Francine Frensky

"Brain, give up. You can't win."

- Arthur and Buster

Francine Alice Frensky is an athletic, tomboyish girl in Mr. Ratburn's 3rd grade class at Lakewood Elementary.

Appearance
Francine is an anthropomorphic monkey with short brown hair, which she puts barrettes on to pin it up (her clips are red in the books, but yellow in the cartoon show). She is typically seen wearing a red shirt, baggy blue jeans, red and white sneakers, white socks, and doesn't wear any shirt underneath like some of her friends and doesn't wear a belt buckle. Her sleepwear are a cream-colored pajama top with a big light green #1 on the front and light green pajama pants with stripes. Her swimwear is a yellow maillot, despite that she's a tomboy. In the summertime, she often wears a yellow T-shirt with a red stripe in the middle and on the sleeves and a pair of red shorts. Her basketball uniform consists of an orange T-shirt and yellow shorts, which both have reddish-orange accents, and she has a yellow #5 on the back of the shirt. Her baseball uniform consists of a yellow baseball cap and a yellow T-shirt with the orange #6 on the back, and the LW logo is sometimes shown on the front, and sometimes the front is blank. Her football uniform consists of an oversized white shirt with a black #11 on the front and a red football helmet with a black stripe and white face mask. During cool weather outside of winter, she wears a black button-up #5 jacket with white sleeves and and the #5 on the left front end and on the rear. During the wintertime, she wears a white stocking cap with a fluffy red ball on top, an orange winter coat, a blue and white striped scarf, white mittens, and brown boots. She also has a pair of Dame Edna-style movie star glasses that are pink in the books, but green in the cartoon show; although they do not have any glass in the frames. She wore these glasses on occasions in the books: Arthur's Eyes and Arthur's Teacher Trouble; and in the episodes "Arthur's Eyes," "Arthur's Spelling Trubble," and "Sick as a Dog." She hasn't worn those glasses again after Arthur's Teacher Trouble and after the cartoon show's first season.

She originally had completely flat hair down her cheeks in her first appearance in Arthur's Nose, even though Arthur's Eyes and all later books and adaptations have changed her hairstyle into a flip. She also originally wore dresses in the earliest Arthur books. In Arthur's Valentine and all later books and adaptations, she mostly wore masculine clothes and rarely wore dresses. Her hair was originally a light brown tone, but became darkened to a medium tone in Arthur's Teacher Trouble and all later books and adaptations.

Alternate hairstyles
Even though Francine doesn't like having her hair done like her best friend Muffy does, she has had a few alternate hairstyles in the series. Her signature hairstyle is a straight flip, even though it's not flat. In "Arthur's Valentine," she had wavy hair when she became Arthur's secret admirer while at a cinema sitting in seat 3B. In "Francine's Bad Hair Day," Muffy urged her to get her hair done for school pictures, and Francine first wanted the Prom Queen hairstyle that Muffy was getting. Francine had a dream where she was playing kickball and had super-long hair that could be used to retrieve the ball or reach a base. When Francine checked out the results, she was given a Jewfro instead. After "Francine's Bad Hair Day," she has since kept her signature hairstyle. In the end of "The Lousy Week," she and Muffy were both given a buzz cut to eliminate lice from reproducing in their hairs.

Past life
When Francine was a toddler, she wore an orange short-sleeved shirt and yellow overalls shorts. Her babyhood was never shown, but it might be likely that she might have worn cloth diapers like most of the parents and teachers did in their babyhood and unlike her friends, due to her family's low wealth. Her hair was also a bit shorter when she was a toddler. She started wearing barrettes when she was in pre-school and wore a white shirt, pink pants, and sneakers. When she moved into second grade, she started wearing her usual red long-sleeved shirt, blue jeans, and red and white sneakers.

Future life
As a teenager and as an adult in the future, Francine appears to have grown more feminine by wearing dresses and other feminine clothing despite her tomboyishness that she has since preferred, such as not liking to wear dresses. Also, her hairstyle is slightly different when growing up. As an elderly woman, her hairstyle was the same as when she went to Lakewood Elementary School and she was wearing a light teal blouse jacket, a white blouse with a pendant underneath the jacket, a periwinkle dress, and white high-heeled pumps; and was wearing barrettes again. She also appears to be married to Arthur on many futuristic occasions.

Other media
In the Living Books computer games like Arthur's Teacher Trouble and Arthur's Birthday that are both based on their respective books, Francine had light auburn hair and a pale cream-colored complexion. It was likely due to color and tone restrictions during the 16-bit era of computers and software. Francine's voice sounded less masculine in those two games and was voiced by Marcella Evans before the cartoon show replaced her with Jodie Resther.

In the later games during the 32-bit era of computers and software such as Arthur's Thinking Games, her appearance was the same as she looks in the cartoon show.

Personality and skills
Francine is very athletic and loves sports, especially soccer, football, kickball, and bowling. The only sports she doesn't excel at are badminton and figure skating (which she dismisses as "girly"). Francine is very determined, perhaps even restless, and if she doesn't have an immediate knack for a certain sport or skill, she can become frustrated. Arthur once described her as a "sore winner." She also likes horses, and once accompanied Harry Mills to a horse race once. She envies Catherine because she is a better horse rider.

