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Trivia / Arthur

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  • Accidentally-Correct Writing: The Hawaiian island of Kauai has both a number of caves and a wild chicken population, making Binky's drawing of "cave chickens" in "The Cave" entirely feasible in Real Life.
  • Acting for Two:
    • Melissa Altro voices both Muffy and Lisa, the gray rabbit girl in D.W.'s class.
    • Hilariously, D.W. and James have shared two of the same voice actors in different seasons. Robert Naylor voiced James in season 8 before voicing D.W. from seasons 11-15, while Christian Distefano voiced James in season 18 before voicing D.W. throughout seasons 20-21.
    • David (the title character's father), Binky, and Bailey are all voiced by Bruce Dinsmore.
    • The late Walter Massey provided the voices of Principal Francis Haney and Mr. Marco.
    • Arthur Holden voices Mr. Ratburn, Bionic Bunny/Wilbur Rabbit, and numerous other incidental characters and announcers.
  • Actor Allusion: "The Ballad of Buster Baxter"’s guest star Art Garfunkel previously provided songs for the also rabbit-themed Watership Down.
  • Actor Existence Limbo: Following Walter Massey's death on August 4, 2014, the character of Principal Haney was written out as having left Elwood City to follow his dream of starting a school in Tanzania in the Season 20 episode "The Hallway Minotaur".
  • Approval of God: Marc Brown expressed appreciation that the show has become a pop culture meme mainstay, and found it funny when celebrities like Lebron James and John Legend used memes from the show.
  • Ascended Fanon: For years, the fanbase observed things like Mr. Ratburn's hobbies and some behaviors on his part which were categorized as effeminate, and decided that he was most likely gay; production ran with it and gave him a husband.
  • Ascended Fanon: Fans analyzed Nigel Ratburn's stereotypically effeminate mannerisms and hobbies and spent decades buzzing about the possibility of him being gay before he married a man in Season 22.
  • Ascended Meme:
    • The season 24 episode "Arthur's Big Meltdown" has Arthur clenching his fist in a similar way to the infamous "Arthur's Big Hit" episode.
    • The episode "D.W.'s Name Game" has a moment where D.W. approaches Arthur's room which clearly has a message saying "Arthur's Room. D.W. not allowed. Mary Moo-Cow is a bad show." D.W. then puts her hands on her hips and responds "That sign can't stop me because I can't read!". this would later become a mocking meme format where someone ignores obviously good advice and pretends they don't understand.
  • Banned Episode:
    • Due to the Lance Armstrong doping scandal, a total of five episodes have been pulled from the rerun rotation on PBS, all of which either feature Armstrong himself or a parody of him named "Vance Legstrong", or are paired with such an episode: "Binky vs. Binky/Operation: D.W.!", "Room to Ride/The Frensky Family Fiasco", and the original version of "The Great MacGrady". The first four of these episodes are still available on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and YouTube Premium. "The Great MacGrady" was removed from iTunes and Amazon in early 2022 (almost a decade after it stopped airing on television), but is still available on other services. In mid-2022, it was uploaded to the official PBS Kids YouTube channel for some reason.
      • The print version of "The Great MacGrady", used as a parents' and teachers' guide on the PBS website, has Armstrong and references to his cycling wins completely removed from the story, being replaced with Bitzi's ex-beau, Harry Mills, as the one who previously had cancer and who Francine reaches out to instead of Armstrong. The episode was also remade for television during season 24, with Armstrong's role in the episode being replaced by the series' fictional wrestler, Uncle Slam Wilson.
    • The S17 episode, "Ladonna Compson: Party Animal", has been banned in certain international cities, such as Moscow, Rome, and others, because the scene in which Bud ruins Ladonna's apple pie is somehow considered offensive in these parts of the world. Although it could also be that many Moral Guardians took offense to the word "Party Animal", which does have a negative connotation (see: whore, gold digger) in certain countries.
