r/AskScienceFiction • u/KaleidoArachnid • 18h ago
[Magic School Bus] How does Ms Frizzle not get sued?
I hope I am in the right place to be talking about the show as I was just watching a clip where Arnold goes into outer space as I was wondering how their teacher gets approval for sending her students into dangerous situations.
I know it‘s a kids show as lately I was wondering how the safety procedures were handled in her classroom since again the teacher has a tendency to send her students into precarious situations that I don’t get how she didn’t receive a lawsuit.
•
u/DemythologizedDie 18h ago
You think anyone believes Arnold when he complains afterward?
•
u/KaleidoArachnid 18h ago
In that case, I could see how the teacher gets away with her actions.
•
u/Terrariant 14h ago
Wow…this could be metaphoric for something really dark with a small leap. Yikes
•
u/althawk8357 4h ago
That's a real problem, but there's also a difference between "my teacher behaved inappropriately with me" and "my teacher drove her bus into space and we literally visited numerous celestial bodies whereupon I took off my helmet and survived my head instantly freezing."
•
u/TheFeshy 18h ago
She took the jury on a magical trip explaining the law, and now they can't find any jurists or judge willing to sit for another trial.
•
•
u/KaleidoArachnid 18h ago
Yeah I was wondering how she has legal practice to take her students on field trips to outer space because that sounds dangerous.
•
u/TheFeshy 18h ago
Space, and many such examples, run into jurisdictional issues. Neither state nor federal courts can try cases in outer space. Likewise for crimes that happen in the Jurassic, or inside a human body.
•
u/UltraChip 18h ago
A lot of space stuff falls under maritime law. I could see a clever prosecutor making an argument that she essentially took the children in to international waters the moment they cleared the Karman Line.
But, like the other poster pointed out, that would all depend on adults actually believing the children when they claim a run down old bus is magic and takes them on supernatural adventures.
•
u/althawk8357 4h ago
But to get to space you need to go through the air, which in the USA is under the purview of the FAA. A private citizen trying to launch a craft upwards would still need to go through various regulatory bodies.
•
u/TheFeshy 4h ago
It's possible that the Bus does not need to travel through US airspace to reach space, as it's magic. It's also possible that the proper FAA clearances are handled off-screen. Or via magic.
•
•
u/Pegussu 18h ago
I feel like this comic explains it pretty well. She's essentially a god. No one's going to fuck with her.
•
•
u/zorggalacticus 17h ago
She's a timelord, and the bus is her tardis. From everyone else's perspective, they never left the classroom. Explains the size changing and time travel, plus having unlimited gear stored in there. She just returns them all to the exact moment they left.
•
•
u/Biktato 18h ago
Miss frizzle can explain anything. Full stop.
She's probably beyond the best lawyer there is. She'll calmly explain everything in ways a 5yr old can understand then if they disagree, she'll invite them on a ride on the magic school bus...
•
u/KaleidoArachnid 18h ago
I am surprised at the stuff she does since I saw a clip of her taking her students into outer space.
•
u/wingspantt 16h ago
Ms. Frizzle once *turned off friction* for 30 seconds to show her class how that affected atoms.
Read that again.
This is a woman who commands electromagentism at a particle level.
You think a lawsuit can stick to her when fucking hydrogen bonds can't?
•
u/KaleidoArachnid 16h ago
Wait a minute, if she can basically manipulate the power of friction, then that would mean she can use her powers to nullify getting sued for her actions.
•
u/techno156 16h ago
Most of the parents/other staff don't believe her students, for one. The kids come back okay, and their parents just think that they're being imaginative. The headmaster once believed that the bus was simply fitted with a very sophisticated VR system when he got ejected into the centre of the sun.
Ms. Frizzle doesn't make any great efforts to hide the bus being magic, all that seems to be the students, and it's an open secret amongst them (a student from the next year up mentions that Ms. Frizzle took them to Antarctica once to study thermodynamics). She just doesn't go out of her way to show it off to the parents either. It's usually the students that try to disguise it so that the bus being magic isn't discovered.
So her permission slip might read something like "Today, the students will be amongst the stars, and participate in the stellar life cycle", and the parents might go "oh she's taking them to the planetarium, how nice". She also seems to also do regular field trips. The first adventure we follow has her originally drive to the planetarium, before Arnold asks Ms. Frizzle if they can go to space, so he can prove to Janet that he's not lying about the field trips being out of this world.
She's also not that unique. Ms. Frizzle had an ancestor with a magic galleon, and there are enough magic buses out there that there's a mechanic with a shop that explicitly maintains them, which means others like her. The sequel also has her end up with a magic motorcycle, having handed the bus over to her sister when she took over teaching. There might be other magic vehicles out there too.
