The thing about Riverdale is it's so captivating that simply watching a 45-minute episode once a week just isn't enough. Thankfully, though, this need many of us have for more of the show has inspired some pretty creative solutions. We consume as many milkshakes as humanly possible, regularly stalk the show's actors on every single social media platform, and the most imaginative among us have even created their own Riverdale-inspired content. In early November, a student filmmaker named Daniel Nkoola tweeted a trailer he and his friends created for a Riverdale-inspired version of the PBS Kids television show Arthur. The 1-minute and 37-second long clip is both absurd and brilliant, much like the CW teen drama it's parodying.
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In his tweet sharing the video, Nkoola, simply wrote, "if #Arthur was an edgy teen drama (Trailer). The trailer features Nkoola and others playing the main characters that any PBS kid will remember including Arthur, Francine, Buster, Muffy, and D.W. However, unlike in the original children's show, these characters seem to be dealing with some darkness. Muffy is suspiciously found dead, Francine suspects Arthur of cheating on her with her now-deceased best friend, and everyone in the gang is trying desperately to get to the bottom of mysterious death.
Throughout the dramatic trailer, text is sprinkled in with words taken from Arthur's original theme song. The lyrics that were once upbeat are now tinged with a dark new meaning. They read, "Every day when you're walking down the street, everybody that you meet is a suspect." At the end of the video, the show's title, Arthur, appears in flickering blue neon letters just as they do at the beginning and end of every episode of Riverdale.
if #Arthur was an edgy teen drama (Trailer) pic.twitter.com/IDzGbS7Egn
— Daniel Nkoola ?? (@DNkoola) November 4, 2017
The trailer is a hilarious parody of The CW show, and does a smart job commenting on the ridiculousness that occurs when you turn an innocuous, kid-friendly cartoon, like the Archie comics and Arthur, into a sexy teen murder mystery. Yet, we're also genuinely intrigued by the concept.
Somehow, watching the nearly 2 minute video left us wanting more, especially with the cliffhanger of D.W. attempting to stab Arthur. Someone needs to actually turn this Riverdale-esque thriller into a show, or at least give Daniel Nkoola and his friends a development deal to make any show they want. In the meantime, we'll be watching the Arthur trailer on repeat until next Wednesday when a new episode of Riverdale airs.