History FurryConfusion / Arthur

* In "Arthur Goes to Camp," Arthur and his friends are all attending Camp Meadowcroak and take part in a scavenger hunt against rival camp Horsewater. To make the best of the rival camp and win the scavenger hunt, they have the Brain pretend to be a feral bear (using Muffy's fur coat) to scare the rival campers... yet the Brain already ''is'' a bear (albeit an anthropomorphic bear, not a feral one.)

* 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 ducks seen).

* 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 if that doesn't break your brain, there is at least one episode where Pal and ''Arthur's baby sister'' can communicate with each other. Imagine a first-grader trying to rationalize all of this.

* If your brain isn't already broken - in one episode where Pal and Kate (Arthur the aardvark's baby sister mentioned above) are looking for D.W.'s ImaginaryFriend, Pal is confused by something Kate does and comments, "I'll never understand humans."
* Buster initially believes Mr. Ratburn to not be a "human being". Yeah, that was obvious.

* 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 the anthropomorphic cats Sue Ellen & 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 if that doesn't break your brain, there is at least one episode where Pal and ''Arthur's baby sister'' can communicate with each other. Imagine a first-grader trying to rationalize all of this.

* Marina is a rabbit however when wearing headphones they go on the side of her head, not on her actual ears.

* In "Francine and the Feline", Arthur claims he doesn't like cats, even though he had been friends with Sue Ellen and Jenna before changing his mind. If this is taken literally (and assuming the characters ''are'' aware they aren't human), the implications would be [[FantasticRacism pretty disturbing]]. . .

* "Shelter From The Storm" has Muffy befriending a cat character while staying at a shelter. She wears earmuffs despite the fact her ears are ''on the top of her head'' and even makes a joke about not hearing Muffy while wearing them. Later the Brain visits a therapist to deal with anxiety issues after the hurricane. In the background you can see a cardboard cutout of a FunnyAnimal character who is [[AccessoryWearingCartoonAnimal nude except for his bow-tie and glasses]]. Those sorts of characters are normal for humans but wouldn't it seem weird in a world populated with {{Funny Animal}}s? At the end of the episode one character tells a dog licking ice cream on the floor that ice cream is for "people".

* 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 the anthropormorphic cats Sue Ellen & Jenna). To be fair, this is; but then it turns out that [[AnimalTalk Pal can speak to other non-anthropomorphic animals]]. And if that doesn't break your brain, there is at least one episode where Pal and ''Arthur's baby sister'' 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.
* If your brain isn't already broken - in one episode where Pal and Kate (Arthur the aardvark's baby sister mentioned above) are looking for D.W.'s ImaginaryFriend, Pal is confused by something Kate does and comments "I'll never understand humans."
* Buster's initially believes Mr. Ratburn to not be a "human being". Yeah, that was obvious.

* One episode involves a wedding, in this case between two bunnies. One episode shows a future where Arthur, an Aardvark, is married to Francine, a Monkey, 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.

* An episode showed a ''human''. It was in a ShowWithinAShow though. Also the later seasons seem to keep on leaning on the "They're human but only look like animals to us" theory much more then before. For example a bear (or possibly aardvark) character had a rabbit mother, and a rabbit character drew a regular rabbit; also, 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. On the flip side, to confirm that they are animals, you have Buster's ears, George's antlers, and the biggest one of all - ''Bionic Bunny''. This would be fine, if it was a [[Franchise/TheMuppets Muppet]]-type world in which humans live among the confusing anthropomorphized "animals", but there are no humans in Elwood City, and no animals anywhere else. One must assume that they live in a segregated society.
* In one episode (''Buster's Dino Dilemma''), Ratburn mentions that dinosaurs were around before upright mammals, which brings up a whole another mess of issues.

* "Shelter From The Storm" has Muffy befriending a cat character while staying at a shelter. She wears earmuffs despite the fact her ears are ''on the top of her head'' and even makes a joke about not hearing Muffy while wearing them. Later the Brain visits a therapist to deal with anxiety issues after the hurricane. In the background you can see a cardboard cutout of a FunnyAnimal character who is nude except for his bow-tie and glasses. Those sorts of characters are normal for humans but wouldn't it seem weird in a world populated with {{Funny Animal}}s? At the end of the episode one character tells a dog licking ice cream on the floor that ice cream is for "people".

* George has been called things like "Big Horns", "Head Gear" and "Coat Rack". He and other anthropomorphic moose 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.

* The series also vaguely suggests that NationalAnimalStereotypes are in play but not all the time.
** Mei-Lin was born in China and is Chinese, but only vaguely resembles a panda. Meanwhile, Sue Ellen's pen pal Tenzin is a panda but he comes from Tibet or India.
** George is suggested to be of Norwegian descent, which makes sense as Elk can be found there. Brain being a bear and of African descent is a bit more iffy as Africa has no living species of bear.

