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The third season of The Magic School Bus premiered on PBS stations in the United States with "In a Beehive" on September 14, 1996, and concluded with the holiday special on December 25, 1996. According to the production slates in the broadcast masters and the storyboards in the second half of the holiday special, episodes from this season were produced from late 1995 to Q3 1996.
Descriptions[]
Netflix - "Hop aboard the Magic School Bus with Ms. Frizzle and her class as they learn about salmon migration, visit a suspension bridge, and more in Season 3."
PBS (Season 3 technical performance report) - 13 All-New Adventures Aboard Scholastic’s The Magic School Bus®! Ms. Frizzle says, "Bee ready for anything!"
Cast[]
One-Time Characters and Guest Stars[]
| Character | Voice | Episode |
|---|---|---|
| Harry Arm | Amos Crawley | "In the Arctic", "Works Out" |
| General Araneus | Ed Asner | "Spins a Web" |
| William Li | Lisa Yamanaka | "Under Construction" |
| Mrs. Li | Rosalind Chao | |
| Alex Trebek | Himself | "Shows and Tells" |
| Katrina Eloise Murphy | Dolly Parton | "(Family) Holiday Special"
(full episode in reruns, part 1 of the "Family" premiere version) |
| Cast/crew | Themselves | Behind the Wheel
(Second half of the holiday special, "Family" version only) |
| Garth Sinew | Dan Marino | "Works Out" |
| Inspector 22 (Inspector 47) | Matt Frewer | "In the Rainforest" |
| Ashley Walker-Club Dupree | Jessica Walter | "Rocks and Rolls" |
Episodes[]
| No. | Episode name | Topic | Airdate (PBS) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | In a Beehive | Honeybees | September 14, 1996 |
| It's a sticky situation when Tim's bike crashes when he's delivering jars of honey. Naturally, Ms. Frizzle is ready to help out with a really sweet idea: shrink down and buzz off into the intriguing inner world of a beehive. Soon the class is learning how nectar becomes honey, why bees are great dancers, and other unBEElievably fascinating BEEhaviors! | |||
| 2 | In the Arctic | Heat | September 21, 1996 |
| There's nothing Arnold loves more than a steaming hot cup of cocoa, unless, of course, it becomes cold. 'Where did all the hot go?' he wonders. Ms. Frizzle knows a way to find out about heat in the land of ice and cold, so she takes the class to the Arctic Circle. | |||
| 3 | Spins a Web | Spiders | September 28, 1996 |
| Carlos and Phoebe can't decide if spiders are cool...or creepy. Then the class is zapped into a drive-in movie about a giant praying mantis—with Liz playing the part of (yikes!) bug bait! As their quest to rescue her reveals the many ingenious hunting methods of spiders, they gain a new appreciation for the bug-trapping skills of nature's original webmasters. | |||
| 4 | Under Construction | Structures | October 5, 1996 |
| When Wanda's little brother, William, accidentally shrinks Ms. Frizzle and the class, they end up trapped in her bathroom with no way out! But, using the materials at hand, and some very constructive ideas, they're soon building hair roller towers and Band-Aid™ bridges as they discover something surprising: the power of improvising! | |||
| 5 | Gets a Bright Idea | Light | October 12, 1996 |
| After the illuminating light show at Walkerville's old theatre, Arnold's bossy cousin, Janet, claims she could put on a much better one. Nobody believes her until she and Arnold mysteriously disappear. Ms. Frizzle leads the class into the darkened theatre to look for them. To shed some light on the problem, they become beams of light. Then, to their great shock, they see Arnold's ghostly image floating high above the empty stage! Is the theatre haunted? Is this just one of Janet's tricks? Or have they all been Frizzled? | |||
| 6 | Shows and Tells | Archaeology | October 19, 1996 |
| It's the International Show-and-Tell Competition, and Arnold and Dorothy Ann are representing Ms. Frizzle's class. Arnold brings in a webbed hoop, left behind by his great-aunt Arizona Joan (parody of Indiana Jones), a famous archaeologist, but he has no idea what it is! Using clues from it and her journal, the class makes educated guesses (hypotheses) about its uses. Ms. Frizzle turns the bus into a Supposatron, a magical device used to evaluate guesses. Can the class solve the puzzle before Arnold takes the stage? | |||
| 7 | Makes a Rainbow | Color | October 26, 1996 |
| There's something dazzling in Ms. Frizzle's closet: a light-powered pinball machine! To win at this game, the class is to light up all six colors of the rainbow. Now the race is on as they shrink down and zoom into the machine. Catch an eye-full of fun as they try to crack the secret code of what makes color so...colorful! | |||
| 8 | Goes Upstream | Migration | November 2, 1996 |
| Ralphie wants to catch salmon to serve at the annual school picnic, but he can't find any at his favorite fishing spot. Where could they have gone? The class is soon Frizzled inside a salmon bus that has an uncontrollable urge to head upriver. "Wait!" Ralphie cries. "We'll be late for the picnic!" But the bus won't stop. Using its sense of taste and smell, it swims the long journey to a shallow freshwater stream miles away. Why has it, which thinks it's a salmon, gone to all this trouble? | |||
| 9 | Works Out | Circulation | November 9, 1996 |
| Is Mr. Sinew any match for Ms. Frizzle? At this year's Teacherathlon, the class fears she doesn't stand a chance against him, so they travel inside her for a closer look. The bus drives through her lungs to her bloodstream, where they get pumped through her heart to her calf muscle. But when it collapses from the strain of winning the second event, the class discovers that her red blood cells can't get oxygen to her muscles fast enough! Can they help her recover in time to win the final race? | |||
