One of my favorite television shows as a kid was “The Magic School Bus.” If you have been living under a rock for the past 200 years, “The Magic School Bus” was a cartoon that featured a teacher, her small class and, of course, a magic school bus.
I was a pretty big advocate of the show. After all, it taught science to kids like me who had no interest in the subject unless it had to do with making a volcano with vinegar and baking soda.
Over Spring Break, since I was not drunk in Cabo or walking around Disneyland, I was home in Houston memorizing lines and taking a much-needed break.
I turned on the television, flipped to PBS (they were having a pledge drive…who would have guessed), and there it was: a rerun of one of my favorite episodes.
In this particular episode, one of the students either got sick or swallowed a seed or something, and the class had to travel inside him and fix him…or something.
Now, as a child, this would have fascinated me beyond belief. But as a young adult in college, it disturbed me a little bit.
Were there areas in the body that the students traveled to that the cartoon didn’t show us? Did Mrs. Frizzle really expect to solve the problem of the stomachache?
If she could solve the stomachache, why wouldn’t the government find her and use her shrinking technology to help cure cancer or the common cold? Why is this magical bus held shut from the outside world? So many questions.
It wasn’t just shrinking that Mrs. Frizzle could do; she could also turn the bus into a spaceship and fly to the outermost points of space, teaching the kids about astronomy and astrology.
The class went on a field trip in every episode; didn’t they have to take part in standardized testing from the state? Sure, field trips are a great learning experience, but there should have been days when Mrs. Frizzle took a break and just opened a history book or assigned “Animal Farm” or something.
Field trips were the highlight of my year in any grade in elementary school, but I’m not sure how I’d feel about going every day. That would equal a lot of Lunchables and Gatorade (the lunch of choice for field trips).
My main question is: weren’t these school trips terribly dangerous?
What if they had gone to visit ants at a local anthill and one of the kids was taken captive and eaten by local ants? Wouldn’t that scream lawsuit?
And what stopped these kids from going home and telling their parents about how they went to Pluto that day or how they went inside another kid’s body? The parents would no doubt laugh at them because, you know, it’s impossible!
I would report this lady straight to the state education board and have her removed from her job.
Plus, she had a lizard named Liz that could also drive the bus, make a sandwich or teach quantum physics. Now, I’m not a huge fan of reptiles, but I guess a lizard might be pretty cool. But I would not want a lizard that was smarter than me. If the lizard could make his own sandwich or drive a diesel bus, chances are he could kill me and that would not be good.
The more I think about it, the more I realize Mrs. Frizzle should be in jail.
John Paul Green is a freshman theater major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
