WMG / Arthur

The main characters aren't all about the same age.

The finale suggests that that the whole series is a book written by Arthur. Also, unlike his "friends," Arthur looks like a teen in the finale, and his sister Kate, who is about 7 years younger than him throughout the series, is suggested to be in elementary school, or high school at the most. The series may be based on the childhoods of several people from Elwood City who aren't the same age in "real life," which explains why the characters don't age as different time periods are presented. While D.W. is an adult, she may actually be Arthur's older sister in "real life."

The Reads had another child

This child was Nadine. Of what we see of Nadine, it is very likely that she is a ghost. A likely explanation is that she was a child who was either twins with Arthur or born right after or right before him. Arthur then accidentally caused Nadine's death. This all happened before DW was born. This would explain their seemingly hatred towards Arthur for no reason. He caused the death of one of their children.

• Jossed Nadine is a squirrel while the Reads are anthropomorphic aardvarks and there's no evidence supporting the fact that Reads had four children. Plus Nadine is DW's imaginary friend!
  • Or maybe Nadine could’ve more been a soft toy, though not seen or mentioned. Just like the way in Barney & Friends, Barney the dinosaur who came to life in one’s imagination is a soft toy.

Elwood City's founder was reincarnated as a duck.

Hence why a duck flies by a statue at the end and why they keep interfering anytime the cast does something he doesn't like such as making Francine miss the first act and causing the flying saucer to break.

Grandpa Dave and Bubby (Francine's grandmother used to date each other

David Read is bisexual and used to date Mr. Ratburn, but they are now Amicable Exes.

He looks like Mr. Ratburn’s husband and shares his personality and profession, and the characters are basically Heterosexual Life-Partners.

Thora's husband divorced her because she could not cook

In the series she is shown to be good at most things except for cooking. She is a really bad chef and seems at times to be self conscious about it. This could explain why she feels this way. Her husband, being old school expected his wife to cook. When she didn't he divorced her.

The car accident Dave Read mentions in the episode "April 9th" killed Thora's husband

We are never given any information on Dave's dad (Thora's husband). We are led to assume he passed away before the show began. This is really the only possible explanation we are given as to how he might have passed away.

Ed Crosswire is a mob boss

• They live a much more extravagant life than you'd expect from a used car salesman. It's obvious they deal in other businesses.
• it also explains why they keep muffy around when she is so nasty to them.

The ghost girl from "The Fright Stuff" is Wednesday Addams.

She has a slightly dark personality and looks around the same age.

This show shifts between parallel realities.

This explains the inconsistencies we see throughout the series. Such as names being changed and the appearance of multiple end of school/beginning of school episodes as well as Sue Ellen being in second grade with them in one reality but not transferring until third grade in another.

• It might also explain some of the opening gags such as Brain being a centaur in "Through the Reading Glasses" and everyone but Muffy being cookies in "How the Cookie Crumbles".

They will make an episode in which a main or supporting character dies.

Sort of like they did with the Mr. Hooper episode of Sesame Street. Possible candidates include...

• Grandma Thora: It's already been done as a creepypasta.
• Grandpa Dave: The episode "Grandpa Dave's Memory Album" reveals that he is in the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease or a similar ailment. If it is Alzheimer's, then this disease is progressive which means eventually this is inevitable.
• Mr Haney: His voice actor passed away recently which was the justification for him leaving to build the school.
• Francine's grandmother. She was voiced by Joan Rivers who is dead.
  • Confirmed.

The reads are Latino/Hispanic.

They have a slightly darker completion and it would explain names such as Dora and Monique (cousin Mo's full name)

Nadine is a ghost.

• This could be a good explanation for babies and animals being able to see her, although is she supposed to have manipulated D.W.'s mind into thinking she made her up?!
• It’s possible DW hasn’t fully lost her abilities to see the things Kate and Pal do. Or she likely tried to make an imaginary friend for herself but couldn’t and Nadine a ghost child who desperately wanted a friend decided to play the part of her imaginary friend for DW. Or Nadine had her soul and spirit but no body or voice so she find someone to help her in her creation. Being a child herself Nadine found DW and said she’d be her friend if DW would give her a new body. There for DW imagined parts of her.
  • She is also trying to find others like herself so when she has to leave when DW no longer needs her she will have a place to go.
• Or Nadine could’ve instead been a stuffed toy like Barney.

The ghosts in Castle manor died when a prank got out of hand.

The ghost girl was the one that caused it, hence her father reminding her of what could go wrong.

Buster will eventually become a teacher at Lakewood Elementary School.

• He’d likely want to help kids who like him have trouble learning at times.

Mr. Ratburn will eventually become the principal of Lakewood Elementary School.

• He’d want to continue being at Lakewood but might want a change when he’s older and feels he’d do great things as a Principal (he’d hire teachers like himself, who challenge their students)

Let me tell you a story.

Long ago, the world was dominated by a violent, warlike species who conducted horrific experiments with biotechnology. After they finally rendered their planet uninhabitable through centuries of pollution and warfare, they departed in interstellar arks, seemingly never to return. But the results of their experiments—various races of intelligent animals designed in the image of their creators—lived on, eventually rebuilding the very civilizations that created them. Some were more successful than others. The crocodilian-based ones only did well in the tropics, and the bird-based ones were simply never numerous. But the ones based on rats, cats, dogs, apes, rabbits, deer, and aardvarks flourished and eventually rebuilt the society of their own creators.But those creators had no intent of leaving their world behind forever. One day they returned, and found that their world had been inherited by others. Knowing that a direct contact would be risky, they only took a single sample from it— a snowball.

On the Arthur show, if someone has 'seen' a spirit in another episode, they can 'see' other people's dream spirits.

I say this because in "Arthur Changes Gears", he and Binky (as "the ghost of bicycles never ridden") go to Prunella's house and Prunella can "see" the GOBNR ghost but mistakes him for "the ghost of lunch tomorrow" one.

At some point, a Wonder Woman Expy will be introduced to go with Bionic Bunny and Dark Bunny.

Needless to say, Francine and Muffy will be big fans of her.

• How feminine is she supposed to be? Francine and Muffy would most likely split the difference of opinion on her.

Muffy is a crime-fighting superhero.

Why else is crime in Elwood City so low? Why else are her friends able to wander around town without worry? The whole spoiled, selfish, pampered weakling shtick? It's just an act. Her family gained their fortune by not-so-honest means, so Muffy needed a way to give back to the city without betraying her family as well. And her valet Bailey, unlike Alfred Pennyworth, seems entirely clueless to her secret double life as well.

• Why Muffy in particular?
• I disagree with your "not-so-honest parents" theory. Her parents are foster parents. She's the Batman. *cue Dark Knight theme.
• No, Muffy is Hit-Girl. And her father is Big-Daddy, and George is Kick-Ass!
  • George has trouble thinking of a tough nickname in "The Boy with His Head in the Clouds", though.
  • Muffy came up with the nickname instead of George.

None of the main characters are animals.

This is just stylistic. They are all human.

