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Timberly
Loves Arnold
From
the looks of things, this cartoon follows the simple trope of someone becoming
the love interest of a child who is much younger. Looking deeper into the material, it’s
actually important to the development, or rather deconstruction, of one of the
most prominently seen relationships as of recently.
It all begins with Gerald’s little sister
Timberly. In line with what’s been seen
from her in her few appearances, she wants to join in on what her brother and
his friends are up to, but Gerald sees her as a pest. She only comes along because Arnold vouches
for her and insists that simply inviting a little girl along will be no harm. They even bond significantly while hanging
out which justifies what happens later.
For Timberly, all it takes is Arnold being nice to her to decide she’s
in love with him and she's in the clear to call him her boyfriend. She goes all out with her affection meeting
him outside his class, having him hold her hand crossing the street, and
putting effort into free Arnold poems coming with lemonade. All throughout, unlike other instances of a
child crushing on someone older, Timberly never feels like she’s overbearing or
taking it too seriously. It’s just a
childish thought she’s simply rolling with, and like most of Arnold’s
classmates, it’s easy to find it all cute from an audience perspective.
Nevertheless, Arnold is understandably
embarrassed over Timberly constantly following him around and showing
affection. Just getting near her is
enough to make him feel uncomfortable.
Given the circumstances, it’s impressive that the story gives Arnold a
way out of this so early on instead of waiting until the end to give it to
him. All he has to do is be honest with
Timberly and have her end treating him like her boyfriend.
This is where things get interesting by
factoring in Arnold’s ongoing crush on Lila.
Surprisingly, problematic as him going after someone not romantically
into him is, this crush has not been seen in Season 5 as much as it was in Season 4. What ends up happening is that she finds it
adorable that Arnold is letting Timberly act like he’s her boyfriend. Arnold seizes opportunity through this and
lets Timberly carry on with the act just so Lila will keep on being interested
in him. For someone so mature and
considerate, this is very low and somewhat discomforting to see from Arnold and
shows how badly his crush on Lila is effecting him.
For the story’s sake, the problems stemming
from this move soon make themselves known.
Starting on a minor scale, Arnold’s focus on keeping Timberly and Lila
interested in him distracts him from other obligations like ball games. On a more personal level, Arnold himself
realizes a bigger issue with what he’s doing; in getting closer to Lila, he’s
neglecting Timberly, making it obvious that he’s using her. He soon admits this to Timberly with great
remorse. Thankfully because she’s young,
she blissfully doesn’t understand and is fine with him not wanting to be her
boyfriend anymore. Lila, overhearing
Arnold’s confessions gets his hopes up that she’s impressed with his honesty.
Then she shoots it down with appropriate but unwelcome disappointment which
finally convinces Arnold that he just can’t win with Lila. He declares that it’s officially over with
Lila which at long lasts ends his worst habit and helps him move
towards learning what true love is.
If
you can handle a nice character’s controversial decisions, the payoff greatly
makes up for that and the basic story setup.
A-
Eugene,
Eugene!
For
a show that isn’t a musical, the few times it does incorporate music and songs
into a story, the efforts to make something grand and memorable really show. For this cartoon, the use of music here is no
exception in one of the show’s most theatrical works. Plus, it does justice as the best showing of
the character traits of Eugene.
The
school is chosen to put on a production of a musical with his name right in the
title, and it’s one Eugene is clearly a huge fan of. Even disregarding sharing the name, he also
shares the title character’s good-natured, optimistic spirit. For that, he’s all set up to obtain the
starring role, and as a solid turn of events, that’s just what happens. Eugene is cast as the star of the play
alongside Lila as the love interest and Arnold as the jealous suitor trying to
steal the girl away from him. Coming after a cartoon where Arnold puts a stop to going after Lila, it's very appropriate and pleasing that he thinks nothing of Eugene starring alongside her instead of him.
As you can
tell, the play is a standard boy meets girl story, but from the sound of the
songs at the auditions, you can tell it’s having fun with execution
regardless. However, the fun is soon
stagnated when Eugene reads through the play and discovers that they changed
the ending. Instead of the hero getting
the girl, he meets a tragic demise of getting hit by a trolley while the bad
guy wins in the end. Apparently, the
ending was changed out depression from the production’s director. Because of a sad break-up with his old
girlfriend, he sees no benefit in a happy ending, even if it would be much
better suited for such a light-hearted extravagant musical.
