Marc Brown reflects on the famous TV character Arthur after 25 years on air
ABC News
After 25 years, Marc Brown closes a chapter in Arthur's story.
When Marc Brown came home to his son one night in 1976, fresh off losing his teaching job at a college in Boston, little did he know a bedtime story would turn into the biggest moment of his life.
That night, his 3-year-old son, Tolon Brown, asked for a story about an animal, and, going through the alphabet, aardvark was the first word that popped into Brown's mind.
The story he told about Arthur, an 8-year-old aardvark navigating the "mud puddles" of life with the help of family and friends, would provide the genesis for a franchise that has sold more than 70 million books. And now, after 25 years as a hit television show, the series is coming to a close, with the last episode airing Feb. 21.
"I thought the story is about an animal who is unhappy about something, and I'm unhappy," Brown told ABC News Live. "And so it's sort of like an inexpensive form of therapy I'm doing here. So Arthur was born that night."