    • Due to its depiction of a same-sex marriage, the S22 episode "Mr. Ratburn And The Special Someone" was banned from airing on Alabama Public Television. The same goes for its sister episode, "The Feud". Alabama PBS stations replaced it with a rerun of a previous episode. Because of this, the First United Methodist Church in Birmingham got permission from WGBH to host a free screening of the episode on June 15, 2019.
  • Blooper:
    • In some shots, Sue Ellen's Egypt poster misspells the country as "Eygpt".
    • In "Return of the Snowball", the animators accidentally used the wrong aliens in showing they had indeed stolen D.W.'s snowball, as "D.W.'s Snow Mystery" established the early seasons' alien design (green-skinned humanoids but with multiple extended eyes and tubular mouths) as having stolen it. "Return of the Snowball" used the exposed-brain lizard-looking alien design instead, which in the previous episode was established solely in Buster's Imagine Spot theory of aliens stealing it, rather than what actually happened.
  • The Character Died with Him: With Joan Rivers having died several years earlier, the season 25 episode "Listen Up!" has her character Bubbe die offscreen.
  • Children Voicing Children: Numerous boys on Arthur have been voiced by actual boys, including the title character. Oddly enough, D.W. has always been voiced by prepubescent young boys as well. Arthur, D.W., Brain, George, the Tibble twins, and several other younger boy characters have been recast several times throughout the show's 21-year run. Some female kids were voiced by actual girls, and several of them stayed on voicing their characters as they grew up older.
  • Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: Because Steven Crowder is the one most often associated with Alan "Brain" Powers, most people assume he was right there from the beginning as the voice of the character. In actuality, it was originally Luke Reid who voiced him for seasons 1-4; Crowder only voiced him for seasons 5-6.
  • Creator Backlash:
    • WGBH (the Boston PBS station that produces the show) was never entirely pleased when the show became a major source of memes, with many being NSFW. Their basic response was that they appreciated the love for the show from millennials who grew up with the show but expressed disdain for numerous memes that were considered to be of poor taste.
    • In a Facebook Live interview, executive producer Carol Greenwald revealed that the season 8 episode "Bleep" has been the most controversial with the most mailed-in feedback from viewers. She stated that they wished they handled the subject matter better seeing that the episode comes off as too raunchy.
  • Creator's Favorite:
    • At a New York Comic Con panel, some of the writers admitted that George was their favorite character, on grounds that he's so interesting to write for, given how creative, imaginative, and inventive he is, despite being withdrawn, shy, and timid.
    • Marc Brown has said a few times that D.W. is his favorite character.
  • Cross-Dressing Voices:
    • All of D.W.'s voice artists have been young boys (in order: Michael Caloz, Oliver Grainger, Jason Szwimer, Robert Naylor, Jake Beale, Andrew Dayton, Christian Distefano, and Ethan Pugiotto). In an interview with voice director Debra Toffan, she said that the reason they did so is because the girls who auditioned all had sweet-sounding voices and were unable to provide D.W. with the husky voice that fit a bratty Tomboy with a Girly Streak like her.
    • At least two of George's voice artists have been female (Samantha Reynolds and Eleanor Noble).
    • Bud is also voiced by a woman (Julie Lemieux).
    • The games produced by ImageBuilder* would give one to Arthur himself (Pamela Adlon). Brain also gets one in these games (Mary Kay Bergman).
  • Cross-Regional Voice Acting:
  • Defictionalization: The Deep Dark Sea computer game from "Arthur The Wrecker" (or Arthur's Computer Disaster in the books) would become a playable game in the Arthur's Computer Adventure game from the Living Books series.
  • Early-Bird Release: The episode "Whip. Mix. Blend./Staycation" was released on a DVD in January 2015 before it aired on television in any country. The episode's first proper American broadcast was in September of that same year.
  • Edited for Syndication:
    • At least some PBS stations aired a shortened version of "Double Tibble Trouble/Arthur's Almost Live Not Real Music Festival" during PBS telethons, with the "A Word from Us Kids" segment and Mr. Ratburn's "Just a Little Homework" song edited out.
    • The "A Word from Us Kids" segment never airs in certain international markets; it's usually cut to allow time for commercials.
