History FurryConfusion / Arthur

* In one episode, there is a comic about “flying sheep zombies”, which aren’t anthropomorphic. However, one of the substitute teachers in another episode IS an anthropomorphic sheep. She asks the class to spell the word “leather”. FridgeHorror kicks in when you learn what leather is made of.

* Another episode had Arthur and several of his friends watching a parody of their own show, featuring an anthro called "Andy." They snark at it, asking questions like, "If all the characters are animals, does their school cafeteria serve bugs and garbage?" and "If Andy is a mouse and has a pet dog, why doesn't it eat him?" Arthur: "He's not a mouse. He's a... I forget." (Arthur himself is [[InformedSpecies supposedly an aardvark, but looks as much like a mouse as anything else]].) Obviously, the producers love Lampshading.

* "Binky Can't Always Get What He Wants": Buster, an anthropomorphic rabbit, [[PullARabbitOutOfMyHat pulls a non-anthro rabbit out of a hat]]

* Another episode had Arthur and several of his friends watching a parody of their own show, featuring an anthro called "Andy." They snark at it, asking questions like, [[FurryDenial "If all the characters are animals, does their school cafeteria serve bugs and garbage?"]] and "If Andy is a mouse and has a pet dog, why doesn't it eat him?" Arthur: "He's not a mouse. He's a... I forget." (Arthur himself is [[InformedSpecies supposedly an aardvark, but looks as much like a mouse as anything else]].) Obviously, the producers love Lampshading.

* Furthermore, normal animals still exist in Arthur's town (for example Arthur has a dog named Pal, but the characters of Binky, Fern and Prunella are anthropomorphic dogs, while Francine has a non-anthropormophic cat named Nemo living in the same world as the anthropomorphic cats Sue Ellen and Jenna). To be fair, this is fairly normal in cartoons; but then it turns out that [[AnimalTalk Pal can speak to other non-anthropomorphic animals]]. And there are several episodes where Pal and ''Arthur's baby sister Kate'' can communicate with each other. Imagine a first-grader trying to rationalize all of this.
** In even more recent episodes, it's been shown that Pal and Kate can also talk to toys and imaginary friends.
** Mei Lin (Binky's baby sister) can also speak to animals, apparently Vicita used to be able to, and the episode "Paradise Lost" suggests that all babies can speak to animals until they learn to talk. This could be chalked up to a strange ability that babies in the Arthur universe have, but it doesn't explain why they can talk to toys.
*** The toys that babies and animals have talked to have also been their owner's imaginary friend(s), so that might explain it.

* In "Draw!", Francine insults Arthur by telling him to "go eat an ant sandwich." True, bratty kids often taunt their classmates by telling them to eat non-food, but she could also be comparing him to a non-anthropomorphic aardvark.
* Buster makes a threat to Mr. Ratburn that his mother feeds rats to lizards in "Bitzi's Beau".
* There was an episode where they go on a field trip to a ''zoo''.
** Before he got his brain condition, Grandpa Dave lived on a ''farm''. Admittedly, though, that's less confusing, since there don't seem to be anthropomorphic farm animals present... with the exception of that one anthropomorphic sheep seen in the substitute teacher episode.

* It seems that non-anthropomorphic animals have different metabolisms than anthropomorphic ones. In "Sick as a Dog", Pal [[SickEpisode gets sick]] from eating candy. However, Binky, Fern, and other anthro dogs have eaten candy and been fine.
* The kids get hooked on a game called ''Best of the Nest,'' in which they play as virtual geese. The fact that the video game avatars are anthropomorphic geese but not quite as anthropomorphic as their players, ''and'' referred to specifically as geese is confusing, to say the least.

* Ladonna owns a pet rat, oddly enough.

* Dolls such as Polly Locket and the World Girls are shown as anthropomorphic animals. However, a talking stuffed animal is shown that is clearly not anthro. Neither are Arthur’s teddy bear and D.W.’s Net Kitten (though her Net Kitten [[TalkingAnimal is heard saying, "I'm bored" at one point]]). Likewise, Brain says he used to sleep with a stuffed pig (though there are no anthropomorphic pigs in the show).

* The “prehistoric aardvarks” in ''D.W. Tale Spins'' look a lot like their real-life counterparts, complete with long noses.

* Another episode had Arthur and several of his friends watching a parody of their own show, featuring an anthro called "Andy." They snark at it, asking questions like, [[FurryDenial "If all the characters are animals, does their school cafeteria serve bugs and garbage?"]] and "If Andy is a mouse and has a pet dog, why doesn't it eat him?" Arthur: "He's not a mouse. He's a... I forget." (Arthur himself is supposedly an aardvark, but looks as much like a mouse as anything else.) Obviously, the producers love Lampshading.

