Perhaps the biggest thing to appreciate about this cartoon is that it does not shy away from showing the hard truths of city life. While it’s true that most can live that life just fine, there are a lot of dangerous things out there including thugs who attack and rob you when you least expect. This is just what Arnold encounters. The beginning of this cartoon shows him just minding his own business and then, out of nowhere, a thug drags him into an alley, beats him up, and steals his bus pass and money. The way the scene plays out is very dark yet honest to how highly urbanized areas such as the neighborhood Arnold lives in can be a very dangerous place if you’re not careful. Speaking of not being careful, this frightening experience sets up the major plot of the cartoon where Arnold learns about the art of self-defense from Grandma. It mostly consists of martial arts practice and Grandma giving some Asian-like philosophies. In the training moments, it’s easy to both feel for Arnold’s plight and hope he gets the strength he needs to survive in the life he lives, while also enjoy Grandma’s trademark versatility. From what we’ve seen of her, she can take on pretty much anything. It’s the makings of a great character. Anyway, Arnold does go on to become a master at martial arts, and what he shows off is truly incredible, but there seems to be a downside to this. He’s so good at these martial arts skills that he uses them everywhere he goes and in front of anyone he comes across. This makes everyone around him fear him, but it doesn’t reach its breaking point until later on. At that point in the cartoon, a random guy appears to ask for the bus stop, and Arnold just straight up attacks him up to the point of stripping him to his underwear for no good reason, and he’s given a lot of death glares from everyone watching. What Arnold gets for attacking that guy is an effective frightening scene that greatly reflects the terror he has become. The composition is appropriately dark and angular, the voices and shots of the glares add to the tone, and the ambition and storytelling talent of the show’s crew clearly shows. The scene is then capped off by a nice scene between Arnold and Grandma who reminds him that true masters of the art of self-defense are those who do not look for trouble, but instead use their trade when trouble comes to them, just as a fly comes to a frog which has been shown literally throughout the cartoon. This lesson’s effect is really made clear when near the end, Arnold gets his stuff back from the same thug who mugged him when he comes to him and that is really the best way to end everything. This is a shining example of this show’s strengths with its honesty of city life, great character moments, and impactful lessons for all watching. 9.5/10
Roughin’ It
Slice-of-life shows tend to have at
least a few cartoons or episodes about characters being out in the great
outdoors and how they endure the wilderness. The ways the characters do this tend to have both
good points and bad points which make them relatable to real life. This cartoon in particular tackles two ways
of doing this. First, we have Arnold and
Gerald going on a camping trip with Grandpa who instructs them on how to camp
the old-fashioned way through basic wilderness knowledge like telling when an
animal is near, what berries are safe to eat, and finding your way with tree
moss. These methods of camping prove to
be too hard for Arnold and Gerald to follow and they grow to want out of
camping altogether, thus painting this form of camping in a bad light. The other way of enduring the wilderness
comes in when Helga and her best friend Phoebe arrive on the scene with Helga’s
dad, Big Bob. He’s taking part in a
camping trip as a way to test out new merchandise for his company, which
includes an RV, and a bunch of machines for storing food, finding their way
along a trail and keeping cool. This way
of camping proves to be easy and very efficient, not just for Arnold and
Gerald, but I bet even the audience could agree that this high-tech way of
living in the woods is the real way to go.
The thing is though that we later go on to see that even with the latest
technology, things can still go wrong when you use it on a camping trip. During a nature hike, all of Big Bob’s
merchandise breaks down prompting him to literally throw it all away. It just goes to show that using technology on
a camping trip can be fine for a while, but you really have to be careful with
it, because when it breaks, you’re endangered of really being exposed to the
elements. In the end, it’s the
wilderness advice that Arnold and Gerald learned from Grandpa that saves everyone,
and everyone gets back safely to enjoy the beauty of nature, while Big Bob is
humorously punished for his stubbornness and overreliance on technology. The strength of the story is how it shows off
the positive and negative parts of different ways of being in the great
outdoors. Camping with technology might
be easier and more relaxing, but they can break easily if you take them for
granted and you’ll be left with nothing.
Likewise, camping with knowledge of the woods in mind may be really hard
to learn, but you’ll get by better than ever once you get the hang of
things. This balance in the way of doing
things grants this cartoon some value. 9/10
The Rankings
1. Haunted Train
2. Stoop Kid
3. Arnold’s Hat
4. Helga’s Makeover
5. Mugged
6. The Baseball
7. The List
8. The Vacant Lot
9. Downtown as Fruits
10. The Old Building
11. Field Trip
12. Roughin’ It
13. 6th Grade Girls
14. The Little Pink Book
15. Snow
16. Eugene’s Bike
17. Heat
18. Operation Ruthless
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