Just like the Magic School Bus itself, it appears Twitter has the ability to travel through time, as suddenly the Netflix reboot of The Magic School Bus has become a trending topic of controversy three years since its cancelation. People are harshly criticizing the character designs from the 2017-2018 series The Magic School Bus Rides Again series. These criticisms are fair in their substance, but why people suddenly getting worked up about this dead reboot?It appears as if this attending topic started with a viral tweet from user @crocfanpage contrasting the original cartoon's design for Valerie Frizzle with the design of her sister Fiona Frizzle from the reboot, with the caption "idk how to explain it but the new ms frizzle is homophobic." Charges of homophobia are obviously a joke (Fiona is voiced by lesbian Kate McKinnon, and Valerie's out voice actor Lily Tomlin reprised her role in the reboot), but this viral tweet started leading to more serious criticisms.
In particular, many Jewish people have pointed out that Valerie in the original series was one of the rare cartoon women with curly hair and a large nose who isn't portrayed negatively. Fiona's design, in contrast, feels like it's been genericized to typical Anglo beauty standards. While Valerie is relatively recognizable when she appears in the new series, her features have still been softened. The lack of Ms. Frizzle's distinctive fashion sense from the original further contributes to a lack of personality in the reboot.
Even more egregious are the changes made to the designs of the Black students Keisha and Tim, whose skin was significantly lightened and, in Tim's case, had their hair texture changed. The colorism on display in these redesigns is extremely blatant. The art of the reboot is unappealing enough on its own, but add in these aspects of racial and ethnic prejudice and these bad designs become something that might be genuinely anger-inducing -- if the show were still running.
Yes, the weirdest part of this whole controversy is that the "new" show Twitter is getting worked up about is already old news. It received backlash over its animation when it first came out and lasted only two seasons on Netflix before being forgotten about. Apparently, people forgot (or ignored) it so hard that its existence is now news again to many.
Tweets typically don't come with full context, which explains why those angry about the new Ms. Frizzle are responding to this the way they would to the news as opposed to the way they might look back more bemusedly at an old bomb. Essentially, the criticisms of The Magic School Bus Rides Again's character designs are justified, but people should contextualize these criticisms with the knowledge the series is already over.