* In one episode ("Buster's Dino Dilemma"), Ratburn mentions that dinosaurs were around before upright mammals, which brings up a whole other mess of issues (namely the fact that not all of the anthropomorphic animals are mammals; although rare, there have been crocodiles and birds seen).

* "Buster Bombs" has Buster, Muffy and Brain discussing about monkey bars and monkeys in general. Muffy then brings up that her dad once knew a guy who was bitten by a monkey. That had to be intentional or something...

There's probably no other TV show that has more FurryConfusion than ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'', due to its inconsistency as to whether the characters are aware they aren't human or not. Because it's generated so much discussion on this wiki, it's been moved to this page.

* Everyone in Arthur's world is an anthropomorphic animal. Whenever a guest voice appears on the show, they are drawn as an (often rather [[UncannyValley eerie looking]]) anthropomorphic animal character. This would seem to imply that everyone in Arthur's world is a Furry animal-person, until the spin-off ''Postcards From Buster'' came along. The premise is that Buster is traveling the world interviewing the different people he meets along the way. The thing is, the people he meets are all live-action ''human'' children. Either everyone outside Arthur's town is human or they aren't, it depends on the episode.
** Alternatively, ''Postcards From Buster'' could be interpreted as supporting the FurryLens hypothesis-- the inhabitants of the show's world look like animals to us, but Buster's videos show them as they actually appear in-universe.
* In the original ''Arthur'' book series, the Tibble twins were ''humans''. They had to be the only humans in Elwood City, with the possible exception of their grandmother. Nobody aside from Marc Brown knows why: literally everyone else is a FunnyAnimal. [[AdaptationSpeciesChange They were changed to bears in the TV series]].
** A very early version of Francine shows her looking more like a monkey than she does now. Also, one of the teachers was a giraffe, a species never seen in the series since.
** Let’s not forget the book “Arthur’s Nose”, in which the Reads looked like real aardvarks and Arthur was even [[FreakinessShame embarrassed about his big nose]]. Given that he looks somewhat creepy, it’s understandable that the aardvarks no longer resemble actual aardvarks.

* In one episode where Pal and Baby Kate are looking for D.W.'s ImaginaryFriend, Pal is confused by something Kate does and comments, "I'll never understand [[FurryDenial humans]]."
* Buster initially believes Mr. Ratburn to not be a "human being".

* On an unpleasant note, one episode featured a head lice infestation. Only the lice were aware of their own sentience, and their efforts against the town's ongoing treatment was potrayed as a military siege. There is even a segment near the end of the episode where one of the surviving lice huddles in a foxhole writing a [[ApocalypticLog final letter]] lamenting their "defeat" and approaching genocide.
* One episode involves a wedding, in this case between two bunnies. One episode shows a future (albeit within a dream and dreams don't always make sense) where Arthur, an aardvark, is married to Francine, a monkey ([[TeenPregnancy with a son even though both were eighteen]]), and as seen in "The Good, the Bad, & the Binky", D.W.'s friend Emily is a rabbit, whose parents are a female rabbit and a male monkey, although families in this series are generally all the same species. Children of InterspeciesRomance couples have mixed body features as well. For example Emily looks like a rabbit but has a monkey-ish nose.

* What's even more confusing is that in the opening, Brain obviously sees Mr. ''Rat''burn's face as being the shape of a shark fin. A human with that face shape? The same joke occurs in "The Shore Thing".
** More evidence towards Mr. Ratburn being a rat and not a human are his name and the fact that in "Arthur Weighs In", he says that he was a "[[FormerlyFat fatty]] rat" in his youth.
** Also, he literally has a sister named Rodentia.
** Buster makes a threat to Mr. Ratburn that his mother feeds rats to lizards in "Bitzi's Beau".

* Non-anthropomorphic bats have been shown in a few episodes, especially “Bats In The Belfry”.
* Even more confusing, is that in the [[PoorlyDisguisedPilot "New York"]] special episode, a ''human'' artist drew Buster in rabbit form. In a newer episode, the gang made a cake for George, and he looked like his normal moose self, antlers and all.
* In one episode we see a drawing of a silhouette of a human.
* An episode showed a ''human''. It was in a ShowWithinAShow though (specifically fellow PBS show ''Series/{{Nova}}'', where the clip was taken from).
* A bear (or possibly aardvark) character had a rabbit mother.
* The show is often inconsistent about the characters' animal anatomy. As proof for "they just look like animals to us" theory, the gang has been shown to cover their "ears" by touching the sides of the heads every once in a while, even when their ears are on top of their head (although it could also be interpreted as holding their heads due to a headache). On the flip side, there are also often gags about the characters' unique animal features — Buster often does various tricks with his long ears, and there is a whole episode about George feeling self-conscious about his awkward antlers. Mr. Ratburn was once replaced by an elk substitute teacher whose giant horns knocked over everything.
* ''Bionic Bunny''[[note]] And also Dark Bunny. There's also the fact that Bionic Bunny's actor's name is Wilbur ''Rabbit''.[[/note]].