Francine is an excellent singer and drummer. However, she can't do both at the same time very well. Even though Francine does fairly well in school, she does struggle from time to time. At one point she even resorted to plagiarizing an entire paper (Even though one must note she didn't know that it was the wrong at the time, and had a nightmare of herself 20 years older where she was being sued for plagiarism). She always talks in a masculine tone. At the start of the show, Francine was very mean and would get angry easily (to the point where Buster and Brain would say that her head would pop off from anger {"Meek for a Week"}). She was described as a jerk and a bully to fans of Arthur, and also, once, she called Fern a mouse for being too quiet. During the Thomas Edison play, she treated her friends very horribly by often mistaking the costumes for actual things (such as when she made the Brain put bandages on the air holes to Buster's light bulb costume when Buster really needs the air holes in order to breathe, which the costume is actually pretend), and then her friends were getting her back by purposely making mistakes (such as Arthur the phonograph acting like the telephone voiceover, Buster squirting water in her face after she does the light switch flipping, and when Binky as the train just beats back at Muffy and Jenna as the robbers), and finally realized how much she embarrassed them. She could be seen as Arthur's on-and-off friend, as she generally treats him well, but she won't hesitate to tease him for her own amusement when she's able to. But as the show progressed into later seasons Francine's personality has softened a bit. Francine has been at times very concerned for the well-being of her friends (even for Arthur) sometimes when she is not in a teasing mood. Francine's favorite color is red. It also has been hinted that she has a crush on Arthur. In some episodes, it is even hinted that they are soulmates.

Francine also has a soft side. She will try to help her friends if they are having a big problem, but sometimes, if somebody says something about her whilst she's trying to help, Francine sometimes misinterprets it as criticism and leaves the room.

Francine's also been shown to not like wearing dresses or having her hair done, which she believes would make her look stupid and less like herself as she stated in Francine's Bad Hair Day.

She quited to be the star forward along with Brain & Binky on the Lakewood Elementary Soccer Team. She once played for The Elwood City All-Stars.

Family
Francine lives with her father and mother, and sister, Catherine, in Apartment #3 at Westboro Apartments. She also has a pet cat named Nemo. Francine's extended family (including Bubbie) has been seen on a few occasions such as in Arthur's Perfect Christmas, "Background Blues", and "Is That Kosher?". Her father works as a garbage man at the Elwood City Dump, which embarrassed her. Her mother is unemployed and usually stays at home. She is constantly jealous of Catherine for being a more advanced horseback rider ("Francine Frensky, Olympic Rider") and acrobatics ("Francine's Big Top Trouble"). She and Catherine also argued over room decorations, letting Catherine move into the living room ("Francine Redecorates"). However, Catherine can be sometimes helpful to her. Her family does not often spend enough time together, although they do enjoy bowling ("The Frensky Family Fiasco").

They are a Jewish family who celebrate Hanukkah in Arthur's Perfect Christmas and Yom Kippur in "Is That Kosher?".

Friends

 * Arthur Read - Arthur is one of Francine's best friends. Though they are best friends, Francine seems to always pick on Arthur, such as calling him a "four-eyes" when he first got glasses in Arthur's Eyes and a "baby" for not having lost a tooth in Arthur's Tooth. In some episodes it seems Francine likes Arthur although in the episode Arthur and the Square Dance when Francine thinks that Arthur loves her, she says that's the grossest thing she's ever heard although in the end it was revealed that it was just a rumor and Arthur and Francine vowed to never let a silly thing like love come between them again. In the episode, "And Now Let's Talk to Some Kids", Arthur and Francine are shown to be an old couple in the future watching the video of them on the Magic Toolbox segment: And Now Let's Talk to Some Kids. According to "Locked in the Library!" from Season 1, they met each other for the first time since preschool during a flashback; but she attended Arthur's third birthday party during a flashback in "Desperately Seeking Stanley" from Season 8, which the time they met each other for the first time is therefore a retcon.
 * Muffy Crosswire - Francine and Muffy met during second grade and became best friends when they found out they had the same middle name, Alice. They always manage to find something to do together even though they are different in many ways: Muffy is feminine and lives in a rich family, Francine is tomboyish and lives in a middle-clas family. They often clash over Francine's tomboyish attitude or Muffy's selfishness, such as in the episode, "Muffy's New Best Friend", and the TV special, Arthur's Perfect Christmas, but they have always made up in the end.
 * Buster Baxter - Buster is a frequent annoyance of Francine, but they maintain a good friendship anyway. In one episode, Buster was dared by two 4th graders to kiss Francine before running home as fast as he was able to during a baseball game. He called out to Francine during the game, claiming that he needed advice. Francine didn't understand, but went to see what Buster wanted. In that moment, when she was standing only inches from him, Buster leaned forward and kissed her. Francine then proceeded to chase Buster out of the playing area, claiming she was going to pulverize him. And when some kids asked Arthur what Buster was doing, Arthur said that Buster was running home as fast as he could.

Francine is also friends with Binky, Fern, George, Jenna, Brain, Alex, Maria, and Sue Ellen.

Trivia

 * She is modeled after Marc Brown's sister, Bonnie, and her last name "Frensky" is a play on author Stephen Krensky's last name, a friend of Marc Brown's.
 * She is voiced by Jodie Resther and is one of the few characters whose voiceover remained unchanged since Season 1.
 * Francine is a big fan of horses.
 * Her favorite color is red as she stated in And Now Let's Talk to Some Kids.
 * The first sport Francine was seen playing was kickball.
 * In the early Arthur books, Francine was a fanatic of a series known as Rat Woman (a play on Catwoman), but that series has not been seen or mentioned in any of the later books or cartoon show.
 * Her birthday was mentioned in D.W.'s Very Bad Mood, but it has never been confirmed the month and day of her birthday. However, she is eight years old, especially when the episode or book would take place during second semester of her third grade year.
 * She enjoys journalism and once started a school newspaper called "The Frensky Star".
 * The place Francine wants to visit the most is the World Cup Finals.
 * Francine wants to be a musician, actress, drummer, stage director, and soccer star when she grows up.
 * She dislikes Cherry Soda, spiders