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Arthur
1996 · TV series · 13 min episodes · 25 seasons
Created by Marc Brown
The show revolves around the lives of 8-year-old Arthur Read, an anthropomorphic aardvark, his friends and family, and their daily interactions with each other.
3 positive8 neutralfrom 11 commenters
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13 comments on Hacker News
Yes! It was an episode from season 2! https://arthur.fandom.com/wiki/Binky_Barnes,_Art_Expert
Reading through, one question kept popping on my mind: "Is it not an experiment with human subjects?".
It seems at first as just an attempt at setting up a fun game for the kids to play. But at some point it devolves into "Let's see how they can handle the challenges".
Reminded me of Arthur cartoon episode, where D.W. and Emily were building a long-spanning town from blocks [1]. There they too became "hostages" to the project. All got "freed" from it thanks to the age-approptiate behavior of other kids.
Not sure if the episode was inspired by this story, which appears to pre-date the cartoon.
[1]: "Blockheads" https://arthur.fandom.com/wiki/Blockheads
Have you ever watched Arthur? They cover current events in every season, and have done episodes about social media and the Internet.
There's a value to staying current, even when your target audience nearly completely refreshes every few years.
Arthur was always my favorite as a kid. What kept me loving it as an adult is how well every episode holds up and how brilliant and absurd the humor could be. In one episode, a kid's head falls out of the sky and compliments the lawn it lands on. In another one, a tiny version of Neil Gaiman is just chilling inside someone's sandwich. Both of these make as much sense in context.
For me, the mastery Arthur had over complex themes and childhood experiences was best shown in its autism episode. It's called "When Carl Met George" and while it dealt with Asperger's specifically (which has since been wrapped up into the Autism Spectrum Disorder umbrella, thanks to the DSM-V), it still explains what being autistic is like to children in a plain, easy-to-understand way.
This much-discussed episode aired in 2019: https://arthur.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Ratburn_and_the_Special_Someone
>The news of the show ending was first floated earlier this month in an interview featured in the July 13 episode of the podcast Finding D.W., where Arthur writer Kathy Waugh revealed that the show was no longer in production, and the final episode was completed years ago.
>Still, this might not be the end of Arthur: The statement from Greenwald adds that "producer GBH and PBS KIDS are continuing to work together on additional Arthur content, sharing the lessons of Arthur and his friends in new ways."
So either it hasn't ended, or it ended years ago.
The episode where arthur punches DW becoming a meme
Watching Arthur episodes on PBSKids for the first time as a 'grownup on duty'. I like the storytelling and spectrum of characters, but am still ambivalent as for the fitness to the target mindset.
I find that generally the situations are more for lives of 8-10yr olds, yet at that age cartoons may be already too didactic. More younger kids may not face the kinds of challenges depicted. I'm often asked to explain it to the 5yo. Still, the stories are very well written.
My so far most memorable is 'Lost and Found', very relatable almost dream/nightmare-like.
There were multiple episodes that I remember watching as a child (In fact, I think I have seen all the episodes except the recent ones in the last 3-4 years). The one where they make a movie due to the new "James Hound" movie is rated PG-13, the Christmas movie about uncle frank, the Mr Rogers episode where he comes and stay in Arthur house(there was another episode like this except Arthur's teacher Mr.Ratburn) and so much others. However, one thing that was stuck in my head ever since I saw it was an episode where Muffy was watching a Backstreet Boys music video and Francine calls them a sellout. So she makes a band and calls it "U stink." Then they play in a front of a crowd and the Backstreet Boys themselves come[0]. That episode and the ones where they have different animation like South Park and beavis and butthead were the ones that stuck with me as a kid. But I have to admit how long this aired, I thought it would end in 2015, but apparently they kept making new episodes.
[0] - https://youtu.be/F3x72g-s_bk
The BBC has been airing it for decades:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/shows/arthur
There are currently episodes available on BBC iPlayer.
Here is the Wikipedia article on this experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave_(experiment)
The Wikipedia article states:
> "The Pride of Lakewood", a 2010 episode of children's animated series Arthur, was loosely based on the Third Wave experiment. In it, students who form a community pride group become fascistic.
I watched Arthur when I was in elementary school, and when I searched up this episode, I think actually remember it! Wow, back then, I totally missed the allegorical message... Possibly because I hadn't learned about fascism yet.
This reminds me an episode of Arthur cartoon. In it, a laptop sported by one of characters had a pear logo with obvious connotation.
Another meme from Arthur that comes to mind is a store named "One Percent".
I bet lots of details like this escape the target audience's attention... at least in this pre-schooler's case.
Two responses.
(i) Millions of kids saw that episode and went on to pirate movies and music anyways, because kids don't really derive their ethics from cartoon series, just like you & I aren't secretly animated by "Knowing is Half The Battle" from G.I. Joe. (http://www.joeheadquarters.com/joeendings.shtml)
(ii) The particular message you're suggesting Iron Man is "propagandizing" is so anodyne that it was the subject of a whole episode of Arthur on PBS.