The Creator of ‘Arthur’ Has Some Ideas for a Feature Film
There’s a new show from Marc Brown, the creator of Arthur, coming soon. And just like Arthur, every character of Hop—which premieres April 4 on Max—has an original point of view.
Hop, which Max calls a “younger continuation of Arthur,” follows Hop the frog (David Connolly), his older sister Penny (Misha Bakshi), and their neighborhood pals in Fair Village. What’s special about Hop, apart from being a sister series to Arthur, is that all of the characters have different disabilities. For example: Hop has one leg that’s shorter than the other. Filipa (Charlotte Walker), a friend of Penny’s, is neurodivergent. Even Hop’s next-door neighbor—who only appears on occasion—is blind.
This idea, Brown explains, actually stemmed from Arthur. “With Arthur, we occasionally invented a character who had a disability, but they never became a meaningful part of the ensemble cast,” Brown tells The Daily Beast’s Obsessed over Zoom, sitting in front of a wall full of Arthur and Hop artwork. “I felt like this was an opportunity, because whenever we did those characters in Arthur, we got such an incredible amount of letters from kids thanking us. They were seeing themselves.”