Arthur's Big Hit (Arthur)

Arthur's Big Hit is the second half of the first episode in the fourth season of Arthur. It and D.W.'s Library Card are the first digital ink and paint animation episodes.

Plot
Arthur ends up hitting D.W. out of rage and frustration after she breaks his model plane. Later, Binky is pressured by his gang members to hit Arthur the next time he sees him.

‎Why It Was A Big Bomb And Should Get Hit

 * 1) It's pretty much nothing but an 11-minute torture episode for Arthur and Binky, and it's also utterly infamous for how mean-spirited it is and how it fails to portray the message on not using violence against other people.
 * 2) Like with most episodes of the series, D.W. is incredibly unsympathetic, as she annoyingly tortures Arthur throughout the entire episode. Not as bad as she was in D.W.'s Very Bad Mood, but still annoying.
 * 3) *In addition, she breaks Arthur's plane but still bothers him about why it "didn't fly", which causes him to punch her.
 * 4) *Even though Arthur shouldn't have hit his sister, she had it coming because of the way she constantly nags him about the plane not flying along with the fact that she refused to listen to Arthur when he told her not to touch the plane multiple times.
 * 5) The episode tries way too hard to make the viewer side with D.W., but due to how poorly written, selfish and bratty she is and with her showing no remorse at all for whatever she does to Arthur, this episode makes the viewer want to side with him instead.
 * 6) D.W. doesn't feel any remorse at all for breaking Arthur's plane, even when both of them apologize to each other near the end of the episode, in which D.W.'s apology (based on the tone of her voice) is insincere as she demands him to give her a break and uses being a child as an excuse.
 * 7) Arthur's parents, David and Jane, themselves are no better. For example, they don't seem to care about the fact that D.W. broke Arthur's plane and instead only care about D.W. getting hit, even when Arthur gets punched by Binky Barnes near the end of the episode, they don't seem to care and claim "that's how D.W. felt when you punched her", instead of pressing assault charges on Binky.
 * 8) Even though Arthur gets punished by his parents for punching D.W., D.W. on the other hand receives little-to-no punishment for breaking Arthur's plane, so it makes her a mh:loathsomecharacters:Karma Houdini, and makes her status of being one a whole lot more. While it's true that their parents did say that they would "deal with what she did" when they announce his punishment, it is never revealed what D.W.'s punishment is, and D.W. doesn't even seem to be affected by whatever it was, as shown by the insincerity of her apology to him.
 * 9) Arthur's friends (even Buster, who was appalled by D.W.'s behavior, and Binky) side against him without letting him explain his side of the story. For instance, Francine proceeds to talk behind Arthur's back to Binky about the incident and Fern uses D.W. being a "little girl" as an excuse, aggravating him.
 * 10) "Why can't anyone see my side of this?"
 * 11) "Because you're wrong!"
 * 12) False advertising: The DVD cover shows Arthur getting ready to fight with D.W., but it isn't shown in the episode at all (unless you count the opening scene, in which the "D.W." in the boxing ring is Binky in disguise while the real D.W. is sitting in the audience).
 * 13) Plot Hole: At the beginning of the episode, Arthur gets pestered by DW multiple times over the plane yet he never even thinks about telling his parents and asking them to keep DW away from the plane.  He also does not threaten DW with telling on her if she refuses to listen and he does not even think about writing a sign or a note to warn DW not to touch the plane and place that note underneath the plane so she could see it.  It’s never explained why Arthur never thought of doing those things.
 * 14) Binky is pressured by his gang to the point of forcing him to punch Arthur in one scene.
 * 15) *What's worse about this is that Binky's gang doesn't receive any comeuppance at all for forcing Binky to punch Arthur.
 * 16) Arthur learns his lesson about not punching people, all because Binky punched him, which goes against the "violence is wrong" message that the episode was going for.
 * 17) How can the Tough Customers just kick their leader out of their club? It’s not explained in the episode. Binky was in power to do what he does later in the episode, making this episode confusing to some people.
 * 18) D.W.'s new voice actor is very awful!
 * 19) * Michael Caloz's voice didn't get deep in "The Long Dull Winter".

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Despite Arthur's parents not feeling any form of sympathy towards their son when he gets punched, they at least had the decency to bandage it.
 * 2) Arthur and Binky are still likeable characters.
 * 3) Seeing Arthur punch D.W is justifiable and satisfying at the same time. Additionally, at least Binky felt bad and apologized for hitting Arthur, unlike D.W., who apologizes to Arthur, but in an insincere way.
 * 4) It does teach a good moral about only using violence as an absolute last resort, even if the execution was horrible.
 * 5) The pre-title card was pretty funny.
 * 6) Binky’s parts in general were good. Sure he may be a school bully, but this episode shows that he is against hitting people showing some good character development.
 * 7) Binky avoiding Arthur so that he can use that as an excuse for not hitting Arthur to his gang adds some good comedy to the episode.
 * 8) Good ending: Binky disbands the club and makes a new club with Arthur in it, where nobody hits anyone, and if anyone does, he will do the same back to them to bring them justice.
 * 9) "I told you not to touch it!"

Reception
This episode was highly panned by critics and often included in lists for the Top 10 worst episodes of the show because of how unbalanced the hitting story is and also the fact that Arthur is mistreated throughout the entire episode. Many called it one of the worst if not the worst episode of Arthur. The series creator and the author of the books it's based on, Marc Brown, even admitted that he isn't a big fan of the episode. The episode currently sits at a 6.2/10 rating on IMDb.

Some people however like this episode due to Binky’s character development and the fact that he had to hide from Arthur so that he doesn’t have to hit him, and some people call it overhated nowadays.

The episode was the cause of most Arthur YTPs.

Videos
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The Episode
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Trivia

 * The scene where Arthur says "I told you, NOT TO TOUCH IT!" became a famous internet meme, which also lead to the creation of the "Arthur's Fist" meme.
 * This is the first episode when Arthur's middle name Timothy is revealed.
 * Arthur's plane model is broken again in the episode "Bleep."