This cartoon follows one of those
plots that involve characters who are close end up spending a lot of time
fighting with each other, eventually deciding to end their friendship over
frivolous means. It’s a plot that’s not
always pleasing to watch mostly because it’s hard to see such good friends at
odds with each other especially when they’re both hard to get behind in their
conflict. About this cartoon
specifically, Arnold and Gerald get part time jobs at Mrs. Vitello’s flower
shop in order to gain money to buy certain things to have fun. When Mrs. Vitello throws out her back, she
has the boys manage the store alone with Gerald getting the higher
authority. Then we’re treated the two
friends becoming at odds with each other with Gerald driving Arnold to work
faster and not spend so much time on the quality of certain flower orders and
Arnold carelessly getting flower orders wrong.
They both complain about each other’s flaws so much that the cartoon
becomes significantly less entertaining to watch than it should be. Arnold and Gerald have been shown to be a
very loyal team sticking together no matter how the other acted. Seeing them become the worst of enemies just
because of this job environment just isn’t like them. It gets even worse when Arnold decides to
quit working for the shop under Gerald’s leadership and what follows is a
series of dragged out scenes of the two former friends going out of their way
to not speak with each other making their senseless bickering even more
painful. The conflict between them does
get more engaging when Grandpa gets involved.
He shares Arnold a story about how he used to be friends with a kid
named Jimmy Kafka, but like Arnold and Gerald, they broke their friendship
while doing a part time job. The catch
is that they never spoke again, which is a pretty sad yet clever twist to the
story. As for the present matter,
Grandpa’s story gets Arnold to see sense when he has a dream of him and Gerald
similarly not being friends straight through senior ages which also includes
this memorable piece of nightmare fuel to many longtime fans of this show:
Anyway, we end with Gerald being
unable to run the shop alone and Arnold stepping in to make up with him which
is nice, but the cartoon ends before they can use their friendship to fix
everything at the shop. They just set up
a problem to solve, and they end without getting to it. That’s sloppy storytelling, but at least
Arnold and Gerald’s fight is over. This
really isn’t the worst cartoon of the show, but its fighting moments among
other things grant it a low recommendation from me. 7/10
Biosquare
Unlike Arnold and Gerald who are
best friends, Arnold and Helga are a pairing who we rarely see get along mostly
due to how much of a bully Helga can be to Arnold. Yes, she has that crush on him, but for her
own reasons, she keeps it secret by covering her love with mean-spirited
nature. So, when they’re assigned to do
a science project that requires them to spend 24 hours together in a
greenhouse, it’s easy to predict that things are bound to get tense between them. Through it all, we see a clash of the
personalities of these two people who rarely get along at work. Arnold is easily prepared for the experiment
and approaches each part of it such as one involving a potato and another
involving a red ant and black ant living together in the same ant farm with
great enthusiasm. Helga on the other
hand is not at all thrilled with Arnold’s recent football-headed scheme. She eats all her food instead of saving it
for the coming 24 hours, complains about the lack of electricity, messes with
Arnold’s side experiments, and demands the greenhouse be divided even though
she and Arnold are supposed to be living together in the environment. It’s a dynamic we’ve come to expect and it
does have its moments, but most of the time, the entertainment of the situation
is Helga’s constant complaining and irrationality. I understand that she feels the need to be
mean to Arnold instead of show him the real her, but this much of it can get
somewhat annoying and I just wish she’d realize that things in
the greenhouse are the way they are because that’s how the experiment is
supposed to work. However, the beauty of
this plot is that it shows that while they are constantly at odds with each
other, Arnold and Helga do care about each other enough to work together when
the moment calls for it. The moment does
call for it when we reach the climax.
Helga becomes so bothered by a leaky faucet that she goes on to break it
which causes a flood. It only gets worse
when Grandpa and Oskar humorously mistake the cries for help for wanting to add
more water. As the flood in the
greenhouse gets worse, Helga actually takes initiative by blowing a raft and
saving Arnold from drowning by pulling him aboard just as the greenhouse door
bursts open. Then they both show concern
for each other’s safety and then share a passionate smile. For all their bickering, this moment shows
that Arnold and Helga can work as a pair if their hearts are really in it. So, while some of Helga’s moments don’t make
this cartoon particularly strong, this cartoon is still appreciative for its
portrayal of her and Arnold’s dynamic. 8/10
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. Magic Show
11. Tutoring
Torvald
12. The
Baseball
13. Olga Comes
Home
14. The List
15. Das Subway
16. The Vacant
Lot
17. Downtown as
Fruits
18. The Old
Building
19. Field Trip
20. The Sewer
King
21. Sally’s
Comet
22. Roughin’ It
23. Gerald
Comes Over
24. 6th
Grade Girls
25. The Little
Pink Book
26. 24 Hours to
Live
27. Abner Come
Home
28. Arnold as
Cupid
29. Snow
30. Eugene’s
Bike
31. Biosquare
32. Door #16
33. Heat
34. Part Time
Friends
35. Benchwarmer
36. Operation
Ruthless
37. World
Records
38. Cool Jerk
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the 20th episode of the season: "Arnold's Christmas."
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