Helga’s Show
Everyone has different tastes in entertainment. Certain things that are hilarious to some
people may do nothing good for others, but to me, the right thing to do is try
and understand why a style of entertainment can be funny even if you don’t
always agree with it. For that, I admire
that this cartoon portrays this very theme.
There’s an after-school lounge called the Coco Hut in which the students
of PS 118 gather to perform comedy acts for all the attendees, and Helga has
her own style of comedy by doing impressions of various people she knows. As someone who enjoys hearing, as well as
doing, impressions of real-life people and TV characters, I personally enjoy
Helga’s act. However, while some enjoy
their own impressions or don’t get that they’re the ones being impersonated,
the rest of the kids Helga impersonates take offense for how her act
capitalizes on their primary habits like Harold’s cries for his mommy, Rhonda’s
sense of fashion, and Stinky’s newly revealed love for lemon pudding. They proceed to ignore Helga, feeling hurt by
her act and see no appeal in her style of comedy at all which seems believable
to anyone who doesn’t agree with certain entertainment styles.
In a pleasing turn of events, Helga, who
normally would use brute force to get others to see her point of view, feels
bad that some of her friends don’t get her style of entertainment so much so
that she’s led to confide these feelings to her best friend. Through doing so, she discusses her own
reasons for why her comedy came out as it did, claiming that if the kids can
laugh at the impressions of others, they can laugh at their own which makes
sense and shows how she felt it could work. However,
Helga’s flexible enough to see how her style of comedy wouldn’t work when the
kids she wronged deal with their hurt feelings by doing impressions of Helga,
and she sees their point.
What follows
is a rare moment where she shows consideration for kids other than Arnold by
attempting to do another act to celebrate what’s good about her friends through
a poem even if she doesn’t see the comedic appeal. That said, her feelings about how unfunny the
whole thing is are justified when she goes on stage, performs the poem, and
while no one’s hurt from the act, no one is moved by it either. It’s at this moment where the kids, and to an
extent Helga herself, discover the humor of watching someone impersonate their
quirks after hearing an unenthused poem about how great they are. Right then and there is the appeal of forms
of entertainment they might not always agree with.
Ultimately, the cartoon closes with Helga
bouncing back from the funk and returns to her old impressions, including
people she originally didn’t impersonate in full force giving the kids
something truly funny especially since they can now laugh at themselves like Helga
felt they would. It does make you wonder
if Helga truly learned anything through all this since she simply goes back to
doing what she did in the beginning while everyone else has a change of heart,
but other than that, this is highly enjoyable, especially for those who always
feel the need for solid entertainment. 9/10
The Flood
Some of the best stories in my opinion are those that bring
different people together during a bad situation which make for different
ways of dealing with what happens. This cartoon features one of those stories
and the use of characters and moments that come from the situation make it as great as it is.
The situation presented is one that’s hard to imagine happening everyday
(depending on where you live of course), which makes what happens
interesting. Mr. Simmons’ class ends up
stranded at PS 118 for the night due to a flood roaring outside all because he
felt the need to keep them longer to teach them. This is particularly concerning to the kids
who just want to leave for spring break.
From here, the cartoon shows everyone living through the flood providing
a variety of experiences. Most of the
students act up for much of the ordeal with constant fighting and annoying each
other. This could make the kids
unenjoyable, but since they were on the verge a whole week off from school and
they probably would’ve beaten the flood if Mr. Simmons didn’t keep them longer,
it’s at least believable that they’d be so stressed that they’d let it out the
way they do.
Also Mr. Simmons shows a
great display of his strengths of trying to stay positive in a bad situation,
but his positivity is his downfall against the angry students. Even his attempts at being firm have no
effect because he’s simply not good at acting in such a way, so when the flood
gets worse with water flowing into the building, the tensions rise
significantly enhanced by believable angst from the kids and desperation from
the teacher.
In the process, the
intensity of the entire flood is lightened a bit by a few laughs. The bickering from the kids has a fair share
of humor, but strong laughs are also found elsewhere. They include brief breaks from the fighting
and annoying such as when Helga attempts to break out of school running into
Principal Wartz in a strange dance getup which works for how random it is. There’s also a subplot of Grandpa making a
raft to rescue Arnold and his friends while Oskar schemes to make a quick buck
out of the flood by charging rescues which includes many funny interactions
with clashing personalities and senses of morality made more exciting as the
flood gets worse.
These many moments
from the flood build up to an exciting climax when the kids, for all their
rowdiness, show that they do have hearts when after breaking from Mr. Simmons,
they fear for his safety when he’s gone for a long time. They find him dangling on a broken ladder
above the raging floodwaters while he was trying to signal for help. It’s the sense of danger that gets the kids
to work together to save their teacher.
The speed of them tossing him a weight to reel him in, the strain as
they pull, and the basic intensity is perfectly felt and tie into the music and visuals of the moment
especially when Helga falls in and
needs to be rescued too. Then
everything in the scene ties into a relieving finish with both Helga and Mr.
Simmons dragged to safety and everyone finally able to leave the school on
Grandpa’s raft.
As it stands, the whole
flood experience is easily one of the best entries for the season with a wide
range of moments being funny, relatable, and especially intense stemming from a
natural disaster. 10/10
The Ranking
- Helga Blabs it All
- Harold the Butcher
- Cool Party
- Grandpa’s Birthday
- Crabby Author
- The Flood
- Mr. Hyunh Goes Country
- Road Trip
- Helga Vs. Big Patty
- Arnold’s Thanksgiving
- Hey Harold!
- Curly Snaps
- The Aptitude Test
- Pre-Teen Scream
- The Pig War
- Olga Gets Engaged
- Oskar Gets a Job
- Arnold and Lila
- Phoebe Takes the Fall
- Best Man
- Career Day
- Helga’s Show
- Gerald’s Tonsils
- Grand Prix
- Rich Kid
- Dangerous Lumber
- Casa Paradiso
- Arnold’s Room
- Helga and the Nanny
- Roller Coaster
- Stinky Goes Hollywood
- School Dance
- Sid’s Revenge
- Girl Trouble
- Arnold Betrays Iggy
The next Hey Arnold review is on a full-length special covering the kids performing a school play of Romeo and Juliet.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is the Steven Universe Season 2 finale "Log Date 7 15 2."
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