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One of the most rewarding things about having children is that you get to (have to?) watch loads of dumb kid shows. I always get excited when I see video games in cartoons, because it's always amazing. Case in point: Arthur's "Arthur the Wrecker." Will Arthur become a hopeless Deep Dark Sea addict? Will he break a computer? Will he get in trouble? I'll answer all these questions and more in this incredible feature. (Spoiler: The answers are all "Yes.")
Warning: This is pretty much the longest thing ever, thanks to the ridiculously lengthy opening title sequence. Yes, I could have trimmed things down. But I didn't or something. Tah dah! This show needs to take a cue from Busytown Mysteries, which seems like a thrill ride by comparison.
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We start out with Arthur and his dog ____ strutting down the street. There's kind of an Animal Crossing: Wild World thing going on with the ground, which is a pretty impressive video-game reference.
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Look! It's Arthur! He is a jaunty little dude with poor eyesight. I can completely relate to this character.
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Then, without warning, Arthur is thrown into the pages of a nightmarish scrapbook. It's not the work of necromancers or bad-guy wizards...
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...it's Arthur's crappy sister D.W. She's pretty much the worst character in contemporary fiction. She also gets a lot of screen time, which is pretty great. I know crappy people need role models on TV, but they should have their own special channel so the rest of us don't have to suffer oh god she is so crappy.
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All right. This intro takes forever, so I'm going to skip a bunch of it now. It seems as though its only purpose is to drill a Ziggy Marley song into your skull. It's super effective.
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Just as a reference, this is what a real aardvark looks like. It's clear that Marc Brown didn't really know what an aardvark was before creating the character. Maybe he looked it up in the encyclopedia, but the entry didn't have an image. That's my working hypothesis.
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OK. There's a bunch of hugging and photo-taking and whatnot, and it seems to go on forever. My kids love it, and they cry a bunch when I try to skip past it. This is the best part of the whole thing. Arthur and his friend Br'er Rabbit are swimming (with glasses, no less!), and it seems completely ordinary.
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AND THEN THERE IS A SHARK!!
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It is met with disgust and apprehension.
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But wait it is only a smug rat. It's just a backstroke. No big deal.
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All right! The episode is beginning. Arthur uses a cold open, kind of like Breaking Bad. It's dinner time at the Aardvark household. Unlike the dung-eating aardvark in the earlier photo, Arthur's family seems to eat normal food.
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Look at him go! Arthur is in a huge rush because video games.
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There it is! Arthur doesn't have time for consoles. He's a straight-up PC kind of guy. What's he playing, you ask?
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It's Deep Dark Sea! Let's zoom in for a closer look. And let's do it quickly! That blotchy wall is freaking me out.
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Deep Dark Sea is BioShock's little-known predecessor. It starred a treasure-hunting adventurer who was also a plasmid-wielding clone.
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It was most known for its intense set-piece moments, such as this battle against a fish-flinging octopus. Deep Dark Sea's developers went on to make Tambourine Rabbit.
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Bleh. D.W.
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Arthur and D.W. (yuck) are having a pretty intense session. According to the game's lore, there's some kind of incredible Easter Egg that nobody has ever seen. Is it one of those spinning hypnotist disks?! Have they found the secret?!
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Nope.
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It's the second phase of the octopus battle! Just when D. Ving Bell thinks he's safe, the octopus smashes through the wall. Also, that's technically a squid, right?
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It's bed time. Arthur's control-freak parents micromanage every moment of his life. Don't worry about that radiation sign on the door. Come on in. But wait! Where's Arthur?!
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Can't...stop...playinggggggggggggggggggggggg.
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Boom. Title sequence with giant Arthur. Not pictured: Millions of people being killed in horrifying stomping incident.
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Just as an aside, I've always wanted to sit in a cutout sign with my name on it. I'd wave like Miss America and everything. If I were Dan Ryckert, someone would be feverishly creating a cutout sign for me moments after I typed that. Oh well.
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All right. Arthur is giving us some straight talk about the issues that matter most.
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