    • Also, as of later, some networks, notably the ABC and CBBC, seem to be splitting episodes in half, doubling episode count but halving the episode runtime. Needless to say, when this is done the "A Word from Us Kids" segment is removed.
    • "When Carl Met George" has an alternate title, "George and the Missing Puzzle Piece", likely because the former was misconstrued as homoerotic, or some station executives felt that it would be.
  • Executive Meddling:
    • The Imagine Spots (see the main page) were used less and less later in the show's run, as research turned up that they confused kids.
    • According to Peter Huggan, a storyboard artist for the show's fourth season, he and the other artists had a storyboard showing Arthur punching D.W. for "Arthur's Big Hit", which didn't make it into the final product because it was deemed too violent to meet PBS' standards and practices, so he ended up sketching out the now-iconic shot of Arthur shaking his fist in fury on a post-it note and slapped it over the shot of Arthur punching D.W. to get around the restriction.
  • Fan Nickname: "Annika Lundgren" for George's sister, who is never given a canon name in the series.
  • Flip-Flop of God:
    • Is Prunella a rat or a poodle? Different sources say different things, though the most common consensus is she's a rat who just has curly hair, since her face looks a lot like Mr. Ratburn's.
    • In one interview, Marc Brown said that the character of Marina was a "variation of a dog", despite looking like a rabbit. In a discussion with fans, series producer and director Greg Bailey said that Marina is a rabbit, the designers had given her a dog nose by mistake, and it went unnoticed until after the fact.
  • From Entertainment to Education: The song "In My Africa" from the episode of the same name has been used to teach the names of all 54 countries in Africa.
  • He Also Did: Somewhat infamously, one of the voice actors for The Brain was a young Steven Crowder, who would later go on to become a controversial conservative comedian and pundit. He voiced The Brain during seasons 5 and 6.
  • In Memoriam:
    • "The Last Day" is dedicated to Nemo's voice actor, Greg Kramer.
    • "Brain Sees Stars" is dedicated to Walter Massey, who voiced Mr. Haney and Mr. Marco.
    • "Crushed" is dedicated to Pat Harris, who was Greg Bailey's friend and colleague.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes:
    • The show has been screwed in certain countries, notably Malaysia. Thus, subsequent seasons became No Export for You. Only season 7 (under the name "Sleepovers, Sports and More"), season 10, season 11, season 22 (under the name "Arthur Celebrates Community"), and season 25 (under the name "Believe In Yourself!") received boxset releases in the United States, and S1-3 are only available on DVD in the UK (confusingly enough, the second season is split across two boxsets without any proper indication, which can lead one to believe they span the first four seasons, despite the fact that the Series 2 and 3 sets are both season 2). Only selected episodes from earlier seasons are available on DVD.
    • An Italian dub of the show aired on Italia 1 for 8 seasons and was canceled when the dubbing company went bankrupt. Despite airing for a pretty long time, no footage has surfaced, nobody seems to remember and, strangely, the theme song was never rereleased, unlike others by Cristina D'Avena.
    • Early seasons don't get nearly as much airtime on main PBS stations anymore, though the PBS Kids subchannel that a lot of markets have are thankfully beginning to remedy this (they tend to show two episodes each weekday — the first being the same one you typically see on the main feed, and then a "classic" one). Amazon Prime has all the seasons if you subscribe to their PBS channel.
    • Seasons 12-15 have widescreen versions that are very hard to find in the US; the PBS Kids website and other streaming services have them cropped to 4:3. The 16:9 HD versions are available on the Australian iTunes store.
    • The original dubbed version of season 6 with Arthur's Justin Bradley voice is hard to find on The Internet, but never actually lost. It's actually kept by other English-speaking television networks, including The BBC in the UK. It's also heard on some DVD releases. To this day, PBS airings of season 6 in the US retain Bradley's voice on the Descriptive Video Service (DVS) audio track for the visually-impaired, although it is sometimes overlayed by the DVS narrator.
    • The second hour-long special, Arthur: It's Only Rock N Roll only aired a small handful of times when it was originally released, got one single VHS and DVD release, and has never been seen since. Compounding it is the fact that the DVD version is very rare, thanks to it still being released in the format's formative years. An Enforced example, due to the Backstreet Boys' co-starring role that would be completely lost on children today.
