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1* AdaptationDisplacement: Some of the games are more well-known than the books they were based off, which is a little jarring given that the games included the original books. Specific examples:
2** Many of the ''Literature/{{Arthur}}'' games are far more well known than their original iterations. In fact, some people have thought that the games were based off [[WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}} the show]], despite being released several years beforehand (with the exception of ''Arthur's Computer Adventure'', which was based on a book that was, in fact, based on an episode of the show).
3** ''Sheila Rae, the Brave'' is more well known than [[Literature/SheilaRaeTheBrave the book]].
4** ''Harry and the Haunted House'' and ''Ruff's Bone'' are both more well-known than the books, but this is justified since those were made to be Living Books.
5* CantUnHearIt: You absolutely will hear the in-game voices and narration next time you read the adapted book. Particularly enforced with books that otherwise never got fully voiced adaptations anywhere else.
6* FanonDiscontinuity: A fair amount of fans pretend ''D.W. The Picky Eater'' isn't a Living Book, saying the series ended with ''Arthur's Computer Adventure'' instead. Most of this results from it being outsourced to Media Station, a company previously known for producing generally cheaper quality ''Living Books'' clones and most of the ''VideoGame/DisneysAnimatedStorybook'' series.
7* FridgeBrilliance:
8** Many characters can be seen sneezing in "Harry and the Haunted House". Perhaps this is because the house is old and (barring the ghosts and {{Animate Inanimate Object}}s) abandoned and thus is probably very dusty.
9** In "The Tortoise and the Hare", three animals [[AlternateAesopInterpretation interpret]] the [[AnAesop moral]] as things other than "Slow and steady wins the race". While Simon is frustrated at this, and it's meant to be them ComicallyMissingThePoint, the morals suggested by them actually make sense:
10*** The weasel gives the moral as "The journey is the reward". In this version of the story, the hare isn't a SoreLoser and makes it clear to the tortoise that he still enjoyed the race despite losing.
11*** The skunk gives it as "Don't act like such a big shot". The hare insulted the tortoise earlier for being slow, so him losing the race could be interpreted as getting his comeuppance.
12*** The pig gives it as "[[MissedMealAesop Always eat a good breakfast]]". This might be a nod to the GluttonousPig trope, but it also makes sense as a moral, since [[AdaptationalExplanation this game explains]] that the reason the hare fell asleep was that he'd [[FoodComa eaten too much]]. Perhaps the pig thought that if the hare had eaten breakfast, he wouldn't have overcompensated by eating too much.
13** In "Dr. Seuss's ABC", the "U" page has Ichabod randomly put on a military uniform. Perhaps he got it from his "crazy costume closet" seen back on the "C" page.
14* GrowingTheBeard: The first two titles aren't quite as well remembered as the other games in the series, and most people point to ''The Tortoise and the Hare'' as the first game to show this.
15* HarsherInHindsight: In ''Arthur's Reading Race'', Page 11 has Arthur feeding Pal his chocolate ice cream cone, [[ArtisticLicenseAnimalCare despite the fact that chocolate is toxic to dogs]]. The TV show episode "Sick As a Dog" has Pal getting very sick due to Arthur sharing him foods that are not appropriate for dogs, including candy. Thankfully, by the 2015 episode "One Ornery Critter", Arthur warns Buster not to have chocolate around dogs since it's really bad for them.
16* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments:
17** Found in the last page of ''The Tortoise and the Hare''. If you click on the Tortoise, he will compliment the Hare for racing and offer a handshake... and the Hare accepts the handshake and congratulates the Tortoise in his victory.
18** On the first page of ''Stellaluna'', Mama Bat says, "I love you, Stellaluna", and Stellaluna replies, "I love you, too!".
19** In ''Arthur's Teacher Trouble'', Mr. Ratburn, despite being a notoriously SternTeacher, pats a girl on the back when he sees that she's sad.
20* HilariousInHindsight:
21** D.W.'s DubNameChange to Dorita in Spanish has become quite humorous as the show has progressed. We have since learned that [[EmbarrassingFirstName being called Dora is one of her]] {{Berserk Button}}s.
22** In the "Frankenfish" activity in ''Arthur's Computer Adventure'', the names of the fish will be changed into portmanteaus of the actual species. One portmanteau is {{Film/Sharktopus}}. Even more hilarious is that the design of this Sharktopus is a shark with an octopus head rather than octopus tentacles.
23** One of the other alternative colorful food options presented alongside Green Eggs and Ham in the matching minigame in ''Green Eggs and Ham'' is a plate of purple pancakes. In November 2023, IHOP [[https://screencrush.com/ihop-wonka-menu/ made purple pancakes a real thing]] as part of a tie-in promotion with ''Film/{{Wonka}}''.
24** In Page 2 of ''Arthur's Reading Race'', Arthur mentions to his mom about birds being descended from dinosaurs and has an ImagineSpot of a Franchise/{{Godzilla}}-sized bird stomping through a city and squishing a car flat. In 2009, the ''Arthur'' TV show episode "On this Spot" would show a small theropod dinosaur (an alvarezsaur, to be exact) covered in feathers to reflect modern paleontological discoveries of feathered dinosaurs.
25* MemeticBadass: The paper airplane in ''Arthur's Teacher Trouble'' became this thanks to its heavy metal theme.
26* MemeticMutation: '''SAID MOM.''' [[labelnote:Explanation]]A particularly [[MachineMonotone monotone]] narration of "said Mom." taken from ''Arthur's Computer Adventure'', by way of WebVideo/PeanutButterGamer.[[/labelnote]]
27* {{Narm}}:
28** During the climax of ''Sheila Rae'', the title character lets out a few screams after taking her bravery a bit too far. Apparently the German dubbers didn't quite understand this, because in that version she lets out the dullest possible sounding scream ever. Throw in the imagery that should look nightmarish and you get an unintentionally hilarious scene.