• In the episode with Ratburn's Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher sister, they had a Flash Back to a substitute teacher who mumbled everything. When Buster asked what she was saying, Arthur replied "your ears are bigger than mine", which would seem imply that Arthur is "aware" of Buster having rabbit ears.
  • Maybe he just has big ears.
  • Mike Fincke also referred to Buster as a "long-eared kid".
• In the episode in which the class visit a dinosaur fossil site, Mr. Ratburn explains that dinosaurs lived 60 million years before "upright mammals."
  • The latest season seem to support the theory that they are actually humans. For example a rabbit child has an aardvark mother, references to animals, a rabbit character drawing a regular rabbit and pictures that appear to be the outline of humans.
    • Buster's parents are rabbits, not aardvarks.
    • The previous poster is presumably referring to Carl, who is drawn as a rabbit, but has an aarvadark mother.
• Don't buy it. In the episode where Buster comes back from vacation and The Singing Moose (Garfunkel) is referred to by Arthur. "Mom, there's a singing moose outside!"
  • Also the fact that Arthur, at least in the book series, is repeatedly referred to as an aardvark.
• To all the above: Medium Awareness.
  • I guess this would explain away the one you all missed "I'm made of fur, not money!", spoken by Buster after Muffy asks him for club dues.
• I seem to recall one episode where George offends Buster and Arthur by insulting aardvarks and rabbits.
  • Nearly all of the above were in the first season, which had a lot of Early-Installment Weirdness in general.
• In the Season 21 episode Sue Ellen & The Last Page', Buster said "Not just a bunch of HAIRY ANIMALS glued to their cellphones!". This proves that even the current seasons acknowledge that they are animals!

Ratburn is an Eldritch Abomination bent on causing his class eternal grief.

He is similar to Tigger.

• He's the only one of the teachers in the school who doesn't confuse the 3rd-grade curriculum with that of the preschool/kindergarten set. Knowledge is power, and power corrupts, so he is clearly up to something.
  • Yeah, it's pretty clear all Ratburn is doing is challenging his students. There's an episode when there's an academic decathlon or somesuch between the school's third-grade classes, and Ratburn's thrashes the others.
    • Actually, Ratburn's old teacher shows up and thrashes Ratburn's class...
    • Ratburn's old teacher was shown to be cruel and vindictive, as was his class. Besides, it was Arthur who figured out how to pull the sword out of the stone. Ratburn is teaching his students to be more than intelligent.

DW is the Eldritch Abomination feeding off Arthur.

• That's pretty much self explanatory.
  • If she needed Arthur for sustenance, she wouldn't be fine running away to live without him in "D.W.'s Baby".

They will make an episode of Arthur about sexuality.

• They've done a bunch of other tough topics, from cancer to cursing.
  • Yeah, but for a show where the cast is eight?
• There's a good chance it will only air once.
• TiVo it, kids. Never forgets.
• Wasn't there some episode where Arthur started to have feelings towards Francine, but then shrugs it off? It involves a square-dance event.
  • There was also a sequence (in the lice episode) where she successfully passes as a boy when hanging out in the boys' restroom after getting a haircut. I think it would be far too much to expect anything to come of those situations in tandem, though, and considering it will be two to four years before any of them even start puberty, they might simply never bring up sexual attraction beyond "the opposite sex might not be totally icky" no matter how progressive society is by the time Arthur ends. Now, this subject is getting somewhat disturbing, so I'll be over at the Brain Bleach Cafe.
  • He doesn't have feelings towards Francine in that episode. He's grossed out because everyone thinks he does.
• Arthur does episodes that the average 7-year-old can relate to. A seven-year-old can relate to bullying, having hard teachers, knowing people with diseases (asthma, allergies, cancer), etc. No seven-year-old is going to be having sex! Therefore Arthur isn't going to go there!!!
  • An episode vaguely based on something sexual related would be plausible. Something innocent enough to get past the radar and that a lot of kids his age experience. Maybe something about sex ed, the LGBT issues, or new feelings.
• There's a simple reason why this won't happen: parental groups would kill it. Look what happened to the episode of Buster's spinoff series about gay parenting.
  • The episode wasn't even about gay parenting. It was about making syrup in Vermont. One of the characters just happened to have "two moms". It was only mentioned once, but people still went crazy and most stations won't air the episode. So yeah, unlikely that there will be a full-on episode about it, seeing as how the mere MENTION of gay people existing in a children's show is enough to piss people off.
• An adult in the kid's life could be out as gay or bi, and bring in another character of the same gender to show. Seven/eight is a little young for kids to really know about the complexity of sexuality, but having a parent come out will allow the writers to show that it is all right and there is nothing to worry about if a person in their life is gay.
• Talking about sexuality doesn't mean talking about sex. As a previous troper said, a lot of children their age don't talk or even care about sex, although it may vary based on where you live. The could do an episode about a character with a crush on someone of the same gender (kids can have and understand crushes at younger ages than that), or about an adult who was gay, or about a transgender character.
• 01.22 "Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone" has Mr. Ratburn revealed as gay.

For once, could we get an episode from Catherine's point of view, or Molly's? We have had views from the main cast (Arthur, Francine, Binky, Brain, Muffy, Sue Ellen), we've had episodes from D.W.'s, Kate and Pal's point of views, and from a pen pal of Arthur's point of view. So why not have an episode from the "older" side? Eight-year-olds aren't the only one who watch it; older kids watch it too (besides, we could at least get a glimpse of the high school).

• In season 21's "The Master Builders," Catherine explains that she attends a Career and Technical Education high school; we get a look at the school's interior and its 3D printer. An episode called "Take a Hike, Molly!" is forthcoming.
• I also want to see an episode about the teens, because it might help to make them seem less stereotypical.

All the named characters are being perpetually held back in school.

• If you look at the background characters from one season to another, they change. Obviously the reason they can have so many end of the year episodes is that Arthur and his friends keep getting held back. The rest of the background characters, however, are intelligent enough to pass Ratburn's class.
  • If this is true, then why don't any of the kids age?
  • And why does Brain keep getting held back if he gets straight A's, and the best grades in the class?
    • Canonically he's been held back, but it was in kindergarten and it wasn't for bad grades, but for crying a lot.

Doug Funnie was once a resident of Elwood City.

An episode of Doug pretty much names his friends as Arthur and Buster (although they were blue and green skinned people instead of animals on that show).

• If they had him in a flashback, he could be a quail.
• I'll only watch that flashback if Billy West reprises his role.
  • Joe Fallon wrote for both shows, so it's possible that Doug having friends named Arthur and Buster of a subtle reference thrown in there for fans to figure out for themselves.
    • it wasn't too subtle. "Buster's" hair was the shape of rabbit ears and "Arthur" had a similar shaped head.

Arthur's pen pal, Adil, is a Muslim, but the episode didn't show it explicitly.

The hints are that he's from Turkey, and that there were rugs in his house (which is one of the things you need to do the five-time prayer). Also Adil's father is seen with a taqiyah.