* And to make the whole thing ''more'' confusing, some episodes have characters ''refer to each other by their species'' (for example, upon agreeing with Buster about something, Binkie replies "the rabbit's right!"). [[MindScrew So they're all people but at the same time all animals but there are still animals in their world and humans pop up in it occasionally?]]

* Nadine is really confusing. If we assume all the characters are literally humans then what is she? She isn't InexplicablyTailless like everyone else and she is a BarefootCartoonAnimal (specifically a squirrel). So would D.W.'s ImaginaryFriend be a human or a FunnyAnimal? Of course, this isn't a huge issue as she's an imaginary being, and is subject to the whim of her creator. How Kate and Pal can communicate with her [[{{Tulpa}} is another question entirely]].
* For what it's worth (i.e., [[MindScrew not much]]), in at least one episode, Buster is [[FurryReminder referred to]] as a "long-eared" kid, implying he's really a rabbit.
** He also admits to having "big ears" in "Buster's Breathless".
** In "Buster's Back", the singer explicitly calls him a bunny, and is referred to as a moose. Granted, said singer ''does'' break the fourth wall several times, but still. . .
** On one episode after a comment from Buster, Binky remarks, "The rabbit's right as rain!"
** In an old commercial for ''Postcards From Buster'' that would be attached to the ends of episodes, Buster introduces himself as "Buster Bunny here!" This is especially odd since he doesn't actually have a SpeciesSurname-- his last name is Baxter.
* In one episode two of the movie posters are of "Kung-Fu Koala" and "The Ram Pack". While they could be in-universe FunnyAnimal flicks (which "Kung-Fu Koala", at least, probably is, since it's a ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'' parody), they could also be films referencing the actors' species.
* Marina is a rabbit, however, when wearing headphones, they go on the side of her head, not on her actual ears. There's also a scene in "Binky's Music Madness" where Arthur is wearing headphones that way too, which has become a meme online.
* Several of the characters such as Sue Ellen or Binky are based on domesticated animals. The problem is, how did dogs, cats, and animal breeds evolve without any humans around?
* George has been called things like "Big Horns", "Head Gear" and "Coat Rack". He and other anthropomorphic moose/caribou characters have also knocked things down with their antlers or they get caught in doorways due to them. This heavily implies that George is literally a moose, not that he simply looks like one to the viewers. It also begs the question as to why the architecture of the world's buildings aren't designed with antlered folk in mind when they're willing to make accommodations for wheelchair access.
* Current presidents are depicted as {{Funny Animal}}s, yet the Lincoln Memorial has UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln as a human. This raises the possibility that the series actually takes place in HumanitysWake, not unlike the classic MGM cartoon ''WesternAnimation/PeaceOnEarth''.

* The pets often refer to their owners as their "humans", like in "Show Off". This possibly provides evidence that the show is meant to be seen through a FurryLens, but as the above examples show, sometimes the characters do seem to know that they're animals.
* The aforementioned lice in "The Lousy Week", and Pepe and Sale the fleas are supposedly non-anthropomorphic, but they all wear hats, and the lice act more like human soldiers than real lice.
* Buster says in one early episode that he is “made of fur”. However, in the episode where D.W. wants earrings and glues them to her ears since her parents won’t let her get piercings, she says “glue is for paper, not skin”. Given that real-life aardvarks are generally hairless, it makes sense... until you see her explicitly fur-covered friend Emily with earrings.
* In “D.W.’s Deer Friend”, D.W. makes friends with a non-anthro deer named Walter. There aren't anthropomorphic deer around, but there are anthropomorphic ''moose'', such as George.

* Francine literally calls George a moose in one episode:
-->'''Francine''': I do declare, that moose sounds just like a mouse!

* There is some debate over what animal Rattles is. He’s likely either a bear or a dog.
* In “The Last Tough Customer”, Molly (a rabbit) says that George (a moose) looks like a coatrack.
* Why is Mary Moo Cow played by an actress in a suit, rather than an anthropomorphic cow?
* There’s an episode where fish are hypnotized into “eating the land people”. Granted it’s just a work of fiction, but they did say PEOPLE.

* A surreal moment from one episode involves a non-anthro bear and chicken kissing.
* In one episode, D.W. says she wants a hot dog. In “Sick As A Dog”, she has a hot dog for dinner, but Pal steals it. A few seasons later, and we have Andy Warthog (an Andy Wahol parody-- admittedly, he only appeared in a fantasy scene). Aren’t hot dogs a pork product? (However, there are no anthropomorphic pigs, so that might not be an issue).
** There are beef hot dogs in real life too. Unless they’re veggie hot dogs, there is probably something very sinister going on in the butcher business...
** In “Arthur’s Perfect Christmas”, Mr. Crosswire sends Francine (a Jew) a ham (he probably didn’t know she was Jewish, or maybe didn’t understand kosher rules). However, Francine likely isn’t kosher, as she has been seen eating meat and dairy together in other episodes, like cheeseburgers and pepperoni pizza. But whether she is kosher or not, those are still meat products, meaning an animal died to make them.

