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'Arthur,' the longest-running kids animated series, is ending
- creaghpatr 5y ago"You really think someone would do that? Just go on the Internet and tell lies?" - absolutely iconic quote, decades ahead of its time. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/just-go-on-the-internet-and-tell-lies https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/just-go-on-the-internet-and-t...
- dlbucci 5y agoWow, I had seen that meme with the face in two panels, but I had no idea it originated in Arthur!
- jamal-kumar 5y agoI mean IIRC people were full of shit on the internet in the 90s too
- capableweb 5y agoPeople have been full of shit for as long as people can remember. Internet is just another communication medium for spreading the produced shit.
- coolgeek 5y agoAnd the 80s. Young me got sucked in to a lot of conspiracy BS back in the day
- 1680168l 5y ago"Get woke, go broke"
- dc3k 5y ago> Arthur is the longest-running kids animated series in history No it isn't. Sandmännchen has been on the air for over 60 years.
- echelon 5y ago> said the show's executive producer, Carol Greenwald, in a statement. That might have something to do with it. Or perhaps there was a missing ellipsis or other context that was lost. But good call. There's a broad world outside of America that we oftentimes forget to include.
- happytoexplain 5y agoThis seems so obvious and easily researched - I'm surprised the author didn't correct it. I can't find any extenuating context. E.g. they don't mention anything about "in the US".
- sparrish 5y agoIt's NPR (National Public Radio), it assumes 'in the US'.
- thaumasiotes 5y agoThat's not what's going on. It just never occurs to most people that something might have happened outside their home. There's a popular game, Timeline ( https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/128664/timeline https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/128664/timeline ), involving placing events (represented on cards) in the proper chronological sequence. Due to modern sensitivities, many of the cards have titles of the form "The discovery of America (by Europeans)". But mostly they don't. "Invention of the printing press", explicitly lacking the "(by Europeans)" rider, is located in the 15th century, several hundred years after the invention of the printing press. None of this stuff is hard to look up.
- lambdaphagy 5y agoMy understanding is that "invention of the printing press" generally refers to movable type, the thing that caused a revolution in the mass production of written material. Other techniques like block printing or indeed any other method of applying ink in a fixed pattern, came earlier but were not as generally useful.
- nsriv 5y agoThis is truly sad, Arthur is up there with Wishbone in the PBS pantheon for me and fostered a deep love of reading. Incidentally the author of the original Arthur books, Marc Brown, visited my siblings' school and he was a thoroughly delightful man with an incredible knack for talking to kids in a frank but funny way.
- Lammy 5y agoI like how Arthur got away with doing a "South Park", "Beavis & Butt-Head", and "Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist" parody on PBS Kids in Season 4's "The Contest": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_6-EKOixUs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_6-EKOixUs
- smelendez 5y agoWas that title a Seinfeld reference? Obviously kind of generic, but also one of the most famous sitcom episodes of all time, even moreso in the early 2000s
- Lammy 5y agoI never considered it but now that's my headcanon :)
- yupper32 5y agoReferences to adult themes / jokes is common in kids content. It's a nod to the parents in the room who are forced to watch these shows/movies.
- WalterBright 5y agoThe first two seasons of Spongebob worked very well for adults. After all, what kid would understand the hilarious references to Jacques Cousteau? After the writers' strike ended, Spongebob never regained its mojo.
- nameless912 5y agoI dunno, I put Spongebob's fall from grace right around the movie. Before that things were pretty excellent, even if they weren't always stellar they were decent.
- lwigo 5y agoBrightened my day. ;)
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- donatj 5y agoI genuinely had no idea they were still making Arthur. I thought it was just a circle of reruns like how I watched Mr. Rogers as a kid. Seems to me like you'd only need to make a couple seasons worth of any kids show, you've got a continuing cycle of aging out and brand new audience.
