History YMMV / Arthur

* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: The show runs into this issue a lot with its {{Aesop}}s. Often, the kids will try to do something that seems fun, but will end up learning a lesson from it (i.e. reading a scary comic in "Tales of Grotesquely Grim Bunny", watching a relatively violent kids' show in "[[Recap/ArthurS3E10AttackOfTheTurboTibblesDWTricksTheToothFairy Attack of the Turbo Tibbles]]"), or get stopped by their parents (i.e. watching a PG-13 spy movie in "[[Recap/ArthurS2E4ArthurMakesAMovieGoToYourRoomDW Arthur Makes a Movie]]"). This can come off as making the parents on the show seem overly strict and controlling, especially since many of these are things that kids Arthur's age actually ''do'' like doing.

* DesignatedHero: D.W. can be this sometimes due to her [[{{Wangst}} whiny]], [[BrattyHalfPint bratty]], and occasional SmugSnake behavior and the fact that she [[KarmaHoudini almost never faces any consequences]] for such behavior. And yet the show often treats her like a good guy or a victim. She's often seen as the female FunnyAnimal version of WesternAnimation/{{Caillou}}.

** Fern, especially in "[[Recap/ArthurS2E1ArthurMeetsMisterRogersDraw Draw!]]" where she's mercilessly teased by Francine, and "[[Recap/ArthurS2E15GrandmaThoraAppreciationDayFernsSlumberParty Fern's Slumber Party]]" where she struggles to overcome her shyness. It gets to the point that whenever Francine goes through hell, some people think of it as karmic payback for all the nasty things she's done to Arthur and Fern.

** While not without her detractors, Fern seems to be very popular with a good portion of the fanbase because of her introverted, yet charismatic personality and for being a supporting character with a lot of depth.

** People often remember "Grandpa Dave's Memory Album" as "the one where Grandpa Dave develops Alzheimer's". In reality, while it is a brain condition that affects his memory, the specific condition is left unsaid.
* CreatorsPet: D.W. can be this sometimes due to her [[{{Wangst}} whiny]], [[BrattyHalfPint bratty]], and occasional SmugSnake behavior and the fact that she [[KarmaHoudini almost never faces any consequences]] for such behavior. And yet the show often treats her like a good guy or a victim. She's often seen as the female FunnyAnimal version of WesternAnimation/{{Caillou}}.

** Ed Crosswire is frequently an antagonist, though only because his business ventures frequently impact a member of the cast negatively, or he overreacts to a situation. He's actually a very nice, reasonable guy if you can prove that he is wrong.

* DesignatedHero: D.W. can be this sometimes due to her [[{{Wangst}} whiny]], [[BrattyHalfPint bratty]], and occasional SmugSnake behavior and the fact that she [[KarmaHoudini almost never faces any consequences]] for such behavior. And yet the show often treats her like a good guy or a victim. She's often seen as the female FunnyAnimal version of WesternAnimation/{{Caillou}}.

*** "[[Recap/ArthurS1E18ArthursChickenPoxSickAsADog Arthur's Chicken Pox]]", when during a flashback to the previous time the Read family went to the circus, a CruelElephant snatches D.W.'s cotton candy and ice cream cone in its' trunk, causing her to scream.

** In the Seaoson 6 episode "Brother, Can You Spare a Clarinet?", Binky and the Tough Customers try to sabotage the music tryouts by using an "anti-music machine" to make a horribly loud noise. At one point, they try to use the boy's bathroom to set up the machine, but Mr. Morris hogs the bathroom so they can't. There's a possibility is that Mr. Morris ''knew'' that Binky and the Tough Customers were up to no good and he purposely hogged the bathroom to thwart their plans. The fact that the Tough Customers stood by the entrance watching Mr. Morris didn't help their case. Also, Mr. Morris looks at them at one point with suspicion, as if he was catching on to them.

** The UsefulNotes/PlayStation title, ''VideoGame/ArthurReadyToRace'', was at least decent, and the PC/Mac titles (particularly the VideoGame/LivingBooks titles) are loved as many children who grew up in the late '80s and '90s were introduced to ''Arthur'' by means of the Living Books titles.

* TheProblemWithLicensedGames: The UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor title, ''VideoGame/ArthursAbsolutelyFunDay'', is described by many as excruciatingly painful to play (it's not "absolutely fun"). It consists entirely of incredibly basic and boring minigames. The graphics aren't the best, either, and the characters look rather strange. Even when it had music by Music/TommyTallarico, the music was made painful to hear due to mishandling of the Game Boy Color's dated audio hardware[[note]]one thing the Game Boy's audio subsystem is good at is producing very shrill, high-pitched tones. And a lot of the game's music made use of high-pitched notes. Guess what happens next[[/note]].

** In "[[Recap/ArthurS2E13WaterAndTheBrainArthurTheUnfunny Arthur The Unfunny]]" he tries everythinghe can to be funny, but in "[[Recap/ArthurS16E10SoFunnyIForgotToLaughTheBestDayEver So Funny I Forgot To Laugh]]", he tells jokes that become toomean to be considered funny.

