#Roommates, we all remember OG #Arthur, right? For a lot of us, the aardvark and his crew was an afterschool staple on #PBS.
Well the long-running cartoon is still going strong and in its 22nd season, the show will have a BIG reveal!
The premiere episode shows Arthur and his friends attending the wedding of their teacher, #MrRatburn, who producers will reveal to be gay, according to @entertainmentweekly.
In the episode, it’s assumed that Mr. Ratburn is marrying Patty, a female rat voiced by Jane Lynch, but then a groom enters accompanied by another groom. It turns out that Patty is just Mr. Ratburn’s sister.
Arthur has been pretty progessive for a children’s cartoon. The show has tackled a variety of topics including autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, and even cancer. Arthur joins the other children’s shows that depict LGBTQ characters in such a casual way.
Mr. Ratburn’s students don’t even comment on the surprise, they just simply smile to one another.
Arthur isn’t the only PBS show to have a reveal this year.
Back in December, Sesame Street introduced the show’s very first homeless Muppet.
If you got kids in your life, then you’ll know that about seven years ago, the show introduced the pink-felted 7-year-old Lily to help viewers understand hunger and food insecurity. A new series of videos explored how Lily learned to cope when her family lost their home and she was forced to stay with friends on Sesame Street.
“Everyone else is going home. And well, I miss our apartment and now we don’t have our own place to live,” says Lily in a new video. “And sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever have our own home again.”
Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind the beloved show, launched the character’s struggle as a means of offering “help and hope to the growing number of young children across the United States who are experiencing homelessness,” the organization said in a press release.
The goal is to convey what homelessness is like from a child’s perspective.
Roommates, are your kids still watching Arthur? What are your thoughts on the new episode? Let us know!
TSR STAFF: Christina C! @cdelafresh