- chana_masala 5y agoI think to maintain relevancy shows like to stay up to date with drawing style and current technology, though. I think kids would find it funny if Arthur were still using a typewriter and didn't own a computer, for example.
- echelon 5y agoThis is one of the reasons why we still make movies. And music. Any art.
- gruez 5y agoJust to update the set pieces?
- thereddaikon 5y agoTo keep things relatable. Most stories may at their core be a rehash or Aesop, Shakespere and the hero's journey but that doesn't mean they are relatable to the audience. At some point Beowulf must turn into Siegfried and Siegfried must become Luke Skywalker.
- gruez 5y ago>I think kids would find it funny if Arthur were still using a typewriter and didn't own a computer, for example. Not if you play it off as a period piece.
- fomine3 5y agoSazae-san story is now basically like that. Their lifestyle is frozen at around 1980s. The anime production also had been used analog cel rather than digital until about 2010. It's last TV anime show uses cel (oh I must put this word: "at least in Japan").
- bumblebritches5 5y agoAww :( I used to love watching Arthur at my grandmas house when I was a kid
- unpopularopp 5y agoThe episode they made in response to 911, April 9th is very good and touching. It really is something special https://arthur.fandom.com/wiki/April_9th https://arthur.fandom.com/wiki/April_9th Here is it https://pbskids.org/arthur/health/resilience/episode.html https://pbskids.org/arthur/health/resilience/episode.html Or this if doesn't work https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3pklin https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3pklin
- codetrotter 5y agoI thought you meant 9/11 when you said 911. But having watched half of it now I am a bit confused, and I thought maybe your comment meant that it was about 911 as in emergency response, since they have a real life fireman talking in the middle. But so I went back to your comment and I think my initial understanding of what you meant is what you said. I’ll watch the rest and see. But I guess maybe being a kids show they are tackling the same subjects in a gentle manner.
- rideontime 5y agoThe episode doesn't explicitly depict 9/11, but it addresses relevant themes, mainly dealing with tragedy and trauma.
- lifeisstillgood 5y agoFor those not deep in US kids TV: https://pbskids.org/arthur/ https://pbskids.org/arthur/ and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_(TV_series) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_(TV_series) As a UK dad, I don't recognise the name, but oh yes, I recognise the characters. Shame ..
- ub99 5y agoSurprising I also don’t recognize the name but recognize the characters. Does this show have a different name in the UK? Edit: I think I am just confusing it with a very similar looking UK/Central European show.
- samizdis 5y agoAlso a UK dad, but one who quite a few years ago picked up a book for a US friend's kid on the basis of a name, Binky, rather than a familiarity with the drawn character of the same name in the Arthur circles. Anyhow, this kid had liked the Arthur-world character Binky, but I picked up a book called Binky's Guide to Love. Not the same thing at all. It was from Matt Groening's Life in Hell [1] output, and earned me some parental frowns. The upside was that the then six/seven-year-old kid took a shine to, er, "new Binky", and by 10 was an avid fan, and since then has been a collector via second-hand bookstores. Now in mid-teens, I like to think that this has had only positive effects on that growing mind. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_in_Hell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_in_Hell
- BoxOfRain 5y agoI'm fairly sure this was on CITV around 2001ish, or whatever predated CBeebies on analogue telly.
- Symbiote 5y agoBefore digital TV (2002), we had just 5 channels in most of Britain. CBBC existed as a brand, but was a few hours of content on either BBC 1 or BBC 2 (I can't remember) broadcast at suitable times.
- nashashmi 5y agoAs someone without cable tv, the towers with the tv antenna fell on 9/11 and so did any ability to watch anything other than NJ pbs. Arthur, zoom and this math show were the only thing I could watch in high school. So sad.
- Symbiote 5y agoHow long did it take them to replace them? Or is the problem that the replacements were on shorter buildings, with less signal range? Probably the latter: https://www.tvtechnology.com/opinions/rebuilding-nyc-tv-transmission-after-911 https://www.tvtechnology.com/opinions/rebuilding-nyc-tv-tran...
