'Toon Reviews 1: Hey Arnold Season 1 Episode 7

Operation Ruthless

I’ve said before that crushing on someone older than you is a normal and somewhat charming part of life, but that doesn’t always mean a cartoon following this plot is going to turn out great.  This is the case with this particular cartoon which follows a trope that only lasted for this particular season, aside from one short appearance in a later season.  It’s all about Arnold having a crush on a particular 6^th grade girl named Ruth McDougal and for how much he says how beautiful and amazing she is, I just cannot really get behind the idea of this relationship.  There is just little to no character of Ruth.  She doesn’t even talk in most of her appearances.  Heck, she literally doesn’t even do anything.  I know that Arnold’s just a kid and he’d see everything in a girl who looks nice, but to be this smitten with a girl who clearly has nothing to her personality is not something we should be seeing a lot of, let alone be the focus of an entire cartoon.  The trope is handled better in other cartoons where it only appears in short mentions.  Meanwhile, we’re also treated to the operation portion of the cartoon where Helga notices Arnold being infatuated with Ruth and we spend much of the cartoon watching her try to keep Arnold away from Ruth during an event called the Cheese Fair.  Sadly, the cartoon isn’t particularly strong on this front either.  It’s true that Helga has firmly established herself as a bully at this point, but we’ve also seen hints of her good side, especially when her positive qualities connect to her crush on Arnold.  However, her bullying ways go too far with everything she does to deny Arnold, the boy she loves, any form of happiness he’s looking for.  I will say that while she is successful at keeping Arnold from meeting Ruth, there are some good funny moments where things still go wrong for her.  My personal favorite is her ending up in a broken bumper car she tries to place Ruth in which leads to her crashing into an inflatable hot dog.  Now, for all of Helga’s unlikable moments, I can still somehow feel sorry for her when, at the end of the cartoon, despite never actually being able to talk to Ruth, Arnold declares that he just loves her even more, leaving Helga in a speechless daze as the lights of the Cheese Fair go out.  It’s almost as if she’s getting a reminder that being mean like this isn’t going to have her do anything with her crush on Arnold, yet for her own reasons, she just can’t help but hold onto that mean demeanor.  While that moment does make you think and feel for Helga, she’s still not at her best and the other part of the story is frightfully dull, making this a weak entry for the season. 6/10

The Vacant Lot

 

 

 

At any age, whether I’m young or old, I see this as a very strong cartoon for the series as it gets the point across that in a world dominated by adults, kids deserve to be heard too.  The conflict at hand is that Arnold and the gang have no place to play baseball.  They can only settle for playing ball in the streets which is a problem since they constantly have to get out of the way when cars come.  Then, they find a solution to this problem when they come across a lot covered in garbage.  After cleaning it up, they turn it into their own personal baseball field, and watching them use it to have a nice and efficient game for once is just really pleasing after the cartoon went to such lengths to show how hard it is for them to get their games in.  However, rather than just wrapping up with the establishment of the new baseball field, the cartoon goes in an interesting direction.  The adults of the neighborhood including Arnold’s grandparents, the boarders, Mr. Green the butcher and Mrs. Vitello the florist find out about the lot that’s been all cleaned up, and they completely ignore the fact that a baseball field has been set up there, and start refurbishing it to fit their needs.  This makes it impossible for the kids to play their games now, and it’s easy to feel for them.  They suffered long by not having a good place to play, they finally put a place together, and then all the adults just up and take it away from them without consent.  What’s more, all the adults do is fight over what should go where in the lot.  Fortunately, the actions of the adults lead to an extremely satisfying resolution when Arnold and the kids shut up their arguments by dumping trash straight onto the cleaned up lot, turning it back into a dump since no one can use it properly.  This actually gets the adults to realize that they did wrong, and the next day, the kids return to the vacant lot to find that the adults have turned it into a bigger and better baseball field.  This moment makes it clear that kids really do deserve to have a say in matters and shouldn’t be taken advantage of.  The adults feeling bad for taking the lot and claiming it as their own is a pleasant addition to the story to lead into the ending bit.  There’s even more credibility when you consider how much of a huge part of the series the vacant lot becomes as more seasons come in.  With all this in mind, we have a major entry for this series that’s enjoyable, nice, and even thought-provoking. 9/10

The Rankings

1.      Stoop Kid

2.      Arnold’s Hat

3.      Helga’s Makeover

4.      The Baseball

5.      The Vacant Lot

6.      Downtown as Fruits

7.      The Old Building

8.      Field Trip

9.      6^th Grade Girls

10.  The Little Pink Book

11.  Snow

12.  Eugene’s Bike

13.  Heat

14.  Operation Ruthless

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the 8th episode of this season: "The List/Haunted Train."