'Toon Reviews 16: Hey Arnold Season 3 Episode 8: Arnold's Room/Helga vs Big Patty

Arnold’s Room

Most fan groups for Hey Arnold and old Nickelodeon shows in general often post memes saying how most kids of the 90s wanted a room like Arnold’s, and I really can’t blame them.  The big space, well-organized shelves, perfect sky view, and that flip-down couch make for the most creative yet believable bedroom ever put to media.  You can easily be impressed by its features and picture yourself actually having a room like that.  Such a nice room could naturally make anyone feel envious in the audience and in the world of this show, and that’s the subject of this cartoon. 

Although Arnold’s name is in the title, the story is way more about Sid. The class is assigned a history project and, in one of his extremely few major roles, Lorenzo is picked as Sid’s partner.  Some of the work on the project is done at Lorenzo’s big lavish mansion which includes his big room that Sid is easily impressed by, most likely because this is a rich kid’s place.  However, the project requires some of the work to be done in Sid’s room, thus making Sid feel intimidated.  Just from the sights of his small, messy, and not very special room, Sid’s feelings are understandable since it’s not only uncool, but also not very pleasing, so nothing’s stopping him deciding to borrow Arnold’s room for the day from investing the audience, at first anyway. 

It is a believable scenario for Sid to want Lorenzo to think he’s cool from what he has, and this is shown right down to the lengths he goes through to convince Lorenzo that this is his room and not someone else’s like changing pictures of Arnold with pictures of him and putting a sign saying “Sid’s Room” on the door.  However, it’s through these lengths that bring out the worst of Sid’s character.  He’s known to be very obsessive on even the littlest of things and it typically gets so overbearing that he stops being entertaining.  That’s what happens here, especially when you consider that there’s no possible way he can keep up with the act.  Even the first session in Arnold’s room has a lot of suspicion that Sid’s “room” belongs to someone else.  It builds from there with Sid claiming Arnold’s Grandpa as his own, calling out Arnold for supposedly leaving behind his top secret journal, and even wrecking Arnold’s personalized alarm clock, indicating clear signs that the lie can’t be kept forever, and the ensuing awkwardness doesn’t help.  As a result, whenever Sid pushes Arnold to get out of the room or pesters Grandpa by claiming to be his grandson, it makes the viewing experience a hindrance as you just wait for the plan to backfire.  Heck, even Arnold is confident that Sid can’t keep up the charade. 

Unsurprisingly, Sid can’t, when Lorenzo suggests an impromptu visit to his room, Arnold and his friends are already there, Sid tries the usual excuse, but is unable to lie any longer.  Naturally, Lorenzo is miffed about being lied to for fair reason, but the fact that Sid getting caught was so easy to see coming makes it frustrating because it could’ve been avoided if Sid realized he couldn’t keep it up forever.  Thankfully, no one holds a grudge for Sid’s actions when he shows genuine regret and all’s well, so for all his faults, the ending shows that Sid really isn’t a bad guy on the whole. 

The cartoon is still held back by being driven by awkwardness from pathetic attempts to cover an obvious lie, but the underlying relatability and how it explores the great appeal of Arnold’s room make it enjoyable enough. 8/10

Helga vs. Big Patty

Writing bully characters is a lot harder than one may think.  It’s easy to write them with any mean trait imaginable, but that would make the character very unpleasant and unnatural.  I find it hard to believe that anyone would be a brute for the sake of it.  For bully characters to work, it’s best to provide reasons for malice, maybe because they don’t know any better, or because of certain turmoil that lead them to act up.  You can’t justify their actions but you can understand them. Despite what they do, they’re still human beings trying to get through life.  It’s too bad that a couple things I reviewed, even of cartoons of this show, feature bully characters who are thugs for no reason yet this show is good at writing bully characters with Helga.  We continuously see what fuels her mean behavior and what she’s really like.  This cartoon proves that these standards can apply to other bully characters, with the bully in question being more threatening than she is. 


Big Patty is a larger than average 6^th grader who showed up before in a few short scenes of beating up Helga after ending up as the target of pranks meant for someone else.  Since those moments were meant to depict a backfiring, they didn’t show what Big Patty was really like, so it’s nice that this cartoon does justice for her.  Helga makes jokes about Big Patty to her friends, which honestly seems foolish of her since making fun of someone bigger and stronger than you will certainly make them mad.  Sure enough, that’s what happens when Big Patty threatens to beat her up.  One admirable thing is that Big Patty doesn’t go around being mean, especially since she tries to civilly offer Arnold the last of a dessert earlier.  She acts when provoked which anyone, no matter how good they are would do (though maybe not always to the beating-up extent). 


Out of this, we get a more vulnerable side of Helga, which is especially big considering how much authority she usually has over all the other kids.  Now, someone more threatening is out to get her and she’s scared, right down to resorting to her parents for advice who, as you’d probably expect, do not offer anything meaningful or helpful whatsoever. 


Helga’s problem does bring a sincere moment for her and Arnold’s relationship.  This season is where we see a lot of Arnold showing concern for Helga’s well-being more often then before despite her being rude around him which is a huge step in making them feel like a good pairing.  Here, when he shows concern over Helga facing Big Patty, he advises her to apologize to her so to get off the hook and maybe even be friends.  However, while Big Patty accepts Helga’s apology, she still plans on beating her up because of her reputation which is a believable reason for people to act like bullies.  Even better is that Arnold sees Big Patty at fault for opting to beat Helga despite everything.  He even drops a hint that he knows Helga for who she really is, which becomes more apparent as the show goes on. 


For this cartoon, it’s a point strong enough to get through to Big Patty as she instead pretends to beat up Helga unbeknownst to everyone and have Helga only act like she’s hurt.  It seals the deal on this show’s talents of writing bully characters.  Big Patty’s approach to the situation and Arnold’s views on the real Helga show that even if they act like it, at the end of the day, bullies are decent human beings too. 


As a result, this is a thought-provoking cartoon built on strong characterizations. 9.5/10

The Ranking

1. Helga Blabs it All
2. Harold the Butcher
3. Crabby Author
4. Mr. Hyunh Goes Country
5. Helga Vs. Big Patty
6. Curly Snaps
7. The Aptitude Test
8. Pre-Teen Scream
9. Olga Gets Engaged
10. Oskar Gets a Job
11. Rich Kid
12. Dangerous Lumber
13. Arnold’s Room
14. Helga and the Nanny
15. Stinky Goes Hollywood
16. Arnold Betrays Iggy

The next Hey Arnold review sends Arnold's class out for career day and Arnold's time with the Jolly Olly Man isn't as fun as it sounds.  In addition, Harold further shows how deep he really is when he gets to know Big Patty.
The next post on MC Toon Reviews will cover the ninth episode of Steven Universe Season 2, "We Need to Talk."

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