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Works Out |
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- "Okay, class! Time to take chances, make mistakes, get messy, and breathe deep!"
- —Ms. Frizzle
Works Out (Circulation) is the ninth episode of the third season of The Magic School Bus. It first released on all PBS stations in the USA on November 9, 1996.
Plot[]
Ralphie is training Ms. Frizzle for this year's Teacherathlon and she tells him that muscles aren't everything. When they jog outside, Ralphie comes to a stop to rest and catch his breath. Suddenly, the bus gets a flat tire and the class uses an air pump to pump it up. When Arnold says he could use just as much air as the tire, Ms. Frizzle tells him that his lungs are part of the team, which prompts his cousin, Janet, to come around to inform the class about Mr. Sinew, who is competing against Ms. Frizzle in the annual Teacherathlon. He approaches her and wishes her luck in the competition. She informs the class that there is more to winning than just muscles, which are only part of the team.
The Teacherathlon starts, with Harry Arm as the commentator, and the winner takes the trophy home. The first event is the row row row your boat race across the lake, and the first one to the end wins. It starts and during it, Ms. Frizzle capriciously gets the hiccups. So Ralphie encourages her to hold her breath, only for Mr. Sinew to win. She tells the class that her muscles gave out and Keesha informs her that rowing her boat while holding her breath isn't feasible. When Ralphie asks an erudite question of how breathing affects the muscles, Ms. Frizzle takes the class to the bus.
While the class is in the bus, Liz activates the screen that shows the inside of Ms. Frizzle's body circulation. They see that the red liquid is the blood flowing and the sacks next to the heart are the lungs. Wanda notices that the blood goes from the heart to the lungs and reverts to the heart, as well as everywhere else. They then get a look at Ms. Frizzle's leg muscles. After Ralphie asks what effect holding your breath has on the muscles again, she tells him that he needs a "closer look" and exits the bus, with Tim following along with her. The bus shrinks to microscopic size and transforms into a Proteus/race car hybrid, Ms. Frizzle picks it up, and Liz puts it in drive and accelerates it up her left nostril.
As the bus makes its way inside Ms. Frizzle's body, she inhales it through her nasopharynx, down her trachea, and to her left lung. The class views blood cells flowing and Dorothy Ann reminds Ralphie of the time they took a field trip inside his bloodstream when he was sick ("Inside Ralphie"). He then observes that when air hits deoxygenated blood cells, they revitalize (turning a brighter red), which happens every time Ms. Frizzle breathes in, which prompts them to realize that the air doesn't stop there. So, the bus follows it and travels through her bloodstream to find out where it goes. When they hear an incessant pounding sound, she informs them that they are traveling to her heart. As she narrowly makes it to the bicycle race on time, they make it back in her bloodstream and realize that the blood is flowing faster as they move farther down to her leg. They then come across red bands that are called the muscle fiber, prompting Ralphie to order the bus to stop. He realizes that the red blood cells are giving the air to the muscles and turning back to purple. So, he dresses in a wet suit and exits the bus to get a closer look. He finally learns that the red blood cells are giving the muscle fiber air. Arnold also says that the white stuff is oxygen for the muscle fiber, and Dorothy Ann reads in her book that oxygen is the air used for a body's life support. They then learn that the lungs breathe air, the blood cells carry the oxygen, and the heart pumps the blood to the muscles, which uses the oxygen. This prompts Ralphie to finally figure that the whole team for body circulation is the lungs, blood, heart, and muscles, which work together. They also learn that they do so as the "oxygen team", which does so to put oxygen into the body, pump it into the muscles, use it up, and carry away the used-up stuff. This prompts them to learn that Ms. Frizzle's muscles never got the oxygen they needed when she held her breath, so therefore, she was unable to win the rowboat race. They then learn that she had an oxygen problem and Phoebe notices white ooze multiplying throughout the muscle fiber, as well as less oxygen going into the muscle. Back at the Teacherathalon, Ms. Frizzle wins the bicycle race, evening the score to one victory a piece. Unfortunately, she becomes exhausted and falls to the ground.
Ms. Frizzle feels that she just needs a few minutes to let her muscles recover. But Janet reminds her that she doesn't have time for that, and Mr. Sinew encourages her to get better as he rather wins fairly than by default. Tim asks the class what is going on inside and Ralphie responds that Ms. Frizzle's muscles are as limp as overdone spaghetti because they stopped working due to not having enough oxygen. She tells them that the white ooze is called lactic acid, which muscles make when they have to work without enough oxygen. Since the final event is imminent and she doesn't have enough time to rest, Ralphie devises a plan for them to get enough oxygen inside her muscles as quick as possible. Liz drives the bus and offers each kid a mop to clean up the lactic acid. They, however, need to put more oxygen inside her muscles. So, they let the air out of the tires and spray it onto the muscle fiber (doping her in the process), rejuvenating them as she finally gets her stamina back. Meanwhile, while the teachers swim in their complete athletic outfits (including shoes and socks), Mr. Sinew tells Ms. Frizzle, "Close, but no cigar." Taking this expression literally and passing him faster, she reminds him that smoking is bad for one's health.
