'Toon Reviews 16: Hey Arnold Season 3 Episode 12: Best Man/Cool Party

Best Man

The overly competitive Coach Wittenberg is back in this cartoon, and while in many ways, he’s still holding onto his old habits, he’s still fairly enjoyable and thankfully has more respect for Arnold than before. 

Remembering all the help Arnold gave him in his past coaching jobs, the coach appoints him to be his best man at his wedding.  Actually, interestingly enough, it’s a remarriage to his wife, Tish.  It’s a bit confusing as to how this remarriage even works since we never saw them divorce or anything like that.  It could relate to the fact that Tish did kick Coach Wittenberg out for constantly losing jobs in a previous cartoon, but I personally don’t get how you get having another wedding out of deciding to let him come back.  Maybe it’s just my lack of knowledge on how these things work. 

Anyway, while Arnold goes along with Coach Wittenberg’s occasionally cheap, but clearly devoted plans for the wedding, we get some background on his relationship with his wife herself.  Although their only major appearance together featured them as a tense couple with Coach Wittenberg having a hard time maintaining a job and he and Tish coaching different teams for the sole purpose of one-upping each other, as Tish explains, they both value each other over anything else.  As she explains to Helga, her bridesmaid, her husband may value winning a lot, but one time when he let her win at something proved to her that she truly loves him, and her belief in this is genuine enough to make where she’s coming from clear.  It should also be noted that these scenes are also aided in engagement by Helga fantasizing her own wedding to Arnold, humorously doing so out loud and being quick to cover her romantic emotions. 

Regarding Coach Wittenberg, given his inability to truly offer the best amenities for the wedding and constant talks of winning and being number one, that’s an indication that maybe what Tish says about him isn’t really true.  The final straw comes when Tish overhears him having a hard time deciding whether her or winning is the most important to him, and given how sure she was of him loving her the most, she’s easily sympathetic in this case.  Understandably, things slowly get tense between Coach Wittenberg and Tish.  Following wedding practice, they both get engrossed in random frivolous competitions with Coach Wittenberg desperate to be the best, and his attitude leads to them calling off the remarriage, and instead going for an air hockey match to decide who’s really Number 1.  It’s a clear test in morality here which hinders a potentially nice couple, though it does feel concerning that Coach Wittenberg’s ego would be this big when his family’s on the line.  Thankfully, his good side wins out in the end. 

During the following day’s air hockey match, after much suspense of the match that ends up attracting everyone, even kids we didn’t see participate in the wedding practice, Coach Wittenberg heeds Arnold’s earlier advice and lets Tish win, proving that he truly does love his wife more than being the best.  It further sells the heart of this couple which is nice, and also imaginative that this flashy arcade game leads us to the wedding built up through the runtime.  True, it’s followed by them immediately going back for a real competition when Tish guesses that Coach Wittenberg lost on purpose, but since their love has proven itself, it’s fine to accept the competitiveness as part of their chemistry. 

It makes the cartoon a strong performance for the Wittenberg couple playing to their strengths and development. 9/10

Cool Party

This cartoon is especially great for two reasons.  It follows the high-spirited convention of getting a lot of distinct characters together for a party which is always a ton of fun.  Also, it provides an interesting commentary on discrimination. 

Throughout history people have been excluded from certain things for a variety of reasons like skin color, religious beliefs, sexuality, etc.  Fortunately, in every era, even if it’s not all gone, more people realize the problems with discrimination and become more inclusive, including presenting them more in TV shows.  Regarding this cartoon, it features discrimination to a smaller extent, but is still poignant with it as a theme. 

The character initiating the plot is Rhonda, a rich big-shot who’s judgmental about anyone in a lower social class.  Behavior like this would make her one I normally wouldn’t like, but since her stuck-up ways always lead to karma getting her to see sense, I’m able to enjoy Rhonda just fine.  She’s throwing a party and only invites kids she deems “cool,” and Arnold is one of them.  Everyone else is deemed a geek in her eyes for their weird fashion sense, oddball personalities, and in Gerald’s case, beating her at something.  In other words, any kid deemed a geek is being discriminated against.  What Rhonda does demeans others for being who they are, and that is simply not right, one of the biggest flaws of the real world, and the kids’ constant complaints about not being invited illustrate this.  In addition, Rhonda’s party turns out to be completely dull with nothing to do except eat and listen to Rhonda talk about stuff.  The discrimination shows itself again when after Arnold decides to leave the party, Rhonda labels him as a geek for that, another take on an unfortunate element of society regarding conformity. 

