History WMG / Arthur

A result of smoke inhalation and oxygen deprivation. This would explain why Buster had to re-introduce himself. (Though, it doesn't explain Arthur's comment later of "You only met because of that stupid fire.")

[[WMG: Mr.Ratbrun's obsession with cake originally started as a coping mechanism.]]

Of course, this isn't the first time Arthur's friends have taken up for D.W. against him--see "Arthur's Big Hit" for instance. But at least then, Arthur had actually done something wrong. Here, he is being accused of the pettiest crime imaginable (leaving aside [[NeverLiveItDown the whole snowball incident.]] One wonders why eight- and nine-year-olds would keep doing this, especially since so many of them seem to be much smarter than average.

* He's the only one of the teachers in the school who doesn't confuse the 3rd grade curriculum with that of the preschool/kindergarten set. Knowledge is power, and power corrupts, so he is clearly up to something.
** Yeah, it's pretty clear all Ratburn is doing is challenging his students. There's an episode when there's an academic decathlon or somesuch between the schools third grade classes, and Ratburn's ''thrashes'' the others.

* Let's not forget [[SherlockHolmes Fern's favorite character]] is often thought to have Asperger's.

A result of smoke inhalation and oxygen deprivation. This would explain why Buster had to re-introduce himself.

They share the same voice actress, have similar personalities and tend to be playful. The fact that both shows aired on PBS and were produced in Montreal is also suspicious.

** Or maybe Nadine could’ve more been a soft toy, though not seen or mentioned. Just like the way in ''Series/Barney&Friends'', Barney the dinosaur who came to life in one’s imagination is a soft toy.

In the series she is shown to be good at most things except for cooking. She is a really bad chef and seems at times to be self conscious about it. This could explain why she feels this way. Her husband, being old school expected his wife to cook. When see didn't he divorced her.

They share the same voice actress, have similar personalities and tend to be playful. The fact that both shows aired on PBS and were produced in Montreal is also suspect.

[[WMG: Fern is WesternAnimation/SagwaTheChineseSiameseCat reincarnated as an anthro dog.]]
They share the same voice actress, have similar personalities and tend to be playful.

In DW's flashback in "Tales From the Crib", a younger Arthur is weirdly paranoid about robbers potentially breaking into the house, to the point that they're the first conclusion he jumps to whenever he hears a noise at night. It's possible that the Reads were subject to a (most likely minor) robbery incident at some point and Arthur was shaken by the memory for a while. DW, at the time, was too young to properly process it and so wasn't as affected.

In the series she is shown to be good at most things except for cooking. She is a really bad chef and seems at times to be self conscious about it. This could explain why she feels this way. Her husband ,being old school expected his wife to cook. When see didn't he divorced her.

We are never given any information on Dave's dad (Thora's husband). We are led to assume he passed away before the show began. This is really the only possible explanation we are given as to how he might have passed away

Episode titles like "All Will Be Revealed" and "All Grown Up" really make it seem like the show may finally be getting some closure. Although, of course, "The Last Day" happened way back in Season 19 (with ''no'' closure, because everyone is still--or again--in the 3rd grade), and Arthur is definitely a CashCowFranchise, so this is unlikely, but still possible.

We see throughout the series that DW has a very active and vivid imagination, having lots of daydream sequences. However, despite Nadine being imaginary, DW interacts with her in real time in the real world, which shows that DW associates Nadine with reality, as if she was once a real person. The reason she imagines Nadine to help her bug Arthur is because of DW's anger and envy that Arthur has so many friends that are all still alive, that she had to lose one of her few friends while all of Arthurs are still kicking. It also stands to reason that imagining Nadine is DW's method of grieving, even fitting the first three stages of grief: Denial (pretending that Nadine isn't gone), Anger (directing her pain at her brother out of envy-born-frustration), and Bargaining (allowing herself to believe that even though Nadine is dead, she can still keep her alive in a different way). She's coping with the death of her best friend the only way a five-year-old can.

Because it was that or have to eat [[LethalChef Grandma Thora]]'s cooking.

Pretty much any character could work depending how dark you want to go. Obvious choices include Mr. Haney as he was written off the show due to his voice actor passing away. This could make it more finite. One of the older residents are also a good candidate. For a really dark episode, it could be one of the parents or Mr. Ratburn. However, this is unlikely as it would alter the continuity too much.

During the flash forward in "And now let's talk to some kids," When Buster comes up, Francine asks "whatever happened to him?" It's possible that Buster got caught up in some government conspiracy involving aliens and had to be hidden away which would explain him never being seen again.

[[WMG: The reads had another child]]
This child was Nadine. Of what we see of Nadine, it is very likely that she is a ghost. A likely explanation is that she was a child who was either twins with Arthur or born right after or right before him. Arthur then accidently caused Nadine's death. This all happened before DW was born. This would explain their seemingly hatred towards Arthur for no reason. He caused the death of one of their children.

The Ratburn siblings were actually in cahoots with each other to teach Arthur and co. a BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor-type lesson. Nigel seems too smart to actually let his sister essentially sabotage his lesson plans for the quarter in question, so it makes more sense if he was in on the whole thing.

It's likely that there was a real Nadine. She was a student in DW's preschool class who died (likely from an illness). DW, being young and not understanding what happened pretends that Nadine is still alive in the form of her imaginary friend.

It explains the parental favoritism. It's likely that Jane and Dave had bigger dreams that they had to give up to raise him.

* I thought Ed. Crosswire was already that. Maybe it will will involve him running for mayor and making ridiculous policies.

[[WMG: At one point, the show will have an expy of Creator/DonaldTrump]]

* I think your both right, it’s showing that parents are people... Yet she doesn’t get punished as much as she should. She honestly only seems to get punished when she inconveniences the two of them they didn’t punish her when she broke Arthur’s plane or when she lied about her voice still being lost both of those times involved Arthur‘s suffering (they didn’t mean to make him suffer the second time but they refused to believe him.)

* It’s possible David and Jane (their parents) were in on it, the guy seems to be around their age and maybe they wanted to be a little creative with the punishment.

* I think your both right, it’s showing that parents are people... Yet she doesn’t get punished as much as she should. She honestly only seems to get punished when she inconveniences the two of them they didn’t punish her when she broke his plane or lied about still having her voice lost but she gets grossed out over spinach and they (justifiably) punished her for getting her meal on the waiter. She deserved it and was punished but she’s also done worse and wasn’t punished for those things.