    • In-Universe example: S10's "Unfinished" has the book 93,000,000 Miles in a Balloon, but since it had been so long out of print, Arthur tries desperately to find another printing of it that has the last few pages, since his doesn't. Even worse when the only adaptation the book ever received was an In Name Only backstage musical viewable on 16mm.
  • Kids' Meal Toy: In 2008, it got a CD-ROM game, a phone calculator, stickers, and a stationary kit at Wendys.
  • Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: In-Universe, there is a spoof of the Lord of the Rings Special Edition Director Cut DVD boxset, that Buster watched in S12's "The Chronicles of Buster". The DVD had 1001 hours worth of special features, commentary, and uncut footage. He watched it for about a month.
  • Marathon Running: In February 2022, the show had a huge marathon of almost every single episode on the 24/7 PBS Kids channel.
  • Milestone Celebration:
    • "Elwood City Turns 100!" (100 episodes), "Happy Anniversary" (10 years), "Fifteen" (15 years), "The Last Day" (20 years).
    • The Episode Title Cards for season 10 had a 10 roll on the lower right-hand side. As well, there were subtle references to the anniversary with the number 10 appearing in certain locations in various episodes.
    • Season 20 is a Continuity Cavalcade to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary.
  • Missing Episode: As of 2022, five regular episodes (a total of nine stories) are no longer in the national rerun rotation in the United States, and were skipped during the February 2022 mega marathon:
    • "It's a No-Brainer/The Shore Thing", last reran in March 2021. Possibly pulled due to the scene where Brain jokingly draws a noose on a piece of paper and dubs it "noose-paper". The fact that Brain is African-American and was voiced in this episode by right-wing personality Steven Crowder (who is infamous for making offensive comments directed towards minorities on his podcast, and who is said to have used his role as Brain to invoke N-Word Privileges as a teenager) and nooses having frequently been associated with lynchings of innocent black folks (with many real-life hate crimes involving nooses being well-documented) likely contributed to this. This episode pair was also removed from Amazon around the same time.
    • "Arthur Weighs In/The Law of the Jungle Gym", last reran in June 2020. Possibly pulled due to the former story's frequent negative use of words like "fat", "fatty", and "husky", as well as comments such as, "There has been... more of you lately", and/or the latter story's Running Gag of Molly making extremely violent threats to Muffy that have to be censored with loud background noises. This episode pair can still be streamed on Amazon, and clips from both stories are still on the PBS Kids YouTube channel. Ironically, despite the likely reason for the episode's pulling, the clip from "Arthur Weighs In" is titled "Arthur is Husky".
    • "Binky vs. Binky"/Operation: D.W.!", "Room to Ride/The Frensky Family Fiasco", and the original version of "The Great MacGrady" because of Lance Armstrong's doping scandal (see Banned Episode above). "Ride/Fiasco" last reran in March 2012, and "Great MacGrady" in August 2012 (coincidentally, four days before Armstrong was charged). "Binky/Operation" survived a bit longer, last rerunning in January 2013. Years later, "Great MacGrady" was removed from iTunes and Amazon by early 2022, though other stores such as Google Play still have it. The other Lance Armstrong episodes are still available on all services.
    • The Lance Armstrong episodes all survived a bit longer on a small number of PBS stations that had still been locally programming Arthur reruns on their own rotation instead of the national one (such as NJTV in New Jersey, which did so through at least the mid-2010's), though no stations are known to still be doing this as of the 2020's.
    • The specials Arthur's Perfect Christmas, Arthur and the Haunted Treehouse and An Arthur Thanksgiving were also not included in the marathon, due to their respective holiday themes. They do still traditionally air around those holidays.
    • Despite being referenced several times in subsequent episodes, the special Arthur: It's Only Rock N Roll had only aired on PBS once or twice in 2002. It finally aired again as part of the 2022 marathon.
