| The Berenstain Bears and the Bad Habit | |
| Season 2, Episode 3a | |
| Series: The Berenstain Bears (2002) | |
 | |
| Air date | October 10, 2003 |
| Written by | Brian Lasenby |
| Directed by | Gary Hurst & Kervin Farla |
| Preceded by The Jump Rope Contest |
Followed by The Berenstain Bears and the Prize Pumpkin |
“When cubs start to twitch or scratch or nibble, what they need is some help, not a lecture or quibble.”
—Brother Bear
The Berenstain Bears and the Bad Habit is the first segment of the third episode in season 2 of The Berenstain Bears. It first aired on October 10, 2003 and is based on the book of the same name.
Summary[]
Sister and her classmates have been learning about fractions. After a while, the fractions cause Sister to develop the habit of biting her fingernails. Brother catches on and helps Sister quell her fraction anxiety.
Plot[]
At Bear Country School, Sister is in her class cutting out pictures of pies. Teacher Jane then asks her class to cut the pie pictures into thirds, leaving Sister confused on how to cut it. Lizzy shows her how she did it by cutting one picture into three pieces. Teacher Jane then has the students cut another one of their pies into one-sixths. Sister watches as Lizzy cuts her pie picture then starts biting her fingernails.
After school that day, Mama sees Sister biting on her fingernails and orders her stop before it becomes a bad habit. When Sister asks, Mama tells her that habits are something that people do often when they don't think about it, and the more Sister does a bad habit, the harder it is for her to get out of it. She demonstrates an example of a bad habit by showing Sister a rut she made with the wheelbarrow after going over the same path with it so many times.
Sister helps Mama get the wheelbarrow out of the rut and tells her that she wants to stop her nail-biting before it gets bad. Mama then comes up with the idea of wrapping small strips of adhesive tape around Sister's fingers. At school the next day, Sister and her classmates are sticking pictures of apples onto a tree. She tries picking up one of paper apples, but the tape stops her from doing so. She has Lizzy rub glue on one of her apples, then posts it on her tree.
Sister's shoulder then starts itching and Lizzy scratches it. Back at home, Sister explains to Mama how difficult it was for her to pick things up, unbuckle her backpack, scratch her itch, and hold her recorder in music class due to the tape, which she removed after a while. Mama notices that Sister hadn't bitten her nails and offers her a honeycomb chewy as a reward. Brother enters the kitchen and tells Mama that he hadn't bitten his nails in ten years and should be rewarded the entire batch, causing Mama to look at him disappointedly.
He takes only one, then shows Sister his science project about the different phases of the moon. While Brother explains the phases to Sister, he notices her biting her fingernails. Mama then thinks of another solution to get Sister to stop her fingernail biting, but Brother comes up with the idea of filling a bowl with lemon juice and having Sister dip her fingers in it. Sister tries to bite her nails, but the lemon juice's sourness stopped her from doing so. Mama rewards Brother with a honeycomb square.
That night in bed, Sister wakes up and sees the crescent moon outside the cubs' room window. Various thoughts about fractions run through Sister's mind as she tosses and turns in bed, causing her to bite her fingernails once more. The next morning at breakfast, Sister tells Brother that the lemon juice lost its flavor after a while and she was up all night biting her fingernails. Papa comes up with an idea. He gives Sister a dime to hang on to until the end of the day, and if she hasn't bitten any of her fingernails, she gets to keep it.
While looking in the newspaper, Papa shows the family an ad for Bear Valley Electronics having a sale on their items that's one-third off. The sight of the fraction causes Sister to bite her fingernails, making her realize she'll be a "full-time nail-biter" as she forfeits her dime to Papa.
He suggests trying a quarter, and Brother notices that the source of Sister's anxiety is fractions. He shows Mama and Papa by writing down seven fractions on a piece of paper then showing it to Sister, who then bites her nails. Sister admits to the fractions being the source of her nail-biting as she has a hard time understanding them. Brother offers to help her out, and Mama says that the more Sister understands fractions, the less likely she'll bite her nails. Excitedly, Sister grabs Brother's arm and races out of the kitchen with him.
In the cubs' bedroom, Brother helps Sister out with her fraction problems by showing her the alarm clock and a quarter. Sister soon realizes that she has a better understanding of how fractions work just as the alarm clock startles them. Outside, Sister rides on the swing set just as Lizzy walks toward her asking if she's ready to do their homework on fractions together. Sister tells her she's already completed it, then shows Lizzy her regrown fingernails with red nail polish. Lizzy reminds Sister that she owes her a back scratch, and Sister responds by playfully chasing Lizzy around the yard.
Differences From the Book[]
- In the book, Lizzy, Fred and Norman were seen doing some bad habits. Lizzy twirled her fur, Fred scratched his head, Norman sucked his thumb. In the cartoon, they were not seen doing these bad habits.
- In the book, the cubs, mainly Lizzy, teased Sister for her nail-biting habits. This was omitted in the episode.
- The book ended with Brother jokingly telling Papa he should start biting his fingernails in order to get money. The episode ended with Sister and Lizzy chasing each other outside.
- In the book, Sister developed her habit of biting her fingernails while reading a book in class. In the episode, Sister's trouble with fractions caused her to bite her fingernails.
- In the book Sister and her friends developed bad habits as they were dealing with the struggles of first grade. In the episode only sister developed a bad habits struggling with fractions, also in the episode Sister is in 3rd grade not 1st.