Gerald's Game / Fishing Trip (Hey Arnold Season 5 Episode 2) - 'Toon Reviews 34

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Gerald’s Game

Certain people are naturally drawn to fanbases of certain pastimes, a lot of them being of a complex book series or role playing games.  These types of trends are the basis for this cartoon where a role playing game gets in the way of Arnold and Gerald’s friendship.  However, it’s constantly conflicting over who’s in the right with this setup. 

After an opening scene of Arnold and Gerald saying how great it is to hang out together as friends, Arnold starts noticing something suspicious with Gerald.  First, Gerald ends up blowing off a plan to hang out together without even telling Arnold he couldn’t make it.  Then in the short time to hang out the guys do have together, Gerald goes to the book store to get a book relating to a card game called The King Rules, claiming it’s for his brother.  That said, it’s incredibly obvious that Gerald is just making this up and is actually getting the book for himself.  If that’s not enough, Gerald continues to make feeble excuses for blowing off even more plans with Arnold to go do something else.  I know that covering the truth like this is nothing new for the show, but it’s very shallow that such weak excuses are made and people just go with along with them.  Here, it’s a bigger issue when Arnold finally discovers where Gerald is really up to. 

By chance, he notices a window of a secret hideout where a major league round of The King Rules takes place run by the kid Godfather himself Big Gino and filled with background kids.  By the way, Iggy is among these kids and actually has a few lines.  That alone is enough to debunk the rumor that creator Craig Bartlett wanted nothing to do with the character after “Arnold Betrays Iggy.”  Although he is at the mercy of moments like getting shut up during his tirades and is the first to be locked in stocks after losing a round. 

Anyway, Gerald proves to be a commendable player of this game, quickly rising in the ranks and eventually becoming king.  Arnold is shocked to discover Gerald associating himself with this game and is quick to confront him over this.  From here, it’s legitimately hard to tell who’s truly in the right with this conflict.  With Gerald, I see absolutely no reason why he would have to hide the fact that he’s into this game with so many awkward obvious lies.  It’s fine that the game is something he likes to do and is making it one of his hobbies.  It’s not even the least bit embarrassing, so there’s really no good reason for secrecy at all.  For that, Arnold doesn’t exactly feel justified in calling Gerald being a pro at The King Rules a problem.  At the same time, Gerald blowing off all plans with Arnold for this game isn’t justifiable either, and having it consume his entire life does make him obsessive which is never healthy.  If you ask me though, I think the plan should be to have Gerald balance his life with other pastimes he enjoys and not outright abandon The King Rules completely. 

Despite this being a wise decision, the cartoon acts like Arnold is 100% right and sides with him trying to get Gerald to stop playing the game altogether.  One-sided as this is, it is interesting to see Arnold study the ways of the game without succumbing to its obsessive ways.  That’s strong will for a nine-year-old if I’ve ever seen it.  Its apex comes when he challenges The King Rules club in a tournament and proves good enough to face the king. At the last minute, blows his progress since he already lost his friend to this game, and that convinces Gerald to fold too. 

While the cartoon ends with an interesting way for these guys to get back together, it’s still weak that all this is over someone getting into a game. That’s not mentioning that it’s not too clear if this is really that bad.  Maybe it’s that I just don’t get role-playing games, but this cartoon really doesn’t do much for me.

B-

 

Fishing Trip

Continuing the trend of one-sided conflicts, this cartoon is of one much more perspective-based.  This approach makes the cartoon pretty disappointing especially as it goes against good virtues of one of its past works. 

Arnold, Gerald, Harold, Sid, and Eugene set out on this camping trip with their father figures, starting off optimistic about roughing it.  Unfortunately, from the moment they arrive, everything goes wrong. 

First, the river is said to be full of fish at this time of year, but they don’t catch anything, and wild animals get to their campsite and steal most of the food.  With a bunch of beans as the only food left, this is a setup for one of the most uncomfortable passes for humor of the series.  As both the kids and the adults discuss how badly this camping trip has started out, they uncontrollably fart over the beans.  Now, lowbrow humor isn’t new for this show, but it’s never been this explicit and overbearing.  It’s a huge low that a lot of something that represents something that smells bad is expected to invoke laughs when really it’s just gross.  The only bit of humor out of this is when Grandpa’s fart causes a small candle flame to explode into an uncontrollable fire, but that’s not enough to make the scene work. 

What does work is the story direction where both sides admit that this camping trip stinks, in more ways than one of course.  However, they’re also considerate of the other sides and put up with all hardships for their sake, which is endearing.  The rest of the cartoon is more mishaps from camping in the wild.  To their credit, a lot of them are pretty funny.  Some involve a fish biting onto Sid, Eugene getting pulled away by his fishing line caught onto a motorboat, and ironically fishing up an empty bean can.  There are also comedic ways to show desperation for food, mostly involving Harold.  His naïve action of eating old shaving cream thinking it’s whipped cream makes it seem like he has rabies, and he gets pecked by a wild turkey after seeing it as a roast turkey. 

All the same, there are times when it feels like the world is unjustly punishing this group for even trying to rough it in the woods.  There’s a camping resort not far from the woods that seems much more pleasing, but the oath both groups made to tough this trip out prevents them from going.  The real kicker is when the weather and unleashing of frogs stampeding through camp gets everyone to come clean.  At least it’s mildly amusing to see Harold break down about it in the form of a campfire story.  As expected, this honesty resolves everything, and the cartoon’s ending of all guys hanging out at the resort is incredibly satisfying. 

That said, it’s shallow that the message promotes one form of camping while saying another form is nothing but trouble.  This wouldn’t be an issue if this show hadn’t already said that both ways of camping have benefits and hardships.  Back in Season 1’s “Roughin’ It” it boldly stated that outdoor camping is hard, but can also be helpful, and luxurious resort-like camping is relaxing, but can also have problems.  That was a balanced perspective of the pastime, making it disappointing that this cartoon ignores the mindset to make one form of camping all good and the other all bad.  Also, isn’t Grandpa supposed to be an expert of camping in the wild?  Then again, I’d certainly go for camping at a resort over doing so in the woods, and I bet most people would too, so I can still get plenty of amusement out of the conclusion. 

For all it’s shortcomings, it’s enjoyable if you go in with the right attitude.

B+

The Ranking

1.      Fishing Trip

2.      Sid the Vampire Slayer

3.      Gerald’s Game

4.      Big Sis

 

 

The next Hey Arnold review is on my pick for the show at its worst where a bag of money makes the whole world hypocrites over Arnold's trust, and there's a balanced perspective on running a school between Mr. Simmons and Principal Wartz.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is a very special Steven Universe review. 

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