* In "[[Recap/ArthurS2E13WaterAndTheBrainArthurTheUnfunny Arthur The Unfunny]]" he tries everythinghe can to be funny, but in "[[Recap/ArthurS16E10SoFunnyIForgotToLaughTheBestDayEver So Funny I Forgot To Laugh]]", he tells jokes that become toomean to be considered funny.

* In "[[ArthurS2E13WaterAndTheBrainArthurTheUnfunny Arthur The Unfunny]]" he tries everythinghe can to be funny, but in "[[ArthurS16E10SoFunnyIForgotToLaughTheBestDayEver So Funny I Forgot To Laugh]]", he tells jokes that become toomean to be considered funny

** Sue Ellen, due to being the friendliest and kindest of Arthur's friends. Notably the episode "[[Recap/ArthurS2E20HowTheCookieCrumblesSueEllensLittleSister Sue Ellen's Little Sister]]" where she feels left out during the brother and sister race and wishes she had a little sister.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Given the show's myriad of characters, it's perhaps to be expected that [[spoiler:the DistantFinale in "[[Recap/ArthurS25E4BlabbermouthAllGrownUp All Grown Up]]"]] couldn't account for ''everybody'', but a number of major characters are still conspicuously absent from it, such as Sue Ellen, Prunella, the Tibble twins, Fern, the other Tough Customers, and even Brain.

** "[[Recap/ArthurS2E7ArthursTVFreeWeeknightFright Arthur's TV-Free Week]]" aired during a time where the most technology kids had, aside from TV itself, were video games, and probably computers. With technology such as smartphones and tablets, not to mention the ''{{Internet}}'', becoming near-ubiquitous, kids struggling to merely not use a television set seems pretty quaint, as they could easily distract themselves from a TV with these things. Each of these also allow a person to watch anything they want at a whim. These days, the concern is that kids (and society) are often too addicted to technology, so a more modern take on this episode would likely be something along the lines of "Arthur's Technology-Free Week".

** Arthur in "[[Recap/ArthurS4E1DWsLibraryCardArthursBigHit Arthur's Big Hit]]", when he hits D.W. after she breaks his model airplane. We're supposed to see it as a KickTheDog moment, but the thing is, he's not an aggressive person at the best of times, and he only hit D.W. because he had told her ''numerous'' times not to touch his model and she deliberately disobeyed him, many times, including getting paint on her hands and blaming Arthur for it. Add in the fact that she not only fails to [[BackhandedApology genuinely]] apologize for her actions, she tries to blame ''Arthur'' for it (saying that if he'd built a ''model airplane'' correctly, [[InsaneTrollLogic it wouldn't have crashed when she launched it out the window]]), and the hit becomes justified. There's also Arthur getting hit by Binky. It's supposed to be seen as a [[LaserGuidedKarma deserved karma payback]] for his own hitting of D.W. However, Arthur doesn't actually do anything to Binky to warrant the hit in the first place (and Binky didn't even want to hit Arthur and was forced to do it by his friends in order to prove he was still tough).

** In the episode "In My Africa", D.W. and her new friend from UsefulNotes/{{Senegal}} celebrate the cultures of all 54[[note]]sovereign[[/note]] UsefulNotes/{{Africa}}n countries that existed at the time. The episode aired in 2011, so production dates it to before the independence of UsefulNotes/SouthSudan in 2011. Additionally, in 2018, [[UsefulNotes/{{eSwatini}} Swaziland]] was renamed to Eswatini.

** Season 5 is considered a low point by many longtime fans, primarily for having what many consider a large amount of weak and forgettable episodes, with quite a few plots feeling really forced -- for instance, there's one that focuses entirely on Buster being unable to sleep, and there's another that focuses on dares(despite "[[Recap/ArthurS2E3DWThePickyEaterBusterAndTheDaredevils Buster and the Daredevils]]" already teaching the Aesop about how you shouldn't do dares making the episode feel pointless). The one most audiences ''really'' hate, however, is "[[Recap/ArthurS5E2KidsAreFromEarthParentsAreFromPlutoNervesOfSteal Nerves of Steal]]", which ends with an all-out DownerEnding. The fact it was the first season produced without Joe Fallon (the creative driving force behind the show's first four seasons, who, with some exceptions, wrote several episodes that are beloved by fans to this day) on the writing staff didn't exactly help matters. Season 6 is also considered by some of the other longtime fans to be this instead of Season 5, or sometimes both of them, due to the prevalence of episodes written by Dietrich Smith, this season being the first time Arthur's VA is replaced, and just being fairly weak overall in a similar vein to 5.

** The idea of Arthur getting a pen pal in "Dear Adil" (2003) seems kind of unspectacular after the rise of social media, where one can speak to anyone anywhere in the world in real time. Notably, Arthur and Adil initially write to each other via handwritten letters before switching over to email halfway through the episode. (And in later episodes, Arthur communicates with Adil through what's implied to be instant chat messaging)
Justified however, in that Arthur gets his penpal through Mr. Ratburn via a program facilitated by teachers that matches up their students from around the world. Even with the commonplace use of Internet and social media making it easier to meet new people, it's still a risk for users, at any age, since it's easy for someone to lie about themselves or have underlying ill intentions, especially regarding minors, so this is still a safer method for elementary school children like Arthur to connect and communicate with other verified kids and facilitated by teachers without adults worrying about them speaking to strangers.