'Toon Reviews 16: Hey Arnold Season 3 Episode 15: Arnold and Lila/Grand Prix

Arnold and Lila

It’s hard to believe how long a time has passed between Lila’s major appearances.  She first appeared as a seemingly perfect, but troubled character given her poor lifestyle.  Starting with this cartoon, her lifestyle, her most interesting trait, is no longer discussed, and she acts perfect and overly kind with no trouble at all.  Not only that, she molds into a role of a potential love interest for literally all her other appearances which not just keeps her from being as interesting as she could’ve been, but more annoying than ever for a severe lack of relatable flaws.  To be fair, the way she fits into such a role is well-executed. 

It happens when Helga, while privately expressing her love for Arnold, is led to do capitalize on her feelings by writing “Arnold loves Helga” on a nearby wall.  However, since other people can clearly see the wall, she erases her name and just happens to replace it with Lila’s before anyone comes by.  Everyone believes Arnold like-likes Lila and push for the apparent romance of the sight despite Arnold only liking Lila as a friend.  From here, Arnold finds himself spending a lot of time with Lila, and she just can’t get enough of him all while Helga is forced to deal with the fact that the boy she loves getting attached to someone else was brought on by herself.  The latter point is especially interesting for Helga dwelling on her own faults instead of blaming someone else which makes it easy to take the conflict seriously. 

As for Arnold, it becomes difficult for him to keep living the misunderstanding, though I don’t get why he’s also teased for being together with Lila, especially by kids who liked the idea of getting together with her earlier.  It would make more sense for them to be jealous of Arnold.  Arnold finally ends the whole thing through honesty by telling Lila that he never wrote the message while admirably being gentle with letting her down, and Lila seems to take it well despite apparent disappointment.  Still, even with him explaining the truth, everyone calls him a “fickle” through saying he loved Lila (which he never did) and now denying it.  The strangest thing is, Arnold actually grows to like-like Lila after all through thinking hard about their time together which appears to be a combination of admiring the appearance of a cute girl and the peer pressure of everyone witnessing him live a lie. 

From here, this starts a reoccurring trend of plots in which Arnold expresses to Lila that he like-likes her and she keeps telling him that she only likes him as a friend since she only like-liked him because she thought he felt the same about her .  It’s not exactly the best route for the series to take for making Arnold look very closed-minded and making it seem like Lila is only good for being a love interest.  At least Arnold’s come a long way with expressing his true feelings to crushes.  Also, we end with a nice moment on a couple worth supporting when Helga appears and actually lets up on bullying Arnold, shows concern for his feelings, and is touched when Arnold talks about the pains of unrequited love.  This brief ending scene lays the foundation of truly healthy couples to get behind, and shows that it could work if Arnold was aware of the true Helga. 

In the end, while it does rob Lila of anything potentially interesting for the rest of the series and Arnold is put down for something he didn’t even say, this cartoon shines for the great way it handles the subject of what makes a healthy romance. 9/10

Grand Prix

So far, this season has prided itself on giving strong development to side characters and interesting story ideas, but there’s still room for cartoons on Arnold and the gang doing basic activities popular with kids, the activity here being about go-cart racing.  As a result, it’s not one of the more interesting cartoons, but it’s no doubt charming and fun thanks to the strengths of the characters. 

The main racing teams are Arnold, Stinky, and Sid with their cart called the Dark Avenger, and Eugene with his cart called the Mauve Storm.  Now, at this point in the series, it’s a given that if Eugene is involved, there’s going to be some major obstacle to work through.  Sure enough, his known status as a jinx and overconfidence of his cart during the first race causes both the Mauve Storm and the Dark Avenger to crash, yet they somehow qualify to be well enough to compete in the grand prix if the teams can get the carts fixed.  It’s at least good that the crews of both carts have a chance to keep on fighting especially since this race features a one-dimensional bully like Wolfgang never allowing them to live it down. 

Also, as basic as the following story is with the crews combining forces to fix the carts by putting whatever isn’t broken from each of them into one new cart, it’s still thoroughly entertaining with a few funny moments throughout the repair process as well as some of the better moments from problematic characters.  The season has not been very kind to Sid and Stinky as characters with their major roles making them come off as annoying and stupid, uninteresting, and at times unlikable.  This cartoon puts aside their negative traits and utilizes them for more entertaining and funny moments through putting the cart together and expressing worry if it stands a chance against the competition.  As for Eugene, there’s a lot more believable behavior from him than in most of his appearances including his previous one.  Unlike in moments from those cartoons, he’s able to see how bad the situation is with his prized go-cart destroyed, and rather than being all happy, he’s firm with saying that he wants to take part in the construction and driving of the cart, and it’s always nice to see normally friendly characters show a bit of a backbone.  It shows that there’s more to them than their basic character traits. 

Everything leads up to the titular grand prix where the broken carts are fully repurposed as the Mauve Avenger which I have no idea why they think it’s a bad name.  The race works as an exciting payoff filled with many great character moments.  Some of them offer different character perspectives on running the race either racing furiously, statistically, or even nonchalantly.  They come off as cathartic when all of Wolfgang’s bullying for the cartoon is met with humility when he wipes out, Eugene desperately trying to drive safely as the Mauve Avenger falls apart, and of all characters, Phoebe races the roughest of all taking first place.  Even one-shot characters of a French racer and an Italian racer have a few humorous moments as they take off to race, let their minds wander, and wipe out, though they may cause discomfort to some through sounding stereotypical.  It all ends well with the truly bad characters losing what they deserve, and the cartoon’s main players being happy with their position even if they lost their cart and didn’t win first place which is as good an ending you can ask for. 

