ARTHUR® EXPLORES ASPERGER’S SYNDROME, FRIENDSHIP, ARTS APPRECIATION AND
MORE THIS SPRING ON PBS KIDS GO!®
FIVE ALL-NEW EPISODES PREMIERE MONDAY, APRIL 5
Over the years, ARTHUR has celebrated kids with all kinds of abilities and featured many types of friendships. As part of season 13, ARTHUR welcomes back familiar faces and introduces new friends with unique stories to tell. Five new episodes premiere Monday, April 5 on PBS KIDS GO! (check local listings).
Kicking off our focus on friendships is “When Carl Met George.” George is excited about spending time with his new friend, Carl, who loves to draw trains and knows all kinds of cool facts about them! George discovers that Carl has Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism, and that Carl sees the world a bit differently than George and many kids. Despite their differences, George and Carl become great pals – and learn a lot from each other. The story is followed by a live-action segment featuring kids with Asperger’s and autism. We meet Bess and Linnea at Lovelane, a nonprofit organization that provides therapeutic horseback riding to kids with special needs, and then we follow Linnea to her neighborhood school and meet her teacher and classmates.
“Over the years, in an effort to encourage our viewers to embrace the differences they see in their peers we’ve introduce a cast of characters with diverse personalities, interests, talents, and abilities,” said Executive Producer Jacqui Deegan. “We hope that ‘When Carl Met George’ will help children gain some understanding of Asperger’s Syndrome and other forms of autism and realize that the unique traits of individuals are what make them so special.”
In a second storyline about friendship, “D.W. Swims with the Fishes,” D.W. and James enter the pre-school swim meet, and their big siblings step up to coach them. All goes swimmingly until Arthur and Molly start taking their jobs a little too seriously, so D.W. and James show them that friendship is more important than competition.
Many of the other new episodes, which bring back your favorite ARTHUR characters, focus on the creative arts, such as poetry, music, drawing and painting. In “Portrait of Artist as Young Tibble,” the Tibble Twins set out on a new business venture – selling their pre-school art masterpieces to earn enough money to buy the coveted Krummy Kreepy Kastle. As their business takes off, so does their own appreciation for their art. Is the Krummy Kreepy Kastle really worth giving up their masterpieces? Then, in “Fernlets By Fern,” as part of her latest business venture, Muffy talks Fern into writing poems for a new line of greeting cards, which become the hit of Elwood City. But booming business causes Fern to burn out. Can Fern and Muffy find a way to make writing fun again? Finally, in “Looking for Bonnie,” rock musician Dean Lomax visits Elwood City and calls on George’s dad to fix his equally famous guitar, named Bonnie. Legend says that Bonnie is magical, and Buster and George are convinced that just one strum will give them special powers. And during one late night sleepover, they sneak into Dad’s workshop to find out if it’s true.
Tune-in for these and more ARTHUR adventures when all-new episodes premiere Monday, April 5 on PBS KIDS GO!
