Alan Powers


 * "Sometimes when I have no ideas I just need to relax and do math equations. Then I get PLENTY of ideas!"
 * &mdash; Alan Powers, "How the Cookie Crumbles"

Alan "The Brain" Powers is a 3rd grade student at Lakewood Elementary. He is the smartest kid in school, being called "The Brain" more than his real name, Alan. He is a bear, making Brain the only principal cast member that is a bear. In Arthur's Perfect Christmas, it is revealed that Brain celebrates Kwanzaa, and that his family is African-American. He was originally voiced by Luke Reid and is currently voiced by Lyle O'Donohoe and he has a imagine of him with a doll Arthur who resembles Woody from Toy Story. He has no siblings

Profile
Name: Alan Powers

Alias: The Brain

Age: 8

Handedness: Left-handed

Parents: Mr. and Mrs. Powers

Siblings: None

Other: Keith Powers (uncle)

Likes: Ice cream, helping out with his mother, computers, soccer, skipping stones, Bionic Bunny, science

Dislikes: Insolence, envy, being called out of the spellathon. Arthur Doll.

Annoyances: Francine (sometimes), Muffy (sometimes), Binky (sometimes), Prunella (sometimes)

Appearance and Personality
Brain is an anthropomorphic bear who wears a gray sweater with olive green pants (according to the promotional art on the cartoon's official website, he had on khakis instead), and brown loafers. In the books, he wears different-colored shirts and sweaters, and blue jeans or sometimes khakis. He has clumps of hair which are brown in the books, although the cartoon depicted the hair in thin black lines in order to simplify animation process. He wears sneakers when playing sports. His pajamas consist of a yellow sleepshirt and orange and yellow striped pajama bottoms, and is one of the few characters to wear detailed pajamas in the animated series, while most other characters wore monochromatic pajamas in order to simplify animation process. On formal occasions Brain wears a charcoal or black tuxedo with two pockets on each side of the tuxedo jacket and a white tuxedo shirt with a black bow tie and matching trousers and black shoes. He also owns a grey suit with two buttons and two pockets on each side of the suit jacket. He wears a white collar shirt with a blue tie. He also wears matching grey trousers and light black shoes. He wears briefs as revealed in The Perfect Brother.

He is mild-mannered and is one of the most polite characters in the series. He is an expert soccer player, despite Francine's jealousy that she was great in other sports. He is one of the few characters who are usually left-handed. His usual grade is an A that ranges between 100% and 90% as he is often considered the most intelligent student in Mr. Ratburn's class, and he often gets his work done faster than the other students.

Despite being quite well mannered, Brain sometimes has a tendency to fantasize negative and sometimes dangerous things to happen to those who have wronged him, as seen when he was defeated in a science fair by Francine. He is also highly hydrophobic.

He tends to be called upon a lot when his friends have technical difficulties but also is great fun to hang out with.

In "The Wheel Deal", the first half of episode 1 of season 14, he suffered a leg injury and temporarily ended up in a wheelchair.

Other Media
In the Living Books computer games, the Brain had a pale cream-colored complexion in Arthur's Teacher Trouble, which was changed to light brown in Arthur's Birthday, although the final page depicted him with a pale one. It was likely due to color and tone restrictions during the 16-bit era of computers and software. The Brain's voice sounded more mature in those two games and was voiced by Joey Edelman before the cartoon show replaced him with Luke Reid.

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

Trivia

 * In Arthur's Perfect Christmas, Brain's dad is seen carrying one of D.W.'s classmates. This has brought up that Brain has a neverbefore seen sibling or a cousin/other relative.
 * Brain has a fear of water, and is very talented in soccer, on the cello, and academically, hence his name.
 * In Brain's Shocking Secret from Season 11, Brain was actually supposed to be in the same grade as Prunella, but due to him being a "crier" he was held back a year. It is also likely that he started kindergarten at the age of four, although he's currently eight years old in the third grade.
 * Brain also works: He works in his family's ice cream store and teaches in summer school.
 * Brain's goal is to be an astrophysicist.
 * Brain tends to be a "report hog", meaning he has to do all the work for group projects.
 * His usual marks are either an A or an A+, but his lowest mark seen in the show was a B-, seen in the episode Breezy Listening Blues. [Note: In the episode "Brain Gets Hooked", Brain recieves a C on his Magna Carta report; however, Mr. Ratburn allows him to redo his project, and it is implied that he recieves a higher grade when he presents his report the second time.]
 * In seasons 3-4, the Brain's voice went through a drastic change due to the fact that Luke Reid was going through puberty at the time, although WGBH later decided the voice tone for the Brain was too deep, so they decided to assign new voiceovers to voice Brain who can sound like his original voice from season 1, and would again sign a new voiceover if that actor's voice goes into a drastic change.
 * Alan is called by his nickname too often, then Arthur has forgotten his first name at times; although his parents refer to him by his real name more than anyone else.
 * In the earlier seasons, Mr. Ratburn and Mr. Haney referred to him by his nickname like his friends do, but in the later seasons, they referred to him by his real name Alan.
 * In their response to Tim Schadla-Hall's article on sexuality within children's television, American sociologist Yvonne Allison argued that the brain was systamatic of what she called "the American belief that the white man is superior. Being displayed as being of higher intelligence, The Brain is an inherently racist character, one who is guilty, in part, of helping to continue the suppression of knowledge about the Black Holocaust." (Allison, Yvonne. 2003. "Racism, Sexism and Homophobia: the minds of children today", Journal for the Academic Study of Popular Culture, pp. 103-107.) This idea was challenged by one of her peers, Daniel Secker of Yale University, who argued that whilst the Brain was an idealised image of the white male, "he is not specifically racist, but an icon of the aspirations of white middle class America. In this manner he can be seen as an updated version of the white picket fence, the Thanksgiving meal, or the Anglo-Saxon church." (Secker, Daniel. 2003. "Response to Allison, Journal for the Academic Study of Popular Culture, pp. 108-109.)