- nashashmi 5y agoFor some people the signal was back in 3 days. But for most people it never came back and they all signed up for satellite and cable tv. When we got satellite in 2005, the installer was surprised to see we had nothing. He asked what did you watch after 9-11?
- haunter 5y ago>the Longest-Running Kids Animated Series in History There are at least 4 still in production animes which are all longer But I guess "history" = US history Sazea-san 1969 https://myanimelist.net/anime/2406/Sazae-san https://myanimelist.net/anime/2406/Sazae-san Anpanman 1988 https://myanimelist.net/anime/1960/Sore_Ike_Anpanman https://myanimelist.net/anime/1960/Sore_Ike_Anpanman Shin-chan 1992 https://myanimelist.net/anime/966/Crayon_Shin-chan https://myanimelist.net/anime/966/Crayon_Shin-chan Nintama Rantaro 1993 https://myanimelist.net/anime/1199/Nintama_Rantarou https://myanimelist.net/anime/1199/Nintama_Rantarou
- civilized 5y agoSazae-san at 52 years and still going strong. Wow! Had anyone heard of it before reading this post?
- johnzim 5y agoYes! It's one of the few things I can watch and understand reliably in Japanese. It doesn't contain lots of slang or fantastical words.
- lovemenot 5y agoIt's broadcast at dinner time on Sundays. So yes, living in Japan one can hardly fail to know it. Character don't age. Technology is not really present, so it's kind of timeless. Sazae herself is named after a shellfish. As are all the other main characters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_cornutus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_cornutus
- gkanai 5y agoEveryone in Japan knows this animated show.
- sdrothrock 5y agoSazae-san is such an institution here that there's slang describing the feeling when you watch it on Sunday night and know you have a full work week coming up: Sazae-san Syndrome.
- lkramer 5y agoMy kid loved this show (Not from the US, but a lot of them were available on Youtube, and... uhm torrents). It got a bit creepy when they went 3D to be honest. The episode with the green chip is a classic.
- JackFr 5y agoThe fundamental dishonesty of Arthur is that the original story book was about Arthur fitting in and feeling bad about his extremely long nose and had a really nice message for kids. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur%27s_Nose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur%27s_Nose When the animated series came around they went and shortened Arthur's nose and completely undermined it.
- Wowfunhappy 5y agoEh, I understand the irony but I feel the show very much surpassed the source material.
- bexsella 5y agoArthur's nose was shortened years prior to the first season of the TV show coming out. You can see on the cover of Arthur's Teacher Trouble: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur%27s_Teacher_Trouble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur%27s_Teacher_Trouble
- jmcgough 5y agoHis nose was shortened over time even before the show came out: https://arthur.fandom.com/wiki/Arthur%27s_Nose?file=Vous.png https://arthur.fandom.com/wiki/Arthur%27s_Nose?file=Vous.png
- jkereako 5y agoI read these books to my three year old. Arthur’s nose is only large in the first book (or books, I only have one from that time). As early as the mid 80s Marc Brown changed him into the aardvark we know today.
- jaqalopes 5y agoGrew up watching Arthur every morning before school well into middle school (have a sister who's three years younger). Arthur's family and life was more precisely like mine than any other I ever saw on TV growing up, and for that it will always be special. Standout episodes include the time the Brain sleeps over and Arthur gets mad about how clean and well-mannered he is, then goes to the Brain's house and finds out he's a slob, the lesson being he was just being a good guest, something childhood me took to heart; the Hurl-i-whirl ep; the ep where Arthur hits DW with the swing and gets in trouble (very relevant to my life with a little sister); and of course the seminal "trapped overnight in the library" ep.
