Arthur Megathread - A thread for all fans of the critically acclaimed PBS children's show

[Trilby]

Here's the episode itself, if anyone is autistic enough to be curious about watching it. I'm certainly not.

Mr. Ratburn & The Special Someone/The Feud | Arthur Videos | PBS KIDS

Mr. Ratburn is getting married! Arthur and the gang can’t believe it. Teachers don’t have lives outside of school…do they? / Arthur and Buster get into an argument over a video game and pretty soon the entire third grade class chooses sides. Will it be Team Arthur versus Team Buster forever?

pbskids.org

A few skims, and holy shit, the flash animation looks fucking ugly...but the HD backgrounds look gorgeous...so it looks awkward. Very awkward.

The show has never been the same after they switched to Flash.

I'm not all that familiar with Arthur. I know the "fist" meme and how he's an aardvark, and there's a monkey girl and a I think one of them is a bulldog with a massive tumor on his face, and that's about it. I didn't grow up with Arthur, nor did I know who Mr. Ratburn was until I saw this article.

....and looking at him... it's a furry version of John Waters. How is any of this surprising?

I only knew of Arthur from the original versions of those books when Marc Brown drew these guys far more like animals than what they morphed into for the cartoon.

EDIT: For pictures!

 

[Ozul]

I just watched the episode, and it had more to do with the fact of Mr.Ratburn getting married than about being gay. What troubled me though is that at the end when they reveal Mr.Rat is marrying a man when throughout the episode they assumed he was marrying a woman, none of them have any questions at all.

I guess that in the Arthur universe, all the children are already pre-informed about gay sex.

 

[Bunny Tracks]

The animation is so slow, stilted and clunky that it made every scene incredibly awkward. Also Ratburn's husband is named Patrick and owns a chocolate shop. My only issue with him is that they kinda made him too friendly. It made him seem a little off.

I just watched the episode, and it had more to do with the fact of Mr.Ratburn getting married than about being gay. What troubled me though is that at the end when they reveal Mr.Rat is marrying a man when throughout the episode they assumed he was marrying a woman, none of them have any questions at all.

I really wish that they had the kids question it more, or at least have one of the adults explain it to them. Not doing so made it feel like a cop-out.

 

[Bread Fetishist]

Unfortunately, once this whole thing dies down, people will probably just end up forgetting that this show's still on the air. So, enjoy this brief resurgence in popularity while you still can, Arthur.

 

[Ozul]

The animation is so slow, stilted and clunky that it made every scene incredibly awkward. Also Ratburn's husband is named Patrick and owns a chocolate shop. My only issue with him is that they kinda made him too friendly. It made him seem a little off.

I really wish that they had the kids question it more, or at least have one of the adults explain it to them. Not doing so made it feel like a cop-out.

Yeah I was really hoping for them to give some sort of explanation to kids. Otherwise, there was no real message.
It would of been much better if they had a parent explain to the kids, instead they all just blankly nod as if there is some kind of mutual understanding with the audience.

 

[The Pink Panther]

Yeah I was really hoping for them to give some sort of explanation to kids. Otherwise, there was no real message.
It would of been much better if they had a parent explain to the kids, instead they all just blankly nod as if there is some kind of mutual understanding with the audience.

Maybe it is just a bunch of propaganda to please the LGBTQIAAP+ (fucking hell) crowd.

 

[friedshrimp]

I'm seeing many tumblrinos who before never in their life ever reblogged about Arthur suddenly reblogging endlessly stuff about the show.

Kinda shows that tumblrinas don't like media because of genuine things like characters, writing, etc etc, but because of pandering to their identity politics. Hence why in GOT they praised Arya killing the Night King, but raged at Daenerys going evil.

Basically their only idea of writing is:

-Wahmen, faggots and brown men doing something good = good
-Not doing this = bad

 

[Kari Kamiya]

There’s a big difference between kids deciding to troon out and two kids of the same gender deciding to hold hands at recess though, I don’t really see the harm in the latter?

Except it used to be kids could "hold hands at recess" without it meaning anything one way or another about their sexuality. When homosexuality is pushed on prepubescent kids it undermines the normal formation of close, same sex friendships which are very emotionally close but very much NOT sexual. Two 8 year old girls who want to snuggle and share lunch don't need propaganda telling them it's ok to be lez, they need to be left alone to be kids who are not lesbians but just good friends. Ditto 8 year old boys. It's really important to psychological development to go through that platonic friend stage, and if it gets sexualized by woke adults, it fucks kids up big time. We are seeing the early fallout from that in the young adults coming into the world right now.