With Arnold now out of that party, the cartoon gets really fun when he convinces his friends who are still ticked at being called geeks to use their pent up hurt feelings to have a party of their own on the boarding house roof.  The remainder is nothing but a wildly fun party with distinct characters all hanging out together.  Nearly every shot of the party has something brimming with animated energy with characters dancing and doing something fun all set to incredibly catchy background music.  The party also shines for being an accepting place where everyone can be themselves, contrasting to Rhonda’s rigid party built on conformity especially as more people are drawn to join the "geeks", including those at the “cool” party.  This leaves Rhonda to ponder that her calling everyone else a geek for not sticking with her has left her all alone, and that her customs weren’t the right ones to follow. 

Thankfully, she does something about this in the end when she lets go of her discrimination and declares herself a geek to join the rest of Arnold’s party, the moment staged as a big moment with the party stopping just for Rhonda to do so and starting again when she does.  It ends up being another example of Rhonda’s behavior putting her in an unfortunate position that gets her to see sense, enhancing her appeal, which is especially big for how it also shows how wrong discriminating is.  For this much power in its message, this is one party you don’t want to miss out on.

Now let’s free the animals from the zoo! 10/10

The Ranking

1. Helga Blabs it All
2. Harold the Butcher
3. Cool Party
4. Crabby Author
5. Mr. Hyunh Goes Country
6. Helga Vs. Big Patty
7. Hey Harold!
8. Curly Snaps
9. The Aptitude Test
10. Pre-Teen Scream
11. The Pig War
12. Olga Gets Engaged
13. Oskar Gets a Job
14. Phoebe Takes the Fall
15. Best Man
16. Career Day
17. Gerald’s Tonsils
18. Rich Kid
19. Dangerous Lumber
20. Casa Paradiso
21. Arnold’s Room
22. Helga and the Nanny
23. Stinky Goes Hollywood
24. Arnold Betrays Iggy

The next Hey Arnold review shows how Sid isn't always that great as a lead when he thinks he killed Principal Wartz, and straight man Arnold gets stuck with overly-optimistic Eugene on top of a roller coaster.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is another Steven Universe review, this one covering "Historical Friction."

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If you would like to check out other Hey Arnold reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

'Toon Reviews 7: Hey Arnold Season 2 Episode 13

Eugene Goes Bad

It’s astounding how much this season has expanded on many of the supporting characters even going as far as giving cartoons to characters who never took the spotlight before.  This cartoon continues the trend of expanding on side characters by giving an interesting direction for a usually good-natured kid like Eugene to take.  At the start, he’s shown to be a huge fan of a TV show called The Abdicator and is very influenced by and admirable of the titular superhero, making it seem like he thinks the Abdicator is really real.  However, when he goes to see the shooting of an episode that takes place in the neighborhood, he’s abhorred to see that the Abdicator is just an immature, rude, and whiny Hollywood actor who can’t do his own stunts, nothing like he is on the show.  On one hand, it’s kind of silly for Eugene to be this deeply affected by this because everything he’s seen of the Abdicator was just part of a show that isn’t even real.  On the other hand, the way he reacts to the actor’s behavior really shows how much Eugene has valued his work and how he always looked up to the Abdicator to do good.  To see that the Abdicator is nothing like he appears to be is clearly not what he would want to discover.  Even if Eugene’s change of heart isn’t perfectly understandable, it makes enough sense.  Plus, the scenes of Eugene going bad offer an interesting change of pace.  We’re so used to seeing him being so positive and chipper even when constantly hurting himself, so seeing him go through life as a bad kid spices his scenes a lot, including one of him deliberately pulling the fire alarm without a probable cause, a twist to the events of Season 1’s “False Alarm.”  However, through being a bad kid, it becomes clear that Eugene really has become a reflection of the Abdicator, acting nice and happy while watching his show only to go bad after discovering that his hero is not what he seems.  The latter point is especially reflective of him when a random little kid who conveniently has always looked up to Eugene despite us never knowing him before this cartoon decides to go bad just like him.  However, as soon as the little kid goes bad by going out past his bedtime, the influential cycle is brought to an end where even in his bad streak, Eugene is far from heartless.  He rushes to action when he finds the little kid hanging from a fire escape in danger.  It’s here where the real Eugene shines again where he rushes to do right only to get in danger himself.  Then, it’s the Abdicator actor, who amazingly decides to better himself after Eugene’s rant and saves him and the kid deciding that everyone really does need a hero.  Ultimately, despite its questionable motives and plot conveniences that don’t affect much later on, this is a solid story of what it’s like to have idols and interesting new directions for the characters involved. 9/10

What’s Opera Arnold?

