Arthur - Where is the Show Going?

[mr3urious]

First off, yeah... this plot line. Season 1 Muppet Babies stuff? I'm sure Garfield did it as well. Another great generic kiddy show plotline pulled out of the very same 1980's cliche pile that Marc Brown refused to make a cartoon out of his books then. Really... too short to ride rollercoasters? Saving your life debts? How about a non-ironic treasure hunt episode where they find a genie? How about we have them shrink, too? And not in an imagination cut scene way. Yeah, this sort of thing is "new" to kids who were born 4-10 years ago, but do we really need to sink to that level?

What about one or more of the characters getting amnesia? Or even introducing robot clones? Might as well have them parody Star Wars while they're at it.

 

[D'Snowth]

You realize too that they already did an episode like that two seasons ago where D.W. takes the box their new fridge came in and turned it into her and Nadine's "office".

 

[Drtooth]

Not really a fan of that one either. I think the fake office thing had potential, but not enough to fill out an entire episode, so they merged it with that lawyer story, which was barely connected.

And there was also an episode that had the intro where Arthur and DW were pretending to be in Atlantis and they were in a box like that. And DW was being bratty through the whole thing. They did that same thing better subtle than making a whole Muppet Babies ripoff episode.

 

[D'Snowth]

I really don't mind "Read and Flumberghast" so much, it's kind of an interesting take on the perspective of what kids can do with giant boxes like that (hey, I'll admit as a kid I've sat in large empty cardboard boxes before and pretended I was traveling through space), but now that you mention it, yes, the lawyer plot does feel disjointed and tacked on.

But still, it makes you wonder what the mindset of the writing staff was that just two seasons later they're doing that exact same plot device again. Is this going to become the Once A Season chicken mistakes Rocco for an egg and tries to hatch it episode for them?

 

[Drtooth]

Seems that this episode is going to be almost exactly like the Garfield and Friends episode "Box O Fun" (which Garfield is constantly using his imagination in a cardboard box and it's always a different way to use it) where Read and Flumberghast was more specifically that one use for a box. And for the record, I do enjoy the episode, but you can really tell that they had like 2 different episodes they couldn't make a full 10 minutes and crammed them together. I especially love D.W.'s Sally Brown style "I have to write the Checks" joke. That was delightfully Peanuts-esque of them.

On a more positive note, I'm greatly looking forward to "Buster isn't Buying it." We haven't had a Buster conspiracy theory episode for a while. And apparently this is the episode that brings back Martin Spivak.

 

[D'Snowth]

Well, more vids are disappearing from YT, but this time, WGBH is not behind the mass deletion - it's PBS.

Apparently PBS is pulling any full episode uploads they can find, and offer full episodes through their own channel -- at a price. Just like all these other networks (and even SW) have been doing lately.

 

[Drtooth]

And that doesn't surprise me a single bit. PBS needs money, but instead of holding pledges for kid's programming, they're pulling the same cynical techniques all the big entertainment companies are doing.

It's not like they haven't pulled this sort of thing before. I went nuts looking for a very specific WordGirl episode for a fan art quite a while back. Nothing on YT, nothing on PBS Go's awful site...and they didn't even charge then.

 

[D'Snowth]

As I've said before, as someone who used to spend a lot of time at PBS, I can tell you there are two reasons why they don't do pledge drives anymore: 1) People don't phone in the pledges like they used to, and they always fall short of their goals (matter of fact, the last pledge drive we did, they upped the amount of the minimum you could pledge to try and make up for it), 2) At least in my state, the Far Right's agenda to spread propaganda about PBS being an evil organization bent on brainwashing our children into believing that acceptance of homosexuals is okay has driven a lot of the masses away (because mine is a dyed-in-the-wool red state, unfortunately).

 

[Drtooth]

My supposed Blue State doesn't have kids pledge months anymore. Oh, but you better believe we have pledge months up the wazoo for the adult line up. And , as I've moaned about in the past, it's turned into lame concerts and self help infomercials.m Not even rerunning Downton Abby, and you'd think that would be a so completely obvious even Inspector Clouseau could have seen it way to rake in bucks and viewership. Nope. Forget that PBS is all about Sesame Street and Masterpiece Theater. Just drag out someone with a fad diet or some old prunes singing 1950's white people music and hope a bunch of senior citizens blow their social security checks on them. It's pathetic really.

I miss back in as far back as the beginning of last decade when they had retrospectives and unique TV specials that everyone could enjoy. Arthur's Christmas and Backstreet Boys specials were often parts of it. Now it's like, oh we have these PBS show specials (like that Cookie Monster museum heist thing) that would be perfect in primetime to get some cash for the network, but let's have Wayne Dyer's freaking bald head slapped over the schedule instead.

 

[D'Snowth]

Hey, Drtooth! Remember how much you disliked the caricatures of the Bang on a Can Allstars? Check out Idina Menzel:

Staring into your soul with the intent of stealing it.

On an interesting note, apparently Brain has emotional problems again: he's now terrified of storms, which -- I don't know, I just can't seem him being the kind scared of storms. If anything, I could see him being a storm chaser, but oh well.