Arthur - Where is the Show Going?

[MikaelaMuppet]

Here, we have:

Granite State Challenge

Windows To The Wild

 

[YellowYahooey]

I personally think "Arthur" has gone downhill for many years now. I used to actively watch the show for all of the first ten seasons. I feel as if my interest in the show was falling out of favor during the milestone tenth season. When we entered Season 11, I watched the first half of that season twice, and after that, because of excessive reruns and the content becoming quite dry, I gave up on the show for good sometime in July 2007.

It is evident that the show has been going downhill after Season 19 or so. For the longest time, one season would consist of ten fresh episodes, but today, the number of episodes in a season is reduced to just seven. This implies that ratings have been in decline for a number of years, and it would make sense, especially since kids these days may find computer games more interesting than kids' shows.

Whatever the future holds for "Arthur", it will be the longest-running animated series designed for children to ever air on television (unless, in the distant future, something better takes over). "The Simpsons", which is the longest-running animated series in television history, doesn't count, as it is targeted to adults.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

Even I don't watch the show myself as much like I used to, except if it's the early seasons.

 

[YellowYahooey]

I did learn on a YouTube comment early this decade that some episodes (including the one where Buster shoplifts a toy from a drugstore) are no longer aired on PBS anymore. I did learn that they aired at least Season 10. I did learn that the reason for not airing the "Nerves of Steal" episode is because PBS wanted to focus on the current and more recent episodes. Or did the shoplifting episode get pulled because it influenced kids to shoplift in real life?

 

[D'Snowth]

You can't really go by what YouTube comments say, since they're not of an official source. I've read some comments that "Bleep" was banned since D.W. learned a swear word, but that's not true, as I've seen "Bleep" plenty of times on PBS since it first aired.

There is, however, a theory, that one of the main reasons we see less of the older seasons is because of how dated the technology depicted on the show is, and how that might confuse younger kids watching. To wit: the use of old CRT TV sets, cell(ular) phones not being common and looking like cordless landline phones, CDs being the main media format for music, etc.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

They don't typically air older episodes on the main PBS channel where I live, but they do still air them on the actual PBS Kids channel. Just earlier today they were showing The Ballad of Buster Baxter from season 3.

 

[LittleJerry92]

@YellowYahooey word of advice from you: never trust YouTube comments as a source. They are the least credible one you’ll ever want to go to.

 

[D'Snowth]

Welp, it's official: Ladonna is leaving.

Honestly, Ladonna never really bothered me at all . . . aside from her and her family's inaccurate southern accents (they still pronounced certain words more like northerns and Canadians do), I just never could hate her, because she wasn't a bad character . . . part of me wanted to automatically hate her because she was dumped into a show so far into its run, and with the humongous cast of characters it already has, her addition just seemed completely unnecessary . . . and this now solidifies it.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

I wonder if she's leaving due to fans complaining.
Something similar happened in the later seasons of FOP with the infamous additions of Poof and (even more so) Sparky. They were so hated that after a few seasons they were quietly phased out of the show. But it ended up not mattering because the show ended shortly after anyway.

 

[D'Snowth]

I wouldn't dismiss that as a possibility, they've really been pandering to the base in recent years (no lie, there was that one episode of Bud taking off his hat, because literally, one fan was absolutely obsessed with seeing him take off his hat just like certain people on this forum are obsessed with seeing every single SS episode ever made).

But this seems like it's actually going to be treated like another one of their "Very Special Episodes," since the storyline involves the family having to move away because her father, who's in the Reserve, is being deployed to another part of the country.