It took me a while to get my head around it. I kept hearing about it, but it didn’t mean that much to me. Arthur the Aardvark was calling it quits. Packing it in after a twenty-five year career.
If, like me, you’re not overly familiar with Arthur, he’s a cartoon aardvark who has been doing a pretty decent kids television show for the past two and a half decades. I’ve caught a couple episodes over the years, and they weren’t bad. But I can’t say I was ever a big Arthur fan.
Not that anything against aardvarks or children’s TV shows. There are a few that really aren’t too bad. I just didn’t happen to have young people around on a regular basis enough that I got attached to Arthur.
But twenty-five years is a good run. And there seemed to be a lot of people who were pretty attached to Arthur, so I checked into it a bit more.
A lot of the voice actors on the show were Canadian, which is pretty cool. There were also some pretty big guest stars over the years, including Fred Rogers, Alex Trebek, Matt Damon, Art Garfunkel and even blues musicians Taj Mahal and Koko Taylor. That’s some pretty high powered talent getting involved in a kids show.
So I started to see how it was a big deal for people. And I started to think of the shows I watched as a child. I know. I’m old. I grew up with the Friendly Giant and Chez Helene and Romper Room and Butternut Square. Yes, I actually remembered the short lived Butternut Square that gave Mr. Dressup his start. And also the birthplace of one of the best and most underrated actors of all time… Finnegan. I always thought Casey was just riding Finnegan’s coat tails.
I can remember feeling a bit sad when these shows came to an end. A part of my childhood seemed to be going away. Although there were things that n bothered me a bit about some of them.
Like Romper Room. Could she really see us in the magic mirror? That was scary. And Friendly seemed pretty cool. And having a rooster living in a bag on the wall seemed totally natural. But those cats playing musical instruments just seemed wrong somehow. Although they were pretty good at it.
But I know when these shows came to an end, even though it was long after I stopped watching them, it seemed like a part of my childhood disappearing. So for anyone missing Arthur, I know how you’re feeling. And there’s a big chair over there that maybe two can curl up in.
