Arthur is an animated television series for children ages 4 to 8,[1] developed by Kathy Waugh for PBS and produced by WGBH Boston.

Arthur has received praise for dealing with important issues that families face, such as asthma, dyslexia, cancer, diabetes, and autism.

[11] Arthur Read, the series' titular character, is an anthropomorphic brown aardvark who lives in the fictional town of Elwood City.

Arthur's family includes two home-working parents, his father David (a chef) and his mother Jane (an accountant), his two younger sisters, Dora Winifred (D.W.), who is in preschool, and Kate, who is still an infant, and his dog, Pal.

Brown himself stated that the series is influenced by his upbringing as a child in Erie, and specifically noted that Mr. Ratburn is based on a middle-school algebra teacher he had at Westlake Middle School.

[12] In 1994, Marc Brown was approached by WGBH (a PBS affiliate) about the possibility of adapting his Arthur books into a television series.

However, future executive producer of Arthur, Carol Greenwald from WGBH, assured Brown that their agenda was to encourage children to read and visit the library.

Marc Brown's children, Tolon, Eliza, and Tucker, are referenced in the show several times, just as they are in the Arthur book series.

In one episode, Francine and Buster are shown playing a table hockey game in which one team's players wear shirts in the Montreal Canadiens' signature colors with Montreal-based CINAR's logo on them (CINAR was the predecessor to Cookie Jar Entertainment) and the other team's players wear shirts in the Boston Bruins' colors with Boston-based WGBH's sting logo on them.

[18] It was revealed that both the chairman Micheline Charest and president Ronald Weinberg invested $122 million (US) into Bahamian bank accounts without the board members' approval.

[21] The TV show's reggae-style theme song, "Believe in Yourself", was written by Judy Henderson and Jerry de Villiers Jr. and was performed by Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers.

The Backstreet Boys covered the song with the original instrumentals for the ending credits of television special Arthur: It's Only Rock 'n' Roll.

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and jazz composer Joshua Redman covered the song on the ending credits of the season 4 finale episode, "My Music Rules".

The show mentions to this on the TV special Arthur: It's Only Rock 'n' Roll when D.W. says, "Crazy Bus is for babies; I know a million better songs.

"[citation needed] Many celebrity guest stars have appeared on the show, each providing the voice for their anthropomorphic animal counterpart.

Arthur's closest friends include Buster, Francine, Muffy, Binky, Brain, and Sue Ellen, along with others such as Fern, Prunella, Jenna, and George as frequent supporting characters.

Arthur, D.W., and Kate also visit their paternal grandmother, Thora Read, and maternal grandfather, Grandpa Dave.

The episodes were separated by a one-to-two-minute live-action interstitial called "And Now a Word from Us Kids" (or, in some cases, a variation of that title more specific to its contents).

Stories in later seasons dealt with more serious issues or subjects, such as cancer, autism spectrum disorder, or even same-sex marriage, although numerous episodes simply addressed topics including childhood fears, trends, or fantasies.

[26] In addition to the television series, the Arthur franchise has spawned seven hour-long films, some of which used to be often run on PBS during pledge drives.

Postcards from Buster premiered on October 11, 2004, and continued until November 21, 2008; the series faced several years of hiatus, until a brief revival in February 2012 with two previously unaired episodes that had been held over from the show's third season.

Microsoft discontinued the ActiMates line shortly before season 5 aired, most possibly due to a lawsuit pertaining to patent infringement[29] and the fact that sales were dropping.

[citation needed] Ostrov, Gentile, and Crick (2006) write that "our viewing of many educational programs such as Arthur suggests that relational aggression is modeled at a fairly high rate.

[35] They go on to theorize that preschoolers, due to their developmental stage, may have a hard time fully understanding conflict resolution, which typically occurs at the very end of a show.

This research was elaborated on in the New York Times best-selling book on parenting NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children by Bronson and Merryman (2009).

Because "Arthur" presents real childhood issues, the show contains some imitative behavior such as name calling or bickering, much like children experience in their own lives.

The review continued by citing many ways in which children could extract more from the series, for example by encouraging kids to write stories based on their own families (in much the same way Arthur was first realised) or by Kim Brown, Marc Brown's sister, teaching kids to draw Arthur while on tour.

"[38] Arthur regularly incorporates parodies of and references to pop culture including (but not limited to) South Park, Jeopardy!, The Waltons, Dexter's Laboratory, The Sopranos, Beavis and Butt-Head, the Indiana Jones films, the James Bond films, The Adventures of Tintin, Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, The Jerry Springer Show, Oprah, Law & Order, Charlie Rose, Antiques Roadshow, Mystery!, The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, Macbeth, Planet of the Apes, The Matrix, Star Wars, Titanic, The Wizard of Oz, Jaws, That '70s Show, Harry Potter, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, This Old House, The Happy Hollisters, Percy Jackson & the Olympians, High School Musical, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Chronicles of Narnia.

[39][23] In July 2014, Chance the Rapper released his interpretation of the theme song of the series called "Wonderful Everyday: Arthur" with Wyclef Jean and Jessie Ware.