Dorothy Ann Hudson

Dorothy Ann "DA" Hudson
General Information
First Appearance	The Magic School Bus at the Waterworks (1986)
Catchphrase	"According to my research," (she pronounces it as reSEARCH in the original series and REsearch in the Rides Again series "Wait a minute/second, wait a minute/second, wait a minute/second!" "(Latin name of species). Common name: (common name) of the genus (genus)." "(word) comes from a word that means to (origin of word)."
Likes	Astronomy, taxonomy, mathematics, number-crunching, her research
Dislikes	Losing her reference sources (books and FrizTab)
Hobbies	Researching
Production Information
Voiced By	Tara Meyer (original series) Gabby Clarke (Rides Again series)

Dorothy Ann "D.A." Hudson is a student at Walkerville Elementary. Her television counterpart is voiced by Tara Meyer in the original TV series and by Gabby Clarke in The Magic School Bus Rides Again.

In the books

Appearance (At the Waterworks–Inside a Hurricane)

Dorothy Ann has blonde yellow hair worn in two short bun pigtails held with pink-red rubber hair bands. She wears a yellow sweater with a pink plaid skirt. She wears white leggings and saddle shoes

Appearance (Inside a Beehive–present)

Dorothy Ann now wears a pink short-sleeved t-shirt, but otherwise, she wears the same legwear.

Storyline (book series)

Dorothy Ann has always been the class bookworm, reading books and defining words for the kids on different field trips. She normally doesn't do "reports", as her work is usually word definitions. She is one student of the main class who appears in the two TV shows, like Arnold.

Inside the Earth

The class has been given an assignment to find a rock and bring it to class tomorrow. Dorothy Ann found a rock, but her dog ate it, Arnold found a Styrofoam "rock", and Alex brought a chipped 7-UP bottle. But Phil found a real one.

And the Climate Challenge

After getting back from the field trip through the ozone layer, Dorothy Ann tells the class how to recycle things.

In the TV saga

Dorothy Ann is the class bookworm, always looking for a fact in one of her many books. She loves astronomy, and she has a telescope on the balcony outside of her bedroom. She gets a new, high-powered one for her ninth birthday in "Sees Stars." She also has an interest in physics. She tends to have an argumentative personality and has clashed with the others from time to time, most notably Wanda.

Appearance (The Magic School Bus)

Her hair is the same as in the books. She wears a violet turtleneck sweater, a turquoise pleated skirt, purple ankle-length socks (white leggings in some books), and maroon and white sneakers (saddle shoes in some books). Her signature colors are violet, blue, and white.

Appearance (Rides Again)

Dorothy Ann now wears her hair in a tomboy ponytail. She wears a violet blazer that replaces her sweater. Under her blazer is a light blue shirt. For legwear, she wears pale trousers and orange ballet flats replacing her sneakers.

Other outfits

For sleepwear, in "Out of This World", she wore aqua pajamas with violet slippers. But in "Sees Stars", her top pajamas have purple fringes and a pink and violet shooting star, and she also wore pink slippers.

For winter wear, she wears a green hat, her violet turtleneck, her turquoise skirt, a pink jacket, rose trousers and violet boots.

For beach wear, she wears a one piece violet swimsuit with a blue lining and a violet pleated skirt.

For rain wear, she wears a turquoise rain hat, a violet raincoat, and turquoise gumboots.

For formal wear, she wears a pink long sleeve blouse, a blue sleeveless vest, a blue knee length pleated skirt, white leggings, and blue shoes.

For basketball wear, she wears a violet basketball shirt, turquoise and pink shorts, purple socks, and dark red sneakers.

For space wear on the International Space Station, she wears a thin jumpsuit in her signature colors.

Dorothy Ann's appearance in the reboot.

Storyline

The Magic School Bus

Season 1 (The Magic School Bus)

Dorothy Ann Shows her baseball book report in Plays Ball.

Dorothy Ann is introduced with the rest of the class in "Gets Lost In Space," but her researching habits are not shown until episode 2, "For Lunch." Her first focus episode is "In the Haunted House" in which she's conducting the class as they perform her "Concerto for Invented Instrument". She's seen doing a chemistry experiment while the class bakes Ms. Frizzle a birthday cake in "Gets Ready, Set, Dough." Her last focus episode of the season is "Plays Ball". Excited to show off her new physics book, she's disappointed when the class only cares about the baseball game they were playing. She's even more disappointed when Ralphie leaves her book on the field, but they end up inside it, playing a friction-less baseball game.