- rejectedandsad 5y agoThe writers of the show, perhaps by nature of having a lot of episodes to work with, made a stunningly large corpus of nearly universal childhood experiences. I don’t look fondly on my own childhood (not for any bad reasons or anything) but I do admire the thought and work that went into making a show relatable even for people with boring childhoods like mine. Some of my favorite episodes are “Prove it”, where Arthur’s sister tricks him into taking her to the science museum by promoting pseudoscience, and the episode “Bugged” which contains a surprisingly dark retelling of “Metamorphosis” about being a know it all. Just a phenomenal show.
- teekert 5y agoAs a parent I'm very interested in why you would label your childhood as "boring". I would feel bad if my kids would feel the same. What is the reason? Were your parents very protective? Did you stay inside most of the time? What would you consider "not boring"?
- drunkpotato 5y agoHmm I have the opposite reaction, as a parent with a very "not boring" childhood I hope to provide enough stability for my children's complaint to be that we're boring, while taking the good parts of my childhood and instilling a sense of independence and capability in them. Time will tell if this is successful.
- throaway46546 5y agoF
- cogman10 5y agoMy first response to the title was "OMG, arthur is still being produced!" I thought authur had ended it's run a long time ago. But then, I guess that makes sense. Sesame Street is similarly long lived.
- JasonFruit 5y agoMy kids love Arthur, and much of it is just fine — but when that lunch lady comes on, you know you're in for a sermon.
- soheil 5y agoNow there will be another longest-running series, immediately after this ends. The question should be for how long was this the longest-running series?
- rejectedandsad 5y agoIm the same age as the show and grew up with it (favorite characters were Mr Ratburn and the Brain of course). Definitely shed a tear when I heard the news officially. I’ll definitely be watching the final episodes once they come out.
- ravenstine 5y agoBeing an adult without kids, I haven't really seen much of Arthur since the 90's, but I came across this episode and appreciated it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIkrKjabzE0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIkrKjabzE0 (part 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKsWvCY0FP4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKsWvCY0FP4 (part 2) It's a good lesson in how group dynamics can cause social movements to get way out of hand. Being a cartoon, it's a little farfetched, but the episode was inspired by an actual event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave_(experiment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave_(experiment) I don't think Arthur tackles it particularly well, although the message at the end is decent. I'm nevertheless impressed that they even thought to try and approach this topic with such a young audience.
- Retr0id 5y agoFor a more mature dramatization of the same events, the German movie Die Welle (2008) is great.
- ravenstine 5y agoIt's pretty good, although I wish it didn't have that ending. :)
- Igelau 5y agoDear Diary...
- lighthazard 5y agoHey!
- mastrsushi 5y agoI peeked newer episodes a while back. The had major budget cuts, switched to Flash or whatever soul less vector graphic animation software those Canadian cartoons like Johnny Test and Total Drama Island use.
- exikyut 5y agoAh, interesting. Know when these started?
- mastrsushi 5y agoseason 16 :'(
- exikyut 5y agoAh, thanks. *Files away*
- howolduis 5y agothe title is misleading. Should be "longest running American Animated series" Sazae-san, a Japanese anime, has been running since 1974, with over 7,500 episodes
- tomlin 5y agoAmazing how something lasts forever when you don't fall over yourself trying to exit the company and make it public. Weird.
- frutiger 5y ago25 years is not forever.
- tomlin 5y agoPedantic much?
- frutiger 5y agoAnd many “startups” exit by going public and last longer than 25 years.
- tomlin 5y agoHow many "startups" grow to a comfortable level, run in a "mom and pop" reality, and just exist inside of a community for more than 5 minutes? My comment was towards the tech community's propendancy to find value in selling anything and everything, rather, actually invest in a community or - gasp - exist for more than a few years. The "longest running" anything happens because someone locks the door to fleeting enterprise in favour of building an actual product where people work there for 5, 10 years. Imagine that.
- frutiger 5y agoAnd how many animated series grow to a comfortable “mom and pop” level and last longer than 25 years? Your comparison between the two is frankly baffling to me.
