Happy Birthday, Arthur

Today is the 30th anniversary of the first airing of the Arthur children's animated television show. I'm not sure if it first aired only on WGBH in Boston, or if it was immediately on PBS nationwide, but soon afterward, three-year-old Daughter Number Three-Point-One was watching it, and her parents alongside her.

She watched it for years after that, and we read many of the books as well.

I'm not sure if we had read any of them before the show was on or not. At some point we went back to the earliest books, and had a used library copy of the first book, Arthur's Nose. 

Arthur looked quite a bit different in that book:

According to this NPR story about the anniversary, when Arthur's creator, Marc Brown, began his second Arthur book, Arthur's Eyes, which is about Arthur getting glasses, he needed to show the character facing the viewer and the long nose made it impossible to see Arthur's mouth. So he shortened the nose a bit:

Even with altered, that face was still quite a way from the oval shape of television's Arthur, who really looks nothing like an aardvark. (On the other hand, the Arthur of Arthur's Eyes looks like a boomer dad more than a third grader.)

The Arthur show ended up running for 25 seasons and holds a special place in the hearts of many millennials and Gen Zers. And their parents, if I'm any measure.