• Confirmed, he mentions fasting for Ramadan in the episode where Francine is attempting her first Yom Kippur fast.
• Isn't >90% of Turkey's population Muslim^note Though according to The Other Wiki only a little over half of the population of Turkey actually follow Islamic traditions?

Thora paid the crossing guard to scare Arthur.

D. W. was upset because was Arthur was scaring her by telling her that there were monsters under her bed and sweaters are alive. Thora decided that Arthur needed his comeuppance so she paid Ted the crossing guard to scare Arthur by telling him he had goons and that he had cameras everywhere. Thora did seem to know him pretty well. It just happened to be unfortunate that Brain was with Arthur and got scared by what Ted said as well.

• Completely plausible. Grandma and D.W. seem to be very close, perhaps because of the *Identical Grandson trope used in "Clarissa is Cracked." It's possible that Thora, who grew up with three older brothers, was a victim of the same kind of lies Arthur tells D.W., and would've paid off an old friend to show him how that felt. It's even more possible when one considers that she's a senior citizen and thus probably wouldn't buy as much into the theory of raising/educating children that says, "Everything negative will scar them for life."
• It’s possible David and Jane (their parents) were in on it, the guy seems to be around their age and maybe they wanted to be a little creative with his punishment.

Bots have taken over [YooHooTube].

In "Sue Ellen and the Last Page," Sue Ellen makes a campaign video to save the library after the city Council votes to close it. Muffy gets a hold of it, editing it to the point where it's rendered incoherent, before posting it to her [YooHooTube] channel. The video would ordinarily have a very slim chance of serving its intended purpose at all, but it still garnered comments in support of the library, and those comments don't reflect indications that those making them were attending to the video. Rather than actual people commenting on the video, bots must have been programmed to post predefined comments instead.

Arthur takes place after The Singularity.

Sometime in the past humanity left earth/uploaded into the matrix, and have left behind the "people" we see in the show, who are genetically engineered to be very similar to humans, and so have similar customs and societies. They didn't do this to all animals, so there are still birds, dogs and wild animals, etc. A splinter group of humans are attempting to escape the matrix for whatever reason, and are beaming thoughts out into Buster's brain, which he interprets as aliens.

The entire series is being told by an Unreliable Narrator.

Who? Arthur himself.

Many years from now, he has written an autobiography detailing his childhood and his friends. All of the episodes were in fact at different points in their lives, before and after the year of third grade (when the series seems to take place). Most of the stories are told from his perspective. Hence D.W being more bratty in some episodes or Mr. Ratburn giving homework that normally be a part of the high school curriculum. Why be unreliable? It would be dull to write what actually happened, so he embellishes it, or maybe he doesn't remember everything.

• "Cousin Catastrophe" seems to support this. He warps Molly into a bully as a child, when she was simply playing around.
• I think that the show was set up like that to connect more with the target audience. I mean, when you were a kid, there was no way in hell that you would say that you were getting, "just the right amount" of homework. In your mind, your younger siblings were always a pain in the butt, you were always given a mountain of homework, and just about everything was over exaggerated/a big deal in your mind. It's just simply telling it from a kid's perspective.
• I agree. I mean the kids are just exaggerated character traits of kids in regular classes. That's why Brain is portrayed to be so smart even though he's only eight years old. Because Arthur considers Brain to be someone that's so smart, Brain is portrayed as someone that has an alleged evil robot, can calculate math at a college level, etc.
• There was an episode that was canonically a story/video that an older Arthur told/showed his kids.

Francine is not Jewish in the books.

She's made quite a few references to Santa, and has sat on Santa's lap before. Either that or she likes Santa a lot. Who can blame her?

• Alternatively, she could just live in North America. My mother works in a daycare, owned by a Hindi woman, where most of the kids are the children of immigrants and about a quarter of the kids are Muslim or from Muslim families. And yet there's an annual Christmas party with a dude dressed up as Santa to give presents to everyone and sit the kids on his lap for a photo. A lot of kids in North America know who Santa is or have sat on his lap, whether or not they are Christian.
• I'm going to say it's probably her not being Jewish. She's never stated to be Jewish in the books, not even hinted, and the cartoon added this years later.
• Some Jews celebrate Christmas.

All the episodes are placed randomly in the span of about one year.

Outside the two 2nd grade episodes in Season 1, all of the episodes in the show are shown in the span of roughly one year. Depending on the setting of the episode, they would either take place during the summer between 2nd grade-3rd grade, during the 3rd grade, and during the summer between 3rd grade-4th grade. Heck, one episode "The Short Quick Summer" is shown to begin with Mr. Ratburn letting them out of the last day of school, and ending on the last day of summer.

Of course this does tend to be problematic when once considers how technology seems to have advanced...

Ceberus is Arthur.

However he forgets his true identity. "Arthur's Big Hit" is his original personality breaking through.

The two rabbit kids in Arthur's class ARE named Alex and Maria.

Anyone longtime viewer of the show will instantly recognize the two rabbit kids that have been part of Arthur's class, and Season 13's MacFrensky episode seems to reveal their identities. This is supported by the fact that in said episode, all classroom scenes showcase those two being the only other kids outside of the established characters.

• Confirmed at New York Comic Con 2013, along with the possibility of them becoming more developed characters.
• "Maria Speaks" confirms that the girl is indeed named Maria.
  • And "Arthur's First Day" confirmed Alex's name.

Arthur is The Unfavorite compared to D.W.

This is the only explanation.

• Another explanation is that Mr. and Mrs. Read know that four-year-olds just have less sophisticated brains than eight-year-olds and can be rude sometimes.
• I think your both right, it’s showing that parents are people... Yet she doesn’t get punished as much as she should. She honestly only seems to get punished when she inconveniences the two of them they didn’t punish her when she broke Arthur’s plane or when she lied about her voice still being lost both of those times involved Arthur‘s suffering (they didn’t mean to make him suffer the second time but they also refused to believe him even though DW has lied to them before.)

All the humans are extinct.

The series takes place in an alternative future to where all the homo sapiens are deceased, probably from a nuclear war, and the animals that had managed to survive, were mutated in the waste, and later became super intelligent creatures. They later went to rebuild civilization. The bodies of the humans were later consumed by the evolved animals.

• In "Buster Baxter and the Letter from the Sea", the Cold Open shows us that the episode takes place in 2012. Semi-jossed?
• Or maybe, the humans never existed but all the other animals, both wild and domesticated, however, behaved like humans so that they don’t get endangered themselves.

Fern is actually smarter than Alan.

She's pretty subtle and quiet about it, though.

• She's shown to be pretty intelligent, such as when she shows her deductive skills in one of the few episodes that features her. She's just really shy and quiet.

A future episode will bring back the show's Harry Potter analogy.

Ever since "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" came out, the show stopped having Prunella/Marina episodes focusing on their relationship linked by the HP analogy, Henry Screever. However, with the movies now done, and Pottermore on the Internet, the writers might bring it back.

Mighty Mountain is a specialized school.

