'Toon Reviews 16: Hey Arnold Season 3 Episode 18: Helga's Show/The Flood

Helga’s Show

Everyone has different tastes in entertainment.  Certain things that are hilarious to some people may do nothing good for others, but to me, the right thing to do is try and understand why a style of entertainment can be funny even if you don’t always agree with it.  For that, I admire that this cartoon portrays this very theme. 

There’s an after-school lounge called the Coco Hut in which the students of PS 118 gather to perform comedy acts for all the attendees, and Helga has her own style of comedy by doing impressions of various people she knows.  As someone who enjoys hearing, as well as doing, impressions of real-life people and TV characters, I personally enjoy Helga’s act.  However, while some enjoy their own impressions or don’t get that they’re the ones being impersonated, the rest of the kids Helga impersonates take offense for how her act capitalizes on their primary habits like Harold’s cries for his mommy, Rhonda’s sense of fashion, and Stinky’s newly revealed love for lemon pudding.  They proceed to ignore Helga, feeling hurt by her act and see no appeal in her style of comedy at all which seems believable to anyone who doesn’t agree with certain entertainment styles. 

In a pleasing turn of events, Helga, who normally would use brute force to get others to see her point of view, feels bad that some of her friends don’t get her style of entertainment so much so that she’s led to confide these feelings to her best friend.  Through doing so, she discusses her own reasons for why her comedy came out as it did, claiming that if the kids can laugh at the impressions of others, they can laugh at their own which makes sense and shows how she felt it could work.  However, Helga’s flexible enough to see how her style of comedy wouldn’t work when the kids she wronged deal with their hurt feelings by doing impressions of Helga, and she sees their point. 

What follows is a rare moment where she shows consideration for kids other than Arnold by attempting to do another act to celebrate what’s good about her friends through a poem even if she doesn’t see the comedic appeal.  That said, her feelings about how unfunny the whole thing is are justified when she goes on stage, performs the poem, and while no one’s hurt from the act, no one is moved by it either.  It’s at this moment where the kids, and to an extent Helga herself, discover the humor of watching someone impersonate their quirks after hearing an unenthused poem about how great they are.  Right then and there is the appeal of forms of entertainment they might not always agree with. 

Ultimately, the cartoon closes with Helga bouncing back from the funk and returns to her old impressions, including people she originally didn’t impersonate in full force giving the kids something truly funny especially since they can now laugh at themselves like Helga felt they would.  It does make you wonder if Helga truly learned anything through all this since she simply goes back to doing what she did in the beginning while everyone else has a change of heart, but other than that, this is highly enjoyable, especially for those who always feel the need for solid entertainment. 9/10

The Flood

Some of the best stories in my opinion are those that bring different people together during a bad situation which make for different ways of dealing with what happens.  This cartoon features one of those stories and the use of characters and moments that come from the situation make it as great as it is. 

The situation presented is one that’s hard to imagine happening everyday (depending on where you live of course), which makes what happens interesting.  Mr. Simmons’ class ends up stranded at PS 118 for the night due to a flood roaring outside all because he felt the need to keep them longer to teach them.  This is particularly concerning to the kids who just want to leave for spring break. 

From here, the cartoon shows everyone living through the flood providing a variety of experiences.  Most of the students act up for much of the ordeal with constant fighting and annoying each other.  This could make the kids unenjoyable, but since they were on the verge a whole week off from school and they probably would’ve beaten the flood if Mr. Simmons didn’t keep them longer, it’s at least believable that they’d be so stressed that they’d let it out the way they do. 

Also Mr. Simmons shows a great display of his strengths of trying to stay positive in a bad situation, but his positivity is his downfall against the angry students.  Even his attempts at being firm have no effect because he’s simply not good at acting in such a way, so when the flood gets worse with water flowing into the building, the tensions rise significantly enhanced by believable angst from the kids and desperation from the teacher. 

