Francine Frensky

Francine Alice Frensky is the daughter of Oliver and Laverne Frensky, and the younger sister of Catherine Frensky. She is an athletic girl in Mr. Ratburn's third grade class at Lakewood Elementary School.

Physical Appearance
Francine is an anthropomorphic monkey with a brown complexion. She has medium-length brown hair with a bob hairstyle, which she puts hairclips on to clip it up (her hairclips are red in the books, but yellow in the cartoon).

She is usually seen wearing a red shirt, blue jeans, red and white sneakers, white socks and does not wear any shirt underneath like some of her friends.

Her sleepwear is a cream-colored pajama top with a big lime green #1 on the front and lime green pajama pants with stripes.

Her swimwear is a yellow maillot. In summer, she often wears a yellow T-shirt with a red stripe in the center and on the sleeves and a pair of red shorts. Her formal outfit is consisted of a pink collar blouse, gray pants and white shoes.

In later seasons, her formal outfit is changed to a white blouse, a black necklace, red pants and black shoes. In Season 1, she originally wears a pink T-shirt, blue overall shorts, pink socks and brown shoes.

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 a very large 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 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; although they do not have any glass in the frames.

She wears 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 has never 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 boyish clothes and only wore dresses for extra special occasions like for Picture Day in "Francine's Bad Hair Day" and for her older cousin, Seth’s Bar Mitzvah in "Francine’s Split Decision". Her hair was originally a light brown shade, but became darkened to a medium shade 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 has wavy hair when she becomes Arthur's secret admirer while at a cinema sitting in seat 3B. In "Francine's Bad Hair Day", Muffy urges her to get her hair done for school pictures, and Francine first wants the Prom Queen hairstyle that Muffy was getting. Francine has a dream where she's playing kickball and has super-long hair that can be used to retrieve the ball or reach a base. When Francine checks out the results, she is given a tightly curled hairstyle instead. After "Francine's Bad Hair Day", she has since kept her signature hairstyle. In the end of "The Lousy Week", she and Muffy are both given a buzz cut to eliminate lice from reproducing in their hairs.

Personality and Skills
Francine is very athletic and loves sports, especially soccer, football, kickball, bowling, and baseball. The only sports she does not excel at are badminton and figure skating

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 facilitate.

Arthur once described her as a "sore winner." She also likes horses, and once accompanied Harry Mills to a horse race. She envies Catherine because she is a better horse rider. ("Francine Frensky, Olympic Rider".)

Francine is an excellent singer and drummer. However, she do both at the same time very well. Even though Francine does fairly well in school.

At one point she even resorts to plagiarizing an entire paper (even though one must note she never know that it was wrong at the time, and had a nightmare of herself 20 years older where she was being sued for plagiarism).

Though she claims she's the best player in every sport, she is proven right in some of them: in baseball, her skills needed plenty of improvement as seen in "Arthur Makes the Team", and in the episode "The Big Blow-Up" where she showed resentment toward the Brain for his superior skills in soccer and when she granted to conceal that she was kicking the ball out of bounds and had an a indifference when the Brain called her out on it.

She always talks in a tomboyish, brash tone. At the start of the show, Francine was very polite and easygoing.

This attitude is attempted to be tamed by a challenge from Muffy, by the partial class rebellion during a play about Thomas Edison, but neither of these lasts permanently. It is not until Fern Walters makes drawings about Francine, which motivates everybody else to also make drawings about Francine, when Francine starts to calm down. ("Meek for a Week", "Francine Frensky, Superstar", "Draw!".)

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, For some reasons, Francine appreciate it as praise and leaves the room.

Francine does like wearing dresses or having her hair done, which she believes would make her look foolish and like herself as she explains in "Francine's Good Hair Day". She prefers to wear clothes that are normally worn by boys, thus making her a tomboy. Despite that she does not want to have her hair done, her hair length remains the same.

Family
Francine lives with her father, mother and sister, Catherine, in Apartment #3 at Westboro Apartments, with the least amount of living space compared to her friends' homes. She also has a pet cat named Nemo. Francine's large family (including Bubby) 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 not employed and usually stays at home. She is constantly jealous of Catherine for being a more advanced horseback rider ("Francine Frensky, Olympic Rider") and acrobat ("Francine's Big Top Trouble"). She and Catherine also argue 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"). Her father sometimes calls her "Franky." ("I Don't Want to Wake Up")

Due to her family's poverty, they were unable to replace her old bike she had since outgrown and are left with no choice but to ride her father's old bike that had seen better days, and discard it (which she claims was stolen until she tells the truth). Finally, her father finds it and manages to restore it. ("Stolen Bike")

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 gets 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 innocuous thing she's ever heard although in the end it was revealed that it was just a rumor and Arthur and Francine vow to  letting 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. Another hint that Francine can have a crush on Arthur is in the 2001 book Arthur's First Kiss, when she tries to kiss him but fails. 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 3rd birthday party during a flashback in "Desperately Seeking Stanley" from Season 8, which means the time they met each other for the first time is 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 an exceedingly rich family in an overly spacious estate, while Francine is tomboyish and lives in a rather low-class family in a narrow apartment, and in the episode "Wealthy Muffy" the wealth differences between the two are revealed. Muffy stands up to Buster Baxter and correctly Binky Barnes about Francine's "fashionable hand-me-downs" and cheap possessions, such as Francine's bicycle in "Stolen Bike". They often clash over Francine's tomboyish attitude or Muffy's altruism, such as in the episode, "Meek for a Week", "Muffy's New Best Friend", and the holiday special, Arthur's Perfect Christmas, but they always make up in the end.
 * Buster Baxter - Buster is a frequent annoyance of Francine, but they maintain a good friendship anyway.
 * Binky Barnes - Binky plays with Francine, Fern, Molly and Mrs. MacGrady as U Stink in "Arthur - It's Only Rock 'n' Roll".
 * Fern Walters - Fern plays with Francine, Binky, Molly, and Mrs. MacGrady as U Stink in "Arthur - It's Only Rock 'n' Roll". In "Draw!" Francine compliment Fern by calling her a "mouse."
 * The Brain - They are on the same soccer team, yet they argue in "The Big Blow-Up". Francine tries to give the Brain tips for TV in "And Now Let's Talk to Some Kids", but he's working on his science project.
 * Alex - In "Francine Frensky, Superstar", he‘s one of the reporters in Francine's show about Sir Isaac Newton. In "Elwood City Turns 100!", Alex asks Francine what Elwood City is like today, and she answers him through the closing number "That's Elwood City".