• We know that Mighty Mountain has a strong athletics program, but Marina attends the school as well, and is able to access the resources that she needs there. Carl and Lydia apparently don't attend Lakewood Elementary, but there's nothing to rule out their attending Mighty Mountain. Perhaps Mighty Mountain is renowned for both athletic success and a strong special education program.

Nadine is like Hanyuu from Higurashi: When They Cry.

She's only seen by one character in the entire show (DW), is invisible most of the time and 'hides' whenever someone else comes along, and DW acts like she's there most of the time. She checks up on other people, maybe Nadine's responsible for most of the strange events whenever DW was there with Arthur...

• So Nadine is a ghost? ...Sweet.

Francine, Muffy, and the other anthropomorphic apes in Arthur are like the apes in Planet of the Apes

They both walk upright on two legs and have humanoid body shapes.

Fern's family is suppose to represent a interracial family.

Fern's parents are the only parents in the show to be two completely different types of dog with two different color coats.

• D.W.'s friend Emily's family maybe as well. Her dad's an ape, her mom's a rabbit, and she has characteristics of both.

W.D. is an intersexual, they just weren't allowed to say that out loud on the programme.

Look at it this way: The only reason that W.D. was referred to as a "she" was because it gets old/complicated trying to refer to xir without pronouns, and most adults don't know what Spivak pronouns are, much less children. Xie was referred to as female a total of four times throughout the episode, where they never hesitate to refer to any other character with a gender.

Canonically, xir parents wanted a girl, so they're raising xir as a girl. However, xie wants to be a boy, and does "boy things". Xir parents, holding the Idiot Ball, just treat xir as a tomboy. D.W. is just as much of a tomboy as W.D. (just in different areas), yet D.W. is always referred to as "she" and always has been. W.D's parents only THINK they're letting xir be xirself, when actually, they're holding xir back quite a bit by referring to xir as a girl. In xir teen years, this will lead to a massive power/sexual struggle between W.D. and xir parents when xie finally realizes xie wants to be a real boy. If W.D. doesn't already know that xie's intersexual, it will just make it that much more difficult in xir later years.

Or I want a banana. I could be paraphrasing.

• OR she's just a tomboy.
• But then it wouldn't be a wild guess, would it? ;) -OP
  • Ahh, I see your point, then.

Molly's an anime fan.

It's hinted at in "Agent of Change"; not only is the Action Girl spy she drew rather Animesque in art style but if you look closely you'll see that she has a (green) Domo plushie in her bedroom!

Arthur is an alternate version of Clone High.

How can you explain all of the celebrities appearing in this small town and the ridiculous plots!

• Say WHAAAAAT?

The show takes place in Canada.

The show hints this as Ratburn in one episode assigns the class something about the beaver in Canadian history. Emily's babysitter may be a Francophone Québécoise. Also during a cold opening David saw that his weight was 185, that almost 400lb!. All of the fact point out that the show takes place there!

• I seem to recall it being indicated more than once that Washington D.C. is the capital stated to be the capital of the country where the characters live within the show's universe. There is a visit to Washington D.C. and it's within easy driving distance, suggesting the below guess is closer to the mark. ... In fact, firmly Jossed. In one installment, Arthur's address is specifically given as 562 Main Street, Elwood City, USA.
• And they do use milk bags in a few episodes. But then, they also use cartons of milk.
• It's not that the show is set in Canada, it's that the show is animated in Canada. So chances are if you see anything Canada-esque (like milk in bags), that's why.
• The Other Wiki states that it is a Canadian/American TV show. Animated in Canada? Probably. Set in Canada? Probably not: Washington, D.C. is listed as the capital, and they take a bus ride to Amish country. While there are Amish in Canada, they are far more prevalent in the USA.

The show takes place in New England.

Remember that episode when Arthur was digging in his front yard? During the Imagine Spot, the Reads were eating hot-dogs like this◊. Also Elwood has a baseball team that were copies of the 2004 Red Sox. All of the fact point out that the show takes place there!

• There's also the fact that one of the class field trips was to Amish country. Leaving aside the implausibility of this (the Amish do NOT just let outsiders show up and poke around randomly, even if they are kids), there are Amish communities in Pennsylvania, Maine, and other New England states. The show would have to take place in New England for the class to be able to reach an Amish community on a bus (though some field trips can have 2-4 hour travel times).
  • Creator Marc Brown was born in Pennsylvania as well, which might've been an influence on the locales in the series.

The reason Buster lives with his father for three seasons is because it is believed his mother molested him.

His father has no permanent residence, so they obviously would not let his father have sole custody for such a long period, unless his mother was deemed unfit. It is shown at various points in the main show that his mother loves him more than any other man. Can you say Squick?

Arthur gained an unhealthy obsession with cosmetic surgery at some point.

In the first book (from 1976) he actually looked like an aardvark, but disliked his long nose and wanted to have surgery to change it. In the end he decided he should like the way he is (a normal Aesop in children's stories). But then why did his aardvark-like nose slowly get smaller over time (to the point that when the cartoon debuted 20 years later he looks more like a hamster)? After the book he realized he really did hate his nose and got it made smaller. But it was still too big, so he had it made even smaller until, one day, he didn't have a nose at all.

Bi-species characters can have a mix of traits from their parents.

Look at Emily's nose and compare it to Buster's. She has a monkey nose, not a rabbit nose. Her father is a monkey.

• Prunella is apparently a rat, but has poodle-like hair and ears. I think her mom and sister do too. They could also be bi-species.

Carl grows up to be The Big Bang Theory Sheldon Cooper.

Sheldon is most likely autistic, has an interest in trains, is bright, has a loving mother, etc.

• Or maybe he grows up to be a successful adult, and not a distasteful, cringeworthy character on a sitcom.

"Crazy Bus" is about a literal crazy bus.

As in the route 25 to the loony bin. "Don't make a fuss, just come with us"? Yeah. Uncooperative prospective mental patients will be sedated and get "high" as a plane or balloonie (Arthur was right; spellchecker does seem to indicate it's not an actual word). Alternatively, all the above applies, but it's a kid being taken away to the "crazy bus", with the mental workers telling him it'll be a fun ride with a clown and stuff. Or that's just how the kid's warped mind perceives it. Oh, and for a meta twist... that kid is YOU after being forced to listen to the song for 24 hours straight.

• The person that made up the song in the shower probably experienced the fate of riding a crazy bus to the mental hospital as a kid (perhaps as a kid he was locked up in the Asylum from American Horror Story. After years of trauma and even more years of therapy he made a song about it the only way he could and thus the song about a "Crazy Bus" was born. He probably didn't expect the money it would bring him or the musical based off the song.
• Or alternatively, the songwriter originally made the song explicitly about a bus to the looney bin, the original had changes in pitch similar to "They're Coming to Me Away Haha!" but the record company initially rejected the song because they felt it was in bad taste. One of his neighbor's kids heard him recording the song once and drew a silly looking bus, and that gave him the idea to rewrite and resing the song as a children's song, the one that's popular is a lot more chipper and cheerful, some of the lyrics were changed over to be more kid friendly, while he also kept the line "high as a plane or baloony" as a sorta Getting Crap Past The Radar moment (the animated music video had the bus fly next to a hot air balloon on that line). It surprisingly became an overnight hit with children and with quite a few adult fans, and it got made into an animated music video and eventually the songwriter was commissioned to write songs for a whole animated musical movie. As popular as the song was, the movie was a failure upon release, but eventually it went on to become a cult classic in later years due to nostalgic fans and the creative animation.