In the process, the intensity of the entire flood is lightened a bit by a few laughs.  The bickering from the kids has a fair share of humor, but strong laughs are also found elsewhere.  They include brief breaks from the fighting and annoying such as when Helga attempts to break out of school running into Principal Wartz in a strange dance getup which works for how random it is.  There’s also a subplot of Grandpa making a raft to rescue Arnold and his friends while Oskar schemes to make a quick buck out of the flood by charging rescues which includes many funny interactions with clashing personalities and senses of morality made more exciting as the flood gets worse. 

These many moments from the flood build up to an exciting climax when the kids, for all their rowdiness, show that they do have hearts when after breaking from Mr. Simmons, they fear for his safety when he’s gone for a long time.  They find him dangling on a broken ladder above the raging floodwaters while he was trying to signal for help.  It’s the sense of danger that gets the kids to work together to save their teacher.  The speed of them tossing him a weight to reel him in, the strain as they pull, and the basic intensity is perfectly felt and tie into the music and visuals of the moment especially when Helga falls in and needs to be rescued too.  Then everything in the scene ties into a relieving finish with both Helga and Mr. Simmons dragged to safety and everyone finally able to leave the school on Grandpa’s raft. 

As it stands, the whole flood experience is easily one of the best entries for the season with a wide range of moments being funny, relatable, and especially intense stemming from a natural disaster. 10/10

The Ranking

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

The next Hey Arnold review is on a full-length special covering the kids performing a school play of Romeo and Juliet.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is the Steven Universe Season 2 finale "Log Date 7 15 2."

If you want to stay updated for more reviews, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter.

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 16: Hey Arnold Season 3 Episode 9: Career Day/Hey Harold

Career Day

A show with a huge cast has the opportunity to give good development to any of them.  This cartoon, which has Arnold’s class join some of the adults to join them for their jobs for career day, fits the bill. 

For most kids, we only get short scenes of them working certain jobs chosen at random.  Some of them are fitting for their characters like Helga as a cop, while others are unusual like Gerald as a firefighter and to a larger extent, Phoebe working in demolition with Ernie.  However, they all adjust to working these careers very well.  Because this only takes up a small part of the cartoon, this isn’t where the character development is. 

These moments contrast how hard a time Arnold has with his assigned career, assistant to the neighborhood’s ice cream man, the Jolly Olly Man.  Before, the Jolly Olly Man has had little scenes of delivering ice cream, and being a totally rude cheapskate trying to raise his ice cream to unreasonable prices in his rare big roles.  Arnold states that the Jolly Olly Man hates kids and is on the brink of insanity.  It feels that way at first with much unpleasantness that comes from Arnold having to work with the Jolly Olly Man.  He forces Arnold to ride in the freezer, refuses to let him help with handing out ice cream, and takes the money from his customers, but rarely gives them the ice cream they want.  Basically, the Jolly Olly Man can really try your patience for how unbelievably unlikable he is all throughout. 

Even if his unlikable moments aren’t enjoyable, they work thanks to the direction the story takes that brings on his development.  For how harsh he is, the Jolly Olly Man is nothing compared to his boss.  He belittles him with harsh insults, threatens to terminate his only job if he doesn’t empty his freezer, and is continuously eying him just waiting for him to fail.  He’s not shown as much as the Jolly Olly Man, but the boss’ brief moments leave an impression far nastier than anything we’ve seen of the other guy.  If that’s not enough, the boss is actually the Jolly Olly Man’s dad, giving the impression that the ice cream man had an abusive childhood, a believable cause for his mean behavior.  That combined with being stuck with a job he doesn’t like flesh the Jolly Olly Man out not as a heartless monster, but as someone far more relatable.  He may hate his job, but knows he has to deal with it after being fired from over 50 jobs before.  It’s all that he has for income and he knows better than to let it go which is something I feel makes sense for most people when it comes to jobs, though normally with the first jobs they ever have. 

