This time, we’re taking another trip to the city of mad crushes, crazy
boarders and football heads among other things for a season’s worth of
adventures:
Hey Arnold (Season 3)
BASIC PREMISE
The animated shows of Nickelodeon are among some of the most
nostalgic for me, and Hey Arnold is
the one that’s easily held up the best.
As the first animated series I reviewed for this blog, I consider this show
to be a mainstay, one I’m more than willing to share with anyone who loves
reading animation reviews, at least until the day I review everything there is to the show. It’s a slice-of-life show that focuses on the
day-to-day lives of the many characters who live in a neighborhood of a single city. It doesn’t sound like much, but as looks into
the first two seasons have shown, it’s practically masterful as a slice-of-life
show delving into subjects relatable to adults as well as kids, and making good use
of its huge cast by giving interesting traits to almost all of them. Along with a wholesome urban setting, smooth
jazzy and character-driven music cues, and every story in general getting
deeper and more mature as the show goes on, you’re almost always in for a positive
experience with this series. Now, we’ll
be looking into the third season to see how well it builds upon the strengths
of the show and what it ultimately does for the characters and their world.
Just like with the other looks at the seasons, the order of the
reviews will be based off the official order found on the Hey Arnold wiki for a better flow of
show events and to factor in cartoons truly created for the season and not held
back to air in the middle of other seasons.
If you look to that site, you’ll most likely get a good idea of what
will be covered and when. With all this
said, let’s not waste any more time and get ready for more adventures with
Arnold Shortman (thanks Jungle Movie)
and company.
Now on with the reviews:
The
Aptitude Test
One of the most challenging parts of anyone’s life is finding
a suitable career. From my experience,
some might know what they want to do but have a hard time breaking in (like me)
and some don’t know what they want to make of themselves. The plot of this cartoon relates those in the
latter category, and brings a lot of crazy outcomes as a result.
Arnold’s class is assigned an aptitude test
to find possible career paths to take.
The most focus is on two kids at opposite ends of the knowledge
spectrum. There’s Helga, an incredibly
talented kid with a lot of potential in life, and Harold, an unintelligent
student who can never pay attention in class.
These traits of theirs is easy to see as you watch them take the
aptitude test with Helga studiously answering the questions and Harold giving
the same answer without care.
The whole
thing really gets interesting when Eugene fumbles collecting the tests and
accidentally switches two of them. As a
result, they make it seem like Harold’s smart and can be anything, while Helga
is only good enough for the lowest type of career, a woodsperson. We then see different effects on Helga and
Harold’s lifestyles as a result of the test score mix-up.
With Helga, there’s a lot to her apparent
calling as a nature girl. As someone
who’s thrived on exquisite poetry, there’s a sympathetic layer of her feeling
that her talents were never good enough and that she should abandon her passion,
not to mention her parents, as you’d expect, don’t care about this serious
academic blunder. There’s also solid
comedy from her attempts at being rural such as her making the same pinecone
sculpture, struggling to live off the land, and believing all country people
talk in a southern drawl and are inherently dumb.
As for Harold, his score leads to a much
different experience. He’s pushed to do
more intellectual things since he’s apparently a genius. Since his score was
mixed up, you’d think he wouldn’t be able to do it. However, he puts in genuine effort into
the brainy stuff, and he latches onto it fairly well opening up a different
side we haven’t really seen from him before. It’s a very nice change of
pace.
Regarding how we know that what
Helga and Harold think about themselves isn’t true, while this messes with the
surprise factor of the mysteries of the scores, it works due to a
variety of tones. Along with her feeble
attempts at being simple, the truth of the matter makes Helga’s moments a
comedic highlight. With Harold, the
truth makes the moments of him being smart kind of sad since he has a good
grasp on what he tackles, but it’s all built on a fallacy. The audience knowing the truth also works for
how other characters point out how strange Harold and Helga are acting,
culminating with Mr. Simmons studying their test scores and discovering the
mix-up.