Arthur and his friends live in a post-apocalyptic world where animals have risen up to replace humans.

In "D.W. Goes to Washington," while at the Lincoln Memorial, Lincoln is shown to be human. In the same episode, the Clinton Expy is shown to be an aardvark, like the Reads. This means, that at some point between 1865 and the present, the entirety of the animal kingdom has risen up to overthrow mankind.

• Francine's great great grandfather was a barber to Lincoln and is a monkey. We see people from the past like ancient Romans, Lewis and Clark, and they're animals too. Either this is Jossed or they coexisted with people.

D.W. is a Time Lord.

Because I say so.

• You don't need to: D.W. — Doctor Who!
• This would certainly explain the fact that everybody has been the same age for 18 years. It could be that D.W. has some sort of omniscient powers that allow her to be fully cognizant of everything happening, even in episodes that are not in her point of view. Of course, this can be frustrating for her because due to the time loop/warp, she and the other cast members don't get any older. She even asks if she's trapped in a time warp in "Arthur's New Year's Eve." Is she just a frustrated little kid? Is her memory erased each time she makes a loop? Or, did she just ask that to cover her Time Lord status? HMMMMMM.....

Mr. Toad is a con artist.

Always thought it was weird that they had an episode dedicated to D.W. bonding with a toad, only for him to disappear. Then I realized, Mr. Toad never wanted to be D.W.'s pet. He just wanted access to her socks so he could steal them and use them in the sock market. He knew Spanky had died and wanted to catch D.W. on the rebound. He probably does this to kids all over the neighborhood.

• The problem with this theory is that Mr. Toad isn't the one who became DW's pet, his girlfriend is.
  • Mr. Toad is a pet-pimp.

Arthur and his family are actual practicing Christians.

Not much evidence exists, but since "Arthur's Perfect Christmas" explicitly mentions Jesus and church, it's a possibility. Also, it's a stretch, but many Christian parents do not like for their children to watch shows such as Power Rangers, of which the violent cartoon the Tibble twins like is an Expy. Jane Read's response to them wanting to watch it at her house could be because of this. Then again, Arthur does read and enjoy Henry Skreever, so make of that what you will.

• Not all religious people find books like Henry Skreever to be blasphemous. They could be Catholic, some members of the Catholic church condoned Harry Potter saying it was good vs. evil and that it encouraged children to read.
• "Arthur's Perfect Christmas" also depicts the Reads walking out of a church, so they are at least mildly observant Christians.

D.W., and perhaps the Brain, have Asperger's Syndrome.

Many fans of the show complain about D.W.'s seeming lack of empathy toward Arthur, citing episodes like "Arthur's Big Hit" as examples. It could be that D.W. has more going on than the average tantrum-throwing four-year-old in terms of her emotions. Also, her interests seem pretty specialized and limited—the biggest one we see is an interest in unicorns. Third, she's obsessed with "Mary Moo Cow" to the point of dragging her mom away from errands if D.W. thinks it's time for the show to be on. (Some kids with Asperger's may do this type of thing because they're very dependent on routine). As for Brain, he mentions having an uncle with Asperger's; though the condition is not strictly hereditary, Brain could've picked up some Asperger's traits from the parent whom the uncle is related to. More evidence exists in the form of episodes like "Bugged," where Brain is an Insufferable Genius.

• Further supported by a scene in "Best Enemies," where D.W. invites W.D. (her tomboy counterpart) to play a board game that is meant for kids six or older. It can be inferred that D.W. is smart enough to play.
• People with Asperger's often talk to themselves; Nadine might be how D.W. expresses that.
• To add: D.W. is positively obsessed with her snowball, to the point that in "Return of the Snowball," she engineers an elaborate system to keep it from being taken. It involves several containers, locks, tape, and perhaps a knife, judging from Jane's concern that D.W. will hurt herself. Some children with Asperger's, though not all, have obsessions so deep that their behavior concerning them crosses into inappropriate or hurtful.
• D.W.'s general attitude that Arthur is a bad big brother and her family treats him better than her may also be a manifestation of this. A lot of it can be blamed on her age and her over-active imagination. Yet sometimes her reactions to being wronged, whether the wrong is real or imagined, are dramatic enough that you wonder if she has trouble reading emotional cues and understanding others' true intentions toward her.

Rattles's name is actually a nickname.

In "What's in a Name?", we find out that Binky's real name is Shelley. He was called that until age two, when he became very attached to his pacifier, to the point that his parents nicknamed him Binky. It's possible that Binky's parents are or were friends with Rattles' parents, and that Rattles also acquired his nickname from a baby toy—a rattle.

• In "Take A Hike, Molly", it's revealed that Rattles really is a nickname, but an Embarrassing Nickname: He's actually terrified of snakes and when he was younger, would freak out by saying "Ah! A rattler!" whenever he thought he saw a snake. Why he goes by it and what his real name actually is isn't known.

Fern suffers from mild to moderate depressive episodes.

Season 18 recently gave us "The Case of the Girl with the Long Face," where George hires Buster to figure out why Fern is so sad. It's blamed on a couple of things, including an argument with Muffy, but Fern explains it sometimes happens for no reason. Obviously, the writers couldn't, or didn't want to, explore the more serious aspects of depression on a children's show, so they blamed it on Fern's artistic temperament. But what they're really saying is that, just as George has dyslexia, Buster has asthma, and Arthur has struggled with his weight, Fern has her own issue—a kid-friendly version of depression. To go along with that...

Fern will eventually be seen attending therapy sessions.

Outside of the evidence outlined above, the Arthur Wiki reveals that an episode in Season 18 will have Brain seeing a therapist after a big storm hits Elwood City. Brain is apparently going to be the first character to do this, but if the show lasts much longer—and it being a long runner, that's a possibility—we could see Fern undergoing counseling as well.

Fern has a *mild* case of Asperger's.

Hear me out on this- I have Asperger's, but not of the nearly-crippling severity that Carl has. This is speaking from experience, and using the Useful Notes page for fact-checking.

