Arthur (animation)/Nightmare Fuel


 * For a kid's show, the series can be overripe with some pretty traumatizing examples. Being a slice-of-life cartoon (albeit using anthropomorphic animals) about the lives of young children, Arthur had a few moments that did a good job of depicting the dark sides of children's overactive imaginations.

Season One
"Arthur: I just realized something. Francine: What? Arthur: Today's Saturday, which means...the library will be closed until... Both: MONDAY!!! (echoes)"
 * "Arthur and the Real Mr. Ratburn"
 * The silhouette of Mr. Ratburn as Arthur explains why he has a reputation is pretty creepy. It makes him look like a monster.
 * It turns out that Mr. Ratburn is not a bad guy, just overly strict. Even so, some of the rumors that Prunella tells Arthur. and his friends are creepy:
 * "He eats nails for breakfast, without milk." Cut to an Imagine Spot of Mr. Ratburn eating nails from a cereal box, and spitting out a screw.
 * Prunella claims that Mr. Ratburn puts failing students on death row. Arthur imagines being locked in a dungeon, forced to do equations and dictionary memorization forever.
 * Apparently he's also a vampire with hypnotic powers. Buster thinks about a class set in a castle, where Ratburn emerges from a castle and compels the students to say, "We don't like recess."
 * Arthur and Buster overhear Ratburn trying to order boy heads over the phone. When the person can't help, he says he'll get them himself. They scream and hide behind Francine, who happened to be walking by and says that vampires don't take heads. They spy on Mr. Ratburn going to a hardware store, and picking up a saw. Arthur and Buster clutch their necks as Francine wonders aloud why he needs that. (They find out later that Mr. Ratburn was talking about puppet heads and hand-carving them, but it is still eerie.)
 * The sudden appearance of the giant alien (which was really just a prank by Arthur and Buster) in DW's window in "Arthur's First Sleepover."
 * The episode "Arthur's Lost Library Book." Arthur loses a library book and has a series of disturbing nightmares as a result of his guilt, including one where a giant arm forcibly pries him out of his bed and drags him to the library to be punished for losing the book.
 * The episode "Locked In The Library" has plenty of disturbing imagery from Arthur's fear when he and Francine are trapped overnight in the library.
 * Hell, imagine being shut in without food or contact for possibly two days. Francine herself admits, as part of her report with Arthur, that it was really scary.


 * Francine also points out their parents will be worried sick. Arthur thinks that D.W. would take the opportunity to steal his room, but it turns out she was worried as well. Their parents are sensible, though; they knew the kids were going to the library and called Miss Turner to ask if she could help them check the building. Far from being angry the way D.W. is, they're just relieved the kids are okay.
 * At one point, Arthur gets so hungry that he resorts to eating a magazine picture of a roast chicken. Francine finds the food in the staff lounge, and shares it with Arthur when he came running and searching for her, but still! Miss Turner apologizes to Arthur and Francine for letting them get locked in, saying she's unsure how this happened.


 * "D.W.'s Baby"
 * A scene in Kate's debut episode where she is crying in the middle of the night, keeping D.W. up. The close-up on her face, combined with Kate's crying being reverberated is just disturbing.

Season Two

 * One episode that dabbles in the nightmare fuel particularly is "Night Fright", which deals with Binky confronting some of his long-repressed nightmares.
 * The monstrous hamburgers, attacking fries, and giant lips on a billboard are freaky enough, but probably the most terrifying moment in the episode was where Binky dreams he's trapped inside his nightlight, while his friends gather around to mock his nightmarish plight. The nightlight is shaped like a clown, by the way.