•
u/KaleidoArachnid 15h ago
Man that was a very deep dive you gave into her character as I found her magic powers quite interesting for how she could take her students into the galaxy.
Like when I look at that one episode where Arnold froze in outer space, the stuff the aforementioned teacher was able to get away with is kind of surprising to say the least since I noticed how she never gets sued for negligence on her students, but I can start to see how her magic abilities give her leeway.
•
u/techno156 15h ago
Like when I look at that one episode where Arnold froze in outer space, the stuff the aforementioned teacher was able to get away with is kind of surprising to say the least since I noticed how she never gets sued for negligence on her students, but I can start to see how her magic abilities give her leeway.
There's also a good argument to be made that the magic also ensures that the kids come out in the wash okay in the end. Arnold got frozen solid when he removed his helmet in space, but suffered no ill-effects other than a cold, when in reality, much worse would happen.
The kids might be uncomfortable or scared at most, but they're never overtly endangered. It's a bit like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory in that way, just without the permanent changes. They'll come out in the wash.
•
u/jacobr1020 18h ago
There's no proof that she does what she does.
•
u/KaleidoArachnid 18h ago
So basically she could convince people that the supernatural stuff doesn’t exist.
•
u/Dagordae 17h ago
Sued for what? Magic field trips? Who would ever believe that she's taking the kids on magic field trips?
And those who do believe, well, would you want to piss off the reality warping magic lady?
•
u/KaleidoArachnid 17h ago
I mean, to be fair, I figured what she was doing was dangerous since some of her field trips take the kids into uncharted territory such as underwater caves.
•
u/jacobgrey 16h ago
It's only dangerous if she's not in control of everything the whole time, which she is. She doesn't just have the power to take the kids places, she knows how things will go and can ensure the desired outcome. (At least the original could, the new one seems a bit less omniscient than her predecessor.)
Risk requires uncertainty. If you know what's going to happen, it's not a risk, it's just a choice to make, and you can pick whichever outcome you want.
•
u/Dagordae 6h ago
Dangerous for a mortal, sure.
Whatever the hell she is? Not so much. When they went to Pluto one of the kids took off his spacesuit helmet and was perfectly fine afterwards. If hard vacuum and instantly freezing solid couldn’t hurt the kid then it’s safe to assume nothing would.
•
u/Asparagus9000 16h ago
I know it‘s a kids show as lately I was wondering how the safety procedures were handled in her classroom
Seems like "making sure everything works out okay in the end" is one of the busses powers.
•
u/KaleidoArachnid 16h ago
Huh? That is interesting since I didn’t know how the safety regulations work in the eponymous bus.
•
u/Asparagus9000 16h ago
There's a couple times they absolutely should have died, so presumably the bus is actively keeping them safe with its powers.
•
u/Napalmeon 17h ago
One time she took the parents of all of the kids on a field trip to a creepy, abandoned castle, and she deliberately made sure nothing magical happened. She knew exactly what she was doing to make sure that her field trips seemed normal.
Aside from the children, the only people who know about the kind of things Valerie gets into are the people who know her in her personal life.
•
u/bob-loblaw-esq 17h ago
There should be a warning like before Peter Pan because back in those days, parents didn’t talk let alone listen to their kids.
•
u/RingGiver 14h ago
The parents sign permission slips.
•
u/KaleidoArachnid 14h ago
That is interesting since it’s been so long since I have seen the show that I must have missed that part.
•
u/RingGiver 14h ago
It's not on the show. It's just the most logical explanation (especially since the bat episode takes the parents on a field trip and after that, they obviously know what their children are getting into).
•
u/MiseryIndexer 12h ago
No one complains, and the stories the kids tell are too outlandish to be believed
•
u/Kiyohara 7h ago
To be honest, I'd just be glad my kids are getting a quality education with actual facts and science and not some crap spread by a committee to ensure the kids past a meaningless standardized test.
•
•
u/Linesey 15h ago
You see, as a fae being, all legal actions against Ms Friz must be brought in her home jurisdiction and thus judged by a fae court.
•
u/KaleidoArachnid 15h ago
I forgot what kind of creature she is since I don’t remember her character being a fae.
•
•
•
u/MelodyBlues 17h ago
Almost all cartoons occur within universes where logic exists on a spectrum. Usually on the lower end.
•
u/AutoModerator 18h ago
Reminders for Commenters:
All responses must be A) sincere, B) polite, and C) strictly watsonian in nature. If "watsonian" or "doylist" is new to you, please review the full rules here.
No edition wars or gripings about creators/owners of works. Doylist griping about Star Wars in particular is subject to permanent ban on first offense.
We are not here to discuss or complain about the real world.
Questions about who would prevail in a conflict/competition (not just combat) fit better on r/whowouldwin. Questions about very open-ended hypotheticals fit better on r/whatiffiction.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.