  • No Export for You:
    • S5 onwards is this to many Malaysians that are unable to get Singaporean TV, after the show got screwed by NTV7 back in 2003. Though, if you had Disney Channel Asia at the time, Disney Channel Asia did air the first half of season 5 before pulling it off the air without reason.
      • In fact, many Asian countries didn't even air this show on terrestrial at all, and the only way most people in Asia could've watched the show is if they had access to Disney Channel Asia between 2000 and 2003. As of this writing, the show is still only airing in Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea.
    • In Latin America, the series stopped being dubbed and broadcast after season 5 for unknown reasons, but years later, the movie Arthur's Missing Pal was dubbed for the region using a completely different voice cast. This, alongside its lack of publicity since only the now-defunct cable channel ZAZ, the Latin American versions of Cartoon Network and Boomerang (for a short time), and the Mexican public channel Canal Once have aired the series, makes it unknown in the region despite its popularity and longevity in the United States, with most Latin Americans only knowing about the series due to its Internet memes. PBS also has a SAP track on many of their stations in select markets that may carry the show's Spanish dub... or your station may carry DVS instead.
  • Non-Singing Voice: Arthur's singing voice was provided by Philip Penalosa in Arthur's New Friend and Arthur's Perfect Christmas (his speaking voice at the time being Michael Yarmush).
  • Only So Many Canadian Actors: This show is the animated central nexus of this trope. Because of its status as a Long Runner, many Canadian voice artists and actors have lent their voice to this series, while for others, it was their first role in a television production.
  • The Original Darrin: In the Flash Forward to the future twenty years later in the Grand Finale, Michael Yarmush returns to voice an adult Arthur.
  • The Other Darrin: Arthur, D.W., Brain, and the Tibble twins all change their voice actors every few seasons due to the previous ones going through puberty.
    • Arthur has had TEN voice actors throughout the show's run: Michael Yarmush (seasons 1-5, plus adult Arthur in the series finale), Justin Bradley (season 6), Mark Rendall (season 6 redubbed, seasons 7-8), Cameron Ansell (seasons 9-12), Carr Thompson (Arthur's Missing Pal), Dallas Jokic (seasons 13-15), Drew Adkins (seasons 16-17), William Healy (seasons 18-19), Jacob Ursomarzo (seasons 20-21), and Roman Lutterotti (seasons 22-25). The general consensus is that Arthur's voice gets higher every time his voice actor changes, although people didn't really start complaining until season 9.
    • Arthur's Missing Pal does this to everyone except Buster and Binky (whose actors go under pseudonyms instead due to the production being non-union) by recasting them with Los Angeles voice actors or actual children.
    • The ImageBuilder games, due to being recorded in the US, also did this.
  • The Other Marty: Justin Bradley voiced Arthur in season 6. However, the producers complained he lost Michael Yarmush's vocal range and would make Arthur sound whiny when he was angry. When they hired Mark Rendall, they had him go back and dub over all of Bradley's dialogue. To be fair, most people think Mark Rendall sounded most like Michael Yarmush out of all the voice actors who came after him.
  • Out of Order:
    • This happened occasionally in the early seasons, though it was generally nothing more major than an out-of-order Continuity Nod. For instance, in the first season, Arthur laments Francine for making fun of him having not yet lost a tooth in season 1's "Locked in the Library!", even though "Arthur's Tooth" was never aired until nearly 18 episodes after. In another example, season 2's "Arthur's Knee" has D.W. telling Arthur about the time she climbed the tree, referring to the events of "D.W. Blows the Whistle" — this didn't air until two episodes later.
    • The Rhythm and Roots of Arthur aired almost a year before An Arthur Thanksgiving, despite the latter introducing Aunt Minnie and having a subplot about D.W. not being familiar with her or getting along with her at first. In Rhythm and Roots, they recognize and are friendly with each other.
  • Playing Against Type: All of the boys who have played D.W. have mostly done works where they play innocent, young child characters in contrast to D.W.'s Bratty Half-Pint nature.
