Arthur's Missing Pal is a 2006 CGI animated movie from the PBS Kids show Arthur and was released to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the show.
The plot starts with Arthur and his friends having a water balloon fight until his dog Pal gives away Arthur's hiding spot. Arthur becomes mad at him for ruining the game, and also forgets to feed his dog breakfast. As a result, Pal runs away. Arthur feels guilty about what he did to Pal and tries his best to find him.
Unlike the show which is done in 2D, the movie was done in CGI, produced by Mainframe Entertainment with animation by Crest Animation Productions.
Tropes for this movie include:
- All-CGI Cartoon
- Big Damn Heroes: Just when the Mary Moo Cow truck with Pal inside is about to head towards the freeway, Muffy's limo pulls backwards, blocking the truck's path and allowing Arthur and his friends to catch up.
- Black Comedy Burst: Mr. Kone makes a joke about his two dogs eating Pal, which is a morbid joke for the lighthearted series. He even makes this joke in front of Arthur, which comes across as a little insensitive.
- Broad Strokes: It's never stated where in the timeline the movie takes in the series as neither of them make any references to each other.
- Comically Missing the Point: During the water balloon fight, Brain alerts Buster and Arthur that the "pizza boy" arriving to Arthur's house is Francine, who has joined the fight in disguise. Buster thinks Francine got a job.
- Continuity Nod: The teenage boy who almost mows over Pal is the same boy D.W. saw curse at his mother in the episode "Bleep".
- Fluffy the Terrible: Two dogs at Mr. Kone's ice cream factory chase and antagonize Pal for a bit. It is later revealed by Mr. Kone that their names are Sugar and Spice.
- Foreshadowing: When D.W. is about to say where she saw Pal, she trails off. Arthur and Buster head over to interrogate her, but she soon changes the subject. This is a hint that she is the one who let Pal outside and go missing.
- Headphones Equal Isolation: A teenage boy mows a field while wearing earbuds and doesn't notice Pal until he is seconds away from him. Thankfully, the boy notices him in time and Pal gets out of the way.
- No Flow in CGI: Due to the movie using low budget mid-2000s 3D animation, some corners had to be cut when translating Arthur into a different medium.
- Jane Read noticeably has much shorter hair than in the TV series probably because animating characters with long hair would be difficult.
- Arthur is also conspicuously sleeping on top of his bed in the movie's opening. This is probably so the animators would not have to spend time animating Arthur in his bedsheets.
- Skewed Priorities: Arthur immediately foregoes feeding Pal his breakfast to go play a water balloon fight with his friends.
- When Arthur and his friends are trying to catch Pal before the truck he is on reaches the freeway, Muffy is alerted to take her limousine to catch it. Despite time being of the essence, Muffy spends a lot of time in her room deciding what to wear for the situation.
- Tropey, Come Home: The plot of the movie is about Arthur looking for his dog Pal after a few circumstances early on cause him to go missing.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Buster interrupting Arthur to remind him of the big water balloon fight triggers the chain of events that causes Pal to disappear.
- D.W. letting Pal out into the garden to use the bathroom allows him to run off. In her defense, Arthur had been neglecting Pal after the water balloon incident.