"Arthur: Calling people names can be dangerous to their health."
 * "Lost!":
 * The Cold Open has Jane, David, and D.W. finding out that Arthur never showed up at his swimming lesson. Jane and David ignore D.W.'s histrionics that Arthur might have run away; David calls the police and Jane says she'll dial the bus company. When D.W. wants to help by telling the neighbors, Jane orders her in a stern voice, "Stay where you are, D.W.! I don't need two lost children!" You can feel the Adult Fear dripping off them
 * Arthur tells Francine and Buster that he has to take the grown-up bus. He doesn't think it's a big deal, while they go Oh Crap. Both have creepy tales about buses:
 * Buster tells a story about a bus driver who refuses to let a kid off the bus and randomly morphs into a disgusting-looking squid monster. All the passengers turn into squid monsters, and the bus flies off as a spaceship. Francine says this one is ridiculous because it was a movie on television.
 * Francine warns Arthur to make sure he has enough money. She heard a kid on the bus didn't have enough, and the driver wouldn't let him off, even after forty years. The bus driver gives an Evil Laugh when the kid says the extra money was in his other pants. Arthur is freaked out by this one.
 * Arthur gets lost after he falls asleep on the bus. He misses his stop and ends up at the edge of town. Being too shy to ask the driver for help, he gets off and realizes he doesn't know where to walk home, and he doesn't even have enough for a second fare. The waitress who rode with him tells him to explain to Sam the driver what happened; Sam as soon as he hears Arthur's explanation is reasonable, saying his "folks" must be worried and personally driving him to the Read house after dialing in that he found the kid.
 * The episode "DW's Name Game" features Arthur melting after D.W. calls him "the ultimate insult" in a dream of hers. Even D.W. is horrified, stopping him from going down the drain with her cow mug and calling out for help.

Season Three

 * Courtesy of "Arthur's Almost-Not-Real Music Festival": "JEKYLL - JEKYLL - HYDE! JEKYLL - HYDE! HYDE! JEKYLL!" View it here: []
 * For context, Brain sings about how he checked out The Adventures of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from the library. Even though the book it short, it gives him a nightmare about him being Dr. Jekyll and turning into an evil green version of himself. The potion is played out as a drug addiction, where even after he tosses it away in a dream, he changes into Mr. Hyde.
 * In that same song, if you were to pause it after the Brain drinks the formula at the beginning at the right time, HIS HEAD LOOKS LIKE GIANT WORMS OR OCTOPUS TENTACLES OR SOMETHING!
 * The way the song ends. Brain checks the dates on the back of the book and sees it's overdue. He goes to return it at the library, and Miss Turner asks if he's returning. He responds, "I thought, and I said no." Cue a Jump Scare where he becomes Hyde again, says, "Renew" and laughs evilly while fading away with the book. Sleep tight.

Season Six

 * The giant purple orange, also a part of one of Binky's dreams from the episode "Rhyme For Your Life."
 * The Gainax Ending of The Boy Who Cried Comet would've probably caused nightmares with a few of the fans as well.

Season Seven

 * "April 9th"
 * Heck, the entire school fire and the aftermath. Especially when Mr. Ratburn is about to give a test, sniffs the air, and says "What's that smell?"
 * Arthur was shaken up because his dad was in the school lounge, catering a breakfast, and he was worried he'd get killed. After the students and teachers evacuate, Arthur realizes that his dad isn't among them. He asks the firefighter where David is, and says that he wants to go into the school. She holds him back, saying it's better to let the professionals find his father. Just then, other firefighters come out with David, who's covered in soot and coughing. They treat him for smoke inhalation, as Arthur hugs him.
 * The giant squid in Arthur's nightmare, that grabs David at the aquarium as he serves pirate customers. David screams for help, as the squid starts drowning them. Arthur tries to go save his dad, but the pirates hold him back.
 * Arthur finally admits to his dad, who is late for an aquarium gig, that he's scared by screaming "But what if something happens at the aquarium?!" as he tries faking a sore throat. David pauses mis-sushi preparation, and kneels by his son. He then relates that something similar happened to Grandma Thora, that she was in a car accident when David was Arthur's age. David admits he was also scared she would go out one day and never return, sohe knows exactly how his son feels.

Season Thirteen

 * If you have Asperger's Syndrome, Carl's panic attack in "When Carl Met George" might bring back unpleasant memories...


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