Casa
Paradiso
Running a place like a boarding house cannot be easy. You have to deal with so many different
people and attend to their needs at once.
The wise thing to do is attend to one request at a time, but the
boarders aren’t always going to be patient enough to realize they’re not the
only ones who need help.
It’s for these
reasons that get you to sympathize with Grandpa at the start of this
cartoon. There’s particular emphasis on
the boarders continuously bothering him to help them with certain things when
he’s in the middle of other complicated chores. Along with them all
arguing with each other, and problems with the boarding house like leaky
ceilings, the opening perfectly captures the hardships of dealing with different people living
in the same house. These annoyances are the major driving force
for the plot as Grandpa opts to escape running the boarding house.
He sees an
ad for a tropical resort in Florida called Casa Paradiso and plans to move there
with Grandma and Arnold by selling the boarding house. His feelings are understandable and all given
the emphasis on the unruly behavior of the boarders, but it
becomes a big problem that Grandpa never considers that selling the boarding
house means that all these people won’t have a place to live. This is certainly not good because even if
people in boarding houses are difficult, they still need
a home, especially if the home they have is all they can afford, and
impatience, while a negative trait, does not warrant being homeless.
Thankfully, this is seen as a problem by
everyone else, and the cartoon focuses on Arnold helping the boarders
convince Grandpa to not sell the boarding house and that they can behave and
get along as a family. This is a
pleasing part to the cartoon where all their attempts to stay lead to
them bonding more. They first put up a
façade of being a happy family helping each other out with the tasks they
needed to be completed, but through sensing the seriousness of Grandpa’s
decision and more genuine attempts like poems apologizing for their faults, the
boarders see the good in each other, and treat losing the boarding house like
being separated as a family. It’s the
strongest plot point to make it clear that even the most difficult people have
good in them and can even have good civil moments in even the tensest
relationships with people they have to live with.
However, the strengths of the boarders’
moments make all the moments of Grandpa’s determination to sell the boarding
house even more frustrating. He doesn’t
care about how they feel about the matter.
Even when they start getting genuine with their feelings all he can
think about is Casa Paradiso. Yes, he’s
old and stressed by the boarders’ weak points, but it’s not like him to be this
selfish. What does get him to come
around is Arnold refusing to go and stay with the boarders who consider
themselves to be his family. Even then
though, it takes a lot of time to see sense and he’s as determined to sell the
boarding house as ever, so Grandpa coming around feels abrupt and nowhere near
as genuine as the boarders growing to love each other as a family. In fact, their family bonds feel so genuine,
it’s not a sting that they fight again as the cartoon ends. Besides, it’s more believable from families.
Even if Grandpa’s immense irrationality holds
it back, this cartoon shines for its believable look at different people living
together. 8/10
Gerald’s
Tonsils
Some animated shows and movies give kid characters a voice by
an adult imitating a kid’s voice. I
personally find it more authentic for kids to be voiced by actual kids, and
there known instances of this scenario at play, and some of the shows I’ve done
review sets on follow it. This includes Hey Arnold in which all the kid
characters are voiced by actual kid actors some even able to voice them all the
way up to The Jungle Movie which at this point isn’t even a year old.
However, some characters like Arnold himself,
needed new voice actors throughout the series because the actors’ voices kept
changing so much they couldn’t sound youthful enough anymore. At this point in the series, the very thing
seemed to happen to Gerald’s voice actor, Jamil W. Smith, yet rather than get a new voice for him,
a more interesting decision was made to make a whole cartoon about Gerald’s
voice changing to justify his voice sounding deeper from now on.
Gerald’s voice is the main subject of the
cartoon in which Arnold’s class is performing in the spring concert, and Gerald
is the only kid talented enough to hit the high notes of the song, “Moonlight
Bay.” All seems well with Gerald set to
be the star of the concert, but then he’s suddenly subject for a tonsillectomy,
emphasis on suddenly. It’s distracting that there’s no proper transition from Gerald’s voice being praised
to him needing his tonsils out. Along
with what happens later, the tonsillectomy being sprung on Gerald like this
feels needlessly harsh and makes the sequence feel incomplete. I mean, how awkward can you get by going to a
major plot point without a scene of actually getting there?
Anyway, Gerald losing his tonsils is treated like
how any big change would be approached.
Gerald’s voice sounds completely strange to him and everyone who hears
him talk making it hard for him to adjust to the change. It’s so different that nearly everyone finds
the voice funny, and while some simply laugh because they can’t help it, there
being so much laughter pointed at something Gerald can’t control feels too overbearing
and mean. It’s unfortunate enough that his
condition is threatening his solo and everything he tries doesn’t help, but to
be teased and laughed at, while believable to come from kids his age, goes on
way too long.
Fortunately, it’s lightened a bit by a funny running gag of Stinky, with
a naturally raspy voice, insisting on getting Gerald’s solo. Also, there’s some nice development for the
usual background character, Harvey the mailman.
He’s said to have gotten his tonsils taken out too and, like Gerald,
found it hard to adjust at first, but was inspired to settle in by his favorite
blues singers who also had raspy voices.
It may not be a lot of development, but Harvey helping Gerald
does give him some endearment with how good he is with
kids. What’s more, his advice pays off
when Gerald turns out a great solo despite everything by just using a low voice
as opposed to a high voice. It’s a
strong payoff to all the harshness he endured and offers a great sense of hope
for anyone losing something in an operation.
In the end, we’re left with a solid cartoon built around a voice actor’s
voice changing and the whole show adjusting to it (though Gerald’s change in
voice isn’t fully apparent until the following seasons). At times the story can be rushed and overly
harsh, but the inspirational and musical payoff makes everything work. 9/10
The Ranking
- Helga Blabs it All
- Harold the Butcher
- Crabby Author
- Mr. Hyunh Goes Country
- Helga Vs. Big Patty
- Hey Harold!
- Curly Snaps
- The Aptitude Test
- Pre-Teen Scream
- Olga Gets Engaged
- Oskar Gets a Job
- Career Day
- Gerald’s Tonsils
- Rich Kid
- Dangerous Lumber
- Casa Paradiso
- Arnold’s Room
- Helga and the Nanny
- Stinky Goes Hollywood
- Arnold Betrays Iggy
The next Hey Arnold review will cover more of Helga and Phoebe's friendship looking into the possibility of the former going so far as to have the latter lose a competition on purpose, and a cartoon inspired by a real-life pig war.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews we'll be covering the Steven Universe episode "Cry for Help."
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