• She's obsessed with writing and literature, almost to a fault. Being a distinctive bookworm on a PBS show is a fair feat.
• Her detective role in some episodes means she has to have good logical thinking and spatial awareness.
• What really convinces me is all the Disproportionate Retribution she does: her two pranks went on to the point of being spiteful, and in "I'm a Poet" she gets annoyed at everyone following her and yapping until she shrieks loud enough to set off a car alarm. Most of my childhood problems were bottling up too much anger and annoyance until I just blew up.
• Her social anxiety in the earlier seasons. General awkwardness isn't itself a symptom, but often comes with Asperger's. In the newer seasons, she's quite well adjusted, but in earlier episodes she went out of her way to avoid dealing with people.
  • Her sleepover episode happened because her mother set the whole thing up, and YMMV on how many other episodes Fern didn't want to be a part of. Doria could be trying to treat it early.
• Fern has a notoriously dark, almost squicky sense of humor, one time cheerfully asking a park ranger if there were any sites where pioneers died horribly.
  • People with Asperger's are NOT sociopaths. Besides, there are many kids who are interested in gruesome details regardless of their "disability!"
    • I never said that she was, I just pointed out her mild obsession with weird/creepy things as evidence based on my own experiences with Asperger's. I wasn't coming from a place of hatred and it's rather hurtful that you think I was.-Woggs123
• Let's not forget Fern's favorite character is often thought to have Asperger's.

If anybody has any thoughts, agreements or disagreements with this I'd love to hear them- Fern's my favorite character, in part because she acts like I did when I was her age^note  just replace mysteries and creepy poems with video games and creepy music, and that realization got me thinking. -Woggs 123

• Agreed! Fern is a lot like me, both when I was her age and now. Further evidence:
  • In "Popular Girls," a magazine quiz she takes gives her the result that she's too quiet. Leaving aside the fact that the quiz is stupid, this causes Fern to have an Imagine Spot where she's so ignored that she disappears even though she's present in class. It also causes her to go to extremes to prove she's not too quiet, thus alienating her peers.
  • In "Draw," Francine makes fun of Fern. Not okay, but it was one random comment. In response, Fern touches off a comic-drawing frenzy that incites the entire rest of the class to turn against Francine. She and the others do apologize, but one has to wonder if Fern would have had she been alone. Speaking from experience, it's not uncommon for people with AS to hold grudges. This isn't so much out of spite as because they're quite sensitive and have long memories.
  • Fern seems to get obsessed with certain things very easily, outside of her trademark interests. See "Phony Fern," where she got so attached to her cell phone that she got in trouble in class and had an Imagine Spot where she cried hysterically over its destruction.-English Guru Lady
  • There's also "To Eat or Not To Eat" where she ended up getting addicted to Big Boss bars. It seems out of character for someone as smart as her to get into that kind of situation, but perhaps its not so strange after all.

Nobody ages because there was no green flash.

Francine's theory in Arthur's New Year's Eve was right. But because there was no green flash, nobody gets any older. They just have to keep living the same year over and over again.

The world of Arthur is like that of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.

Because of the Chaos, nobody ages, and everyone is forced to simply keep accumulating experiences without actually growing. This explains why so many of the characters have lost a lot of their childlike innocence compared with the earliest episodes of the show. Eventually, they will just keep becoming more and more jaded and cynical, with the exception of those that have been saved. (D.W. perhaps? She still seems to be fairly innocent.)

The Season 1 episode "The Short, Quick Summer" was All Just a Dream.

This explains the fact that no one seems to get any older, as well as why everything in "The Last Day" seems to retcon everything from that episode.

Fern knew it was George who destroyed the Ferris wheel

But after seeing that George and Binky had worked everything out, she feigned ignorance and accused Mr. Haney on the spot, so things wouldn't get messy.

Fern is of French ancestry.

A series of her detective stories star a young girl named Essie Beauchamp, and Fern appears prominently in the Postcards from Buster episode featuring New Orleans. In recent seasons, Fern also plays an elaborate detective game with George where she takes on the persona of Virgile Veauteau, a fictional detective with a heavy French accent (possibly a lawyer-friendly version of Agatha Christie's Poirot). Considering her particular love of classic British authors such as Doyle and Shelley, she may also have some English ancestry.

Binky is actually a gifted kid.

He was Held Back in School, but there is evidence to suggest he's much smarter than he lets on. He's particularly gifted in art and music—not many other third-graders fully grasp Bizet's Carmen or catch an art museum curator's mistake (see "Binky Barnes, Art Expert.") Like many kids, especially boys, he may have chosen to hide giftedness behind his bullying exterior and dumb himself down, thus explaining his often poor grades. Since he has been showing his gentler side more in later seasons, one could infer he has found an accepting group of friends in Arthur et. al.

• It could explain why Rattles is a bully, too. He likes knitting and sewing in "Arthur Unravels", is a very skilled chess player in "Brain's Chess Mess", dances ballet on occasion (like "D.W., Dancing Queen"), and frequently speaks words that are way above his school grade. But since boys having giftedness invites ridicule, Rattles chooses to act like a tough bully so no one would suspect a thing.

Mr. Cramp, also known as MC, did not choose to teach third grade instead of fourth.

Instead, he was counseled into it or outright forced.Mr. Ratburn tells the kids M.C. chose to teach third grade, but this is often what faculty tells students when they don't want to get into administrative politics or can't reveal adult decisions. Under this theory, Mr. Haney either counseled M.C. to teach third or basically said, "You must do this to work here." Why? Because fourth grade is traditionally when the elementary school curriculum becomes much more difficult. The administration may have observed M.C.'s Hippie Teacher tactics and decided he was a bad fit for that particular curriculum, as well as for a large group of students who'd been under Ratburn's tutelage.

D.W. is masterminding the entire show from behind the scenes in order to make herself seem more sympathetic.

Season 20 gives us an episode called "Cereal," where Buster makes his own podcast. It's sort of an Unsolved Mysteries or Criminal Minds spoof, and centers on D.W.'s accusation that Arthur took her last box of Puffy Unicorn Crunch. The thing is, not only does D.W. believe Arthur did this, but so does Buster, and so do all of Arthur's friends.

Of course, this isn't the first time Arthur's friends have taken up for D.W. against him—see "Arthur's Big Hit" for instance. But at least then, Arthur had actually done something wrong. Here, he is being accused of the pettiest crime imaginable (leaving aside the whole snowball incident). One wonders why eight- and nine-year-olds would keep doing this, especially since so many of them seem to be much smarter than average.

The explanation that comes to mind is a bit of Poison Oak Epileptic Trees: D.W. is a gifted mastermind (with or without shades of Asperger's; see above WMG on that). She has somehow engineered the entire show so that even if episodes are not in her POV or make her unsympathetic, she can control them and make herself out to be a Mary Sue. This also explains why nobody ever gets older, even after "The Last Day." D.W. fears—perhaps knows—that the other characters' aging would mean her reign of terror would be toppled. Eerie.

Rattles has illusionary powers.

This might explain why Rattles is shown with cat, dog, and bear ears every time he takes off his hat, aside from the glaring animation errors. The reason: he's screwing with people, making them (and us) play a guessing game as to what species he actually is. It does seem like a cool trick, given who he is, but he also got something to hide. Why is he hiding his true species, we'll never know, but his reasons does seem bad enough to keep it (as well as his powers) secret from people like the Tough Customers, even those he sees as his closest friends like Binky and Molly.

The reason why Francine was scared of the squirrels was because she heard people talking about the movie.

