Lydia Fox

Lydia Gordon (also called Lydia Fox) is a girl in a wheelchair who helped Brain learn to play basketball in a wheelchair when he injured his ankle.

Physical appearance
Lydia has a light tan complexion and red hair. She wears red, rectangular-shaped glasses. Lydia wears a light purple and light green t-shirt with a picture of a flower, a purple skirt, and gray shoes. For playing sports, she wears a red t-shirt with yellow edges and the number '1', black pants with red stripes on the sides, and white and light blue shoes.

Personality
Lydia wants kids to know that even though she's in a wheelchair, she can do what everyone else can do, but in her own way. She likes to draw and design T-shirts. She also likes track, baseball, and basketball.

Character development
Lydia was the winning character in the "All Kids Can Character Search" contest, created by Connor Gordon of Savage, Minnesota. Her last name, Gordon, is a reference to Connor Gordon.

Connor noticed the Arthur characters were mostly forest animals, but a fox wasn't taken yet. He made Lydia a girl fox because he thought foxes looked feminine. Connor chose her to be in a wheelchair because he wanted people to know that not all people with paralysis were born that way, saying that she dove into the shallow end of a swimming pool when she was seven and a spinal injury paralyzed her from the waist down. However, this idea was not kept in the TV episode, and Lydia specifically says she was born without use of her legs.

A local news interview with Connor from KARE, an NBC affiliate in the Minneapolis-St Paul area, hinted in 2010 that Lydia may become a permanent character on the show. According to CVS Caremark, Lydia was already planned to be in two future episodes by the time her debut episode aired on TV. However, Arthur director Greg Bailey says he never heard of plans for these episodes. Though, both Bailey and Marc Brown Studios do confirm that Lydia is going to appear in season 18.

Arthur

 * 1401a. "The Wheel Deal"

Websites

 * All Kids Can Character Search