The WORST episodes of The Magic School Bus

Every episode of The Magic School Bus ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of The Magic School Bus!

A classroom taught by Ms. Valerie Frizzle is always fun and exciting. The colorful teacher owns a Magic School Bus which can transform into different things like a spaceship, a battery, or even an alligator! These things can help Ms. Frizzle with visual teaching methods as she reveals information about anything in science. The students include Carlos, Phoebe, Keesha, Dorothy Ann, Tim, Ralphie, Arnold, and Wanda. Originally, The Magic School Bus aired on PBS. But when production ceased after four years, The Magic School Bus's run on PBS ended with it.

Last Updated: 9/16/2024Network: PBSStatus: Ended
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Ups and Downs
star
4.60
42 votes

#1 - Ups and Downs

Season 2 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/2/1995

There’s a monster in Walkerville Lake! Wanda competes with Gerri Poveri, a TV reporter whose ratings are sinking, to be the first one underwater.

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Goes Upstream
star
5.93
71 votes

#2 - Goes Upstream

Season 3 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/2/1996

Ralphie wants to catch salmon to serve at the annual school picnic, but he can't find any at his favourite fishing spot. Where could all the salmon have gone? The kids are 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 salmon 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 the bus, which thinks it's a salmon ,gone to all this trouble?

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Shows & Tells
star
5.97
72 votes

#3 - Shows & Tells

Season 3 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/19/1996

It's the International Show-and-Tell Competition and Arnold and DA are representing Ms. Frizzle's class. Arnold brings a webbed hoop, left behind by his great-aunt Arizona Joan, the famous archaeologist, but he has no idea what it is! Using clues from the hoop and Joan's journal, the kids make educated guesses about its uses. To test their hypotheses, Ms. Frizzle turns the bus into a "Supposatron," a magical device designed to evaluate guesses. Can the kids solve the puzzle before Arnold and DA take the stage? With Alex Trebek as the "Sportscaster."

Writer: John May
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Under Construction
star
6.68
71 votes

#4 - Under Construction

Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/5/1996

Two inches tall, and trapped in a bathroom at Wanda's house, the kids have to get out before Wanda's mother (Rosalind Chao) discovers them. Gathering building materials such as spiky hair curlers, sticky Band-Aids, dental floss, and Q-tips, the kids use what they've learned about structures to construct a series of towers and bridges across the bathroom to an open window! They get across the toilet OK — but will they get past the alligator in the bathtub?

Writer: Libby Hinson
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Out of This World
star
6.84
73 votes

#5 - Out of This World

Season 2 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/18/1995

When Dorothy Ann warns the kids there’s an asteroid headed straight for their school, Ms. Frizzle arranges a field trip into space.

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All Dried Up
star
6.91
81 votes

#6 - All Dried Up

Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/22/1994

Always the caring soul, Phoebe goes on a crusade to save the animals and plants of the desert -- and discovers how well they take care of themselves.

Directors: Lawrence Jacobs
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Gets Programmed
star
6.91
70 votes

#7 - Gets Programmed

Season 4 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/22/1997

Ms. Frizzle's class arrives early to open the school for Mr. Ruhle (Paul Winfield). But there's so much to do! ""There must be a way to do all of these chores without actually doing them,"" says Carlos. The school handyman, Mr. McClean (Malcolm McDowell) is in total agreement. Enter Mr. Ruhle's new computer and Mikey, Carlos' whiz kid brother, who programs it to do all the chores! But when Ms. Frizzle shrinks Mikey and the class and sends them inside the computer for a guided tour, everything goes haywire. The only person who can fix the problem is Mikey - and he's just landed somewhere between the CPU and the hard drive!

Directors: Lawrence Jacobs
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Makes a Rainbow
star
6.96
79 votes

#8 - Makes a Rainbow

Season 3 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/26/1996

There's something dazzling in Ms. Frizzle's closet: a magical, light-powered pinball machine! To win at this game, the kids have to light up all six colours of the rainbow. Now the race is on, as the class shrinks down and zooms into the pinball machine. Catch an eye-full of fun as they try to crack the secret code of what makes colour so....colourful!

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Meets Molly Cule
star
7.06
79 votes

#9 - Meets Molly Cule

Season 4 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/13/1997

When Wanda's favourite singer, Molly Cule (Wynonna Judd), comes to town, she chooses Ms. Frizzle's class to wash her famous car. The kids clean it from top to bottom, but when Molly insists they missed a spot, they shrink down to see the molecules that make up the car. Only then can they discover how to clean it down to the very last bit. But time is running out — they'll need a molecular miracle to get the car clean before Molly's concert begins!

Directors: Lawrence Jacobs
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Inside Ralphie
star
7.12
77 votes

#10 - Inside Ralphie

Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/24/1994

Ralphie is crushed when a fever keeps him home from school the day he's scheduled to host a FNN (Frizzle News Network) television broadcast on health. With Tyne Daly as Ralphie’s mom.

Directors: Lawrence Jacobs
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In the Arctic
star
7.15
75 votes

#11 - In the Arctic

Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/21/1996

""Where did the hot go?"" wonders Arnold when he finds that his hot cocoa has cooled. In response, Ms. Frizzle whisks the class to the Arctic! What's the freezing Arctic got to do with heat? While the kids try to find out, the bus's engine freezes and the bus floats away on an ice floe with Ralphie and Phoebe inside! As the bus moves away, so does the heat from everyone's body. How can Ms. Frizzle's kids insulate their body to keep the heat in? Can they rescue Ralphie and Phoebe before they all become the Ice Cube Kids?

