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The Berenstain Bears' Trouble at School
Season 1, Episode 1a
Series: The Berenstain Bears (2002)
BBE1
Air date September 9, 2002 (Treehouse TV)
January 6, 2003 (PBS)
Written by Brian Lasenby
Directed by Scott Glynn & Gary Hurst
Preceded by
N/A
Followed by
Visit the Dentist

“When a problem at school is kept secret too long, it can grow 'til a cub thinks that everything's wrong.”
Brother Bear

The Berenstain Bears' Trouble at School is the first segment of the first episode in season one of The Berenstain Bears. It first aired on Treehouse TV on September 9, 2002 and later on PBS on January 6, 2003. It is based on the book of the same name.

Summary[]

Brother stays home from school and has the time of his life in bed. When Teacher Bob sends Sister home with some math assignments for Brother to do, he casts them aside. However, the next day, Brother is reminded about a math test, and as a result of him not studying nor doing his assignments, he fails the test and has to get it signed. Instead of going to school, Brother goes to Gramps and Gran's house for help.

Plot[]

Sister returns home from school one afternoon with homework that Teacher Bob sent for Brother to do. As Sister settles in the kitchen, Brother asks Mama to bring him another pillow, and Sister offers to do it in her stead. In the cubs' bedroom, Brother plays with his dinosaurs and uses the pillow that Sister brought him to make Mount Mesozoic so his varanasaurus rex and triberatops figures can fight it out. Sister hands him the folder of worksheets, then Brother tosses it onto the stack of other make-up work folders sitting in a chair, tells Sister he'll do his homework later, and continues playing with his dinosaurs. Sister reminds him that he didn't do any of the assignments he brought home with her on Monday and that he is behind. Brother tells her he'll do them when he feels better, as he is still sick. Sister places the folder of make-up work on Brother's blanket and leaves the room. Just as Brother gets ready to do his schoolwork, The Bear Stooges comes on and he watches the program, laughing while doing so.

The next day at Bear Country School, Brother gets off the bus and sees Lenny Bearfoot walking toward the school. The boys catch up with each other and Lenny asks Brother about the worksheets, who tells him that he'll look at them that night. Lenny then reminds Brother that there is a test on fractions in Teacher Bob's class, making Brother freeze in place. In Teacher Bob's class, Lenny helps Brother prepare for the test by explaining to him how to divide the numerator by the denominator. Just then, Teacher Bob himself enters the classroom and passes out the test papers to his students. Brother struggles to do the test and gets to work on it.

Much later, Teacher Bob hands the students their test papers back and when the bell rings, he dismisses his students except for Brother. Teacher Bob then shows Brother that he got a zero on his test. Brother then makes up an excuse for not doing his assignments then promises Teacher Bob that he can't wait to get to work on them. Before leaving, Teacher Bob asks Brother to have his parents sign the test, to which he nervously complies. Later, Mama and Papa were doing yardwork as the school bus pulls up and the cubs get off. Brother tries to tell Mama about the math test, but he is cut off as Sister started coughing and sneezing. While Mama and Papa were distracted, Brother puts his math test in his knapsack and carries Sister's things into the house. Papa himself carries Sister in, and Mama goes to make her some chicken soup.

That night in bed, Brother is tossing and turning as Teacher Bob and Sister's comments about him not doing his work rang into his mind. He wakes up in shock about the zero he got on his test and goes back to sleep shortly after. At breakfast the next morning, Brother watched as the number zero floated in his bowl of honey number cereal and milk. Sister has Papa check her temperature, and after reading the thermometer, Papa says that Sister should stay home from school for the day, prompting Brother to start coughing and tell him that he feels hot. Mama checks his temperature, declares he's perfectly fine and tells him that he'll have his cough for a few more days. Brother feels relieved when Mama tells him that she put a roll of cough drops in the front outside pocket of his knapsack.

Papa hears the bus pulling near the Bear family treehouse and tells Brother that he doesn't want to be late. Brother gets his lunch box and runs out of the kitchen, but leaves his knapsack behind and gets it. At a bus stop later that morning, Brother watches as several cubs get on the bus then watches as it drives off and declares that he won't go to school nor give his test back to Teacher Bob. He angrily kicks a rock, then he crumples his test paper and kicks it into a log. He realizes what he did and gets it. Later at Gramps and Gran's house, Brother tells Gran he's in trouble.

Gran flattens Brother's crumpled test paper using a rolling pin and hands it back to him. He states that it looks better, but notices the zero he has. Gran tells him not to be too hard on himself because he's a smart cub, and Gramps tells Brother that even though he didn't get a zero on his test, he had made plenty of mistakes in his life and takes Brother on a walk through a bog. As a young bear, Gramps explains to Brother that he thought he could go through the middle of the bog instead of going around it. However, Gramps kept going as the bog got deeper, and when the wagon sunk deep into the bog, it was no longer able to move. Brother tells him he's in over his head about the math test, but Gramps says that he's not in too deep and the best thing to do was to ask for help.

He and Brother go back to the Bear family treehouse to show Mama and Papa the failed test score. They look at their son in shock, and Gramps tells him that it can only get worse when he doesn't tell his parents and don't get on the school bus. Mama tells him that he should've went to them first, and Papa was proud of his son coming to them. When Gramps says "Better late than never.", Papa goes to start the family car to take Brother to school, and Mama hands him the signed test. At school, while the rest of the class was at recess, Brother was in Teacher Bob's class doing worksheets. At the window, Lenny tells Brother that the soccer game started ten minutes ago, and he tells him he'll be out later as he wants to finish those last two worksheets. Lenny asks Brother if he's feeling well, and he responds with; "The best I've felt in days."

Differences From the Book[]

  • The book began with Brother and Sister coming home from school, with Brother suddenly getting sick. The episode began with Sister coming home from school while Brother was in bed watching TV and playing with his dinosaurs.
  • In the book, Brother tried to study on the bus, but when he heard about Freddy taking his place on the soccer field and even leaving Brother on the bench, he wasn't able to concentrate leading him to fail the test. This was omitted in the episode.
  • In the book when Brother fails the test, Teacher Bob writes "Very poor! Must be signed by a parent." on his test. In the episode, the test just has a "0" on it.
  • In the book, it was implied that Brother was the only one to fail his quiz. In the episode, it is revealed that the rest of Teacher Bob's class passed the quiz, making Brother the only one to fail the test.
  • In the book, Teacher Bob's class had a quiz on division. In the episode, Teacher Bob gave a test on fractions.
  • In the book, when Brother and Sister come home from school and Sister becomes sick, Mama and Papa forget to ask Brother how things went at school, but in the episode, they do ask him, and Brother simply says they had a test, but when they realized Sister's wellness was more important, he doesn't tell them how poorly he did on the quiz and puts it in his backpack.
  • In the book rather than crumbling up his test and yelling "Phooey on school! Phooey on math! Phooey on everything!" and kicking his test into a hollow log, Brother instead goes on a hill, turns his test into a paper airplane and throws it. Later, Gramps finds it and gives it to Brother.
  • In the book, Gramps takes Brother back to the treehouse to help him work on his division, with Mama taking him to school afterwards. In the episode, Gramps takes Brother back to the treehouse to show Mama and Papa the bad grade. Although Mama signed the test, she and Papa tell Brother that he should've came to them first.
  • In the book, Brother returns to Teacher Bob's class to find that all of the students had failed the quiz, and Teacher Bob gave them a retake. In the episode, Brother gets caught up on his schoolwork while the rest of the class was at recess.

Watch Episode[]

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