From here, with selling all the ice cream as a motivation, he starts coming around through accepting Arnold’s help.  It takes a while to grasp things, which include some slightly disturbing moments, but how well the Jolly Olly Man ends up because of Arnold’s teaching is truly impressive.  By the end of the day, he becomes much friendlier with his customers culminating with him happily giving away the rest of the ice cream to Arnold’s classmates and the people they worked with that day.  Him laughing maniacally when his dad reluctantly says he can keep his job does still give an unsettling vibe from his weak points, but it doesn’t indicate that he lost what he learned. 

As a result, this cartoon comes off as a relatable take on careers with a heck of a character to follow through it.  9/10

Hey Harold!

At this point, it’s clear that Harold has more depth than it may appear.  Whenever there’s a cartoon about him, chances are it’s going to be a high-tier work.  Such is the case with this cartoon that’s all about him going through a relatable phase of life, as well as get through it on his own. 

Nearly all of PS 118 is invited to a party said to include dancing, and Harold continuously shoots down the idea of dancing with a girl and even going to the party.  This starts us off with Harold’s immature and sensitive flaws with the idea constantly hammered in by Sid and Stinky, and even his parents.  Harold gives into the pressure and goes to the party, and while he doesn’t socialize at first, he meets someone who happens to be a lot like him. 

In a remarkable turn of events, this episode gives us another cartoon to develop Big Patty.  Just as before, she’s presented as a bully character with believable reasons for her behavior.  In fact, most are similar to the reasons why Harold is sometimes a bully.  They’re insecure about their appearances and intellects both on their own accord and from what others say, which makes them act out or isolate themselves.  They both find each other when they walk away from the party, and despite starting off rough, mostly fueled by Harold’s constant insistence on not dancing with a girl, they slowly warm up to each other after Harold proves that he can dance with a girl.  Then they bond as the night goes on talking about what they typically get up to in life, and even personal information, right down to doing so long after the party ends.  It may not feel like much, but just the simple moments of two social outcasts who look intimidating finding common ground and bonding over it naturally is impactful in its own right.  They’re shining moments for them to get past their own weaknesses and further prove that even if people have faults, they’re human beings getting through life when all is said and done, one of the most important things for people to learn. 

It’s after this when there’s a lot of discomfort.  Stinky and Sid never stop badgering Harold about the absurdity of hanging out with Big Patty while his parents are keen to rush his relationship with her.  After seeing a lot of them together, it’s impossible not to feel annoyed by how others feel about the idea of the pairing.  Sid and Stinky are especially problematic for how condescending they are about Big Patty.  It makes me wonder why he even considers them his friends.  Along with Stinky’s lack of interesting traits and Sid’s annoying obsessing, together they’re quite the detractor.  In the end, Harold makes up for their insensitivities when after thinking about it, he decides to make his true feelings clear by yelling at Stinky and Sid that he likes Big Patty and doesn’t care what they think.  Is it socially appropriate? No, but what he says still has truth to it, and him finally sitting with Big Patty at lunch is an adorable finish to his arc for the cartoon. 

It closes everything with a moment to sell the appeal of these social outcasts, reminding that at the end of the day, no one should pressure you into thinking a certain way.  As a reviewer, the latter message is especially meaningful, as should be the case with any aspiring reviewers out there. 9.5/10

The Ranking

1. Helga Blabs it All
2. Harold the Butcher
3. Crabby Author
4. Mr. Hyunh Goes Country
5. Helga Vs. Big Patty
6. Hey Harold!
7. Curly Snaps
8. The Aptitude Test
9. Pre-Teen Scream
10. Olga Gets Engaged
11. Oskar Gets a Job
12. Career Day
13. Rich Kid
14. Dangerous Lumber
15. Arnold’s Room
16. Helga and the Nanny
17. Stinky Goes Hollywood
18. Arnold Betrays Iggy

The next Hey Arnold review features the residents of Arnold's boarding house try to act as a family when Grandpa threatens to sell the place, and there's an interesting play on voice actors getting replaced when they hit puberty in a cartoon about Gerald getting his tonsils taken out.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews, it's another galactic adventure of Voltron: Legendary Defender taking us to "The Ark of Taujeer."

If you want to stay updated for more reviews, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter.

