Episodes
Each episode of Arthur runs for half an hour. Episodes usually consist of two completely self-contained 11-minute stories. The episodes start off with one of the characters (usually Arthur) speaking towards the audience about a situation within the story followed by the title card. The episodes are separated by a one- to two-minute live-action interstitial called "And Now a Word from Us Kids" (or, in some cases, a permutation of that title more specific to its contents). The live-action segments almost always feature children from elementary schools (generally in the Boston area) presenting subjects they are currently learning about or projects they have been working on in their classes (the subjects covered here relate to the first cartoon segment in the half-hour). This segment is seen exclusively on PBS telecasts of the show, filling space otherwise used for commercials, which are generally forbidden on PBS. There is also a relatively new segment that sometimes appears at the end of the second 11-minute episode called "And Now a Word from Marc Brown" where he shows the viewers how to draw various main characters from the show. In 2007, the show began encouraging viewers to send in "video postcards" (similar to those used in the spin-off show Postcards from Buster), which were shown in the interstitials of episodes until the middle of Season 12. Beginning with Episode 151, the show reverted back "And Now a Word from Us Kids".
Set in a realistic environment (as opposed to the more fantastical settings prominently featured in children's programming), certain episodes of the animated series may not necessarily focus on the titular protagonist's point of view and may instead detail the experiences and viewpoints of surrounding characters, usually Arthur's schoolmates (in some episodes, Arthur himself doesn't even appear). Often such episodes will depict those characters handling situations often faced by children in actuality as a means of guiding audiences through those situations, including bed-wetting, asthma, or dyslexia, and Arthur's character sometimes may see a reduced role. In spite of the realistically-designed environment, the series may showcase the fantasies or daydreams of a few characters on a number of occasions, and a multitude of guest stars have made appearances. Later episodes dealt with more serious issues or subjects, such as cancer or Asperger's Syndrome, albeit numerous episodes may simply address topics including childhood fears, trends, or fantasies, although occasionally a couple of episodes might offer very little educational value at all.
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Famous quotes containing the word episodes:
“What is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow-men’s existence strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history?”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“Twenty or thirty years ago, in the army, we had a lot of obscure adventures, and years later we tell them at parties, and suddenly we realize that those two very difficult years of our lives have become lumped together into a few episodes that have lodged in our memory in a standardized form, and are always told in a standardized way, in the same words. But in fact that lump of memories has nothing whatsoever to do with our experience of those two years in the army and what it has made of us.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)