* In “So Funny I Forgot To Laugh”, Sue Ellen’s sweater is made with yak wool. Also, Arthur says Sue Ellen looks like a sheepdog, which is shown by pasting her head onto a non-anthro sheepdog’s body.
* In “Slink’s Special Talent”, Slink thinks that a woman’s hair looks like a hedgehog. This isn't that confusing though, since there aren't any anthropomorphic hedgehogs around.

* Another ear-related one that suggests they're animals and not humans is that when D.W. got an earache in "Operation: D.W.", they operated on her actual ear.
* Some of the characters have nationalities associated with their species-- for instance, George's parents (moose) immigrated from Sweden, and Mei Lin was adopted from China and is a panda. On the other hand, Brain is a bear that celebrates Kwanzaa, despite there being no native bears in Africa. He has, however been mistaken for a mouse or hamster.
** The official site adds more confusion to the Brain celebrating Kwanzaa. He explicitly explains that the black balloons symbolise the black people, even though everyone has fur (albeit he has dark brown fur). So in the ''Arthur'' universe, were brown-furred anthropomorphic animals persecuted in the past? Or is species-based FantasticRacism a thing in this world?
** During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, the show released an antiracism PSA that opened with Arthur and Buster discussing what seems to be a case of police brutality at the Sugar Bowl. Mrs. [=MacGrady=] also mentions John Lewis (who appeared in "Arthur Takes a Stand"). This implies that characters in the ''Arthur'' universe are persecuted for their race and not their species.
* It should be noted that, in general, most of these [[FurryReminder Furry Reminders]] come from [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness the earliest seasons of the show]]. Most episodes from Season 4 onwards-- after the departure of writer Joe Fallon, who wrote many of the above episodes -- essentially always have the characters refer to themselves as if they were humans. While instances of the characters calling themselves humans existed before then, they became much more common after season 4. References to them being animals haven't totally disappeared, but they have become much less common.
* The series finale episode, "All Grown Up", [[spoiler: heavily supports the FurryLens idea, with a side of LiteraryAgentHypothesis. Arthur is shown as an adult, and has become a comic book writer, having written a comic book based on his life. When his friends ask him about it, he says "I just like drawing animals". The episode ends with the comic book opening. . . and taking us back to the first episode of the series. The implication, then, is that the whole series exists within its own universe in the form of Arthur's comic. If so, the various instances of FurryConfusion in the show could simply be the result of Arthur portraying himself and his friends as animals in the comic.]]
** In the beginning of that episode, Buster remarked that he never knew aardvarks had long snouts.

* [[spoiler: The series finale episode, "All Grown Up", heavily supports the FurryLens idea, with a side of LiteraryAgentHypothesis. Arthur is shown as an adult, and has become a comic book writer, having written a comic book based on his life. When his friends ask him about it, he says "I just like drawing animals". The episode ends with the comic book opening. . . and taking us back to the first episode of the series. The implication, then, is that the whole series exists within its own universe in the form of Arthur's comic. If so, the various instances of FurryConfusion in the show could simply be the result of Arthur portraying himself and his friends as animals in the comic.]]

* An episode showed a ''human''. It was in a ShowWithinAShow though (specifically fellow PBS show ''Series/{{Nova}}'', where the clip was teken from).

* Some of the characters have nationalities associated with their species-- for instance, George's parents (moose) immigrated from Sweden, and Mei Lin was adopted from China and is a panda. On the other hand, the Brain celebrates Kwanzaa, implying his ancestors were African, and there are no bears at all in Africa.
** The official site adds more confusion to the Brain celebrating Kwanzaa. He explicitly explains that the black balloons symbolise the black people, even though everyone has fur (albeit he has brown fur). So in the ''Arthur'' universe, were brown-furred anthropomorphic animals persecuted in the past? Or is species-based FantasticRacism a thing in this world?

* Furthermore, normal animals still exist in Arthur's town (for example Arthur has a dog named Pal, but his friends Binky and Fern are anthropomorphic dogs, while Francine has a non-anthropormophic cat named Nemo living in the same world as the anthropomorphic cats Sue Ellen and Jenna). To be fair, this is fairly normal in cartoons; but then it turns out that [[AnimalTalk Pal can speak to other non-anthropomorphic animals]]. And there is at least one episode where Pal and ''Arthur's baby sister Kate'' can communicate with each other. Imagine a first-grader trying to rationalize all of this.

* An episode showed a ''human''. It was in a ShowWithinAShow though.