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 16: Hey Arnold Season 3 Episode 5: Helga Blabs it All/Harold the Butcher

Helga Blabs it All

The thing that makes Helga such a dynamic and complex character is how she acts like a bully, but is really a decent human being and hopeless romantic.  We know how deep her love for Arnold is, and considering her neglectful and overachieving family, I’d say she can gush over him as much as she pleases.  Even more interesting is how Helga is aware of the downsides of her near-obsessive love and uses her mean behavior picked up from the stress at home to cover it.  The lengths she goes through to hide her feelings show how strong her love is and are entertaining to watch.  The things she does to keep her secret safe in this case are especially entertaining right down to the creative way it’s put at risk. 

While getting a cavity filled at the dentist, Helga is subjected to a large quantity of laughing gas.  The gas does what it’s meant to do, but it also has an effect commonly associated with most drugs by making Helga feel unusually happy and light-hearted, leading her to discuss in detail about Arnold.  It even offers a little background on her love when she states that she’s known him for six years. This is expanded upon in the following season.  Anyway, Helga becomes so positive from the gas that she calls Arnold, and gives a long, passionate soliloquy expressing her true feelings, in front of a crowd of patients, which ends up on the boarding house’s answering machine.  It’s only after Helga sends the message when the laughing gas wears off and she realizes what she just did. To prevent humiliation, she takes action to get rid of the answering machine's tape. 

Being a cartoon, this is the perfect place to unleash wild imagination for the insane things Helga has to do to simply retrieve a tape. In animation, there’s nothing stopping you from bringing completely anything to entertaining life.  We start with Helga ambushing a Campfire Lass and stealing her uniform to get into the boarding house, and making up excuses to people and hiding anywhere close by just when she’s about to get the tape.  It doesn’t sound exciting at first, but then there’s exactly where Helga ends up hiding.  It’s in the air vents of the boarding house, a place you don’t usually see people hide in, which is a major example of a ridiculous situation made believable by the animation medium.  It’s staged believably too with Helga looking cramped while hiding in the small vent as she watches over the answering machine and people passing it.  Adding to the suspense is a close call where it seems like her secret will be revealed, but she’s saved by Arnold’s grandma humorously mishearing the message.  The crazy creativity expands even more when after Helga gets the tape, her escape leads her through the pipe and rafter-filled walls of the boarding house which is another place we hardly see in shows and real life for that matter.  Then it’s all capped off in with hilarity where she ends up in Arnold’s room and walks out in front of him and his friends…and no one cares.  So, Helga’s secret is safe and the mission is all over but the consequences for stealing that uniform. 

It all results in an intense and highly creative mission to prevent a potentially embarrassing discovery with one exciting moment after another and a great multi-layered character like Helga to follow. 10/10

Harold the Butcher

One of the more fascinating characters in the show is Harold.  He may look and act like a one-dimensional bully character, but a frequent trope with him is that he’s a vulnerable, misguided individual.  This cartoon offers more of this trope as he finds his true calling. 

It starts off with his typical misguidedness when his hunger leads him to steal a ham from Mr. Green the butcher.  It’s interesting enough that Harold would be dumb enough to go this far with getting food, but the story goes the extra route by adding to the seriousness of his act when Harold’s religion gets involved.  When he’s sent to the rabbi, Harold learns that in addition to it simply being wrong to steal, him stealing a ham is even worse because it’s a forbidden food to Jewish people (though I’m sure there are Jews out there who eat ham anyway).  However you look at it, this is still a thought-provoking observation on Harold’s crime, more detailed and fleshed out than how most thievery is portrayed and a strong way to bring on the bulk of the plot. 

To teach Harold a lesson , it’s decided that he should work at Green Meats for a week.  There’s a natural progression to how Harold feels about the job.  At first, he dreads working despite bringing it on himself like what one would expect from kids with Harold's maturity being punished, and is a major pain for Mr. Green to deal with.  As the days go by, Harold complains and messes up less, and learns interesting things about meat, sharing what he learns wherever he goes.  When the week is nearly over, Harold is already researching how to become a butcher on his own and fantasizes about being one.  It’s all a natural and believable progress anyone deciding what to do in life can go through starting on rough terms but then growing to love the trade, and given Harold’s primary traits, this is strong development for him uncovering a hidden talent. 