With the truth exposed comes
more variations on how to feel, both of which are positive. Helga’s outcome is relieving and humorous
when she’s quick to write more poems after her mom nonchalantly burns her
collection fitting to a prior request.
Harold’s outcome is much more impactful when he’s upset that his score
was very low at first, but through being reminded of his great performance this
past week, he learns that no one is truly stupid. He really can be smart if he believes in
himself, which in turn is encouraging advice for anyone in real life.
The cartoon succeeds in many ways
with a relatable center, strong entertainment and sentiment, and relatable life
advice that help make this show as great as it is. 9.5/10
Oskar
Gets a Job
Despite not being a good person, Oskar Kokoshka is one of the
funniest characters on the show, and the resident of Arnold’s boarding house I
enjoy the most. This is a guy
who doesn’t want to work for what he needs, so he never takes the necessary
initiatives for success and opts to take the easy way out, coming off as lazy
and untrustworthy. The thing that keeps
Oskar enjoyable though is how it never feels like he’s trying to be bad, and
only does unethical acts to get by because he’s naïve and doesn’t get why it’s
bad. In addition, his mooching ways are
seen as a problem that everyone is wise enough not to buy into as the opening
of this cartoon shows.
When Oskar needs
to pay off a loan shark, he goes to the other boarders to try and coax them
into giving him the money, and they bluntly refuse in hilarious ways. It’s certainly great to see others not
encourage this behavior, but Oskar is still likable enough to hope he gets the
money he needs through trying to be nice to get his way and never intending any
sort of harm. He's a character who is fun to watch, while also one we should strive to never be
like.
Aiding in Oskar working as his
true self is the main plot of the cartoon.
When he begs for Arnold's help to get money, Oskar learns that the
logical way around his problem is to get a job, so he can make his own money
and not have to mooch off other people.
It’s a good step towards character development for Oskar, but the fact
that he’s a 38-year-old man who never worked in his life makes it very difficult
for him to apply for jobs. This is a believable drawback in job hunting,
especially since I know it can be difficult to get a job in general, even if
you’re not a lazy bum like Oskar.
Speaking of a lazy bum, Oskar’s bad habits are still prominent when he
finally gets a job as a paperboy, which is usually reserved for young boys. Even after learning how helpful having a job
can be, Oskar simply doesn’t want to do the hard work that comes with it, so he
works around the issue by faking ailments so Arnold can deliver the newspapers
for him. These moments are some of the
more problematic approaches to Oskar’s habits since Arnold buys into Oskar’s
two lies despite being aware of what he typically does. At least he’s quick to uncover the lies when
he notices Oskar eating pancakes after claiming to have the Chinese stomach flu
and dancing after saying he had a bad back.
When confronted, Oskar remains likable by simply not understanding that
it’s wrong to get other people to do hard work meant for him and doesn’t sound
like he wants to make Arnold suffer.
Still, it’s great that Arnold breaks from his typical nice guy routine
and is firm about how unappreciative he is of Oskar not actually doing his own
job. Along with subsequent moments of
the boarders talking about how much of a loser he is, Oskar’s good side is
finally made clear when he vows to deliver the newspapers the next morning, and
he sticks to that vow.
After so many
scenes of him loafing about and trying to avoid actually working, Oskar gets that
doing your own work is a necessary evil to get by in life, and through going
through the hardships young Arnold faced and successfully delivering the
papers, he brings the cartoon to a grand end.
He may still be a lazy moocher in future appearances, but moments like
this prove that Oskar truly isn’t as bad as he lets on, which is always a great
payoff to his big display of flaws, and make him worth watching.
It’s truly an impressive feat to get a lot of
endearment and strong comedy from a lazy jerk, and what Oskar gets up to here
is no exception. 9/10
The Ranking
- The Aptitude Test
- Oskar Gets a Job
The next Hey Arnold review looks into the psychotic mindset of Curly when he goes on a relentless rage when he doesn't get the position of ball monitor, and Phoebe learns the hard truth of life that sometimes your idols are not the passionate artists they appear to be.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is the start of another review set which covers Season 2 of the popular Netflix series, Voltron: Legendary Defender.
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