History WesternAnimation / Arthur

* ChristmasSpecial: "Arthur's Perfect Christmas" has a main plot about Arthur and his family, but it also deals with Francine being Jewish and Buster creating his own holiday (Baxter Day).

** D.W. likes animals (except mice, which she's scared of, and Arthur's pet dog Pal, whom she thinks is dumb) and in "D.W.'s Deer Friend" she [[ExactlyWhatItSayOnTheTin befriends a deer]] and even cried over the death of a fish her parents caught. She also takes a liking to Ladonna's pet rat, General Higgings, with Ladonna saying she can play with him whenever she wants.

* GirlsVsBoysPlot: Elementary school kids tend to prioritize and company which members of their own gender, anyway, so it follows that the boys and girls on the show have ganged up against each other on multiple occasions, particularly when the two factions are upset at one another.

** Beginning midway through the series, circa "Sue Ellen's Little Sister", Francine's family members would sometimes call her "Frankie". This has become much more prevalent in the most recent seasons, especially between Francine and her dad. Francine's grandmother puts a Yiddish spin on it and calls her "Frankeleh".

** A book in a bad dream that Francine has is entitled "Francine Frensky: Fraud!"

** In S7's "April 9th", a response to SeptemberEleventh, the characters react to a fire which damages the school. Arthur in particular becomes very worried about his father, who was in the school during the fire. Mr. Read tells him it's ''his'' job to worry about Arthur, not the other way around.

** Beginning midway through the series, circa "Sue Ellen's Little Sister", Francine's family members would sometimes call her "Frankie". This has become much more prevalent in the latest seasons, especially between Francine and her dad. Francine's grandmother puts a Yiddish spin on it and calls her "Frankeleh".

* BrokeEpisode: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] in "Arthur Read: Super Saver": Arthur's parents have been making less money than usual, so Arthur tries to help them save money. His ideas (such as cutting the grass with scissors instead of using the mower) are not the most helpful.

** Happens a lot with the "BeYourself" moral of many episodes. Sometimes, the actual moral seems to be, "Be yourself unless X." For example, in "Fernkenstein's Monster", Fern [[spoiler: changes a scary story she made up so it's tamer]], to placate friends who suddenly claim she is a dark, scary person ("Queen of Darkness" was the term Buster used). So...she's only allowed to pursue her interests and be herself if everyone else thinks it's okay? Other characters have fallen into this trap, too, often members of the "secondary cast".

*** Francine walks in and hits a gong, which Arthur appears in.

*** Arthur finds an umbrella offscreen while in the rain.
*** Buster looks through a circle, which appears as a magnifying glass.

* FurryReminder: It's ''very'' rare, but some lines reference their species. This mostly happened in [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness the first season.]]

** And apparently this trope is played straight again with Carl (a rabbit child) and his mother (an aardvark).

* ThingOMeter: In the episode "Bossy Boots" Brain designs a machine in the episode intro called the "Boss-O-Meter" to measure how many bosses a child has in the life. D.W. makes the machine break down by overloading it.

* AllForNothing: In "Francine's Split Decision," Francine attempts to go between a bowling tournament and her cousin's bar mitzvah, with Brain forming an elaborate plan to do so. However, there are so many hitches that she ends up missing the best parts of the bar mitzvah, and she is so late to the tournament that Muffy ends up winning the game for them. And then Francine gets in trouble and is punished.

* DIYDentistry: In the epsidode "Arthur's Tooth," when he finds out that he is the only one in his class who hasn't lost a tooth yet, he tries to pull his loose tooth out by doing the doorknob method, eating crunchy food, and other methods employed. He then goes to the dentist when all methods fail, and the dentist assures him that all baby teeth fall out naturally and the age of falling baby teeth vary from person to person. At the end of the episode, Arthur's baby teeth finally fall out when Francine throws a soccer ball at his face.