Again, it’s not the most interesting or thought-provoking, but if you’re into racing, you’re in for a lot of fun with this cartoon. 9/10

The Ranking

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

The next Hey Arnold review will be on its Thanksgiving special, but it will be uploaded on the holiday Arnold's Grandma constantly mistakes for Thanksgiving.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews will be the penultimate episode of Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 2, "Best Laid Plans."

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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 7

Longest Monday

When you’re a kid, it’s a given that you’re going to come across bullies one way or another, and this show has proven this statement several times with characters like Helga and Harold.  However, imagine having to deal with bullies from a higher grade than you.  Encounters like that could easily turn out to be some of the scariest childhood traumas to deal with, and this cartoon puts Arnold and his class right at the mercy of the sadists of the 5^th grade.  It’s established that on the first Monday of June, the 5^th graders attack the 4^th graders by dumping them in the trash causing them great humiliation, and this year, it’s Arnold’s classes turn to endure, and it’s especially bad when their leader, Wolfgang, is the toughest 5^th grader in school.  They have a nice, inspiring plan to stick together to avoid the 5^th graders and get to safety, but that’s immediately dashed when the 5^th graders spot them and its every student for him/herself.  From here, everything we see is nothing but senseless bullying as 4^th graders are dumped into putrid trash and the 5^th graders getting senseless joy out of the humiliation they’re causing.  Even when the kids find some hope such as hiding out in a sanctuary or one 5^th grader wanting to help them, they’re always there to destroy it.  Through it all, we’re left with a lot of unfortunate implications about 5^th graders.  We’re left with the idea that all 5^th graders a sadistic bullies who want to make life miserable for anyone smaller than them.  This is far from a believable scenario because it’s easy to predict that there are 5^th graders out there who AREN’T like the ones we witness here, yet the cartoon doesn’t give a hint of that.  What’s more, Wolfgang and his cronies are so one-dimensional it’s hard to watch them torture Arnold and the gang.  There’s no reason given for why they’re doing what they’re doing let alone why it's a tradition, or in any of their future appearances, which further hinders the entertainment since no sensible human being would ever be as mean as this just because.  As a result, it’s mostly painful to watch them torture everyone and come out victorious in the end.  That’s not even counting the implication that Arnold and the others will do what they did to the next batch of 4^th graders when it’s their turn next year.  It’s not all bad since there are a few humorous moments from the bullying, and the fact that Arnold and Gerald end up enjoying getting thrown in the trash puts somewhat of a damper in the 5^th graders’ plans, even if they don’t notice it.  So with its moments, this cartoon isn’t all bad, but given its mostly painful overtones from the one-dimensional antagonists, it isn’t all that good either. 5/10

Eugene’s Pet

From what I’ve read in books and seen on other TV shows, a traumatic experience can really mess up the person who went through it.  You’d think that, in the case of the jinx in the cast, Eugene, he’d be a total wreck through constantly getting hurt and having other bad things happen to him.  Amazingly enough, he’s always incredibly positive about life despite how harsh of a toll it takes on him.  However, this cartoon shows where he has to draw the line.  We open at show-and-tell where Eugene talks about how much he treasures his pet fish, Henry, and how he’s the best pet he’s ever had since he never ran away or gave him nightmares.  After that affectionate statement, when Arnold goes next to show off his yo-yo, it gets loose and kills Henry.  Instead of positive and happy-go-lucky as he usually is, Eugene’s spirit is completely shattered by this moment, and rightfully so.  His usually injuries always heal eventually, but Henry was killed and has no hope of recovering, and given how attached Eugene was to him, it’s understandable that he’s completely traumatized.  His feelings are especially felt when he shows that he doesn’t have the heart to flush the fish.  The kids decide to give him a proper burial complete with a powerful eulogy from Gerald backed up affectionately by Arnold on harmonica.  From there, we get a huge glimpse of how harsh the world is for Eugene starting with Henry’s corpse getting eaten by a cat right after the eulogy.  Then, when trying to get a new pet, none of them fit his liking as shown in scenes that are humorous, yet sympathetic for Eugene at the same time.  Finally, Eugene resorts to having and eventually losing imaginary pets that just make everyone think he’s crazy.  At the same time, him going this far to cope with losing Henry is just as sad as his reaction to the death.  He just seems so desperate to break from reality.  It’s also easy to feel for Arnold, the unintentional murderer, who tries so hard to make things up for Eugene and all his attempts go wrong.  It certainly doesn’t help that he ends up seeing fish that remind him of his misdeed frequently.  Thankfully, there’s a satisfying conclusion for both him and Eugene when Arnold gets him his own fish from the aquarium that Eugene can see anytime.  The interesting thing about this is that even when the new fish is eaten at once, Arnold, accepting that Eugene is unlucky, hides that incident for Eugene’s sake which is helped by a group of the exact same fish living in that aquarium.  It’s a unique way to keep the jinx happy to say the least.  With its genuine emotion and sympathy and believable resolutions, this easily another strong entry for the season. 10/10

The Ranking

1. Harold’s Kitty
2. Monkey Business
3. Eugene’s Pet
4. Save the Tree
5. New Teacher
6. Ms. Perfect
7. Big Caesar
8. Ransom
9. The Big Scoop
10. Best Friends
11. The High Life
12. Hooky
13. Arnold Saves Sid
14. Longest Monday

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode featuring a much better encounter with Wolfgang and the 5th graders when a game of football turns into a game of "Mudbowl," and we'll get a unique perspective of what it's like to live in Arnold's boarding house when "Gerald Moves Out."

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."