True story, when I was eight I once held hands with my best friend in elementary school during recess just because and an aide came up to tell us not to do that, and I didn't know why at the time, left me confused and upset. I was only doing that because that was common not just on the playground but also in shows to see children holding hands even when walking away because isn't that what best friends do?

 

[A Sign]

For a kids perspective approach it was good enough. But the adult babies are ether fetishizing the shit out of it or crying cause He didn't talk about how gay he was every 5 seconds.

I just hope its not gonna be make-way for Francine being lesbian or a "trans boy uwu" just cause she's a tomboy.

I only remember the names cause Arthur was my shit back in the day, watched it primer in 1996

Now they just need to re-air the post cards from buster Lesbian wives episode.

 

[Marissa Moira]

if we're talking about edutainmnet characters, I think Miss Frizzle was most definitely a lesbian and Bill Nye is one or two outbursts away from becoming Mal the Science Gal.

 

[Elpizo]

And of course... One Million Moms are at it again.

PBS Kids airs gay marriage on 'Arthur'

If you agree this content is inappropriate for a children’s program, please sign our petition to PBS Kids asking the network to pull this episode, “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone,” immediately, and no longer air it or others with same sex couples.

onemillionmoms.com

 

[The Pink Panther]

And of course... One Million Moms are at it again.

PBS Kids airs gay marriage on 'Arthur'

If you agree this content is inappropriate for a children’s program, please sign our petition to PBS Kids asking the network to pull this episode, “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone,” immediately, and no longer air it or others with same sex couples.

onemillionmoms.com

Their "victories" are merely because some of these shows have low ratings. Their site has overall no impact on whether something gets cancelled or continues.

 

[Trilby]

True story, when I was eight I once held hands with my best friend in elementary school during recess just because and an aide came up to tell us not to do that, and I didn't know why at the time, left me confused and upset. I was only doing that because that was common not just on the playground but also in shows to see children holding hands even when walking away because isn't that what best friends do?

That was quite a shame you had to go through that. I probably did that back in the 80's and nobody said anything.

 

[The Decimator]

My opinion on this: Meh...s’alright. I had a feeling he was a fag anyway, but never did I imagine that the show would directly come out and say it.

 

[UF 404]

Adding a "progressive" character trait 20+ years late? Check. Making an entire episode centered around a gay marriage in a show where romance is rarely if ever touched upon? Check. Adding progressive qualities to a washed out show woke millennials watched when they were kids? Check.

It's a little embarrassing to admit, but this show stayed a bit of a guilty pleasure for me once I grew out of the intended age range. It was a kids show, sure, but it was also decently made, the characters were likeable, and it just had enough personality to still be entertaining enough to watch once in a while.

But sometime around 2012/2013 they started having a different studio work on the series, and the difference was immediately noticeable. The animation was now cheap looking flash instead of hand drawn, they randomly started introducing new characters that nobody liked, traits of many existing characters were either altered or exaggerated, and the scripts were pretty much watered down to generic boring kids show level. I stopped watching new episodes at that point and have since considered it a zombie series like The Simpsons or something. And now it looks like they've made Mr Ratburn gay, what the fuck.

 

[The Pink Panther]

Adding a "progressive" character trait 20+ years late? Check. Making an entire episode centered around a gay marriage in a show where romance is rarely if ever touched upon? Check. Adding progressive qualities to a washed out show woke millennials watched when they were kids? Check.

It's a little embarrassing to admit, but this show stayed a bit of a guilty pleasure for me once I grew out of the intended age range. It was a kids show, sure, but it was also decently made, the characters were likeable, and it just had enough personality to still be entertaining enough to watch once in a while.

But sometime around 2012/2013 they started having a different studio work on the series, and the difference was immediately noticeable. The animation was now cheap looking flash instead of hand drawn, they randomly started introducing new characters that nobody liked, traits of many existing characters were either altered or exaggerated, and the scripts were pretty much watered down to generic boring kids show level. I stopped watching new episodes at that point and have since considered it a zombie series like The Simpsons or something. And now it looks like they've made Mr Ratburn gay, what the fuck.

What's next? D.W. turns out to be a transgender child because all of the people who voiced her were boys?

 

[Creep3r]

Miss Frizzle

I'm sorry, who?

 

[The Pink Panther]

I'm sorry, who?

The teacher...from the Magic School Bus?

 

[Secret Asshole]

PBS has been woke as fuck since 1985. I have no idea what anyone is going on about.

The teacher...from the Magic School Bus?

 

[DonaldJTrump]

I was disappointed today when I found no Videos of Autists destroying Arthur DVDs over this.