  • Post-Script Season: Season 20 seems to be this. Even though D.W. and Arthur were each promoted to the next grade at the end of season 19, they're back in pre-k and the third grade, respectively.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: As revealed in Jason Szwimer's podcast Finding DW, Danny Brochu, the voice actor for Buster, moved to Australia for a year with him being likely to return. Since the creators didn't want to recast the voice with how popular Buster was, it was decided to have Buster go traveling with his dad for the rest of season 2. Danny even continued to voice Buster in minor roles for that season before returning for season 3 along with the character.
  • Recast as a Regular: After Michael Yarmush got replaced by Justin Bradley in Season 6 as Arthur, Yarmush was later recast as Slink, a member of the Tough Customers.
  • Recursive Adaptation:
    • A few of the episodes were adapted into books, and during the show's early run, there were even a few books that were written in conjunction with the episodes. Arthur's Computer Disaster is an adaptation of S1's "Arthur the Wrecker", while Arthur Writes a Story was published around the same time the episode was aired, and even credited as "Adapted from a teleplay by Joe Fallon".
    • A line of chapter books went into print based on episodes of the show as well; unlike the standard Arthur picture books, these almost always followed the TV episode it was based on to a tee with few, if any changes.
  • Recycled Script:
    • The season 5 episode "The World Record" has almost the same plot as the Hey Arnold! episode "World Records" (made three years earlier). In both episodes, the main characters try to break a world record until they settle down on making the world's largest pizza-related dish, with the only difference being that Arthur's attempt at a giant regular pizza is successful while Arnold's pizza puff fails. Both episodes also have a character unsuccessfully trying to break the record for walking backwards (in this case, Buster).
    • "Nerves of Steal" has a similar plot to The Raccoons episode "Stealing the Show!" and the Recess episode "Gus and Misdemeanors" as all of those episodes revolve around characters shoplifting items from a store and feeling guilt over it, with Buster stealing a hot new toy he wants in the former, one of the Pigs shoplifting comic books in the middle, and The being forced to shoplift gum from Kelso's store in the latter.
    • "Buster's Sweet Success" is strikingly similar to another Hey Arnold! episode, "Chocolate Turtles". Both episodes involve a character trying to raise money by selling an absurd amount of chocolates, only for all of them to get eaten before any can be sold. In both cases, the chocolates are hastily replaced with homemade ones that end up tasting awful because they did not follow the recipe properly, landing them in even more trouble.
    • "Buster Makes the Grade" has the same basic premise as the classic Simpsons episode "Bart Gets an F". Both episodes involve a character's (Bart/Buster) lack of studying finally catching up to them and they must make a good grade on an upcoming test or be held back.
    • "Buster the Lounge Lizard" has a very similar premise to the Recess episode "Teacher's Lounge" as both episodes involve the main characters trying to get into the teacher's lounge and them having Imagine Spots of what the lounge is like; both episodes even have a fantasy of the teachers making more difficult homework.
    • An example within the same series; season 12's "The Blackout" is essentially a summertime version of season 4's "The Blizzard", with a scorching heatwave taking the place of the titular snowstorm. The blizzard is even brought up a couple of times, particularly with radio meteorologist Dr. Jake's inaccurate predictions.
    • "The Great MacGrady" was remade for season 24, animated in Toon Boom Harmony puppet animation instead of digital ink-and-paint, and with Lance Armstrong removed, not to mention all the voice actors re-recording the dialogue.
    • "Ladonna's Like List" is very similar to an episode of The Weekenders titled "Murph". Both episodes involve a character wanting to be liked by literally everybody, and obsessing over apparently not being liked by just one person, spending much of the episode going to extreme lengths to get the person to like them. Both characters also have "lists", with Ladonna trying to check off all of her classmates, and Tino passing out flyers to his entire city's population asking if they like him or not, and making note of the ones who said no, particularly the titular Murph. The morals are pretty different, however. Ladonna learns that it was wrong to pretend to care about George just to mark him off a list, while Tino comes to terms with the fact that some people, himself included, just don't like other people for no speficic reason and with no hostility intended.
  • Science Marches On:
    • S1's "Arthur's Chicken Pox" was made in 1996 when most children watching would probably catch it themselves. Nowadays, virtually all babies are given the vaccine (introduced in the US in 1995), so modern children will never go through the disease.
