Some of my favorite types of
stories are those that take a simple concept and mine it for a lot of creative
potential regarding the presentation.
This cartoon is an example of these stories. It starts off with someone pulling the fire
alarm at school when there isn’t a fire and all the evidence left at the scene
leads to the belief that Eugene did it.
Even with Eugene’s claims of denial, everything is all set to expel
Eugene for the false alarm, which is honestly way harsh to completely
tolerate. All that’s missing though is
the vote of the jury consisting of Arnold, Helga, Gerald, Phoebe, Harold, and
Curly. The jury vote looks like it’ll
easily declare Eugene guilty and be done with the issue at hand, but it’s one
single vote of “not guilty” that changes everything. In fact, that vote is what makes the plot
really interesting. All the members of
the jury effectively interpret what happened based on the evidence found with
the peanut butter on the fire alarm being Eugene’s favorite, the red glasses
found beside the alarm being the ones he wears on that day, and the footprints
leading to the closet Eugene was in being his foot size. In the process we get some entertaining bits
of Harold willingly telling anything for food, Helga being anxious to leave for
a wrestling match, and Phoebe explaining too many details about the
evidence. Still, the tensions are kept
high as Arnold, the one who voted “not guilty” refuses to jump to these
conclusions. Then, once he explains that
Eugene could have been set up by someone to have the evidence lead to him since
personality-wise it’s not like him to intentionally pull the fire alarm, and
one piece of evidence that couldn’t possibly connect to him, the cartoon just
explodes with crazy reveals. It turns
out that Curley, the juror who cleverly stayed quiet the entire time, was the
real culprit for pulling the fire alarm, and when Arnold points out the traits
of someone who could’ve planted the evidence on Eugene, he snaps and goes on an
over-the-top rant of why he got Eugene in trouble. It’s all because Eugene used up the pencil
Curley willingly loaned him. Talk about
petty, right? Well, the fact that Curley
got worked up and carried out that act over nothing makes him an entertaining
character for his mad nature especially since he gets what he deserves in the
end. Plus, this isn’t the last we’ll see
of his trademark madness. This plot may
seem like it has little to offer, but with great execution, it shows off a lot
of tension, thought-provoking scenes, great character moments, and genuine
satisfaction when justice wins in the end. 9.5/10
World
Records
As much as I enjoy watching
cartoons featuring kids take on common childhood activities, it gets a little
bothersome when the activity is way too seriously, and unfortunately, that’s
what happens in this cartoon. It’s about
Arnold inspiring everyone to try and break a record to get into a record book he’s
enthralled by. We spend the bulk of the
cartoon watching everyone try out all sorts of records and ultimately failing
at them. Some failures happen because
accomplishing the record in question is out of their abilities like walking
backwards. Others happen because they
don’t agree with other people such as going without taking a bath for a long
time. However most happen because no one
gets the idea that they can just try them again. For the latter point, the fact that most of
the times the failures at record breaking happen because no one realizes they
can just try them again is pretty frustrating since it’s obvious that they’re
not really owning the tasks they set out to do.
I can somewhat understand their feelings being based on feeling worn out
from the failures, so I suppose I shouldn’t be too upset by this. With this point in mind, it’s concerning that
Arnold doesn’t seem to care about how tired everyone is of these failed
attempts at breaking records. He’s
taking this world record thing way too seriously making him lose sight of
what’s really important and I can’t help but be bothered by this, especially
since this isn’t like a caring person like Arnold. Heck, Helga even makes a harsh yet good point
that it’s not worth caring about the world records as much as he does. Why does Arnold not consider that? We do get a nice scene of everyone deciding
to do what they do best to make the world’s largest pizza puff which sets
itself up to be a good payoff. However,
despite all the time devoted to the pizza puff that results in a big fat
failure too. It’s obvious that they can
easily try this record again since they failed because they measured one of the
ingredients wrong, but frustratingly, just as before, no one gets that
idea. Instead of trying to make the
pizza again with the right measurements, Arnold and the gang get in the record book
for the most attempts to get in the book.
They’re all really happy about it but I don’t get it. That’s not really an accomplishment for doing
something the best that makes them stand out.
All this “honor” amounts to is a participation award that means nothing,
yet everyone’s ecstatic about it. Why
should this qualify as a good payoff to everything everyone went through? Overall, the cartoon’s fine and cute for what
it is, but the moments of obliviousness to obvious solutions as well as the
activity being taken way too seriously and a weak payoff prevent it from being
truly great. 6/10
The Rankings
1. Pigeon Man
2. Haunted Train
3. Stoop Kid
4. Arnold’s Hat
5. Wheezin’ Ed
6. Spelling Bee
7. Helga’s Makeover
8. Mugged
9. False Alarm
10. Tutoring Torvald
11. The Baseball
12. Olga Comes Home
13. The List
14. Das Subway
15. The Vacant Lot
16. Downtown as Fruits
17. The Old Building
18. Field Trip
19. The Sewer King
20. Sally’s Comet
21. Roughin’ It
22. Gerald Comes Over
23. 6th Grade Girls
24. The Little Pink Book
25. Abner Come Home
26. Arnold as Cupid
27. Snow
28. Eugene’s Bike
29. Door #16
30. Heat
31. Benchwarmer
32. Operation Ruthless
33. World Records
34. Cool Jerk
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the 18th episode of the season: "Magic Show/24 Hours to Live."
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