| 10 | Gets Planted | Photosynthesis | November 16, 1996 |
| When Phoebe tries to grow a beanstalk for the school's production of Jack and the Beanstalk, all she ends up with is a stunted little sprout. To help out, Ms. Frizzle turns her into a real one. But to grow tall, she needs to figure out how plants eat - fast! To unearth the amazing ways plants make their own food, Ms. Frizzle and the class shrinks down and digs deep in a quest to root out the facts! | |||
| 11 | In the Rainforest | Rainforest Ecology | November 23, 1996 |
| To celebrate Earth Day, the class surprises Ms. Frizzle with her very own cocoa tree from the Rainforest Rentals Catalog. But when its cocoa bean harvest falls mysteriously short, it's time for—you guessed it—a rousing tropical field trip! Soon, the class is hot on the trail of how cocoa pods, mud puddles, and tiny bugs all play a part in the rainforest's wondrous Web of Life!. | |||
| 12 | Rocks and Rolls | Erosion | November 30, 1996 |
| To celebrate Walkerville's centennial, Ms. Frizzle's class sculpts a stone statue of its founding father, Captain Walker. As they add the finishing touches, it tumbles down the mountain. Ms. Frizzle turns the bus into a boulder and the class into rocks while bumping down the mountain in a desperate attempt to save the statue. | |||
| 13 | Holiday Special (called the Family Holiday Special during its premiere in 1996 or when it is paired with Behind the Wheel) |
Recycling | December 25, 1996 |
| It's the last day of school before the winter holidays, and Wanda plans to see The Nutcracker. But to her dismay, during a field trip to Ms. Frizzle's first cousin Murph's recycling center, the toy soldier she needs to get into the theater accidentally gets recycled into plastic pellets! When she wishes recycling never existed, Ms. Frizzle and the class show her what the world would be like without it! Ms. Frizzle activates the bus' unrecycler, taking the class and Murph on a song-filled field trip, where they learn how everyday items are made from recycled trash. As the old saying goes, 'Be careful what you wish for.' | |||
| 14 | Behind the Wheel of the Magic School Bus | Making of The Magic School Bus | December 25, 1996 |
| Malcolm-Jamal Warner and the rest of the cast and crew guide the viewers on a tour through the original series' production. | |||
Technical Performance Report[]
File:MSB S03 Technical Performance Report.pdf
Trivia[]
- The book promo at the end of the PBS broadcast version of each episode features The Magic School Bus at the Waterworks, The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth, The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body, The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor, The Magic School Bus In the Time of the Dinosaurs, The Magic School Bus Inside a Hurricane, and The Magic School Bus Inside a Beehive.
- Beginning with this season, The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System doesn't appear in it from here on out.
- In the 2012-18 DVD releases, for episodes of this season only, the right stereo track contains only dialogue, without music, and vice versa. This does not apply to "Holiday Special", which was ripped directly from its airing on FOX Kids.
- The season description states that the students visited a suspension bridge in "Under Construction", despite the fact that in that episode, that was originally going to be the plan, until William messed with the Porta-Shrinker and trapped everyone in Wanda's bathroom.
- In this season, Microsoft Home is credited simply as Microsoft in most episodes, however, "In the Arctic", the broadcast version of "Spins a Web", and "Gets a Bright Idea" still credit it as Microsoft Home.
- Unlike Season 1 and 2, the animation and film in this one and the one that came after that is somewhat an improvement of the film age since Season 1 and 2 are a little dusty. Ironically, US DVD releases of this season have some heavy compression.
- This is the only season not to have slates on its episodes' master tapes.
- The USA Dubs versions of the master tapes for "Holiday Special" and "Shows and Tells" both play the former.
- Tim, Carlos, and Ralphie's voices are noticeably much deeper, due to Andre Ottley-Lorant, Daniel DeSanto, and Stuart Stone going through puberty at the time in production. In the next seasons their voices are much deeper.
- This is the only season to date without a field trip to outer space. Previous and future seasons ended up having at least one, as listed below:
- Season 1 of The Magic School Bus had Gets Lost in Space.
- Season 2 of The Magic School Bus had Out of This World.
- Season 4 of The Magic School Bus had Sees Stars and Gains Weight.
- Season 1 of The Magic School Bus Rides Again had Space Mission: Selfie.
- Season 2 of The Magic School Bus Rides Again had Ready, Set, Fail! and Making Magic.
- Season 3 of The Magic School Bus Rides Again had Kids in Space.
Tubi[]
- In the Arctic
- Spins a Web
- Under Construction
- In a Beehive
- Gets a Bright Idea
- Shows and Tells
- Makes a Rainbow
- Goes Upstream
- Works Out
- Holiday Special (WITH producer and NO Behind the Scenes or Qubo or FOX Kids Credits)
- Gets Planted
- In the Rainforest
- Rocks and Rolls
Discovery Education[]
These links contain the original English audio. For those interested in the Latin American Spanish dub, see the individual episode pages.