When it comes to entries in this series that break from the slice of life norm, this cartoon is really the only one of that kind.  As a result, it takes the time to put the characters in something creative and show off some impressive music and visuals in the process, and the final result is an amazing experience.  In terms of story, there’s not exactly much to it.  Arnold and his class go on a field trip to the opera, and Arnold and Helga daydream while listening to it.  The same can be said for the dreams themselves which involve both of them trying to impress their love interests which by the way show that Arnold still has some hots for Ruth McDougal even after learning she’s really not what she seems back in “Arnold’s Valentine.”  However, the lack of weight to the story doesn’t matter because, as is customary for the animation medium, it takes the barebones concept and mines it for many grand, creative, and memorable sequences.  A lot of the appeal of what goes on has to do with how well the opera concept is initialized in the dreams that take up the majority of the cartoon.  Largely revolving around the opera, Carmen, we have the kid cast of the show from the main players to the background characters populating the scenes of the show.  They revel in the opera environment by singing all their lines to the tune of famous pieces not just from Carmen, but also other famous operas like Pagliacci and Ride of the Valkyries.  Moments like these are easily the cartoon’s highlight with the kids’ vocal performances as well as the speed and timing of the animation on them matching the music pieces perfectly and getting across their emotional tone.  Some memorable ones include the sorrow of Harold dressed as a clown singing from Pagliacci when Arnold first finds himself in the opera dream, the fury of Helga as she rages at Arnold crushing on Ruth instead of her to Ride of the Valkyries, and the excitement when Curly appears to propose himself to Helga and later duel Arnold for her.  There’s also a charm to these operatic performances with the many visual cues on how all that’s happening is a stage production.  It’s felt through Arnold suddenly changing clothes to fit the Carmen scene, Ruth being thrown down a trap door to below stage giving Helga a chance to fill the leading lady role, the action stopping for Helga to don the Carmen costume, a shot of the actual orchestra at one point, and the scene and props coming down as the show, and Helga’s dream end.  All these elements of the opera dreams put together give the cartoon the status of a big event making it seem almost like a real opera and one to inspire you to look into operas.  In fact, the cartoon is so impressive in that regard that you wish that the show would step out of its comfort zone more often.  However, that just makes this amazing animated work truly special. 10/10

The Ranking

1. What’s Opera Arnold?
2. Rhonda’s Glasses
3. Harold’s Kitty
4. Helga’s Love Potion
5. Monkey Business
6. Eugene’s Pet
7. Freeze Frame
8. Steely Phil
9. Gerald’s Secret
10. Save the Tree
11. Phoebe Cheats
12. Gerald Moves Out
13. New Teacher
14. Eugene Goes Bad
15. Eating Contest
16. Mudbowl
17. Quantity Time
18. Ms. Perfect
19. Big Caesar
20. Ransom
21. The Big Scoop
22. Best Friends
23. The High Life
24. Hooky
25. Arnold Saves Sid
26. Longest Monday

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the last episode of the season, the creatively structured and truly frightening Halloween special, "Arnold's Halloween."

If you would like to check out other Hey Arnold reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

'Toon Reviews 7: Hey Arnold Season 2 Episode 4

Ransom

Some of the best, and potentially strongest, bonds to portray in a film or TV show are family bonds, mainly because the people involved with them are those who are a part of you for life, so them finding a way to get along is what’s the most worth seeing from them.  However, siblings can get on each other’s nerves, especially when they’re very different, such is the case with Gerald and his younger sister, Timberly.  While he’s usually isolated from her to hang with his friends, Timberly is usually just what you’d expect from a cutesy little sister who also has a particular fascination for a TV show character called Wally, whose show honestly feels more like a commercial given his theme song just tells viewers to buy his toys.  Anyway, right at the start, it’s made clear that Timberly wants nothing more than to hang out with her brother, but Gerald doesn’t want anything to do with her.  On one hand, you can get Gerald’s feelings since Timberly is being a pest when he’s in the middle of something, but since there’s nothing really bad about her behavior, her feelings are understandable too.  This conflict is a significant force in the main plot which soon gets going when Timberly’s Wally doll goes missing with a ransom note in its place and Gerald and Arnold are roped into helping her find it.  The three are led into an entertaining detective case with a lot of interrogations with everyone they come across.  We have the debut of a kid called Chocolate Boy, serving as an interesting allegory for addicts, who talks when he’s fed malted milk balls, Harold being pushed to talk while he eats while also revealing he has his own Wally doll with an eye missing, and Curly getting out of his rather tense interrogation by revealing he does ballet.  These moments greatly display the appeal of these characters and are easily the highlight of the cartoon.  As for the resolution, when Gerald and Arnold feel that the only way to get Wally is to pay the ransom, they eventually discover that Timberly rigged the whole kidnapping so she could hang out with them.  While Gerald is unhappy that his sister lied this whole time, it’s nice that he understands the reasons for her actions which further showcases the appeal of sibling bonds.  It begs the question though that if Timberly lied about Wally being kidnapped, where did the doll go?  Plus, at the last minute we get a squabble that undermines the sibling bond only just witnessed, but it’s nothing compared to moments between Gerald and his other sibling who's older than him, but those are for looks at later seasons.  Overall though, despite its basic setup and little moments, this is a well put together and perfectly entertaining cartoon of sibling bonds. 9/10

