Wednesday, June 6, 2018

'Toon Reviews 16: Hey Arnold Season 3 Episode 10: Casa Paradiso/Gerald's Tonsils


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
  1. Helga Blabs it All
  2. Harold the Butcher
  3. Crabby Author
  4. Mr. Hyunh Goes Country
  5. Helga Vs. Big Patty
  6. Hey Harold!
  7. Curly Snaps
  8. The Aptitude Test
  9. Pre-Teen Scream
  10. Olga Gets Engaged
  11. Oskar Gets a Job
  12. Career Day
  13. Gerald’s Tonsils
  14. Rich Kid
  15. Dangerous Lumber
  16. Casa Paradiso
  17. Arnold’s Room
  18. Helga and the Nanny
  19. Stinky Goes Hollywood
  20. 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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