Neurodivergent Diversions: A Column about Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

by James Coulter

For nearly 25 years, Arthur has been a ground-breaking animated show that has touched upon challenging topics including trauma, cancer, death, and even social disorders like dyslexia and autism.

In the case of the latter, the show explored and discussed autism in the episode, “When Carl Met George (or “George and the Missing Puzzle Piece”), which premiered on PBS on Dec. 3, 2010.

The episode introduced the bunny character of Carl, one of the first characters with Autism in a children’s animated show. Even 15 years later, this episode offers one of the best explanations of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ADS), allowing anyone to better understand the social disorder.

When Carl Met George

The episode begins with the moose character George meeting Carl at the community center. George sees Carl putting together a puzzle, which George initially mistakes for a spaceship.

Carl corrects him, explaining it’s a bullet train, not a spaceship. He then begins talking about how fast the train travels, how it rides on magnets, and how the picture in the puzzle is inaccurate to how the train appears in real life.

Here, Carl is “info dumping”, which is when someone (usually a person with Autism) shares a large amount of information about a topic of interest, often in great detail, and sometimes unprompted. George never asked anything about trains. He only said the train in the puzzle looks nice. But Carl was more than willing to share everything he knew about it.

George introduces himself and extends a hand for a shake. Carl continues assembling his puzzle, almost as if he is ignoring George. He rarely, if ever, makes eye contact.

When George asks if they can hang out together, Carl asks, “Hang out of what?” George then asks if Carl is pulling his leg. Carl answers that he’s not because he’s putting together a puzzle. George then says goodbye, but Carl does not reply.

This interaction shows how people with Autism often struggle with “pragmatic language”, which is the ability to use language appropriately in social situations. In other words, it’s knowing what to say, when to say it, and how to say it.

As such, people with Autism often struggle to make eye contact, interpret social cues, and understand figurative language like idioms or metaphors. It’s why Carl acts the way he does toward George.

Arthur’s Awesome Autism Analogy

However, George doesn’t understand. He thinks Carl was acting “strange.” He even feels Carl is ignoring him because he doesn’t like him.

Later, George visits another friend, Brain, at the ice cream shop. Upon telling him how Carl was acting, The Brain explains Carl has Asperger’s Syndrome (an outdated term for Autism Spectrum Disorder).

Brain knows about the disorder because his uncle also has it. His uncle is a professor who’s brilliant about physics but awkward in social situations. “He has a lot of trouble being around people,” Brain says. “His brain just works differently. What’s normal to us can seem really strange to him.”

The brain then goes on to offer the following analogy, which does an excellent job explaining Autism:

Imagine you crashed landed on an alien planet. It looks like Earth, but there are a lot of differences.

For one, a lot of people seem to talk extremely loudly. And even though you speak the same language, you sometimes have a hard time understanding what they mean. And things that seem hilarious to you aren’t funny at all to them.

You wish the scientists on Earth had given you a guidebook to this strange planet, but they forgot to pack one. So you have to try to learn things all on your own. Maybe there’s one thing in particular that captures your interest, and you study just that.

Hopefully, the people on the planet get to understand you a little better. And you might even learn to fit in, but you will always feel a little bit different.

Still A Great Episode

This episode aired nearly 15 years ago, and its analogy for Autism still holds up. It’s a great way to explain Autism to other people, and it teaches them how to better empathize with people with Autism and to understand that autistic people aren’t acting “strange” or “rude”, just different.

In fact, the only aspect of the show that hasn’t aged well is that ASD is referred to as Asperger’s Syndrome. The term is no longer used, as the physician it was named after, Hans Asperger, was discovered to have actively assisted with the Nazi’s euthanasia program.

Even then, the episode still holds up, and it serves as a great tool to help people without Autism better understand people with it.

The full episode can be watched on the PBS Kids website:
https://youtu.be/zDRYoINqPQY?si=VYUCRZsRY_CqvfAthttps://youtu.be/zDRYoINqPQY?si=VYUCRZsRY_CqvfAt