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April Fool’s
Day
There’s
an interesting background to the last two episodes of Season 5, both of which
consist of full-length cartoons. They basically wouldn't exist if it wasn't decided to release a TV movie of the series to theaters, but I'll get to that when the time comes. One of
the episodes is a very welcome addition to the series building upon
character backgrounds and paving the way for something even bigger. The other one, this one, is just a random
escapade suggesting how desperate the show is to make a story centered on a
holiday.
It
seems that it’s a drawback that comes with doing holiday specials. It’s easy to make some out of the big meaningful
ones, but since there’s so few of them, shows often have to scrape the bottom
of the barrel for other holidays to capitalize on. The thing is that the usual result is
utilizing holidays that don’t have much merit for existence other than childish
fun or materialism. April Fool’s Day is
one of those lesser holidays without anything meaningful to its nature. It’s set up as a day for everyone to mess
around and pull pranks, but at least in my experience, no one is really into
going all out with pranks and treats it as a normal day. At best, people make stuff up on social media
to intentionally drum up excitement over lies, but that’s still not
special. In other words, April Fool’s
Day feels very pointless which does not work in this special’s favor.
Arnold
actually has the most believable mindset when it comes to this holiday, not
being into its spirit of pranks. His grandpa and entire school, however, treat
it like a major holiday, like one most people have to celebrate. The efforts gone into the pranks even show
with rampant animals in the school halls, fabricated deaths, punching gloves
springing out of lockers, and more. I’m
honestly curious to know if there are people who go this far with pranking
because everyone I’ve met in life has always known not to go too far with such a
thing. From an enjoyment standpoint, a
lot of the pranks are honestly pretty funny, though a lot of them are also
stupid and childish as well.
This is
especially true for the pranks Helga pulls on Arnold. While this seems in line with her usual
treatment of him, her pranks on Arnold feel wrong and hard to understand. It becomes easy to side with Arnold when he
gives in and hits Helga with a powerful prank from Grandpa. Out of a simple gift box is a blinding light,
emphasis on blinding as Helga actually goes blind because of it. This proves my point of how pranking can get
out of control, which is probably why I don’t really see that in real life. It
is concerning that it only happen when straight man Arnold gets involved, but
thankfully Helga’s vision restores quickly.
In the spirit of April Fool’s Day, she keeps this a secret for the
intent of guilt tripping Arnold into being her slave/seeing eye dog. It’s a lot like how she got him to serve her
in “Beaned” only without any sort of charm.
Because it’s made clear that she’s faking being blind, how Helga
deliberately makes Arnold tending to her difficult feels very discomforting and
wrong. Their relationship is supposed to
be much stronger than this. Worst of
all, she shows delight in torturing him when she’s all by herself. It’s like the fact that she’s rude to him a
lot means she’s a standard bully to him without regard to any sort of depth to
her behavior the series has continuously shown.
Disregard for development is something I find very hard to accept,
especially from a show as strong as this.
For that, when an intimate moment is set up for Arnold and Helga, it’s
hard to feel happy for them like it usually is. You just feel nothing because of how
Helga’s doing all this for tortures sake instead of love. It’s much more
satisfying when it’s discovered that Helga was faking blindness the whole time
and Arnold prepares the ultimate retaliation.
Almost as if it’s a way to turn Helga’s infatuations against her, he
holds her captive in an intense tango.
Then with the aid of Sid and Stinky’s April Fools prank gone wrong, the
climax stands out a lot staging wise with a pool opening up for everyone to
fall into. It’s a mildly humorous end to
a prank-fueled special, even if it is at the cost of many of the series
strengths.
Despite
a few solid comedic moments from the April Fools’ pranks, it feels off that a
show as mature as this would make a huge deal out of a holiday like this. Going against the depth of major characters
only makes the experience worse and gives a desperate impression of looking
for ideas. Still, I’m not dense enough
to overlook the few fun moments from the pranks, so this isn’t exactly one of
the worst works of the show, but definitely one of the most mixed.