His newfound love of meat is so strong, it’s easy to feel for him when the week is up and Mr. Green allows Harold to go.  Harold goes to many lengths to get Mr. Green to let him keep his job, even by stealing another form of meat for the sole purpose of working in the shop again, but even that doesn’t change Mr. Green’s mind, and through it all, Harold is fully sympathetic.  It’s clear that he’s passionate about meat and just wants to do more with it.  Fortunately for him, and even Mr. Green, Harold gets a chance to use his knowledge of preparing and serving meat when he helps Mr. Green through a huge meat sale, and it goes by faster and easier than it would if Mr. Green was all by himself.  Also, after so much time of getting annoyed with Harold even after he improved, Mr. Green realizes Harold’s talents and makes him his apprentice butcher, making for an admirable ending that gives hope for even people like Harold to find their true purpose.  It would be great if we see more of Harold being a butcher after this cartoon, but at least nothing ever implies that it isn’t happening off screen. 

As it stands, we’re left with one of Harold’s best starring roles which ends up being inspirational, insightful, and relatable. 10/10

The Ranking

1. Helga Blabs it All
2. Harold the Butcher
3. Crabby Author
4. Curly Snaps
5. The Aptitude Test
6. Pre-Teen Scream
7. Olga Gets Engaged
8. Oskar Gets a Job
9. Rich Kid
10. Stinky Goes Hollywood

After talking about two great Hey Arnold cartoons, the next review is going to cover a really low point of the series, "Arnold Betrays Iggy." On the plus side, it comes with a slightly better review of a cartoon about Helga getting a nanny who forces many customs on her despite her good intentions.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is a high point of Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 2, "Shiro's Escape."

If you want to stay updated for more reviews, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter.

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 16: Hey Arnold Season 3 Episode 1: The Aptitude Test/Oskar Gets a Job

This time, we’re taking another trip to the city of mad crushes, crazy boarders and football heads among other things for a season’s worth of adventures:

Hey Arnold (Season 3)

BASIC PREMISE

The animated shows of Nickelodeon are among some of the most nostalgic for me, and Hey Arnold is the one that’s easily held up the best.  As the first animated series I reviewed for this blog, I consider this show to be a mainstay, one I’m more than willing to share with anyone who loves reading animation reviews, at least until the day I review everything there is to the show.  It’s a slice-of-life show that focuses on the day-to-day lives of the many characters who live in a neighborhood of a single city.  It doesn’t sound like much, but as looks into the first two seasons have shown, it’s practically masterful as a slice-of-life show delving into subjects relatable to adults as well as kids, and making good use of its huge cast by giving interesting traits to almost all of them.  Along with a wholesome urban setting, smooth jazzy and character-driven music cues, and every story in general getting deeper and more mature as the show goes on, you’re almost always in for a positive experience with this series.  Now, we’ll be looking into the third season to see how well it builds upon the strengths of the show and what it ultimately does for the characters and their world.

Just like with the other looks at the seasons, the order of the reviews will be based off the official order found on the Hey Arnold wiki for a better flow of show events and to factor in cartoons truly created for the season and not held back to air in the middle of other seasons.  If you look to that site, you’ll most likely get a good idea of what will be covered and when.  With all this said, let’s not waste any more time and get ready for more adventures with Arnold Shortman (thanks Jungle Movie) and company.

Now on with the reviews:

The Aptitude Test

One of the most challenging parts of anyone’s life is finding a suitable career.  From my experience, some might know what they want to do but have a hard time breaking in (like me) and some don’t know what they want to make of themselves.  The plot of this cartoon relates those in the latter category, and brings a lot of crazy outcomes as a result. 

