I could never quite figure out what everyone's big deal is with Arthur not being the focus of every episode. There are so many other characters that have so much depth that can be focused on. I think that, whether anyone would admit it or not, if every single episode was focused on Arthur, that everyone would be moaning bout how he's featured too much...
I have no problem with episodes being about Brain, Buster, Francine, Muffy, Binky, D.W. or The Tibbles. It's characters like James and Jenna getting full episodes that bug me. They have NO personality at all. James's schtick is that he's shy. Sorry, there's already a shy character. George. I guess when he became more outgoing, they had to Raven Symone James into the show. Luckily, after the bed wetting episode, they shoved Jenna back into the background where she belongs.
Plus, there is NO need to pair up a D.W. and friends episode with another D.W. and friends episode. We have a variety of characters, why two segments about the same second and tertiary characters on the same episode? That's like an Animaniacs episode where there's 3 Buttons and Mindy cartoons.
They try to explore all worlds with this...things focusing primarily D.W.'s friends has gone all the way back to Marc Brown's book writing...
Ehhhhh... no. Not really. There were one off D.W. books, sure. Arthur was there, but the story was about her. They were sort of the easy reader versions of the Arthur books (at least the 3 I read were). The Tibbles were
also from the books (and HUMAN
) but they were never D.W.'s friends. Heck, we never even got to see D.W. hang out with anyone in the books. For that matter, the only regular series Arthur book where another character was the focus was "Arthur and the True Francine," all about Francine meeting Muffy, even though Arthur's name was in the title. So while the cartoon is an expanded universe, it's completely detached from the actual book series that focused mainly on Arthur. But that's adaption displacement for you. People are actually starting to forget these
were books at some point.
And trust me. I've been reading the books since I was very young. I even lamented the fact it took until 1996 for the books to get a show.