Now ponder this about Marc Brown's Arthur

[Matthew Penn <Matthew_Penn@ideas.sdhc.k12.fl.us>]

Teresa Radandt wrote this on Mar 30th

"I know that Arthur and his family are aardvarks, Buster Bunny is a
rabbit, and Mr. Ratburn is a rat, but does anyone else know what animals

the other characters are supposed to represent?"

My kind-of-comedic thoughts on this: (because I watch a lot of Arthur on PBS -
three kids under 5 :)

Francine Frensky is a chimp or monkey.  Buffy looks like one also.  WHAT IN THE
WORLD IS BINKY BARNES!  He looks like a big potato head.

A thought that bothers me about Arthur on PBS:  Why do the characters have
pets?  Arthur has a pet puppy.  Yet, there a lots of dogs that are characters
on the show.  Who gets to be a animal"person" and who gets to be an animal
"pet?"  The other day Francine and her sister were riding horses.  If I was
that horse I would be pretty P.O'd.  "Hey, how come you get to wear clothes and
live in a house -  Mr Ed did.  Why can't I?"

Most disturbing:  All of the animal"people" have parents that are the same
type.  Arthur has two Anteater parents, Francine has two Monkey parents.  BUT
WAIT!  On the same horse-riding episode Francine's older sister was flirting
with a DOG!  What's up with that?  Can they do that?

Before I get people flaming me with something to the effect of "it's just a
fictional storybook/show - don't get so serious about it"  - hold your horses.
I know it is - I'm just trying to be humorous.

Finally, I think Marc Brown and TV writers should be consistent.  If they have
a dog as a person they shouldn't have them as a pet.  How about real people as
pets - now that would be a statement!

Matthew Penn Media specialist Plant city fl.

Matthew_Penn@ideas.sdhc.k12.fl.us

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