Episode 11: To the Ship! To the Ship!

To The Ship! To The Ship!
Season 1, Episode 11
Air date	April 17, 2000
Written by	Joe Fallon Emily Squires
Directed by	Lisa Simon
Episode guide
Previous Episode 10: Lionel's Antlers	Next Episode 12: The Chap With Caps

Plot

Lionel and Leona read the (fictional) book Mississippi Skip and his Pirate Ship in the library. Inspired by the story, Lionel then dresses up as a pirate and pretends to be Mississippi Skip in a game of pirates; Walter also wants to play, so Lionel lets him.

But when Clay and Leona want to play, Lionel tells them they can’t. When Cleo sees how sad Leona and Clay feel, Leona explains the situation to her, and Cleo says “Is that so?”

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Cleo then stops Lionel when he walks by her; when he says “I be Mississippi Skip, captain of a pirate ship, and the seas be rough,” she replies with “Rougher than you think, Skip.”

Lionel then says “Uh-oh” and lifts up his eye-patch (off-screen) as Cleo asks him if he told Leona and Clay they couldn’t play with him; Lionel says he did and explains that it’s because Leona and Clay are girls, and that there are no female pirates. Cleo tells him that he pretends to be a dinosaur or a robot, but he is neither of those, and Lionel agrees. Cleo then says that he can pretend to be anything he wants to be, and Lionel also agrees with her on that; when Cleo adds “And so can Leona and Clay”, Lionel is surprised, but then repeats “And so can Leona and Clay.”

When Lionel tells Leona and Clay that they have to be boy pirates, Theo suggests that he just might want to read about Anne Bonney. Cleo adds that Anne Bonney was a real pirate who lived a long time ago; Leona asks “She?” and an equally surprised Lionel also asks “She?”, to which Theo replies with “She.”

When Leona says she wants to be Anne Bonney when they play Pirates, Anne Bonney says that she can’t “because I be Anne Bonney. And if anybody be playin’ Pirates...” (lifts herself out of her page in her book) “I be playin’ too... unless you want make-believe pirates in your game!”

When Lionel says that anybody is allowed to play Pirates, Anne then takes over the idea.

Segments

• Fred Says: rip
• Martha Reader and The Vowelles: lip
• Gawain's Word: slip
• Dr. Beatrice Berry: slip
• Sky Words: slip, lip, rip, trip
• Tiger Words: trip  (EKA: Little Big Mouse)
• Critter Words: trip, rip, ship
• The Un-People: unzipped/rezipped (EKA: Little Big Mouse)
• Short Song: "Fellow named Sig" (EKA: The Boy Who Cried Wolf)
• The Vowelles and Johnny Consonanti: it (EKA: The Boy Who Cried Wolf)
• Colored Boxes: it, hit, hip, ship, sh
• Cleo Lion sings "Shush"
• Tongue Twister: Seven selfish shellfish
• What's Cooking With Theo and Cleo: Squished Fish on a Dish
• Sam Spud: jam [not jim]

Quotes

Anne Bonney: (singing) Well, first ye need a ship / And then ye need a crew / And only a leaky, creaky ship and a nasty crew will do..

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Theo: Well now, hold on there a minute, captain. (snickers) You may just want to read about Anne Bonney.
Cleo: She was a real pirate who lived a long time ago.
Leona: She?
Lionel: She?
Theo: She! (laughs a little)
Lionel: Well, blow me down.

Notes

• Though the Mississippi Skip story and the book The Life of Anne Bonney were created for this episode of the program, Anne Bonny was, in fact, a real life female pirate.
• This is the first time when the What's Cooking and Sam Spud segments go together.
• Lionel will also read The Adventures of Mississippi Skip in a Season 6 episode.

Video

To the Ship! To the Ship!