User blog:AustinDR/So Funny, I Forgot to Laugh (Review)

Growing up, I used to love Arthur. The characters were likable, several situations the characters found themselves in were relatable, and it taught lessons on a variety of subjects from cancer, autism, even 9/11 (the episode in which the school burns down is a metaphor for the September 11th, 2001 attacks). However, the further the show went on, the more I felt distant from the show. The absolute worse thing for me about the show was when it changed animation style following the sixteenth season. The show used to be cel-animated in the previous seasons, but it was changed to flash animation. Now flash animation can be great for some shows, but it made Arthur seem... off. That's not even beginning to get into the first episode of season sixteen which introduces a new rabbit family. With thick country accents. The first episode they appeared, I honestly cringed; I mean, I live in Mississippi myself in what could be considered the "Deep South," but at the very least, I don't have a southern dialect. Besides that, some of the episodes in that season seemed ridiculous even by the standards of the series.

What I will say, though is that at the very least, they had a good episode discussing bullying. In "The Last Tough Customer," it reveals the Molly (one of the Tough Customers) was bullied when she was younger thereby explaining her current behavior. While her friends are trying to figure out what to do with their organization after the school was "bully-proofed," Molly is defiant of changing her ways, until her younger brother takes after her behavior, forcing her to realize the error of her ways. The episode ends with her writing apology letters to all the people she bullied throughout the years. It's not my favorite episode, but I liked it because it was relevant.

And then, they decide to make a second episode about bullying, so here we go. In "So Funny, I Forgot to Laugh," Sue Ellen receives a yak wool sweater from her pen pal from Tibet. Arthur sees this, and so he makes a quip about how she looks like a sheepdog. It's funny at first, but then he keeps saying it again and again to the point that it isn't funny anymore; it's blatant bullying. Soon, he bullies Sue Ellen to the point of wanting to transfer.

OK, this episode was bad. For starters, Arthur is out of character here. I mean, just really; they make Arthur into a jerk in this episode. He continually mocks Sue Ellen about her sweater even when it stops being funny, and actually copies and pastes a dog head on Sue Ellen in an e-mail, causing her to cry. Even when he's made to write an apology letter to Sue Ellen, it amounts to him ranting about how she "overreacted." It was a half-honest apology if I ever saw one. While Arthur is by no means a saint, he is the last one that I could ever conceive as a bully. That is just not in his nature; it's almost as bad as "Arnold Betrays Iggy" makes Arnold out as the bad guy even though he never told anyone Iggy's secret. Really, I'd buy this episode if it were someone like Francine or Molly making the joke. On that note, Francine and Muffy were total hypocrites: they laugh at Arthur's joke themselves, only to then refuse to speak to him when it gets out of hand. That is malarky. Besides, Sue Ellen doesn't really strike me as the kind of person who would be hurt by this.

Overall, this was a terrible episode. Arthur was out of character, the utter hypocrisy of Francine and Muffy, and the outright hateful tone of the episode all make this episode abhorrent. If they wanted to make another episode devoted to bullying, that's fine; I just feel that they should've chosen another character to act as the bad guy.

Final score: 0 out of 5 stars