29** The entire "I hate spinach" sequence in ''D.W. the Picky Eater''. In stark contrast to the TV version that makes it over-the-top in all the right ways, this one could not be further from the opposite. First off, her animation when throwing a fit is very bizarre and rubbery, and she doesn't even yell that loud nor even cause that much of a ruckus. Follow it up with Mrs. Read very unconvincingly saying "I'm so embarrassed" and going back to smiling ''right afterwards'', then Mr. Read very flatly saying "no more restaurants for you," and you get a dramatic scene that hits just about all of the wrong notes.
30* NauseaFuel: The ice cream shop in ''Arthur's Reading Race'' has some...[[CordonBleughChef interesting ice cream flavors]] to say the least. Anybody up for some Frog Chip (which may or may not include a frog inside) or ''[[MasochistsMeal Toenail Crunch]]''? (And yes, the latter flavor is indeed depicted as having toe nails in it.)
31* NightmareFuel:
32** The eponymous location of Deep Dark Sea, a bonus game included with ''Arthur's Computer Adventure''. Upon entering this area (only in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans), the already darkened screen becomes even darker, looking like a dimly lit room. That in of itself is pretty unnerving, [[https://youtu.be/xcUz4KkXhfw?t=16m49s but then you meet the]] [[https://youtu.be/xcUz4KkXhfw?t=21m5s creatures that inhabit the area]]...
33---> '''Buster''': [[LampshadeHanging I-I don't think those are f-friendly fish...!]]
34** In the same game (within a game), your character has a limited amount of air. Letting it run out causes [[FridgeHorror your character to float away off the top of the screen]] as a rather horrifying ScareChord plays. (Bonus points if it was in the above-mentioned area.) Expect discussions about ''Arthur's Computer Adventure'' on videos pertaining to the game to include one person mentioning how badly the ScareChord scared them when they lost at Deep Dark Sea.
35** The first two games have hotspot scenes that are a lot more disturbing than later games. A glaring example is the flour sack on the fifth page of ''Arthur's Teacher Trouble'': Its label is a circle, and if you click it, an arrow lands a bullseye and the flour sack starts coughing and moaning in pain, then its contents pour out ever so slowly as if it was [[BloodFromTheMouth bleeding internally]], before falling to the ground in a puff of flour. How did this get past the censors?
36** The thumbnail for the "Frankenfish" activity in ''Arthur's Computer Adventure.'' Clownfish should '''not''' be that nightmare-inducing.
37* SugarWiki/NoProblemWithLicensedGames: These were immensely popular with kids back in the day, and they were used a lot in classrooms.
38* OnceOriginalNowCommon: When the games originally came out, almost nothing like them had ever been done before. A piece of software with the look and feel of a fully animated hand-drawn cartoon (rather than blocky looking sprite-based graphics) that you could actually interact with was seen as nothing more than a fantasy before these games came out. They also were one of the first very successful examples of an EdutainmentGame that found its perfect sweet spot, that is a game that really was educational without the players even realizing it. In fact, it was so successful that it was considered a KillerApp for CD-ROM drives as far as families and schools were concerned (keep in mind, CD drives were still hardly gaining a foothold back in 1992 when the first game was released; although it didn't affect CD drive sales as much as, say, ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' or ''VideoGame/TheSeventhGuest'', it still says something that many parents and teachers reported buying them just for the sake of running Living Books games). Nowadays, with it establishing the "interactive storybook" subgenre and an onslaught of clones, plus plenty of other hand-drawn computer games coming out in the years down the line, it can be easy to write them off as dated and unremarkable by comparison, and in fact many contemporary players still lump them in as "just another one of those storybook games where you could click everything," neglecting to realize they essentially grandfathered the concept.
39* OlderThanTheyThink:
40** The series could be considered a prototype version of the KineticNovel genre, despite coming out way before the term (or its related term, ''sound novel'') was even ''invented''.
41** The Living Books concept itself had been done before, albeit less successfully, with an obscure Apple II game called ''Explore-a-Story'' by Learningways, Inc.
42* OnlyTheCreatorDoesItRight: Considering the general consensus on ''D.W. the Picky Eater'' (which was made by a completely different development team and is considered very shallow and cheap compared to the other games), and the fact that almost none of the knockoffs succeeded as well as the original series (the GT Interactive Mercer Mayer games notwithstanding, some of which were actually good enough that people thought they really were Living Books games), this trope generally seems to be in full force here.
43* SuspiciouslySimilarSong:
44** The music that accompanies the paper airplane gag in ''Arthur's Teacher Trouble'' bears a strong resemblance to Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone".
45** The flowers in one screen of ''Harry and the Haunted House'' sing a love song with the repeated line "Daisy, Daisy."
46* TearJerker:
47** The MelancholyMusicalNumber that Stellaluna sings on Page 2 of ''Stellaluna'':
48--->'''Stellaluna''': "Alone in this enormous world\
49The trees, the skies, the sun\
50Will I ever find someone?\
51Will I ever find someone?\
52Will I ever find someone that I can call my friend?
53** Speaking of sad songs, the song Sheila Rae sings when she gets lost in "Sheila Rae, the Brave":
54--->'''Sheila Rae''': "I'm all alone, it's just me.\
55How I miss my family.\
56I wish it was yesterday,\
57And I don't feel very brave.
58* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: Any time a camera-moving effect is done. Back in the day, this looked stunning.

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