Though Eugene, and even Arnold, resent this
decision, Eugene insists to look on the bright side of the affair like he
usually does. This brings to mind a big
thing that tends to hold Eugene back as a character. While there’s nothing wrong with being
optimistic, he never allows himself to be honest with how bad things really are
which can get grating and even corny.
That said, he can’t bring himself to ignore what’s wrong with what’s
meant to be an uplifting musical. After
fun optimistic musical numbers, getting hit by that trolley and Arnold
performing a depressing villain song to close the show is hard to not feel bad
over. In fact, Eugene responding to the
new ending with a sad performance of the original intended happy ending number
practically perfectly reflects this mood.
It’s in this moment where he actually reflects on what’s wrong with the
circumstances. For that, instead of just
accepting this, he strives to do something about it in the most believable way
actors can.
On the night of the play,
there’s a grand theatrical showing of musical numbers playing to the feel of an
old-school style show. The cast of kids
even turn out decent singing performances.
When the big ending comes, Eugene prepares to surprise everyone where
just when it looks like the director’s vision will win out, he restores the
original ending, improv style. He
survives that trolley blow and wins the girl, and the audience instantly
responds to it. The last performance of
that happy number of keeping ‘your sunny side up’ Eugene has been wanting to
sing for so long is perhaps the best note to go out on.
The only thing I have concerns over is the
director’s girlfriend suddenly coming back to him and him instantly accepting
him. It may support the message on the
importance of optimism, but it probably would have been better if he took the
healthier option and looked for better love.
That’s an incredibly minor offense though, for with a grand musical
spirit, and a healthy approach to optimism, it’s another impressive song filled
work for this show.
A
The Ranking
1. Arnold Visits Arnie
2. Chocolate Boy
3. Married
4. Beaned
5. Helga’s Locket
6. The Racing Mule
7. Eugene, Eugene!
8. On the Lam
9. Ghost Bride
10. Grandpa’s Packard
11. Ernie in Love
12. Rhonda Goes Broke
13. Big Bob’s Crisis
14. Timberly Loves Arnold
15. Sid and Germs
16. Family Man
17. Phoebe Breaks a Leg
18. Rich Guy
19. Principal Simmons
20. Harold vs Patty
21. Fishing Trip
22. Sid the Vampire Slayer
23. Old Iron Man
24. Gerald’s Game
25. A Day in the Life of a Classroom
26. Suspended
27. Stuck in a Tree
28. Big Sis
29. Gerald vs Jamie O
30. New Bully on the Block
31. Phoebe’s Little Problem
32. Curly’s Girl
33. Bag of Money
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode, an April Fool's Day special of all things.
If you would like to check out other Hey Arnold reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
I love these two cartoons, but they do kind of leave me wanting just a little more character development from Lila, since the subtext in both of them seem to kind of center on her. She usually makes it clear that she has no romantic interest in Arnold and yet there are those one or two times (here included) where she seems to be consciously leading him on... even if it's in her own innocent way. Even in the end after she calls him out on what he did she really is sending some pretty mixed signals, but I do appreciate how that's at least enough for Arnold to decide he's done trying to win her over. I still hold with the theory that she's messing with Arnold and Helga in her own twisted little way of trying to help set them up together...
ReplyDeleteAnd then of course that tiny glimpse that her audition song in Eugene, Eugene! gives us into her character is more compelling and sadly brief than basically anything we've gotten on her since her first appearance. Ah well... regardless, she's pretty much out of the picture from this point on.
And that's it for the regular episodes of the series... the next two episodes are almost a mini season unto themselves. It really helps to view April Fool's Day in the context that it occurs AFTER the events of the movie, hence Arnold's rather strange trollish behavior towards Helga... they both know what's really going on by that point and neither of them can admit to it.
Well, about April Fool's Day...even with that notion that it takes place after the first movie, a lot of the events of that episode don't really sit well with me. I hope my review of it will be enough to explain my stance.
DeleteHonestly, these two episodes are great examples of why "Hey Arnold" feels like a kids' cartoon and why something like "As Told by Ginger" feels more grounded, realistic, true to life and down to earth. Arnold simply shrugging and getting over Lila, a crush he has pursued for five seasons, was kinda dumb, especially when I know from first hand experience how long getting over a long-time crush can be (in some ways, I haven't really gotten over it even).
ReplyDeleteAs for "Eugene Eugene", the ending where the director's girlfriend simply pops up and accepts him is the example here of being a silly cartoon, but I guess it's like you said, the rest of the episode more than made up for it, though I only really like one of the songs ("When Life Gives You Lemons").