Man In The Mirror

I'm pretty hip when it comes to knowing what my kids are watching or reading. I know that Dora's iguana's friend's name is Isa. I know that Caillou's little sister is Rosie. Kai-lan friended me on Facebook. But I have a problem with Arthur and how the money has changed him.

Arthur is some sort of brown, furry, most likely mammalian, possibly tailed, Harry-Potter-bespectacled...creature. We've read the books and watched the show, and until I Googled this freak, I had no idea what kind of animal he was. I asked Audrey and she said he is a mouse. I guessed he was a squirrel.

Turns out he is an aardvark. An aardvark?

Long after Audrey had become a full-fledged Arthur fan, we checked out the first Arthur book in the series-- vintage Arthur. And that book, irony of ironies, featured a prominent proboscis and the old school Arthur learning to be proud of his nosey uniqueness. Apparently Mr. Arthur author decided after his first book that a nosejob was in order. Now I can barely tell who, or what, Arthur is. Have we learned nothing from Michael Jackson?