Season 2 (The Magic School Bus)

Dorothy Ann in Blows Its Top.

The season opens with a Dorothy Ann-focused episode, "Blows Its Top." She and Carlos argue over discovering a new island until she loses her books to the ocean. Feeling lost and empty without them, she begs Ms. Frizzle to help her get them back, "Please, Ms. Frizzle! I'm nothing without my books! Me, books...books, me!" In "Butterfly and the Bog Beast", her mascot suggestion is a broccoli, and despite her choice of mascot, she sides with the others against Phoebe's butterfly idea. She speaks on "behalf of the court" during Ms. Frizzle's trial in "In a Pickle," and she's embarrassed by Carlos' little brother, Mikey, when he brings up a heat rash she once got in "Getting Energized". In "Out of This World", she discovers an asteroid bound for Earth, more specifically, Walkerville Elementary and she gets the class to help her destroy it.

Season 3 (The Magic School Bus)

In "Show and Tells," Dorothy Ann and Arnold are representing Walkerville in the 10th Annual International Show & Tell Competition, and after researching Arnold's rare pumice collection, she's upset that he opted to bring an artifact she knows nothing about. She fights with Carlos again in "Makes a Rainbow" over her book, (he says it's purple while she says it's violet), and which is bad enough for Wanda to comment, "This could get ugly." She's made a rainforest investigator with Tim as her assistant in "In the Rainforest" when they try to find out why Ms. Frizzle's cocoa tree didn't yield a good harvest.

Season Four

Mr. Ruhle puts Dorothy Ann in charge of taking care of his pet Rhode Island Red rooster, Giblets, in "Cracks a Yolk," but she loses him once his master is gone. She celebrates her birthday in "Sees Stars," in which the class goes on a field trip before getting together for her small party to find her a star as a gift. As she was sick, she stayed home, but Liz is with her, eating cake and looking in her new telescope. She and Wanda butt heads in "Takes a Dive" when she wants to work as partners, but Wanda wants to go solo.

The Magic School Bus Rides Again

Season 1 (The Magic School Bus Rides Again)

In "Hides and Seeks", Dorothy Ann and the other kids participate in a game of Extreme Hide and Seek. But this reminds Dorothy Ann of the previous time they played—when she lost to an unnamed girl, the unbeatable seeker. She's back for this round, and now Dorothy Ann and a few students go to the rainforest and study camouflage while Ralphie and some others challenge the seeker using the skills they've learned from DA. Dorothy Ann is selected to tell an earth-shattering story in the Climate Challenge tie-in, The Tales Glaciers Tell, but all she's got is nothing. The class travels to the Arctic, and then back in time through the history of climate change as Dorothy Ann gathers a bunch of data. After the trip, when they reach the present day, Dorothy Ann's frizPad breaks, causing her to panic. So, the kids grab an ice core from a glacier so DA can tell her story.

Relatives

Dorothy Ann's parents both appear in "Going Batty" and "Rocks and Rolls", and her mother appears again in "Out of This World". She has a little sister named Evan, who is blonde like her and their mother. Her parents also appear in a flashback in "The Tales Glaciers Tell", where they are revealed to be wonderful story tellers, and they appear in present at the presentation at the end.

Trivia

• Her pigtails stay up without hair bands ("Goes on Air").
• She knows enough about music to know how to keep time as a conductor.
• On the cover of the 2004 release of the Bugs, Bugs, Bugs! DVD and in the Rides Again series, she has blue eyes.
• She's very reliant on her books, thus referring to her as the class bookworm. In the new series, she became reliant on a Friz tablet.
• In "Meets the Rot Squad" she wanted to build an amusement park on the abandoned lot on Decatur.
• She's highly knowledgeable in astronomy, enough to accurately track an asteroid.
• She says her book is "violet" as opposed to "purple". This is due to the fact that red and blue make violet and that purple is actually violet tinged with red contrary to popular belief.
• Despite not liking baseball, she's skilled enough to hit a home run that causes the ball to rip open.
• She celebrated her birthday in "Sees Stars" and the only student in the class who had a birthday in an episode.
• In the German dub, her name is Ann-Kathrin.
• She is the only main kid to have kissed someone on screen. She kissed Arnold in "Cracks a Yolk".
• Throughout the series, she is often referred to by her initials (D.A.).
• According to the Captain Planet Theory, she grows up to be the character Linka.
• She is referred to by many fans as her first name, Dorothy.

Gallery

Walkerville Elementary School

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* Débuted | ** Briefly | --- Formerly