In "The Squirrels", Arthur and Buster become afraid of squirrels after seeing a horror movie about squirrels taking over the world. All the other students except Binky are scared of squirrels too, and it's confirmed that at least the Brain had also seen the movie. Francine claims she's never seen the movie, but she's not above lying so it could be taken two ways 1) She's lying because she wants to be in the minority and therefore "cool", or 2) She really hasn't seen the movie, but has heard people talking about it and that's how she developed her fear of squirrels.

The U.F.O. from "Arthur's First Sleepover" was a spaceship piloted by the aliens from "The Chips are Down".

In "Arthur's First Sleepover", there's a report in the news of a farmer seeing a U.F.O. It remains unidentified, but at the end of "The Chips are Down", two aliens are seen in a spaceship, saying, "Don't blame us. We just like ballet." To know what ballet is, they would have probably studied Earth culture, so maybe they've visited Earth before and that's what the farmer saw-their spaceship.

Mr.Ratburn's obsession with cake originally started as a coping mechanism.

"Arthur Weighs In" revealed that when he was younger, he was as he himself put it, a "Fatty Rat". "Maria Speaks" also revealed that he had a stutter as a young child. Perhaps it wouldn't be a big stretch that he was bullied for the later and originally sought comfort in the form of candy and cake... Which compounded his problem. Thankfully, he managed to get help and discovered a number of hobbies and sports like the theater, puppetry and ping-pong and made a stunning transformation. By the time he got to high school, he was nothing like the fat stuttering unpopular kid he used to be. However, he still has a sweet tooth.

Ms. Sweetwater is actually the closet thing the school has to a special ed. program.

Its the 90s, originally, no way the school has money or time for a specialised teacher. So all of the students are just stuck in one room with a woman who reteaches kindergarten instead of figuring out different needs, just assuming they're all "slow". It explains her teaching.

• Alternatively...

Mr. Ratburn's class is a sort of Alternative Needs/Gifted combination class.

In general, his class is said to do a lot more work than the other third grade class at a higher level. The kids complain, but none of them are shown to struggle. Additionally, several of them have learning disabilities or other things going on that the average teacher might not be able to handle, especially all combined.

Brain is a genius who needs to be challenged, but is emotionally immature at times (see, being held back in kindergarten). Binky is actually a smart kid with a great talent for dance and music, but he's been held back despite not really being shown to struggle with the material. Buster seems to struggle with something like ADHD or otherwise paying attention, but still keeps up with Ratburn's high standards of work, and is incredibly creative with his conspiracy theories and such.

Sue Ellen has spent a ton of time travelling which may put her behind or ahead in different areas, making her education quite unique so far, and she's very clever. George is very shy and has dyslexia, but he's got a great talent for woodworking. Fern is a very talented writer, but painfully shy to the point of it almost being a social anxiety situation.

Jenna is a great athlete which presents a challenge in helping her balance all her activities, but also shy. (And bedwets, but I don't think that's as relevant here.) Maria stutters and also seems to be shy. And then there's whatever Alex's deal is.

Francine and Muffy are the ones who fit the least with this theory, but they have some stuff that might need a uniquely qualified teacher as well. Francine is very bossy and struggles with teamwork, but doesn't have trouble doing work as well. Muffy is similar. Both of them, though, are also strong writers judging by their blogging and newspaper hobbies.

And, of course, Arthur himself is smart and a voracious reader.

The scenes before the title card are only in the imagination of whoever's narrating, or, when Nadine is narrating, in D.W.'s imagination.

When they're Breaking the Fourth Wall, it's just their internal monologue. I'm not saying that they're imagining it because they're crazy; they know full well that it's their imagination and it's not a coping method or anything, they're just having a Fantasy Sequence. It explains the weird/surreal things like everyone but Muffy being cookies or Brain being a centaur.

D.W. is actually a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk.

The Heartwarming page has listed a number of moments where D.W. supposedly shows a nicer side to others, but those seem rather ingenuine considering she has no problem being mean to those same people most other times and blaming them for her own wrongdoings. She always continues being mean even after having a seeming Jerkass Realization, which might mean that she's simply a Manipulative Bitch who fakes remorse for her actions to make it seem to other people that she's a good person deep down when she's not. This is also supported by the fact that in some episodes, such as, for example, "Lost!", she apparently shows that she cares about Arthur deep down, but that also seems contradictory to the fact that she takes downright sadistic enjoyment out of making his life miserable, and in other episodes she's outright eager to get rid of him. She is actually a complete Jerkass doesn't actually care about anyone but herself, not even her parents or her supposed friends, and only does nice things to her "friends" at times so that they will do things for her in return. Also, her aforementioned concern for Arthur in "Lost!" could be interpreted as her only wanting him back so that she can continue harassing him for her own amusement, not because she actually cares for him.

To add to the above, D.W. is actually a straight-up Enfant Terrible.

The way she's portrayed in fanfics such as Proper Discipline is pretty much what she's actually like; the only reason she hasn't done anything as bad in canon as she does in such fanfics is because of Arthur's target demographic.

The toad who occupied the can of flowers for D.W.'s dead pet bird Spanky is Spanky reincarnated.

• To be reincarnated, you have to be born with the soul inside you. The toad should be a tadpole if she's actually Spanky reincarnated.

Mr. Toad stole the snowball.

In "The Great Lint Rush," a group of toads invade the Read home and look for lint. During this time, Mr. Toad opened the freezer and stole the snowball, mistaking it for a ball of lint. Cue "D.W.'s Snow Mystery."

• Jossed. Both "D.W.'s Snow Mystery" and "Return of the Snowball" confirm that it was aliens who stole the snowball (though it was different aliens both times).

We'll eventually get a nonbinary and/or transgender kid on the show.

If the show keeps being as progressive as it is, we might just get some kids who are LGBTQ+ ... but likely, not touching on sexuality, because, after all, they are pre-pubescent. However, most kids have a decent grasp on gender. If this does end up happening, Alabama won't like it, and do what it did with the Mr. Ratburn episode from season 22.

D.W. is a sociopath.

Seriously, she fits the symptoms of one perfectly. Lack of Empathy, Manipulative Bitch, a grandiose sense of self-worth, a Never My Fault mentality, selfishness, and chronic lying. This also opens up some Fridge Horror at how she will turn out as an adult.

D.W. will grow up to be a nicer girl

Yes, D.W. is a bit of a Jerkass and meaner than most children, but people change as they get older, and sometimes people who were mean become nice. Nadine seems to almost be like D.W.'s conscious. Sometime when she's older, say 8, she starts to not talk to Nadine as much anymore, but she starts making the right choices on her own and maturing a little. Though she still would be the master of sass and clapbacks, that's never going away. But she would definitely Take a Lesson in Kindness. After seeing so many of the bad theories, this trooper wants to give her a chance.

D.W. grows up to be an author

I'd Rather Read it Myself shows how good D.W. is at story telling. She starts writing down story ideas in her late teens and gets her first book published in her 20's (she also uses D.W. Read as her name because it already sounds like a name for an author). Her first book is an action adventure book about 2 best friends, Nadine and Bonnie Wilma (or B.W.!)

