| EPISODE | TRANSCRIPT | GALLERY |
| Season 1, Episode 1b | |
| |
| Air date: | September 4, 2006 |
| Written by: | Sandra Willard |
| Directed by: | Scott Hemming |
| Storyboard artist: | Kirk Hanson |
| Directory | |
| Previous: "Curious George Flies a Kite" |
Next: "Curious George's Home for Pigeons" |
"From Scratch" is a Curious George episode from season 1. In this episode, Gnocchi is accused of scratching the booths in Chef Pisghetti's restaurant. To prove Gnocchi's innocence (and eat cannoli), George decides to mount an investigation. Using his scientific inquiry skills, he observes the differences between the scratches Gnocchi makes with her claws and the scratches left on the booth, and shows that his friend was wrongfully accused..
Characters[]
- George
- The Man with the Yellow Hat
- Gnocchi (debut)
- Chef Pisghetti (debut)
- Netti Pisghetti (debut)
- Professor Wiseman (debut)
- Customers
- Waitress
Synopsis[]
George and The Man with the Yellow Hat walk to the museum, but first stop at Chef Pisghetti's restaurant for a sweet Sunday treat. When they get there, they see a plate of cannoli in the display window that The Man thinks are for them, but Chef Pisghetti takes the plate away. Alarmed, George and The Man run to the back of the restaurant where they see the Chef's cat Gnocchi sleeping in a newly-built cat house. When The Man tries greeting her, she's in a bad mood, much to the two's surprise.
George and The Man enter the kitchen and George looks around for cannoli. It turns out there are none and the Chef is too upset to make more because he thinks Gnocchi has been scratching up the booths. He takes the two into the main room and shows them the scratches. George sees a man eat the cannoli from the display which makes him sad because he wants cannoli too.
Back in the kitchen, the Chef, upset, decides to ban Gnocchi from his restaurant. The Man tries to lighten the mood and compliments the Chef on Gnocchi's new cat house, much to the Chef's delight. Gnocchi is heard meowing outside, wanting to come in. The Chef's wife Netti says Gnocchi only wants to come in because the Chef says she can't, then pushes George and The Man toward the door, saying there won't be more cannoli until the problem is solved. When she opens the door, Gnocchi runs in but Netti catches her and puts her back outside. Gnocchi meows loudly and sadly, scratching at the door as George and The Man leave, The Man saying he's sure they'll solve the problem.
At the museum, George sees a boy looking through a telescope and imagines it turning into a giant cannolo that the boy eats. He and The Man find Professor Wiseman who welcomes them to her new exhibit called, "How Great Scientists Got Their Great Ideas" which has portraits of four great scientists. She tells George that once you think like a scientist, you can solve almost any problem, and scientists think and solve problems by observing and collecting information. But if that information doesn't help solve their problem, they observe more and get a different idea.
Suddenly, she sees a boy trying to climb a fake tree and hurries to stop him. Alone, George imagines the portraits of the great scientists come to life. They ask him if Gnocchi really scratches the booths and tell him to think about what he observed. George remembers seeing Gnocchi scratching the door but wonders if she really could've scratched the booth too. The portrait of Marie Curie says what he observed doesn't match the Chef's idea. George realizes that if he could prove Gnocchi is innocent, the Chef would be happy and he'd have cannoli. But first, he must observe, so he goes back to the restaurant.
Once he's there, he opens the back door to investigate the scratches on it. Gnocchi slips inside and excitedly runs to her bed, falling asleep. George grabs a notepad and pencil before drawing replicas of the scratches on the door, and then going into the main room to draw replicas of the scratches on the booth. The two customers at the booth mistake him for a waiter and ask him for more garlic bread. Ignoring them, George measures the booth scratches with a breadstick. Needing something longer to measure the door's scratches, he takes a noodle off a mustached customer's plate of spaghetti and goes back to the kitchen, measuring the scratches on the door when suddenly the noodle that George stole hits him right in his face making sauce splash all over his nose. The African-American male customer says by thinking that he is a restaurant critic who is taking samples of the pasta with the female one saying nothing in the part.
George decides to measure the depth of the scratches. He takes a tray of ravioli, going unseen by the Chef, and presses a raviolo into the door scratches. He goes to the main room and does the same with the booth scratches. He examines what he measured, finding that the scratches on the booth are shorter and deeper than the ones on the door, meaning Gnocchi didn't do it.
Excited at the revelation, George goes to tell the Chef, then stops, realizing he needs to figure out who is causing the booth scratches. After imagining a few ideas, he scares himself by thinking it could've been a dinosaur and looks outside the window, finding no evidence of an animal break-in. Meanwhile, the customers at the booth tell Nettie that they asked for garlic bread a while ago and their waiter is quite lazy. The customers at the table say he isn't a waiter, but a reviewer.
George starts pacing, then sees a new set of scratches on a booth that wasn't there before. The customers at the table comment this is the most thorough reviewer they've ever seen, and the customer who had their noodle stolen by George leaves the restaurant, saying that isn't a waiter or a critic but a monkey. George measures the booth scratches to the height of his nose, and then sees a waitress pushing a cart that has two sharp spikes on one of its sides. Connecting the dots, George stops the cart and sees they're the same height as the scratches.
George starts shouting with joy, causing the Chef, Netti, and Gnocchi to run out of the kitchen. The Chef asks what he's doing, and the customers comment that the Chef knows George, so George can't possibly be a monkey. George shows his measurements of the booth and door scratches' length and depth. He lifts Gnocchi to show she can't reach the booth to scratch it, and then pulls the cart over, showing the two spikes on it as the real culprit.
The Chef is overjoyed at George's discovery, holding him in his arms and hugging him. The Chef announces that Gnocchi is innocent and he's going to make two trays of cannoli on the house, causing the customers to cheer. Later, the staff and Gnocchi are all asleep at the kitchen table, tired from making cannoli for everyone, except for George, who has the appetite of a monkey. George sits at the end of the table eating cannoli, and the episode ends.