- tomlin 5y agoEasy one. My office literally has one above me called Pipeline Studios. It's not even the only one in my mid-sized city. Comparison is easily reachable. You just don't like it because it contradicts your bubble.
- midwestemo 5y agoThere were multiple episodes that I remember watching as a child (In fact, I think I have seen all the episodes except the recent ones in the last 3-4 years). The one where they make a movie due to the new "James Hound" movie is rated PG-13, the Christmas movie about uncle frank, the Mr Rogers episode where he comes and stay in Arthur house(there was another episode like this except Arthur's teacher Mr.Ratburn) and so much others. However, one thing that was stuck in my head ever since I saw it was an episode where Muffy was watching a Backstreet Boys music video and Francine calls them a sellout. So she makes a band and calls it "U stink." Then they play in a front of a crowd and the Backstreet Boys themselves come[0]. That episode and the ones where they have different animation like South Park and beavis and butthead were the ones that stuck with me as a kid. But I have to admit how long this aired, I thought it would end in 2015, but apparently they kept making new episodes. [0] - https://youtu.be/F3x72g-s_bk https://youtu.be/F3x72g-s_bk
- paul_f 5y agoSomeday I want to go to a Ziggy Marley concert just so I can yell "play Arthur's theme!". What a great song. Every time I heard it I smiled and knew a great show was coming on. Too bad the kids grew up and I stopped watching.
- duxup 5y agoThe local college footbal team holds up signal cards to indicate plays. The legendary fist of Arthur is one of them.
- zoomablemind 5y agoWatching Arthur episodes on PBSKids for the first time as a 'grownup on duty'. I like the storytelling and spectrum of characters, but am still ambivalent as for the fitness to the target mindset. I find that generally the situations are more for lives of 8-10yr olds, yet at that age cartoons may be already too didactic. More younger kids may not face the kinds of challenges depicted. I'm often asked to explain it to the 5yo. Still, the stories are very well written. My so far most memorable is 'Lost and Found', very relatable almost dream/nightmare-like.
- caseyross 5y agoThanks, this puts into words what I remember about watching Arthur as a child. As I recall, it was constantly teetering on the edge of too advanced for a younger kid, and too staid for an older one. A shame, because even at that age the high production values of the show were obvious.
- travisgriggs 5y agoLoved watching these with my kids. Best episode ever was the one with the CarTalk guys: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s-q-vBKC_e0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s-q-vBKC_e0
- larsrc 5y ago"Sendung mit der Maus", 50 years and still going strong.
- strogonoff 5y agoI thought Japan must certainly hold the record for the longest-running kids animation, and apparently I’m not wrong. Detective Conan started airing in January 1996 (10 months earlier than Arthur), and is still going.
- mcnesium 5y agoArthur est un perroquet!
- thrwyoilarticle 5y ago>The news of the show ending was first floated earlier this month in an interview featured in the July 13 episode of the podcast Finding D.W., where Arthur writer Kathy Waugh revealed that the show was no longer in production, and the final episode was completed years ago. >Still, this might not be the end of Arthur: The statement from Greenwald adds that "producer GBH and PBS KIDS are continuing to work together on additional Arthur content, sharing the lessons of Arthur and his friends in new ways." So either it hasn't ended, or it ended years ago.
- edly 5y agoArthur was always my favorite as a kid. What kept me loving it as an adult is how well every episode holds up and how brilliant and absurd the humor could be. In one episode, a kid's head falls out of the sky and compliments the lawn it lands on. In another one, a tiny version of Neil Gaiman is just chilling inside someone's sandwich. Both of these make as much sense in context. For me, the mastery Arthur had over complex themes and childhood experiences was best shown in its autism episode. It's called "When Carl Met George" and while it dealt with Asperger's specifically (which has since been wrapped up into the Autism Spectrum Disorder umbrella, thanks to the DSM-V), it still explains what being autistic is like to children in a plain, easy-to-understand way.