* {{Unishment}}: Francine and Binky attempt to {{invoke|d trope}} this in "Desk Wars" by trying to get Arthur to argue with them so Mr. Ratburn will split them up and someone will be moved to Brain's empty desk, which is right in front of the fan on a very hot day and which Brain's fitted with a solar-powered supplies dispenser. Subverted when Arthur protests that he likes his desk and doesn't want to argue with them, making Mr. Ratburn send ''Arthur'' to Brain's desk. Arthur's not happy about this, especially after Binky moves to his own desk and sweats on in.
* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: In "Francine's Split Decision," Brain devises a cunning plan to allow her to attend her cousin's bar mitzvah and a bowling tournament against Mighty Mountain. Naturally, such a plan dependent on precise timing and details begins to fall apart almost immediately.

* UnwantedGlassesPlot: The first half of ThePilot, "Arthur's Eyes." Arthur tries to get rid of his glasses, but they always come back to him. In the end, he accepts them and his friends think they're cool.

* GoneHorriblyRight: In "To Tibble The Truth," D.W. tells Tommy and Timmy that they may wind up in jail someday if they keep telling lies so, after a nightmare about such, they decide to tell nothing but the raw truth, which includes giving highly offensive opinions of all their friends.

* GoToYourRoom: Happens to D.W. in "Go to Your Room D.W.!" after she threatens to pinch Kate during their playtime.

* GroundhogDayLoop: {{Discussed}} in the opening sequence for "The World of Tomorrow."

* HalloweenEpisode: Season 4's "The Fright Stuff" is about a scary Halloween party at a haunted mansion and Season 11's "Hic or Treat" takes place on Halloween night. There's also an hour-long Halloween special, ''Arthur and the Haunted Tree House''.

** The Brain had to repeat kindergarten.

* HonestJohnsDealership: Crosswire Motors was this in the first two seasons, although it has since obtained a better reputation.

** Alberto takes quickly to any sport he tries.
** In "Framed!" Buster becomes a great painter rather quickly.

** In one episode, Bailey considers designing what we call Crocs, but Muffy says it's a terrible idea.
** In the episode ''Arthur Rides the Bandwagon'' Arthur says that he can do without a Woogle because he thinks he'd have just as much fun clicking a juice bottle cap. Sure enough he immediately attracts the attention of every kid in the park, and soon, in the city!

** Okay, Binky, Grandma Thora? When you make pecan pie, you have to shell the pecans before you put them in.

* TechnicianVsPerformer: [[spoiler: "Mutiny on the Pitch" explores this dynamic. When soccer captain Francine is criticized for being too bossy, she gives the reins over to Buster, who motivates the team emotionally, but is less knowledgeable. With the playoffs on the line, the rest of the team asks Francine to return as captain, and Buster is made an alternate]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':

