Ms. Valerie Frizzle

"Seatbelts, everyone!"

- Mrs. Frizzle's opening catchphrase "It's time to take chances, make mistakes and get messy!"

- Ms. Frizzle's catchphrase. Ms. Valerie Felicity Frizzle (sometimes known as  "The Friz") is the main protagonist of ''The Magic Schoolbus. ''She is an eccentric third grade teacher at Walkerville Elementary School. She uses a variety of unusual magic devices to teach the kids scientific concepts. The most notable of these is her magical school bus, a shape-shifting vehicle that seems to have a mind of its own sometimes.

She is voiced by Lily Tomlin

Appearence
Ms. Frizzle has frizzy red hair in a bun. She uses static electricity to make her hair all frizzy. She often wears a dress that goes along with what the class is going to learn about. The pictures on her dresses often move, thus causing Keesha to ask "Where does she get her clothes?" Often when she talks, her earrings light up or glow. When she snaps her fingers, says certain phrases, or wears certain clothes, she will usually do something, for example light up. Thus, causing one of the kids in her class to ask, "How does she do that?

Personality
While she is eccentric and a bit mysterious, Ms. Frizzle is beautiful, intelligent, optimistic, kind-hearted, caring, resourceful, happy-go-lucky, passionate, sweet, friendly, funny, supportive, selfless, cheerful, loving and motherly. She loves to tell jokes (like Carlos) that are related to the lesson she teaches her kids, even if she is the only one laughing. She has given up life as a rising star musician so she could be a teacher. She seems to put her students, her pet lizard, Liz and the bus before anything else. Even though her students can tell that their teacher is a bit odd, they still love and respect her. Ms. Frizzle is very protective of her students. Despite bringing them on several very dangerous field trips she never once let any harm come to them and always a plan to protect them from whatever might be injurious, she seems to know a lot about the subject well enough to know that she can get her students out of the situation. Like all good teachers, she is incredibly knowledgeable in many academic fields and almost never needs help to gain information. The only times she does not answer questions is when she wants her students to figure it out independently. Nothing related to knowledge seems to surprise her; in fact it seems that at the start of each episode she already knew everything that the students learned by the end.

She likely excelled in science (of all kinds) and history when she was in school as they are what she generally teaches her class. In addition to her intellect, beauty and despite her skinny build, Ms. Frizzle is a terrific athlete with a strong level of health & fitness. She was not only able to win 2 out of 3 in the Teacher-athlon (she would have won a clean sweep had she not held her breath in the first event) but is capable of back flips and uni-cycling among many other physical feats. The producer once noted that Ms. Frizzle is "magic" so it isn't just her students who notice. It is likely that she designed and built her magical bus herself or modified an original one. There are theories towards her supernatural abilities such as her actually being a sorceress or that the static electricity she uses in her hair gave her powers but nothing is really clarified.

Trivia

 * Coincidentally, Ms. Frizzle shares her first and middle name with both children's book author Valerie Tripp and Felicity Merriman from the American Girl series. Tripp wrote most of the core series books for Merriman, as well as several other characters and it can also be noted that both Ms. Frizzle and Merriman have the same hair color.