The class hops back onto the bus and exits Ms. Frizzle's body just in time to watch her win the last event. When asked by Janet how she could prevail against Mr. Sinew, they explain that it was all thanks to the oxygen team: her lungs, heart, blood, and muscles, as well as they themselves. Mr. Sinew also congratulates her for her determination adding that they should train harder for the next Teacherathlon, but she replies that she is retiring from teaching next year, stating "air today, gone tomorrow", and jokingly adds that it goes for his tank tops as his rips once again.
Trivia[]
- Harry Arm from "In the Arctic" makes his second appearance.
- This is the second field trip in which one of the Frizzles is normal-sized, the Shrinkerscope is needed to reach the destination, and Liz drives.
- Exactly 25 years later, "Goldstealer" was released, making these episodes the first and only ones to have matching release dates. Coincidentally, “Goldstealer” also focuses on sports, namely cycling.
- "Frizzle of the Future" could be somewhat foreshadowed in this episode. Ms. Frizzle tells Mr. Sinew of her retirement from teaching, which happens near the events of that episode.
- The bus transforms into its Proteus form from this episode again when the class explores Jyoti's body in "Ralphie Strikes a Nerve".
- Due to the partial nudity (Ms. Frizzle's x-ray on the STAMINA outlines her skin realistic enough to almost show a suggestive part of her body) and the smoking reference made by Mr. Sinew, this episode was often cut from a few educational sites with original series episodes, such as Learn360.
- When Ralphie tries to scare Ms. Frizzle to stop her hiccups, he mentions the Ardea herodias, the Latin name for the great blue heron (her favorite bird from "Hops Home")
- TV guides and DVD descriptions tell viewers that Mr. Sinew is from another school. This was never revealed in the episode itself.
- This is Janet's third appearance for the season, fifth overall.
- This episode is the only one so far to portray Janet as a secondary antagonist instead of primary. In this one, she is supporting Mr. Sinew, the main antagonist.
- Dan Marino, who voiced Mr. Sinew, is the legendary former quarterback for the Miami Dolphins. He played himself in the 1994 film Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, in which he was blamed by the fictional Dolphins kicker, Ray Finkle, for causing him to miss the winning field goal in Super Bowl XVII because Marino didn't hold the football "laces out".
- This is the second time the class go into a bloodstream. The first is in "Inside Ralphie". Dorothy Ann even makes a reference to this at one point.
- This is also the second time the class goes inside a nasal cavity. The first is also in "Inside Ralphie". However, instead of starting at the nasopharynx, they use Professor Frizzle’s nose as an entry point into her body, and she takes them through her trachea and into her left lung by inhaling the Bus deeply.
- Other characters whose noses have been explored were Janet's, Carlos', and Jyoti's.
- Other characters whose bloodstreams were explored were Arnold's and Carlos'.
- Ralphie also made a shout out to the Marvel superhero, The Incredible Hulk.
- This episode is the only one in which a field trip is taken inside one of the Frizzles. As a result, Liz was in charge the entire time.
- Also, it makes her the only adult in the original series whose body was explored.
- Liz drove for the whole trip again in “Gets Charged.”
- This episode is one of the ones in which the guest character hosts the producer segment, that being Mr. Sinew.
- Mr. Sinew's name comes from just that, his sinews. All the staff members of Walkerville Elementary and the school where Mr. Sinew works have names referencing their qualities or personality. Ms. Frizzle and Mr. Sinew were named after their body parts.
- This episode is the only one where the class engages in foul play, via what essentially amounts to blood doping. However, this instance of foul play is unique in that it was not done with malicious intent, but rather to teach the class how the human body works. It's possible Mr. Sinew understood that.
- This episode is the second one to feature an instance of foul play. The first such episode was "Ups and Downs", and foul play was later used by the antagonists of "Makes a Stink" and "Goldstealer".
- In the Is This the Magic School Bus? segment, Mr. Sinew fills in for the producer.
- The Is This the Magic School Bus? segment takes place at the Walkerville Elementary School gymnasium.
- This is the first episode with a remorseless Janet. The second is Makes a Stink.
Continuity[]
- When the class notices Ms. Frizzle's blood, Dorothy Ann remembers when they were in Ralphie's bloodstream in Inside Ralphie. 
- When Keesha notices how much faster Ms. Frizzle's blood flows than Ralphie's was, he reminds her that he had to rest from being sick.
Goofs[]
- When Dorothy Ann reads about the oxygen in her book, Carlos' jacket is replaced with a long-sleeved shirt like Tim’s or Arnold’s.
- When Ralphie listens to Dorothy Ann about the muscle fiber, his life jacket is on.
- While the depiction of the rest of Ms. Frizzle’s body is fairly accurate, her airways have some inaccuracies. Ms. Frizzle’s choanae (the end of the nose) are not separated by her septum when the Bus gets inhaled and she is not shown with tonsils or turbinates. One thing the animators did get right about her airways is that there is more to her nasal cavity than the limen nasi (the area where nose hairs grow that is generally the inside of an entire cartoon nose).
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