I know around the same time Cinar got busted for that tax fraud scandal is when former head writer Joe Fallon also walked away from the show (some speculate they had to let him go, as he was among those "foreigners" being passed as Canadian citizens, as he is originally from Los Angeles); I also know that because of that, they dropped "Crazy Bus" as D.W.'s favorite song, because it was Fallon who not only wrote the song, but performed the vocals as well.

Either way, I kind of felt like this was the first major blow to the show, because it seems like most of the better episodes from the first four seasons were coincidentally written by him... in a sense, it was almost kind of like he did for Arthur what Jon Stone had done for Sesame Street, there was such a spark of creative and imagination that really isn't there anymore... that's not to say that the show hasn't had good moments since then, because it has, but just not quite the same level that can measure up during the years Fallon was writing.

Yes, I agree, I think both Joe Fallon and Peter K. Hirsch rank up there are two of the best writers for the show, he too has written some great installments. In fact, I remember as a kid feeling that Seasons Three and Four had some really unique stories, and I've noticed that a bulk of them were written by Hirsch.

I've noticed too that he's continued writing up until a couple of years ago or so, though unfortunately, I see he's responsible for what some fans have been saying are among the worst episodes ever in existence, such as "In My Africa" and "Buster's Secret Admirer".

I was shocked to find out that Joe Fallon wrote "Arthur's Big Hit", which is my least favorite episode of the first four seasons, and is absolutely hated by a lot of fans. It didn't seem like a Fallon ep at all, because the majority of his episodes are some of the best.

Fallon was credited as "Executive Story Editor" in Season 5's end credits. I wonder how much creative control he had over the show at that point?

Sandra Willard is another writer I'm fond of. Her last episode was in the third season (according to the Arthur Wiki), but she wrote some of my all-time favorite episodes of the show. "Fern's Slumber Party", "Love Notes for Muffy" and "Popular Girls," among others.

I miss Joe Fallon! He was one of my favorite writers. Did you know that he was also a writer for Doug? So were Ken Scarborough, Matt Steinglass, and Dietrich Smith. I also like Kathy Waugh, who wrote a lot of D.W. and Francine stories.

I don't like very many of the episodes Peter K. Hirsch has written.

quote-I know around the same time Cinar got busted for that tax fraud scandal is when former head writer Joe Fallon also walked away from the show (some speculate they had to let him go, as he was among those "foreigners" being passed as Canadian citizens, as he is originally from Los Angeles); I also know that because of that, they dropped "Crazy Bus" as D.W.'s favorite song, because it was Fallon who not only wrote the song, but performed the vocals as well.[/i]

I want to clarify a point in the note above because it sounds scandalous.

The writers on Arthur still are and have always been mostly American citizens. The are not hired by Cinar/Cookie Jar/9Story so they would not have been dismissed by Cinar.  Joe nor any of the writers on Arthur were implicated in the Cinar scandal and the scandal didn't apply to Arthur anyway because it never qualified as a Canadian production. You can't a have a co production with an American company to qualify. Anyway it was a sad day when Joe left because he was such a great writer. He  left because of conflict that he had with Marc Brown. Joe left the show a  year or so  before any news of tax fraud at Cinar came up.

Peter Hirsch is American and has been the head writer on the series since Joe left the job.

 Ken Scarborough was the first head writer. Both Ken and Joe came over from Doug to start up the Arthur series.

Crazy Bus was dropped at one point because you need to pay a royalty on music like that everytime you use it. Since Joe was the head writer then there is a point when adding it to the scipt becomes a conflict of interest. Though I believe the song was even used once after Joe had left the show.

This is some interesting information about Joe Fallon.