Monday, September 30, 2019

Timberly Loves Arnold / Eugene, Eugene! (Hey Arnold Season 5 Episode 17) - 'Toon Reviews 34

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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.

3 comments:

  1. 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...
    And 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.

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    1. 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.

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  2. Honestly, 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).

    As 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").

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