Ms. Perfect

This cartoon is the introduction of a girl who would become one of the most prominent kids in the cast, Lila.  Right when she enters the main 4^th grade class, the cast, as well as the audience, gets a good taste of what she’s like.  She’s essentially every positive trait you can think of, being friendly with everyone, smart whenever there’s a question to be answered, knowledgeable on humorous anecdotes to share with everyone, and looking oh so adorable in appearance.  It’s no surprise why these qualities make Lila one of the most divisive characters to fans of this show.  A character with so much positivity with little to no flaws at all is not one most people can relate to making them feel unbelievable and at times grating especially with her constant usage of phrases like “ever so.”  For her debut appearance though, Lila seems to be utilized fairly well for this story.  Her unbelievably positive demeanor makes her seem perfect thus making other girls in the class like Helga, Phoebe, and Rhonda feel inferior and overshadowed, so they spend much of the cartoon going to incredibly harsh means to ruin her perfect image.  A lot of them backfire in hilarious ways, mostly leading to Helga getting beaten up by a student called Big Patty, but then they finally have a successful attempt that gets Lila covered in garbage.  When she refuses to come to school the next day and the other girls offer to bring over her homework, that’s when Lila’s appeal really shines through.  They discover that Lila lives in a poor part of the neighborhood with a decrepit house and little food, and her single father is struggling to get a job.  This sad background gives a whole new layer to Lila’s positive outlook.  It must be hard for her to remain this positive when her home conditions are so poor, and all she really wanted was to fit in and make friends, and because of the other girls’ cruel prank, she’s now without any hope to move forward.  One thing even better than this layer to Lila’s character is how this reveal genuinely gets the other girls to feel bad for how awful they were to Lila, especially shown through Helga giving an overdramatic speech about it.  They make amends with Lila just as her life slowly begins to turn around, and when she’s back at school, they all start accepting her perfect demeanor.  While this cartoon brings interesting background to Lila’s character, the background is unfortunately never developed further during the rest of the series with her enjoying her perfection for the sake of it, especially when Arnold (by the way, it's worth noting that this is the only cartoon in the series where he never speaks) gets involved.  So, for this being the only time Lila’s perfect persona is given depth, this cartoon is all the more exclusive. 9/10

The Ranking

1. Harold’s Kitty
2. Save the Tree
3. New Teacher
4. Ms. Perfect
5. Ransom
6. The Big Scoop
7. Hooky
8. Arnold Saves Sid

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Helga is put through a major emotional experience when she thinks she has a money-related disease in "Monkey Business" and Arnold and Gerald go fishing for the urban legend known as "Big Caesar."

If you would like to check out other Hey Arnold reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

