'A little bittersweet': Hingham's favorite aardvark 'Arthur' will wrap its 25-year run

Even beloved children’s television icons have to grow up eventually.

With that in mind, Arthur – the anthropomorphic aardvark with roots on the South Shore – will soon end his eponymous series based on the best-selling books by author/illustrator and former Hingham resident Marc Brown.

Anyone familiar with the bespectacled Arthur, however, knows that he is too kind and thoughtful to leave his viewers behind without a proper farewell.

Instead, the series “Arthur” will mark its 25th anniversary, and celebrate its place as television’s longest-running kids’ animated program, with four new episodes and a 250-episode marathon to air on PBS Kids and the network's YouTube channel starting at 9 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 16. The series' final four episodes give viewers a glimpse into what the future holds for Arthur and his family and friends. The episodes premiere Monday, Feb. 21.

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It won't be a final farewell, however, as the Peabody- and Emmy Award-winning “Arthur” will have new adventures in digital short videos, a podcast and interactive games for children and parents.

For Brown, author and co-executive producer of “Arthur,” that means his beloved character will still be making the world a better place by sharing meaningful stories from his Hingham-like home in fictional Elwood City.

The kind-hearted aardvark made his first appearance a few years after Brown, a native of Erie, Pennsylvania, graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art and landed a deal with Boston-based publisher Houghton Mifflin, where he illustrated textbooks.

Brown was also an assistant professor at Boston’s Garland Junior College. When the school closed in 1976, he turned his focus to writing and illustrating his own books. He wrote “Arthur’s Nose,” which he has described as a “simple bedtime story for my son,” that same year while living in Hanover.

It went on to become the first entry in the “Arthur Adventure” book series, which has sold more than 65 million copies in the U.S. Last month, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers released Brown’s latest, “Believe in Yourself: What We Learned from Arthur.”

During the show's 25-year run, many stories and settings have taken place in Hingham. The movie theater that Arthur goes to resembles Hingham’s Loring Hall Theatre; Arthur’s sister D.W. learns to ride a bike with downtown Hingham as her backdrop; and the characters’ bedrooms are taken straight from the home on Main Street where Brown raised his three children.

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Brown – whose wife is author and contemporary artist Laurene Krasny Brown – now divides his time between homes in New York, where a small garden house serves as a workspace, and Martha’s Vineyard, where he has turned an old sheep barn into a studio.

The couple have collaborated on the children’s book series “Dino Tales: Life Guides for Families,” which includes “Dinosaurs to the Rescue! A Guide to Protecting Our Planet,” “Dinosaurs Divorce: A Guide for Changing Families” and their latest, “Democracy for Dinosaurs: A Guide for Young Citizens,” published by Little, Brown and Co. in September 2020.

On a recent Zoom call from his New York home, Brown talked about the history of “Arthur” and his plans for the future.

Q: How are you feeling about “Arthur” moving on?

A: A little bittersweet because we won’t be making new episodes. The original series will continue to air on PBS, however, and we’ll be doing new public service appeals on voting, racism and other important topics too. He’s not really going anywhere. He’ll live on in other formats and on new platforms.

The door is open for specials and things like that too. So, as we develop new ideas, who’s to say, there might even be a feature film about Arthur.

Q: As you were creating Arthur, what prompted you to make him an aardvark?

A: When I decided to tell this bedtime story, I started searching the pantheon of children’s literature for underused animals and came up with the aardvark. The artwork was right there, at the front of the line. Next I leisurely used alliteration to come up with a name that would work with aardvark. Then my son wanted pictures to go with the story. I knew aardvarks had long noses, and so Arthur was born.

He’s evolved since then. It’s sort of like the evolution of man, if you put a row of pictures of Arthur from various decades together, you see that his nose has gotten smaller and his face rounder and more lovable. It wasn’t intentional, but the more I drew him, he kind of morphed into something more human-like.

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Q: Arthur looks pretty good for his age. Did you ever imagine he would have this longevity?

A: Isn’t it amazing? It’s like “The Picture of Dorian Gray” – he’s this 8-year-old who doesn’t get any older, while somewhere he’s got a picture that does.

Q: What’s it been like for you?

A: It’s been a miracle to me. When I began working on my new book, I went back and reread all of the early Arthur books, and the very first one ends with the sentence “There’s a lot more to Arthur than his nose.” And I thought, wow, little did I know when I wrote that sentence what it would mean and all the adventures that this aardvark would take me on.

I never imagined myself going to the White House as a guest and meeting presidents of the United States or traveling to Russia on Air Force One with Laura Bush to represent America at a children’s book festival. It’s been beyond my wildest dreams.

Q: To what do you attribute Arthur’s enduring appeal?

A: He’s relatable for kids. He makes mistakes, but he learns from them. He gets in trouble and his friends and family help him out. He’s also good about showing other kids how to navigate things. In “Buster’s Breathless,” for example, Buster has asthma and so Arthur and his friends are shrunk down so Buster can breathe them in through his nostrils and they can go down into his lungs.

Once they’re inside, Buster gives them a tour of his lungs, explaining to them what it feels like to have asthma. I think it’s a good example of the power of animation. What I think kids have learned about Arthur over the years is that he has his troubles in life, just like we all do, but he has a good heart and he’s a good person.

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Q: Arthur is a definite role model for kids. I got eyeglasses in first grade and I hated having to wear them. If Arthur had been around back then, the fact that he wore glasses too could have made a big difference for me. What made you decide to give him glasses?

A: He got his eyeglasses in my second book, “Arthur’s Eyes.” My son had just gotten glasses and I remember picking him up after school, and his saying, “Dad, a scary thing happened today with my new glasses. I thought all my friends were better looking.”

Q: I know there are a lot of them, but do you have a favorite “Arthur”?

A: I do, it’s a silly episode called “D.W. the Copycat." It’s so kid-like and it features my favorite character, D.W., although I shouldn’t say this because you shouldn’t have a favorite kid. I love writing for D.W., though, I just love getting into her head.

In the story, she follows Arthur around and says everything he says, and does everything he does. Then she dresses up like him and that just puts it over the top for me. It makes me laugh every time I think about it. D.W. is so funny. She’s a product of me growing up with three younger sisters who are really funny, and also strong, powerful women.

Q: What can viewers expect from the final four “Arthur” episodes?

A: We’re going to make a lot of people who have written to us over the years very happy with these adventures. We will fast forward to see Arthur in the future – what he will be doing, what he will become, and what his friends are doing and what they’ve become.

I think that’s going to be a lot of fun for everyone to see Arthur is going to grow up in the final episode. That’s all I can tell you for now, except that we had a lot of fun doing the new episodes.

Q: What’s next for you?

A: Another of my new projects is a book I did with my buddy R.L. Stine, who wrote the “Goosebumps” books. I used a new illustration technique of collage where I painted all the papers and cut them out and put them together and that was a lot of fun to do. That book, called “Why Did the Monster Cross the Road?” will probably be out next year.

I also have a big project that I’ve been working on for about three years now that comes from all that I've learned about making television for kids for over 25 years with “Arthur.” It's a project for preschoolers and younger kids about a little frog with one leg shorter than the other, and his friends who live in Fair City. It's really a series about the power of friendship and solving problems together, and how the kids get along and do that.

Tune in to 'Arthur'

250-episode marathon: Starts 9 a.m. Feb. 16 and runs through 5 p.m. Feb. 21 on PBS Kids and the network's YouTube channel.

Final four episodes: 3 p.m. Monday, Feb. 21.

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This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: 'Arthur': HIngham's iconic aardvark gets grand sendoff in final shows