    • S8's episode "Bugged" has Brain bring up the debate whether Pluto is a planet or a dwarf planet. 3 years after the episode aired, Pluto was indeed declared a dwarf planet which gets brought up in the S15 episode "Carried Away".
    • Feathered dinosaurs were still controversial at the time the show first aired in 1996, not to mention Sinosauropteryx was only discovered that year, and the S7 episode "Jenna's Bedtime Blues" (which aired in 2004) showed a small theropod resembling a Jurassic Park-styled Velociraptor. Numerous discoveries of feathered dinosaurs have been made by 2009, with the show reflecting on this in the Cold Open of the S12 episode "On This Spot" which showed a generic alvarezsaurid covered in feathers.
    • In "Muffy's House Guests", peregrine falcons are described as an endangered species, which was accurate during the 80s and 90s. By 2019 when the episode aired, they are now listed as least concern.
  • Screwed by the Lawyers:
    • The main reason why certain seasons of Arthur are never shown or licensed simultaneously with others outside the United States is because of the series' divided international distribution rights. The non-US rights to the first 19 seasons originally were owned by each respective main co-producer: DHX Media, who absorbed Cinar/Cookie Jar in 2012 (the first 15 seasons) and 9 Story (seasons 16-19). Seasons produced by Oasis Animation (season 20 and up) are distributed by PBS' International arm (apparently due to the former's limited distribution capabilities). Currently, PBS also distributes internationally the first 15 seasons since May 2019 (when DHX's rights to those episodes have expired), while 9 Story continues to distribute their episodes outside the US for the time being.
    • Arthur: It's Only Rock and Roll has rarely been seen since it premiered because of the use of songs by the Backstreet Boys, who guest star in the special.
  • Screwed by the Network:
    • One of the shows screwed over by NTV7 in Malaysia - those in South Malaysia are lucky that they'll be able to pick up Singaporean TV which still does carry Arthur. Those in Central Malaysia and further north, or the Borneo states, are just plain screwed.
    • Also mysteriously screwed over by Disney Channel Asia, who yanked the show midway through season 5 in 2002. The reason for the removal is unknown, as Disney Asia still carried many other PBS Kids shows until The New '10s.
    • Owing to the show being a Long Runner, it has become very, very rare to see episodes from the first eight seasons in reruns on PBS affiliates. Beginning in Summer 2014, many PBS stations began airing a double run of Arthur, the second run mostly composing of earlier episodes, seasons 2-4 in particular.
    • Similar to their treatment of Barney & Friends a decade prior, New York City-based PBS affiliate WNET shoved the show into the 6:00AM hour, even as new episodes were being broadcast.
  • Series Hiatus: The show had a nine-month-long delay between season 3 (1998) and season 4 (1999). The reason for the delay is often thought to be that season 3 pushed the episode count to 65 and that Cinar was gauging the popularity of the series to see if it's worth following up with another season or if the show should be relegated to 65-Episode Cartoon status. Some of the Recent seasons, Season 22-25 also experienced a decline after each passing season.
  • The Shelf of Movie Languishment: Or The Shelf of TV Languishment in this case. Many of the final episodes have a 2019 copyright date but wound up airing from 2021 to 2022.
  • Short Run in Peru: A number of episodes are now being released in Canada, Australia, or other non-US markets well before being seen on PBS Kids in the United States. It seems that the studio will produce two seasons in a year (six months per season), and PBS will withhold one season until fall (back to school season) in which it will air both seasons back to back, while in other countries the seasons are aired as soon as production for the season is completed.
  • Similarly Named Works: Both the title of the show itself and an episode are shared with another work(s).
  • So My Kids Can Watch: Larry King starred in an episode of the show for his then two-year-old son Cannon.
  • Technology Marches On: Since this show was made from The '90s and is a Long Runner, this is unavoidable. Many characters have older technology that was commonplace at the time:
    • Seasons aired during the '90s showed Muffy being the only kid who had a cell phone due to her wealth, but as cell phones became more commonplace, the cast all eventually got them. Muffy now has WiFi, while Mr. Ratburn continues to struggle with basic computing... at least until he gets himself a "BoysenBerry" and finally figures it all out.