Writer: Brian Meehl
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Rocks and Rolls
star
7.16
44 votes

#12 - Rocks and Rolls

Season 3 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/30/1996

To celebrate the founding of Walkerville, Ms. Frizzle's class sculpts a stone likeness of its founding father, Captain Walker. But as they add the finishing touches, the statue tumbles down the mountain. Ms. Frizzle turns the bus into a giant boulder and the kids into rock kids. They bump down the mountain in a desperate attempt to save the statue. By the time they reach the celebration at the base of the mountain, they've been pushed, tossed, sanded, polished, and eroded by water, as has the statue now the size of a soccer ball. The kids are sure they've let everyone down until they look back at the mountain for the surprise of their lives! With Jessica Walter as "Ashley Walker-Club-Dupree."

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Cold Feet
star
7.16
75 votes

#13 - Cold Feet

Season 2 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/25/1995

Liz has gone off to a mysterious place called “Herp Haven.” Thinking she’s in trouble, the class rushes to Herp Haven, where they turn into reptiles. With Michael York as Herpst.

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Taking Flight
star
7.16
67 votes

#14 - Taking Flight

Season 2 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/4/1995

Shrunk inside Tim’s model airplane, the class goes on a high-flying field trip to find out how things fly.

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Sees Stars
star
7.18
44 votes

#15 - Sees Stars

Season 4 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/25/1997

When the kids see Horace Scope (Dabney Coleman) on the Star Shopping Network, they decide to buy Dorothy Ann a real twinkling star for her birthday. Before buying it, the kids blast off in the Bus to inspect the merchandise. They visit a young star and then a middle-age star and decide that it's the third and last star they want to buy. But when they give Horace their money, KABLOOM, the star explodes! Have they lost DA's star forever?

Directors: Lawrence Jacobs
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Hops Home
star
7.20
84 votes

#16 - Hops Home

Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/8/1994

When Wanda's pet frog, Bella, jumps out an open window, Ms. Frizzle shrinks the bus into a mechanical frog and takes her now tiny class on a hop-along adventure.

Directors: Lawrence Jacobs
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Plays Ball
star
7.21
47 votes

#17 - Plays Ball

Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/12/1994

Ms. Frizzle combines Dorothy Ann's physics and Ralphie's baseball into a "Frictionless Baseball Game."

Directors: Lawrence Jacobs
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Blows Its Top
star
7.21
84 votes

#18 - Blows Its Top

Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/9/1995

To help them understand how the Earth makes islands, Ms. Frizzle presents the kids with an island that hasn’t been discovered yet!

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Gains Weight
star
7.25
40 votes

#19 - Gains Weight

Season 4 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/1/1997

Guess who's selected to give an exhibition of a slam-dunk during half time of the big basketball game? Phoebe! The problem is Phoebe can't jump high enough. ""If only gravity didn't pull on me!"" she moans. Never one to be tied down, Ms. Frizzle sends the class into space and turns the Bus into a planet — with adjustable gravity! Basketball's a snap with low gravity and a riot with no gravity at all, but when there's way too much gravity, things get really heavy! With Paul Winfield as school principal, Mr. Ruhle.

Directors: Lawrence Jacobs
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In a Pickle
star
7.26
47 votes

#20 - In a Pickle

Season 2 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/21/1995

Keesha and the class return from vacation to find her prize cucumber has turned into a pickle! Could the Mike Robe gang be to blame?

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Gets Planted
star
7.28
72 votes

#21 - Gets Planted

Season 3 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/16/1996

When Phoebe tries to grow a big vine for her 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 vine. But to grow tall, Phoebe needs to figure out how plants eat - fast! To unearth the amazing ways plants make their own food, the Friz and the kids shrink down and dig deep in a quest to root out the facts!

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Goes on Air
star
7.29
41 votes

#22 - Goes on Air

Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/4/1997

""We got assigned air, and it's not fair!"" The only contribution the kids in Ms. Frizzle's class have made to the Walkerville Space Capsule is an empty jar. ""It's not empty,"" argues Keesha. ""It's filled with air!"" ""But air doesn't do anything!"" wails Ralphie. They discover that's not so when the bus shrinks and gets stuck inside the jar — and the class finds that their only hope for escape is... air!

Directors: Lawrence Jacobs
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Works Out
star
7.31
75 votes

#23 - Works Out

Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/9/1996

At this year's Teacherathalon, Ms. Frizzle squares off with Mr. Sinew (Dan Marino), a muscle-bound gym teacher. Sinew easily wins the first of the three events. Thinking there's a problem, the kids go inside Ms. Frizzle to check her out. The bus takes them through her lungs to the bloodstream, where they get pumped through her heart to her calf muscle. But when Frizzle's leg muscle collapses from the strain of winning the second event, the kids discover that her red blood cells can't get oxygen to her muscles fast enough! Can the kids help Frizzle recover in time to win the final race?

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Spins a Web
star
7.32
79 votes

#24 - Spins a Web

Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/28/1996

What do you do when a 50-foot praying mantis menaces your town? Run like the wind... unless you're in Ms. Frizzle's class and she's taken you on a field trip inside a 1950s sci-fi film. The movie's main character, the power-mad General Araneus (Ed Asner) is determined to destroy the mantis, but Phoebe wants to trap it and save it! Shrinking to the size of real spiders, the kids discover how spiders construct a variety of silky snares, making them world-champion trappers. Can the kids save the mantis — and stop Araneus before it's too late?

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Meets the Rot Squad
star
7.32
84 votes

#25 - Meets the Rot Squad

Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/15/1994

It's "Accidental Science Project" day and the class has brought in marvelously rotten entries from the back of their refrigerators. With Ed Begley, Jr. as Larry Log-Away.

Directors: Lawrence Jacobs
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