Welcome to Elwood City Central Forum! If you haven't already, we encourage you to sign up and join in the fun of discussing the Arthur franchise!




Author Topic: Lance Armstong episodes banned from PBS Arthur rotation?  (Read 1443 times)

dth1971

  • New Kid at Lakewood
  • *
  • Posts: 66
    • View Profile
Lance Armstong episodes banned from PBS Arthur rotation?
« on: August 17, 2013, 10:22:25 pm »
With the controversy regarding Lance Armstrong last year, did PBS pull these Lance Armstrong related Arthur episodes from its rotation?:"
"Binky VS. Binky/Operation D.W."
"Room to Ride/The Frensky Family Fiasco"
"The Great MacGrady"

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter


Mr. Rocketburn

  • New Kid at Lakewood
  • *
  • Posts: 55
    • View Profile
Yes, they did. S10 and S12 reran in their entirety very recently with those episodes skipped, and S13 starts soon. Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, and Amazon still have the episodes. Earwig said that PBS was going to "put the Lance episodes on the shelf for a while". He didn't say which episodes, but it appears to be those three (I knew "MacGrady" and "Ride/Fiasco" would be gone, though I wasn't sure if "Binky/Operation" would since it didn't use Lance's actual likeness).

Ironically, on one of the episodes that reran within the past two weeks (I forget which), an exterior shot of the school at the start of a school scene showed "Vance Legstrong" (or someone in his signature purple shirt) riding by.

dth1971

  • New Kid at Lakewood
  • *
  • Posts: 66
    • View Profile
Maybe PBS should combine "Operation D.W." from S10 and "The Frensky Family Fiasco" from S12 into 1 new 1/2 hour with 1 new "A WORD FROM US KIDS" segment or 1 new "POSTCARDS FROM YOU" segment in the middle.

Disaster Warning

  • New Kid at Lakewood
  • *
  • Posts: 18
    • View Profile
"Binky vs Binky/Operation D.W." was aired just last night on my local PBS station's kids channel. I'm not sure if PBS "banned" this episode entirely; it seems as though local stations can still opt to air it on their own. Looks like the standard/national Arthur schedule will just skip over the Lance episodes.

Maybe PBS should combine "Operation D.W." from S10 and "The Frensky Family Fiasco" from S12 into 1 new 1/2 hour with 1 new "A WORD FROM US KIDS" segment or 1 new "POSTCARDS FROM YOU" segment in the middle.

That's not a bad idea. I really enjoyed "The Frensky Family Fiasco" and "Operation D.W." is one of those episodes that does a great job tackling a pretty big issue for a kid show.
"Hello, D.W!" --Buster
"...Can anyone tell me the sound animals of this genus make? ... Excellent, Buster! That is indeed the sound of Sus scrofa, the wild boar." --Mr. Ratburn