I'm just going to talk about what I love most about this show, and that is how it portrays the inner minds of the child characters. Their Imagine Spots, often in the form of flash forwards, are startlingly accurate to how children think the world works.
Arthur, in his anxiety over messing up a school performance of a piano piece, envisions a flash forward in which he is a homeless beggar, whom no one will hire because of that one error, while his sister DW has become famous as the "Hiccup Kid", for having constant hiccups.
On discovering Mr. Ratburn has a sister, the kids imagine her to be just as much of a taskmaster as he is. They picture Mr. Ratburn and his sister eating cereal composed of nuts and bolts for breakfast, just to showcase how cartoonishly evil they're supposed to be. Not only this, but the two Ratburns are envisioned to have a bit of a pissing match over who's the biggest hardass, by boasting how they eat their nuts and bolts without milk, or offering to eat the other's errant screw.
When about to win a game show, Arthur wonders what will happen if he keeps winning, and imagines himself still playing it when he's old and grey and too senile to even remember the question.
Wanting a particular musician to come visit their library, while DW wants a violinist to visit instead, Arthur and co. picture the two musicians having a musical wrestling match — in a ring and everything — wherein they turn props into instruments and try to sabotage the other's playing ability.
DW in one episode pictures herself living in the ceiling above the grocery store, being "The Phantom of the Store" who rappels down to steal food and then disappears, always evading capture.
Obviously, the real world does not work this way at all — but young children chronically imagine that it does. I simply love that Arthur gets childlike imagination right, especially considering how often Imagine Spots can crop up just in a single episode.
Realistic depiction of how a child's mind works
I'm just going to talk about what I love most about this show, and that is how it portrays the inner minds of the child characters. Their Imagine Spots, often in the form of flash forwards, are startlingly accurate to how children think the world works.
Arthur, in his anxiety over messing up a school performance of a piano piece, envisions a flash forward in which he is a homeless beggar, whom no one will hire because of that one error, while his sister DW has become famous as the "Hiccup Kid", for having constant hiccups.
On discovering Mr. Ratburn has a sister, the kids imagine her to be just as much of a taskmaster as he is. They picture Mr. Ratburn and his sister eating cereal composed of nuts and bolts for breakfast, just to showcase how cartoonishly evil they're supposed to be. Not only this, but the two Ratburns are envisioned to have a bit of a pissing match over who's the biggest hardass, by boasting how they eat their nuts and bolts without milk, or offering to eat the other's errant screw.
When about to win a game show, Arthur wonders what will happen if he keeps winning, and imagines himself still playing it when he's old and grey and too senile to even remember the question.
Wanting a particular musician to come visit their library, while DW wants a violinist to visit instead, Arthur and co. picture the two musicians having a musical wrestling match — in a ring and everything — wherein they turn props into instruments and try to sabotage the other's playing ability.
DW in one episode pictures herself living in the ceiling above the grocery store, being "The Phantom of the Store" who rappels down to steal food and then disappears, always evading capture.
Obviously, the real world does not work this way at all — but young children chronically imagine that it does. I simply love that Arthur gets childlike imagination right, especially considering how often Imagine Spots can crop up just in a single episode.