C-
The Ranking
1. Arnold Visits Arnie
2. Married
3. Chocolate Boy
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. April Fool’s Day
30. Gerald vs Jamie O
31. New Bully on the Block
32. Phoebe’s Little Problem
33. Curly’s Girl
34. Bag of Money
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the last episode of Season 5, a major episode looking into the full background of Arnold's parents, their marriage, their birth of Arnold, and exactly why they left him.
If you would like to check out other Hey Arnold reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
Whoa... harsh! Not what I expected.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, your points are all well argued and yeah, I would agree with a lot of them even if they don't take away from my overall enjoyment of the episode. It does indeed feel like one of the more... nihilistic HA! stories, if that's the right word? Structure wise it's a retread of 'Beaned' but with one big difference... no one really learns anything this time. And after no one learns anything, the ending of the episode doesn't really feel like a proper ending, and it all just abruptly comes to a sudden stop. You would think there would be some consensus at the end about April Fools Day pranks, and where the line should be drawn between fun and mean spiritedness... but no. Arnold throws Helga into a pool, she pulls him in, everyone else pushes each other in and then the episode just trails off from there.
I will say that for whatever else it's lacking, this episode does get a lot of laughs out of me. Everything from Grandpa and Grandma's antics, and especially Helga's treatment of Arnold even if it's overtly mean and childish has a lot of well executed gags.
And on the note of Helga's treatment of Arnold... while the episode may be lacking in terms of its overall structure and delivery of its (nonexistent) morals, the subtext of the whole story is the most interesting part. Helga has told Arnold the truth by this point, and since he basically pretended that it never happened I get why she's ramping up her abuse towards him, and similarly why he finally snaps in that tango scene.
I suppose more interesting than the episode itself is the story behind it... similarly to 'The Journal' this episode came about when the series was basically on hold, and it felt like the end was nigh... and as Craig Bartlett described the making of the last two episodes the overall vibe in them is akin to 'gallows humor,' since the team was basically facing the death of the series and were coping with it by being extra smartassy with their humor. That same kind of humor comes through in 'The Journal' too, which is just one of several reasons that episode is kind of a miracle with how great it managed to be... I would assume I'm not jumping the gun in presuming that one may just dethrone 'Arnold Visits Arnie' this season. Either way, I look forward to your analysis.
Well I'm glad you have fun with it. Personally, I could probably take Helga's treatment of Arnold better if there wasn't emphasis on her enjoying making him suffer when she's all alone. Even if she has a believable reason for ramping up her abuse towards him, I don't see why she still can't fawn over him from afar.
DeleteA little more context would've helped, but I think the idea is at this point in the series she's trying to convince everyone, herself included, that she really DOES hate him. She confessed everything, laid a big wet sloppy kiss on his lips, and then he weaseled out of reciprocating so I get her motivation because by this point she probably doesn't think he feels the same. But yes, they could have underlined her ongoing struggle to convince herself that she hates him just a little better.
DeleteYou pretty much nailed it. Just add even the least bit context that Helga's trying to convince even herself she still hates Arnold and everything will be better.
DeleteI can think of maybe two instances in the entire series however where they actually reference something that happened in a previous episode... Gerald once made a few callbacks to some 'miraculous' things Arnold did in the past and Helga told Dr. Bliss about her gum shrine... that's about all I can think of. The unwritten rule of the HA! universe for the most part seems to be that you don't make callbacks.
DeleteYou gonna review the movies this week too
ReplyDeleteYes I am.
DeleteWhat a SIGNIFICANT step down from the other holiday specials this was.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I loved the reference homage to It's A Wonderful Life when the gym floor opened up to reveal the pool and everyone jumped in it.
ReplyDeleteBoy, you either grew up in an uptight neighborhood or you never had the chance to be a kid if your April's Fools were as dull as you described. Even in Singapore, kids around here were pranking each other, albeit not to the exaggerated extent in the cartoon.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to Helga's behavior though, I agree with you there in that she was abusive and a bully. But then again, I've never liked Helga and always found her to be a bully even if she had a supposedly justifiable reason for acting that way (a reason I never found to be justifiable at all despite the fans' claiming otherwise).
ReplyDelete