Furry Confusion / Arthur - TV Tropes

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There's probably no other TV show that has more Furry Confusion than Arthur, due to its inconsistency as to whether the characters are aware they aren't human or not.

• Normal animals still exist in Arthur's town (for example Arthur has a dog named Pal, but the characters of Binky, Fern and Prunella are anthropomorphic dogs, while Francine has a non-anthropormophic cat named Nemo living in the same world as the anthropomorphic cats Sue Ellen and Jenna).
• Buster and Arthur wear aardvark and bunny slippers, respectively.
• In the episode "Jenna's Bedtime Blues", while trying to figure out why Jenna won't come to Muffy's slumber party, Prunella says her sister told her that she used to strangle cats. Jenna herself is a cat (albeit a rather weird looking one).
• This is even parodied in the series itself. In one episode Arthur and D.W. are sent to their grandma's house because it's raining too hard to play outside. When Grandma opens the door she hurries the two inside, noting that this is "only good weather for ducks." Cue a family of anthropomorphic ducks riding bikes across the street and commenting, "Beautiful weather, huh?" prompting a "Huh?" from D.W.
• In "Arthur Goes to Camp," Arthur and his friends are all attending Camp Meadowcroak and take part in a scavenger hunt against rival camp Horsewater. To make the best of the rival camp and win the scavenger hunt, they have the Brain pretend to be a feral bear (using Muffy's fur coat) to scare the rival campers... yet the Brain already is a bear (albeit an anthropomorphic bear, not a feral one).
• "Buster Bombs" has Buster, Muffy and Brain discussing about monkey bars and monkeys in general. Muffy then brings up that her dad once knew a guy who was bitten by a monkey. She and her family are monkeys.
• In "Francine and the Feline", Arthur claims he doesn't like cats, even though he had been friends with Sue Ellen and Jenna before changing his mind.
• Quite possibly the most confusing instance of this is in the in-universe TV show Bionic Bunny. The titular character is played by an actor named Wilbur Rabbit, but the show's intro explains that he was "created by a combination of super science and radical animal husbandry to fight crime," going so far as to show a non-anthropomorphic rabbit being raised in a laboratory. If the residents of the world Elwood City is in use both a regular rabbit and a humanoid rabbit to portray Bionic Bunny, they must know that they are animals, but are higher in intelligence than feral animals they use as pets. It's really logically hard to look at this from a human perspective.
• In “D.W.’s Deer Friend”, D.W. makes friends with a non-anthro deer named Walter. There are anthropomorphic moose (a species of deer), such as George.
• "Buster the Myth-Maker" has Arthur and Buster witness a dognapper... who is an anthropomorphic dog.
• In one episode, there is a comic about “flying sheep zombies”, which aren’t anthropomorphic. However, recurring background character Mary is an anthropomorphic sheep. As is one of the substitute teachers in another episode, who asks the class to spell the word “leather”.
• Ladonna owns a pet rat, even though Mr. Ratburn is an anthropomorphic rat.
• The Deegans have curly hair because they’re poodles. However, Muffy is bitten by a non-anthro poodle in one episode.
• "Binky Can't Always Get What He Wants": Buster, an anthropomorphic rabbit, pulls a non-anthro rabbit out of a hat.
• In “So Funny I Forgot To Laugh”, Arthur says Sue Ellen looks like a sheepdog, which is shown by pasting her head onto a non-anthro sheepdog’s body.
• In "Arthur's New Friend", an anthropomorphic dog mailman appears on screen at the same time Pal does to give Arthur a letter.