Here's my take on today's new episode:
While the whole entry of "So Funny I Forgot to Laugh" wasn't EXACTLY as bad as I thought it was going to be, Arthur was still TREMENDOUSLY out of character. Like raidpirate said, I can understand Arthur's perspective about his intentions of just joking around and not intending to hurt Sue Ellen's feelings, but his actions were still considerably out of character for him... and I also agree, the email he sent to Sue Ellen was certainly not something one would expect from our favorite aardvark (nor that Sheepdog Appreciation Day drawing he taped on her locker... guess he forgot Francine's doodle of a Love Duck on his locker, or Fern's "Rat and Rat Jr." sketch). But again, the show has certainly jumped on the anti-bullying bandwagon right now. And I'm sorry... it'll probably take some getting used to, but Sue Ellen's new voice is kind of irritating.
Now as for "The Best Day Ever", while I generally like flashback episodes and clip shows, I was disappointed with this one, mostly because almost all of the dialogue in the flashbacks were redubbed by the new voice actors... I guess that's to avoid confusing kids watching as to why their voices would sound different in the same episode... and I haven't paid too much attention to the credits, but is Tabitha St. Germain voicing George this season? Not only did George sound like a girl, but Wally sounds like Martha (of MARTHA SPEAKS). Good entry overall, but again, the redubbing of the flashbacks lost some points with me.
I DID have myself having a "fangasm", as Sarge puts it, when watching Binky's flashback (okay, I admit, I never watched the actual episode), because when Binky was trying to do the Monkey Face for Mei Lin in the restaurant before Arthur showed up, I heard the exact same music that's been used on COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG for Di Lung (the Asian punk who would yell, "Watch where you're goin' ya foo!")... I guess it must be production music or something.