

Some of the wrong answers happened in different episodes of different names.

Answer: Valerie

Mrs. Frizzle's first name is first mentioned in "Goes to Seed." During the "Talk to the Producer" portion of that show, Phoebe's former teacher Mr. Seedplot is seen writing a love letter to Mrs. Frizzle, and he talks while he is writing. The first thing he writes is "Dear Valerie."

Her first name is also mentioned in "Works Out" by the kid who is the announcer at a triathlon, in which he says that it's a competition between "Mrs. Valerie Frizzle and Mr. Garth Sinew."

Answer: Her class almost getting eaten by a polar bear

Mrs. Frizzle's class goes on dangerous field trips, and they all almost die in nearly every episode. However, Mrs. Frizzle hardly ever seems to worry. She is almost always calm in the face of near-death-danger. However, there are some episodes where even she gets scared. One such episode is when they take a field trip to the Arctic.

When the kids complain to her about the cold, she tells them where a heat source can be found. The kids then go running right to where she said it was. This gives her a clearly horrified look on her face: there were more than 20 episodes before this one and this is the first time I can recall seeing Mrs. Frizzle look scared.

This is because the heat source that she told her class about was a polar bear! With her magic, she saves the class from the bear just in time.

Answer: Recycling

Upon Arnold's suggestion, the class recycles items on the last day of school before winter break. The class takes the items to a recycling center run by Mrs. Frizzle's cousin Murph. However, Arnold puts Wanda's toy soldier in the recycling bin (not knowing that it was hers) and it get recycled. Wanda gets so upset she wishes recycling never happened. Against Murph's warnings, Mrs. Frizzle gets the bus to carry out Wanda's wish and a world without recycling is created. In this world, there are no trees because they've all been cut down, and the playground gets un-recycled (all of the equipment turns into trash). Wanda is happy about this at first (everybody else is unhappy) because she knows her toy soldier is still around and she knows where it is in the school. But then the school gets un-recycled and turned into trash. This helps change Wanda's mind. Things get even worse when the bus un-recycles itself (this is one of the few things that horrifies even Mrs. Frizzle). After this, Wanda completely changed her mind about recycling. They rebuild the bus using the trash and Mrs. Frizzle's magic recycling bin. The bus then makes it so that recycling is back and everything returns the way it was, Arnold then suggests that the plastic pellets that used to be Wanda's toy solider be made into a new one. The recycling plant uses the pellets to not only make a new toy soldier for Wanda, but also for everyone else in the class so they can all go to "The Nutcracker". However, they end up not going because Arnold had to catch a train to take care of his sick grandmother. The rest of the class and Murph decide to turn the bus into the train's caboose and they tag along. They all sing a song about recycling at the end of the episode.

This is my favorite episode of "The Magic School Bus". TV just doesn't get much better than this.

Answer: Electricity

For Valentine's Day, Mrs. Frizzle's class is supposed to sell light bulbs. They can't sell any until they find Mrs. Frizzle's house. They go to her house to sell a light bulb, but then they find out that the doorbell isn't working. Wanda and Tim overhear a phone conversation where Mrs. Frizzle excitedly invites someone to come over to her house and ring her bell. Wanda thinks that Mrs. Frizzle is in love, but Wanda fears that when the man tries to ring the broken doorbell and Mrs. Frizzle doesn't answer (because she can't hear it), the man will think that she doesn't love him anymore and he will leave and she will be heartbroken. Liz invites the class in the house and Mrs. Frizzle is actually happy to see them.

She only sees them for a brief time. Liz takes the class on a field trip to learn how electricity works, and then to learn how the fix the doorbell. Wanda stays out of the bus so she can fix the doorbell.

When they find the break in the doorbell's wire, Wanda takes some tinfoil from Mrs. Frizzle's chocolates and uses it to fix the doorbell.

It works, but Mrs. Frizzle doesn't answer the bell, so they go out to the garage to find her. They find that she has an electric garage door opener, but that doesn't work either because the battery is broken, so the bus turns into a battery to fix it. She still isn't there. They hear the doorbell ring again, this time it's the man who Wanda thought was Mrs. Frizzle's boyfriend. It turns out he was actually her electrician and Mrs. Frizzle knew the doorbell was broken so she called him to fix it. That turned out to be unnecessary. The electrician then buys all of the kids' light bulbs.

Answer: "You might get baked into a pie"

The show's theme song has many references to things that happen in episodes, but "You might get baked into a pie on the magic school bus" didn't actually happen. The scene by shown when the singer sings that is actually the bus getting baked into a birthday cake, not a pie. Mrs. Frizzle's class baked a cake for her birthday in one episode by breaking into a bakery and using the bus.

The baker saw the bus fly out of the cake and he thought it was a moth, so he gave it to the class for free saying that the cake was ruined. Mrs. Frizzle sees a mark on the cake that looks like a school bus, not a moth, and she is very happy.