* PinocchioNose: Arthur has an all-too-obvious habit of fiddling with his glasses when he lies. D.W. lampshades this a few times.
* PlayingSick:
** Happens in S6's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" [[spoiler:where D.W. faked her voice loss so everyone would focus her attention on her. To be fair, D.W.'s voice loss did start out as a real illness, but she recovered faster than expected and liked being catered to.]]
** Happens again in S16's "Brain's Chess Mess" where Rattles fakes a stomachache to avoid playing in a chess tournament [[spoiler:as part of a gambit to get Brain to play against a very smug chess player in his place. Rattles, who was teaching Brain how to play chess, knew Brain and the chess player had a vendetta, but was confident that Brain can win without his help and so faked his illness.]]
* PlayingATree: In Season 1's "Francine Frensky, Superstar," the teaser has Arthur flashing back to some of Francine's rough class play roles, including playing a cherry tree for George Washington to chop down. Additionally in the main story, as part of the class's Thomas Edison play, Arthur is cast in the role of the first phonograph, Buster as the first incandescent light bulb, Sue Ellen as a kinetoscope, and Binky as a train. This excites Binky, as he can be really steady when playing non-living objects, which he recalls...
-->'''Binky''': I was the wall in ''Humpty Dumpty''; I was Plymouth Rock on Thanksgiving. I hope there's a wall in this play, because I'm real steady.
** In "Sue Ellen and the Brainasaurous," Francine got a role in Brain's report on Napoleon. She was the map.
* PlotAllergy:
** In S9's "Binky Goes Nuts", Binky develops a peanut allergy, which he is initially none too happy about, but comes to terms with it with the help of classmate Jenna, who's allergic to milk. His peanut allergy is occasionally referenced in later episodes.
** Seasons 16 and 19 have the Tough Customers' Rattles saying he's lactose intolerant; he can't eat anything with dairy in it.
* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: "Postcards from Buster", which seems to pretty openly set up the show of the same name.
* PosterGalleryBedroom: Alberto Molina has one with Bionic Bunny posters.
* POVCam: "You Are Arthur" is drawn from Arthur's point of view to fit the premise that the viewer and Arthur are pretending to be each other for the day, with the viewer inside Arthur's head looking out and Arthur outside his own head looking in.
* PragmaticAdaptation: “D.W. Tale Spins”, an adaptation of ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', cuts out the story’s more extraneous elements (Aeolus, Circe, Tiresias, Calypso, the cattle, etc.).
* PrankCall: Francine and Muffy try to prank call Francine's new neighbor in "Francine Goes to War" with the "Is your refrigerator running?" gag but they mess it up horribly. First Francine, giving a false name, asks if her refrigerator is ''on'', then Muffy calls back and asks the question properly but give Francine's name and identity away. Francine's father is not to pleased to know Francine tried the prank call.
* ThePrimaDonna: Francine in the Season 1 episode "Francine Frensky, Superstar" when she gets the title role of UsefulNotes/ThomasEdison in a SchoolPlay. She goes on a power trip and acts like she is running the show - with an iron fist. She even deeply offends Muffy after criticizing Francine's research as "boring", yells at Mr. Ratburn in the face when she discovers a flaw in Sue Ellen's kinetoscope costume, and threatens "The Brain" to remove the air holes from Buster's incandescent light bulb costume (complete with the Tough Customers {{Leitmotif}} accompanying her threatening.) So during a performance for the kindergarteners, the other kids intentionally sabotage the play to teach Francine a lesson.

** A few episodes from the later seasons follow this naming scheme as well:

* AmicableExes: Buster's parents.

** D.W. herself; She openly dislikes being referred to as Dora Winifred, and instead prefers to go strictly by her initials.

** In "Jenna's Bedtime Blues," Jenna is embarrassed to go to Muffy's fancy girls-only sleepover because [[EmbarrassingDampSheets she wets the bed]].

** Varies depending on who's involved in the episode, and, in some cases, what happens to them. S5 would see the use of a slot machine title card where Arthur would just spin the slots, and it would show the face of Muffy, Sue Ellen or George if the any of those three are the main character of the episode. Specific title cards would be retired by S14 (S16 in U.S. airings), where sneak peaks of the episode are shown instead.

** In D.W.'s group, Emily was mostly just a "perfect" rival for D.W. in her first appearance. Later episodes focus more on her interest in France, reading French books and learning it from her nanny.

* HiredHelpAsFamily: The wealthy Crosswire family has a butler named Bailey and they're all on pretty good terms with him, but Muffy in particular sees him as a pal.

** A few episodes follow this naming scheme as well:

** Inverted starting with S16, which is [[LimitedAnimation very noticeably]] animated in-house using Flash to cut production costs (a trend that has also hit ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents''). Also inverted by seasons 12-15[[note]]by Creator/AnimationServiceHK[[/note]], which also exhibits a noticeable drop from the previous seasons by Creator/{{AKOM}}.

** S6's "More!" when D.W. asks how much allowance everyone has.

* Buster does one when he learns that Arthur is going away for the weekend in "The Substitute Arthur".