    • "Locked in the Library!" from the first season would have been over much quicker if Arthur and Francine called or texted their family members from their cell phones. Even if the library didn't have service, it would have WiFi these days, or they could log into the computers.
    • In "Buster's New Friend", "The Brain" mentions that the previous evening he played Space Fighter 9, an online multiplayer game, and that Buster didn't dial into "The Brain"'s computer at 5 PM to play with him as he promised. This was the show's very first reference to the Internet, back in the first season, and such an online multiplayer science-fiction game was depicted as a nerdy interest back then (before the Internet became more commonplace by the end of The '90s).
    • In the episode "Lost!", the conflict starts because Arthur misses his bus stop and doesn't have money to take the bus again; when he goes into a diner to use the phone, the line is broken. He ends up having to explain to the bus driver, who is a Nice Guy and says he'll call Arthur's parents so they don't worry. If he had a cell phone then he could text his parents or vice-versa, or the waitress that gives him a free meal could have dialed his parents using a cell, assuming that the "edge of town" had service or WiFi calling.
    • In "Clarissa is Cracked", the Reads try to find a doll hospital to help repair Clarissa. The one in town is closed, and the one that Jane finds on The Internet has a six-month wait. Thanks to Yelp and online doll hospitals, it would have been relatively easier to find someone to fix the doll.
    • Unusually, even in the most recent episodes made during The New '10s, the Reads are still shown to use a big boxy desktop computer with a CRT monitor, something rarely seen in Real Life during this decade.
    • In "Poor Muffy", Muffy is surprised and disappointed that Francine doesn't have a VCR.
    • Perhaps the silliest case would be "The Longest Eleven Minutes". The main cast is spending the day glued to The Internet when it suddenly goes out, and they all panic not knowing what to do for the rest of the day, never mind that they've been Free-Range Children for the show's entire lifespan. Beyond that, in their pursuit of looking for things to do, they stumble upon an instant camera and an old encyclopedia, and act as if they have never seen either before; both of these things have made appearances and mentions on the show before (for instance, D.W. has an instant camera through the entirety of "Arthur's First Sleepover" and Buster mentions encyclopedias in "Buster's Growing Grudge").
  • Time-Shifted Actor: When Arthur and D.W. appear twenty years older in the series finale Flash Forward, they are voiced by Michael Yarmush (Arthur's original VA) and Nissae Isen respectivly.
  • Unfinished Dub:
    • The Italian dub covers the first eight seasons.
    • The Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese dubs went up to season 5. The European Spanish dub is longer, going up to season 14.
    • The Dutch dub from 1998 was cancelled in 2001 due to RTL 4, which aired the series, discontinuing children's programming. Only the first four seasons were ever aired, ending the dub at 75 episodes.
  • What Could Have Been: In a behind-the-scenes interview for the show's 20th anniversary, Arthur Holden, the voice of Mr. Ratburn among other characters, revealed that he initially auditioned for the role of Arthur. However, in between takes, a producer noticed the way he was talking and said, "That's Mr. Ratburn!"
  • Write What You Know:
    • Marc Brown is originally from Erie, Pennsylvania, and Elwood City bears some fairly strong resemblances to Erie. Interestingly, Ellwood City, Pennsylvania (the only settlement with that name anywhere) is only about 90 miles away from Erie, an hour-and-a-half drive down I-79.
    • According to the Finding DW podcast, "The Chips are Down" was based on a childhood experience by writer Kathy Waugh. As a kid, she ate a food (not a potato chip) and thought she was going to die, and spent days worried about it.
    • In a Variety article, Marc Brown said that "Bleep" was based on a young neighbor of his, who learned a swear word on the school bus.
  • You Look Familiar: Arthur's first-ever voice actor, Michael Yarmush, was dropped after the fifth season due to his voice maturing, but later on he returned to voice minor recurring Tough Customers member Slink.

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