'Toon Reviews 1: Hey Arnold Season 1 Episode 17

False Alarm

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of my favorite types of stories are those that take a simple concept and mine it for a lot of creative potential regarding the presentation.  This cartoon is an example of these stories.  It starts off with someone pulling the fire alarm at school when there isn’t a fire and all the evidence left at the scene leads to the belief that Eugene did it.  Even with Eugene’s claims of denial, everything is all set to expel Eugene for the false alarm, which is honestly way harsh to completely tolerate.  All that’s missing though is the vote of the jury consisting of Arnold, Helga, Gerald, Phoebe, Harold, and Curly.  The jury vote looks like it’ll easily declare Eugene guilty and be done with the issue at hand, but it’s one single vote of “not guilty” that changes everything.  In fact, that vote is what makes the plot really interesting.  All the members of the jury effectively interpret what happened based on the evidence found with the peanut butter on the fire alarm being Eugene’s favorite, the red glasses found beside the alarm being the ones he wears on that day, and the footprints leading to the closet Eugene was in being his foot size.  In the process we get some entertaining bits of Harold willingly telling anything for food, Helga being anxious to leave for a wrestling match, and Phoebe explaining too many details about the evidence.  Still, the tensions are kept high as Arnold, the one who voted “not guilty” refuses to jump to these conclusions.  Then, once he explains that Eugene could have been set up by someone to have the evidence lead to him since personality-wise it’s not like him to intentionally pull the fire alarm, and one piece of evidence that couldn’t possibly connect to him, the cartoon just explodes with crazy reveals.  It turns out that Curley, the juror who cleverly stayed quiet the entire time, was the real culprit for pulling the fire alarm, and when Arnold points out the traits of someone who could’ve planted the evidence on Eugene, he snaps and goes on an over-the-top rant of why he got Eugene in trouble.  It’s all because Eugene used up the pencil Curley willingly loaned him.  Talk about petty, right?  Well, the fact that Curley got worked up and carried out that act over nothing makes him an entertaining character for his mad nature especially since he gets what he deserves in the end.  Plus, this isn’t the last we’ll see of his trademark madness.  This plot may seem like it has little to offer, but with great execution, it shows off a lot of tension, thought-provoking scenes, great character moments, and genuine satisfaction when justice wins in the end. 9.5/10

World Records

 

 

 

As much as I enjoy watching cartoons featuring kids take on common childhood activities, it gets a little bothersome when the activity is way too seriously, and unfortunately, that’s what happens in this cartoon.  It’s about Arnold inspiring everyone to try and break a record to get into a record book he’s enthralled by.  We spend the bulk of the cartoon watching everyone try out all sorts of records and ultimately failing at them.  Some failures happen because accomplishing the record in question is out of their abilities like walking backwards.  Others happen because they don’t agree with other people such as going without taking a bath for a long time.  However most happen because no one gets the idea that they can just try them again.  For the latter point, the fact that most of the times the failures at record breaking happen because no one realizes they can just try them again is pretty frustrating since it’s obvious that they’re not really owning the tasks they set out to do.  I can somewhat understand their feelings being based on feeling worn out from the failures, so I suppose I shouldn’t be too upset by this.  With this point in mind, it’s concerning that Arnold doesn’t seem to care about how tired everyone is of these failed attempts at breaking records.  He’s taking this world record thing way too seriously making him lose sight of what’s really important and I can’t help but be bothered by this, especially since this isn’t like a caring person like Arnold.  Heck, Helga even makes a harsh yet good point that it’s not worth caring about the world records as much as he does.  Why does Arnold not consider that?  We do get a nice scene of everyone deciding to do what they do best to make the world’s largest pizza puff which sets itself up to be a good payoff.  However, despite all the time devoted to the pizza puff that results in a big fat failure too.  It’s obvious that they can easily try this record again since they failed because they measured one of the ingredients wrong, but frustratingly, just as before, no one gets that idea.  Instead of trying to make the pizza again with the right measurements, Arnold and the gang get in the record book for the most attempts to get in the book.  They’re all really happy about it but I don’t get it.  That’s not really an accomplishment for doing something the best that makes them stand out.  All this “honor” amounts to is a participation award that means nothing, yet everyone’s ecstatic about it.  Why should this qualify as a good payoff to everything everyone went through?  Overall, the cartoon’s fine and cute for what it is, but the moments of obliviousness to obvious solutions as well as the activity being taken way too seriously and a weak payoff prevent it from being truly great. 6/10

The Rankings

1.      Pigeon Man

2.      Haunted Train

3.      Stoop Kid

4.      Arnold’s Hat

5.      Wheezin’ Ed

6.      Spelling Bee

7.      Helga’s Makeover

8.      Mugged

9.      False Alarm

10.  Tutoring Torvald

11.  The Baseball

12.  Olga Comes Home

13.  The List

14.  Das Subway

15.  The Vacant Lot

16.  Downtown as Fruits

17.  The Old Building

18.  Field Trip

19.  The Sewer King

20.  Sally’s Comet

21.  Roughin’ It

22.  Gerald Comes Over

23.  6^th Grade Girls

24.  The Little Pink Book

25.  Abner Come Home

26.  Arnold as Cupid

27.  Snow

28.  Eugene’s Bike

29.  Door #16

30.  Heat

31.  Benchwarmer

32.  Operation Ruthless

33.  World Records

34.  Cool Jerk

 

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the 18th episode of the season: "Magic Show/24 Hours to Live."