Monday, May 29, 2017

'Toon Reviews 1: Hey Arnold Season 1 Episode 8

The List


This cartoon is pretty much the ultimate look into childhood and that’s the biggest reason why it’s charming and appealing.  When you’re a kid, Saturday is seen as the best day of the week.  It’s the official start to the weekend where you’re off of school and, depending on the procedures of your classes, you have the whole day to do the things you like to do.  This basic idea of what Saturdays mean for kids everywhere is greatly embodied in this story that follows Arnold put together a list of all the fun ways to spend a Saturday.  You can really admire his ambition to have the ultimate Saturday.  The list has a lot of legitimately fun activities that we all enjoyed doing at several points in life, maybe even at our current ages; watching cartoons, playing catch with every kid in the park, riding bikes, and seeing movies.  This is another example of how relatable this show can get, and since the list has a lot of favorite pastimes, that’s all you need to want Arnold to have his great day.  Then, you end up noticing the real theme of this cartoon regarding expectations vs reality.  We see Arnold expect to have the best Saturday a kid could ever have based on his list, but the cartoon consists of nothing but all his attempts of having fun going wrong.  The power goes out in the boarding house preventing him from watching cartoons, a jerk steals the ball he’s playing catch with, his bike gets stuck in wet cement, and even the movie he’s seeing ends way too abruptly.  I might also add at the latter point is led into by Arnold showing off a more human side by getting into the movie by sneaking in without paying.  Anyway, while it is sad that things only seemed to go wrong for Arnold, it does give this cartoon a lot of credit by showing off a hard sad truth that in life, things don’t always go our way.  At the same time, it keeps itself from being too depressing by showing that even bad days can have a bit of good in them.  It does so by ending the cartoon with Arnold having a moment with Grandma who had spent the whole day trying to get a piano in the boarding house, only to later decide to put it on the roof.  It even features a lively musical number called “Look Up” which is a fun and great song to give power to the idea of bad days having some good.  It does its job to lift Arnold’s spirit, and I’m sure it’ll do the same for anyone else watching.  This cartoon is not only a relatable look at childhood, but it’s also honest for not being afraid to show how wrong things can go and uplifting to show that things going wrong aren’t always that bad.  It’s an animated work that really gets you to think about life. 9.5/10


Haunted Train

Most of what we’ve covered from this show are simple slice-of-life stories that give a look into the lives of the people in Arnold’s neighborhood, usually the kids, which the audience can relate to.  However, when the show decides to put simple stories aside, they pull out all the stops making the stories they tell stand out as something grand, creative, and truly unforgettable.  Most of these stories tend to be spooky ones revolving around urban legends Arnold and his friends hear.  The urban legend they hear this time around after Grandpa notices they’re bored is about a train whose driver drove off the tracks straight to Hell after going mad and every year on the anniversary of the train’s last ride, it returns to lure unsuspecting passengers to Hell with a collection of signs.  It’s an interesting story to say the least with a good indication that the crew behind this show is willing to try out any story idea imaginable, even if it might be scary and nightmare-inducing to some people, proving themselves worthy of using animation as a storytelling tool.  Anyway, the plot really gets going when Arnold, Gerald, and Helga decide to do something about their boredom and investigate the truth behind the story of the haunted train. The moment a mysterious train pulls into the abandoned station when midnight strikes, that’s when the stakes really raise and the characters and audience are taken for quite a ride, so to speak.  The big thing about the sequence is how everything we learned about the haunted train starts to come true.  The kids are pulled onto the train by a white light, the lights in their coach start flickering on and off, there’s an endless smell of rotten eggs, and as the ride goes on, it just keeps getting hotter.  This show clearly put a lot of effort into building a scary atmosphere, and when you combine it with occasional jokes, and charm from the kids working off of each other, that really helps make the story stick out.  Yes, all these scary and intense moments lead to a reveal that the train the kids got on was meant to go to the steel mill and there’s explanations for all the signs they saw, but it’s fitting given that this show is still grounded in reality.  That said, it still keeps up its awesome spooky atmosphere with an ending that suggests that despite what Arnold and his friends encountered, there still could be a haunted train out there.  Ultimately, with greatly pulled off intense scary scenes, a creative premise, and lovable characters, this cartoon is one of the most impactful and memorable entries of this season and series. 10/10
The Rankings
1.      Haunted Train
2.      Stoop Kid
3.      Arnold’s Hat
4.      Helga’s Makeover
5.      The Baseball
6.      The List
7.      The Vacant Lot
8.      Downtown as Fruits
9.      The Old Building
10.  Field Trip
11.  6th Grade Girls
12.  The Little Pink Book
13.  Snow
14.  Eugene’s Bike
15.  Heat
16.  Operation Ruthless
 
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the 9th episode of the season: "Mugged/Roughin' It."
 


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