Dorothy Ann "D.A." Rourke

"According to my research... wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, that's Dorothy Ann Rourke! Well, she's the only blonde girl in Ms. Frizzle's class. But... I think you can call her... DA. Isn't that dang cool? After all, I would've gotten a few blonde-haired girls and boys in my own village back there."

--Su Ji-Hoon, Operation: Invasion Der Zukünftigen Akademie

Dorothy Ann Rourke, also called "DA," is a fictional character on the animated children's series The Magic School Bus. She was voiced by Tara Meyer in the original TV series version of The Magic School Bus and by Gabby Clarke in The Magic School Bus Rides Again.

Background
Dorothy Ann is the very beautiful class bookworm, always looking for a fact in one of her many books. Her last name is never mentioned in the books or original television series, but it is mentioned in the sequel series. She loves astronomy, and she has a telescope on the balcony outside of her bedroom. She gets a new, high-powered one for her ninth birthday in "Sees Stars." She also has an interest in physics. Despite her intelligence and beauty, Dorothy Ann tends to have an argumentative personality and has clashed with the others from time to time, most notably Wanda ("Takes A Dive"), Ralphie ("Plays Ball"), and Carlos ("Blows Its Top," "Makes a Rainbow").

Appearance
Dorothy Ann wears a violet turtleneck sweater, a turquoise pleated skirt, purple ankle-length socks (white stockings in some books), white panties (turquoise in "Out of this World") and maroon and white sneakers (saddle shoes in some books). She also keeps her blonde hair up in pigtails with two red rubber hair bands. Her signature colors are violet and blue. In the new series, she has her hair in a high ponytail held with a violet hair tier, and she wears a pale purple shirt, a light violet blazer, blue trousers and orange ballet flats. She retains her old signature colours.

Season One
Dorothy Ann is introduced with the rest of the class in "Gets Lost In Space," but her researching habits are not shown until "For Lunch." Her first focus episode is "In the Haunted House" in which she's conducting the class as they perform her "Concerto for Invented Instrument". She's seen doing a chemistry experiment while the class bakes Ms. Frizzle a birthday cake in "Gets Ready, Set, Dough." Her last focus episode of the season is "Plays Ball." Excited to show off her new physics book, she's disappointed when the class only cares about the baseball game they were playing. She's even more disappointed when Ralphie leaves her book on the field, but they end up inside it, playing a friction-less baseball game.

Season Two
The season opens with a Dorothy Ann-focused episode, "Blows Its Top." She and Carlos argue over discovering a new island until she loses her books to the ocean. Feeling lost and empty without them, she begs Ms. Frizzle to help her get them back, "Please, Ms. Frizzle! I'm nothing without my books! Me, books...books, me!" In "Butterfly and the Bog Beast", her mascot suggestion is a broccoli, and despite her choice of mascot, she sides with the others against Phoebe's butterfly idea. She speaks on "behalf of the court" during Ms. Frizzle's trial in "In a Pickle," and she's embarrassed by Carlos' brother, Mikey, when he brings up a heat rash she once got in "Getting Energized". In "Out of This World", she discovers an asteroid bound for Earth, more specifically, Walkerville Elementary and she gets the class to help her destroy it.

Season Three
In "Show and Tells," Dorothy Ann and Arnold are representing Walkerville in the 10th Annual International Show & Tell Competition, and after researching Arnold's rare pumice collection, she's upset that he opted to bring an artifact she knows nothing about. She fights with Carlos again in "Makes a Rainbow" over her book, (Carlos says it's purple while Dorothy says it's violet), and which is bad enough for Wanda to comment, "This could get ugly." She's made a rain-forest inspector with Tim as her assistant in "In the Rainforest" when they try to find out why Ms. Frizzle's cocoa tree didn't yield a good harvest.

Season Four
Mr. Rhule puts Dorothy Ann in charge of taking care of his pet Rhode Island Red rooster, Giblets, in "Cracks a Yolk," but she loses him once his master is gone. She turns 9 in "Sees Stars," in which the class goes on a field trip before getting together for her small party to find her a star as a gift. As she was sick, she stayed home, but Liz is with her, eating cake and looking in her new telescope. She and Wanda butt heads in "Takes a Dive" when she wants to work as partners, but Wanda wants to go solo.



Relatives
Her parents both appear in "Going Batty," and her mother appears again in "Out of This World". She has a little sister named Evan, who is blonde like her and their mother. Her parents also appear in a flashback in the episode The Tales Glaciers Tell, where they are revealed to be wonderful story tellers, and they appear in present at the presentation at the end.

Trivia

 * Her pigtails stay up without hair bands ("Goes on Air").
 * She knows enough about music to know how to keep time as a conductor.
 * On the Bugs, Bugs, Bugs! DVD cover and in the new series, she has blue eyes.
 * She's very reliant on her books, thus referring to her as the bookworm of the class. In the new series, she became reliant on a tablet.
 * In "Meets the Rot Squad" she wanted to build an amusement park on the abandoned lot on Decatur.
 * She's highly knowledgeable in astronomy, enough to accurately track an asteroid.
 * She says her book is "violet" as opposed to "purple." This is due to the fact that red and blue make violet and that the color purple is actually violet tinged with red contrary to popular belief.
 * Despite not liking baseball, she's skilled enough to hit a home run that causes the ball to rip open.
 * Like Tim, she was never given a surname in the original series.
 * She celebrated her 9th birthday in "Sees Stars" and the only student in Ms. Frizzle's class who had a birthday in an episode.
 * In the German dub, her name is Ann-Kathrin.
 * In the original series, Dorothy pronounced "research" rɪˈsərtʃ, but in the sequel, she pronounces it riːsərtʃ.
 * She is the only girl to have skirt peeks, in the opening credits, "Goes to Seed", "Out of this World", and "Cracks a Yolk".
 * She is the first main character to have, in reality, hugged someone. The someone she hugged being Carlos, in "In the Haunted House".
 * She is the only main kid to have kissed someone, the someone she kissed being Arnold, in "Cracks a Yolk".
 * Throughout the series, she's always referred to by her initials (D.A.) or what her initials stand for (Dorothy Ann), but for reasons unknown, she is never referred to as just "Dorothy".
 * It's been strangely known for quite some times over the years that fans believe Dorothy Ann bears a strong resemblance to an older character from another TV show named Linka from Cartoon Network's Captain Planet.