* In "Francine and the Feline", Arthur claims he doesn't like cats, even though he had been friends with Sue Ellen and Jenna before changing his mind.

* Nadine is really confusing. If we assume all the characters are literally humans than what is she? She isn't InexplicablyTailless like everyone else and she is a BarefootCartoonAnimal. 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]].

* One episode involves a wedding, in this case between two bunnies. One episode shows a future where Arthur, an Aardvark, is married to Francine, a Monkey, and as seen in "Tthe 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.

* 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 the anthropormorphic cats Sue Ellen & Jenna). To be fair, this is ; but then it turns out that [[AnimalTalk Pal can speak to other non-anthropomorphic animals]]. And if that doesn't break your brain, there is at least one episode where Pal and ''Arthur's baby sister'' can communicate with each other. Imagine a first-grader trying to rationalize all of this.

* 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.

* One episode involves a wedding, in this case between two bunnies. One episode shows a future where Arthur, an Aardvark, is married to Francine, a Monkey, 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.

There's probably no other TV show that has more FurryConfusion than ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}''.

* 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 the anthropormorphic cats Sue Ellen & Jenna). To be fair, we've seen this before; but then it turns out that [[AnimalTalk Pal can speak to other non-anthropomorphic animals]]. And if that doesn't break your brain, there is at least one episode where Pal and ''Arthur's baby sister'' can communicate with each other. Imagine a first-grader trying to rationalize all of this.

* One episode shows that toys are alive and can talk to one another, ''a la'' ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory''. To make things even more bizarre, said dog and baby can ''talk to the toys''.

* 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.

* An episode showed a ''human''. It was in a ShowWithinAShow though. Also the later seasons seem to keep on leaning on the "They're human but only look like animals to us" theory much more then before. For example a bear (or possibly aardvark) character had a rabbit mother, and a rabbit character drew a regular rabbit; also, 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. On the flip side, to confirm that they are animals, you have Buster's ears, George's antlers, and the biggest one of all - ''Bionic Bunny''. This would be fine, if it was a [[Franchise/TheMuppets Muppet]]type world in which humans live among the confusing anthropomorphized "animals", but there are no humans in Elwood City, and no animals anywhere else. One must assume that they live in a segregated society.

* Current presidents are depicted as {{Funny Animal}}s, yet the Lincoln Memorial has UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln as a human.
* The series also vaguely suggests that NationalAnimalStereotypes are in play but not all the time.

* George has been called things like "Big Horns", "Head Gear" and "Coat Rack". He and other anthropomorphic moose 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.

** Mei-lin was born in China and is Chinese, but only vaguely resembles a panda. Meanwhile, Sue Ellen's pen pal Tenzin is a panda but he comes from Tibet or India.

* Mei-lin was born in China and is Chinese, but only vaguely resembles a panda. Meanwhile, Sue Ellen's pen pal Tenzin is a panda but he comes from Tibet or India.

* George has been called things like "Big Horns" and "Head Gear". He has also knocked things down with his horns. This heavily implies that he is literally a moose, not that he simply looks like one to the viewers.

* Nadine is really confusing. If we assume all the characters are literally humans than what is she? She isn't InexplicablyTailless like everyone else and she is a BarefootCartoonAnimal. So would DW's ImaginaryFriend be a human or a FunnyAnimal?

* 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''.
* Buster makes a threat to Mr. Ratburn that his mother feeds rats to lizards in ''Bitzi's Beau''.

* An episode showed a ''human''. It was in a ShowWithinAShow though. Also the later seasons seem to keep on leaning on the "They're human but only look like animals to us" theory much more then before. For example a bear (or possibly aardvark) character had a rabbit mother, and a rabbit character drew a regular rabbit; also, 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. On the flip side, to confirm that they are animals, you have Buster's ears, George's antlers, and the biggest one of all - ''Bionic Bunny''. This would be fine, if it was a Muppet-type world in which humans live among the confusing anthropomorphized "animals", but there are no humans in Elwood City, and no animals anywhere else. One must assume that they live in a segregated society.

* 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" probably is, since it's a ''Kung-Fu Panda" parody), they could also be films referencing the actors' species.

* Current presidents are depicted as {{Funny Animal}}s, yet the Lincoln Memorial has Lincoln as a human.

There's probably no other TV show has more FurryConfusion than ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}''.

* In general, most {{Furry Reminder}}s are from [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness early episodes]]. Later episodes usually imply the characters are [[StylizedForTheViewer humans depicted as animals]]... [[DependingOnTheWriter Usually]].

* In general, most {{Furry Reminder}}s are from [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness early episodes]]. Later episodes usually imply the characters are humans depicted as humans... [[DependingOnTheWriter Usually]].