• Jossed. She becomes a police officer.

At one point, the show will have an expy of Donald Trump

• I thought Ed. Crosswire was already that. Maybe it will will involve him running for mayor and making ridiculous policies.

Arthur was an oops baby

It explains the parental favoritism. It's likely that Jane and Dave had bigger dreams that they had to give up to raise him.

Nadine is based off of a real person

It's likely that there was a real Nadine. She was a student in DW's preschool class who died (likely from an illness). DW, being young and not understanding what happened pretends that Nadine is still alive in the form of her imaginary friend.

Ms. Ratburn isn't really a Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher after all.

The Ratburn siblings were actually in cahoots with each other to teach Arthur and co. a Be Careful What You Wish For-type lesson. Nigel seems too smart to actually let his sister essentially sabotage his lesson plans for the quarter in question, so it makes more sense if he was in on the whole thing.

Buster ends up in Witness Protection

During the flash forward in "And now let's talk to some kids," When Buster comes up, Francine asks "whatever happened to him?" It's possible that Buster got caught up in some government conspiracy involving aliens and had to be hidden away which would explain him never being seen again.

They will make an episode in which DW cries abuse

It will result in a social worker coming to the Read house. By the end of the episode, DW will learn the seriusness of "crying wolf,". It would definitely suit DW's character.

They will make a Covid 19 episode in which a main character dies

Pretty much any character could work depending how dark you want to go. Obvious choices include Mr. Haney as he was written off the show due to his voice actor passing away. This could make it more finite. One of the older residents are also a good candidate. For a really dark episode, it could be one of the parents or Mr. Ratburn. However, this is unlikely as it would alter the continuity too much.

David Read learned to cook at an early age.

Because it was that or have to eat Grandma Thora's cooking.

Nadine was DW's best friend who died

We see throughout the series that DW has a very active and vivid imagination, having lots of daydream sequences. However, despite Nadine being imaginary, DW interacts with her in real time in the real world, which shows that DW associates Nadine with reality, as if she was once a real person. The reason she imagines Nadine to help her bug Arthur is because of DW's anger and envy that Arthur has so many friends that are all still alive, that she had to lose one of her few friends while all of Arthurs are still kicking. It also stands to reason that imagining Nadine is DW's method of grieving, even fitting the first three stages of grief: Denial (pretending that Nadine isn't gone), Anger (directing her pain at her brother out of envy-born-frustration), and Bargaining (allowing herself to believe that even though Nadine is dead, she can still keep her alive in a different way). She's coping with the death of her best friend the only way a five-year-old can.

Season 25 will be the last season.

Episode titles like "All Will Be Revealed" and "All Grown Up" really make it seem like the show may finally be getting some closure. Although, of course, "The Last Day" happened way back in Season 19 (with no closure, because everyone is still—or again—in the 3rd grade), and Arthur is definitely a Cash-Cow Franchise, so this is unlikely, but still possible.

• Confirmed in this article.

The Read house was robbed when DW was a baby.

In DW's flashback in "Tales From the Crib", a younger Arthur is weirdly paranoid about robbers potentially breaking into the house, to the point that they're the first conclusion he jumps to whenever he hears a noise at night. It's possible that the Reads were subject to a (most likely minor) robbery incident at some point and Arthur was shaken by the memory for a while. DW, at the time, was too young to properly process it and so wasn't as affected.

Fern is Sagwa Miao reincarnated as an anthro dog.

They share the same voice actress, have similar personalities and tend to be playful. The fact that both shows aired on PBS and were produced in Montreal is also suspicious.

Mr. Morris suffered brain damage after the April 9th fire.

A result of smoke inhalation and oxygen deprivation. This would explain why Buster had to re-introduce himself. (Though, it doesn't explain Arthur's comment later of "You only met because of that stupid fire.")

The Brain died before the flash foward

The flash forward mentions Arthur, DW, Buster, Francine, Muffy, Binky, and George but not brain. His absence is especially strange due to his important role. He is the one member of the gang that would be the most intriguing to see in twenty years. Why is he absent? I think it is because he died and they didn't want to address it in a kid's show.

• Maybe he became that one friend they eventually cut ties with because he snapped (which he was seen so close to doing in so many episodes) and started buying into QAnon theories, and became an insane quack...

The various Series Continuity Errors are the result of multiple timelines.

Since time travel is confirmed (or, at the very least, heavily implied) to exist per "All Will Be Revealed", we can say that there is at least one timeline where Mrs. MacGrady's first name is "Sara", at least one where it's "Sarah" (note the "h"), and at least one where it's "Leah"; same with Mr. Haney's first name being "Herb" or "Francis"; and the list can go on.

What happened to the other characters in the Flash Forward

• Grandpa Dave, Grandma Thora, and Pal all passed away.
• Jane and David live off their retirement pay.
• Fern became a successful published author.
• Sue Ellen is an activist traveling around the world.
• The other members of the Tough Customers became guidance counselors.
• Brain is an astrophysicist.
• Prunella hosts a reality show about paranormal mysteries.

Mrs. MacGrady's full name is Leah Sarah MacGrady.

To her family, she prefers to be called "Leah", but to her friends, she prefers "Sarah".

The aliens at the end of "The Boy Who Cried Comet" didn't film the entire series, just that particular episode.

• Episodes before "The Boy Who Cried Comet" have shown aliens being in Elwood City, and "The Making of Arthur" reveals that Arthur's life is the subject of a reality show. The aliens may have seen that show and wanted to make their own episode of it.

James is a stuffed bunny brought to life by D.W.'s imagination.

• He was once just an ordinary stuffed bunny that belonged to D.W. until her imagination brought him to life, in the same vein that Bud's imagination brings his toy dinosaur, Rapty, to life as a life-sized dinosaur. As for why Molly sees him as her brother, well, it's because D.W. imagined him that way; a boy she has a crush on who also happens to be the brother of Molly, thus giving her a chance to connect with another one of Arthur's tormentors through him. Imaginary Friends in this series are shown to have Reality Warper powers, so it wouldn't be hard at all for him to make himself actually related to Molly.
  • Pieces of evidence for this theory include:
    • James has Black Bead Eyes even when he's not wearing his glasses (as shown in "Night of the Tibble"), which is definitely a very stuffed animal-esque feature. Also, in that same episode, Timmy Tibble actually "mistakes" him for a stuffed animal.
    • In "Kiss and Tell", D.W. seems to think of James as her "prince". For a little girl going through her Princess Phase, it is only natural that she would use her toys to act out Prince Charming fantasies. James may have been the toy she cast in the role of Prince Charming. Also, in "D.W. Unties the Knot", D.W. chooses James as the groom for her dream wedding "it should be someone who's good at doing what I tell him." It only makes sense that James's submissive personality is so perfect for D.W., because he was literally made for her, by her.
    • James has very few roles in the show that don't also involve Molly and/or D.W. in some way, which would make sense if you assume his entire reason for being alive is, literally, his connection to those two.