Life

This Group Costume Is The 'Arthur' And 'Riverdale' Crossover You Didn't Know You Needed

by Eliza Castile
Twitter/PBS

Once Hollywood figured out that people would watch edgy reboots of anything, there was no going back. At this point, superheroes, folkloric legends, and even children's comics are all fair game. This year, a group of friends capitalized on the best part of every gritty remake — the costumes, naturally — with an Arthur-inspired Halloween group costume that has everyone talking. Trust me on this one. If '90s nostalgia is your one true weakness, you're going to flip out over the sight of the beloved characters from Arthur done up like a teen drama, complete with dramatic lighting and poses worthy of an angsty album cover.

Photographs of the group costume were shared on Twitter by Daniel Nkoola, who added the hashtag #ANightInElwood. As he explained in the caption, the squad went for an "if Arthur was an edgy teen drama on the CW" look, and believe it or not, the result isn't quite as ridiculous as you're probably imagining. (That being said, it's still pretty ridiculous in the best possible way.) As far as characters go, the whole gang is featured: Arthur, his sister D.W. and best friend Buster, Francine, Muffy, the Brain, and Binky. Like always, poor George Lundgren is left out.

The Arthur squad is clearly proud of their costumes, because they staged an appropriately dark photo shoot featuring shadowy corners, modern architecture, and plenty of neon red light. Nkoola shared pictures of the costumes on Friday, and by Monday, they had gone viral, with more than 182,000 likes and 58,000 retweets. Who knew there was an audience ready and waiting for a remake of a PBS children's show?

But enough talk. '90s kids, prepare to view the costumes you never knew you wanted.

Arthur, of course, was the star of the show.

If you made it this far without having seen Arthur before, consider me impressed by your willingness to read words that mean nothing to you. Also, I'll clear things up for you. Arthur is a Canadian and American kids' show about the everyday life of an anthropomorphic aardvark and his friends and family. Like most good things, it was based on a book series. The show began airing on PBS in 1994, and it's still producing new episodes. It's no wonder the Halloween group costume has gone viral; virtually every American or Canadian young adult has seen Arthur at some point.

In fact, the costumes have become so popular that people are clamoring for the CW (or any channel, although the CW definitely specializes in teenage drama) to make an Arthur remake a reality.

Some are even planning out the storylines now.

Honestly, if any form of social media were able to convince Hollywood to take on a gritty reboot, it would be Twitter. In April, Twitter users solidified a movie idea based solely on a photo of celebrities Rihanna and Lupita Nyong'o hanging out the front row together at Paris Fashion Week in 2014. The plot, in which Rihanna is a con woman and Nyong'o is her tech-savvy best friend, appears to have originated on Tumblr, but once it made its way onto Twitter this spring, it blew up. By summer, Vanity Fair reported that it is being made into an actual movie — and it's all thanks to the Internet.

Am I saying that American audiences might be tuning in to a dark remake of Arthur, complete with all the dramatic plot twists and poor decisions that characterize every other teen drama, by this time next year? I wouldn't write it off completely. In the meantime, fabulous Halloween costumes are the perfect alternative.