Arnold’s class is assigned an aptitude test to find possible career paths to take.  The most focus is on two kids at opposite ends of the knowledge spectrum.  There’s Helga, an incredibly talented kid with a lot of potential in life, and Harold, an unintelligent student who can never pay attention in class.  These traits of theirs is easy to see as you watch them take the aptitude test with Helga studiously answering the questions and Harold giving the same answer without care. 

The whole thing really gets interesting when Eugene fumbles collecting the tests and accidentally switches two of them.  As a result, they make it seem like Harold’s smart and can be anything, while Helga is only good enough for the lowest type of career, a woodsperson.  We then see different effects on Helga and Harold’s lifestyles as a result of the test score mix-up. 

With Helga, there’s a lot to her apparent calling as a nature girl.  As someone who’s thrived on exquisite poetry, there’s a sympathetic layer of her feeling that her talents were never good enough and that she should abandon her passion, not to mention her parents, as you’d expect, don’t care about this serious academic blunder.  There’s also solid comedy from her attempts at being rural such as her making the same pinecone sculpture, struggling to live off the land, and believing all country people talk in a southern drawl and are inherently dumb. 

As for Harold, his score leads to a much different experience.  He’s pushed to do more intellectual things since he’s apparently a genius. Since his score was mixed up, you’d think he wouldn’t be able to do it.  However, he puts in genuine effort into the brainy stuff, and he latches onto it fairly well opening up a different side we haven’t really seen from him before. It’s a very nice change of pace. 

Regarding how we know that what Helga and Harold think about themselves isn’t true, while this messes with the surprise factor of the mysteries of the scores, it works due to a variety of tones.  Along with her feeble attempts at being simple, the truth of the matter makes Helga’s moments a comedic highlight.  With Harold, the truth makes the moments of him being smart kind of sad since he has a good grasp on what he tackles, but it’s all built on a fallacy.  The audience knowing the truth also works for how other characters point out how strange Harold and Helga are acting, culminating with Mr. Simmons studying their test scores and discovering the mix-up. 

With the truth exposed comes more variations on how to feel, both of which are positive.  Helga’s outcome is relieving and humorous when she’s quick to write more poems after her mom nonchalantly burns her collection fitting to a prior request.  Harold’s outcome is much more impactful when he’s upset that his score was very low at first, but through being reminded of his great performance this past week, he learns that no one is truly stupid.  He really can be smart if he believes in himself, which in turn is encouraging advice for anyone in real life. 

The cartoon succeeds in many ways with a relatable center, strong entertainment and sentiment, and relatable life advice that help make this show as great as it is. 9.5/10

Oskar Gets a Job

Despite not being a good person, Oskar Kokoshka is one of the funniest characters on the show, and the resident of Arnold’s boarding house I enjoy the most.  This is a guy who doesn’t want to work for what he needs, so he never takes the necessary initiatives for success and opts to take the easy way out, coming off as lazy and untrustworthy.  The thing that keeps Oskar enjoyable though is how it never feels like he’s trying to be bad, and only does unethical acts to get by because he’s naïve and doesn’t get why it’s bad.  In addition, his mooching ways are seen as a problem that everyone is wise enough not to buy into as the opening of this cartoon shows. 

When Oskar needs to pay off a loan shark, he goes to the other boarders to try and coax them into giving him the money, and they bluntly refuse in hilarious ways.  It’s certainly great to see others not encourage this behavior, but Oskar is still likable enough to hope he gets the money he needs through trying to be nice to get his way and never intending any sort of harm.  He's a character who is fun to watch, while also one we should strive to never be like. 

Aiding in Oskar working as his true self is the main plot of the cartoon.  When he begs for Arnold's help to get money, Oskar learns that the logical way around his problem is to get a job, so he can make his own money and not have to mooch off other people.  It’s a good step towards character development for Oskar, but the fact that he’s a 38-year-old man who never worked in his life makes it very difficult for him to apply for jobs. This is a believable drawback in job hunting, especially since I know it can be difficult to get a job in general, even if you’re not a lazy bum like Oskar. 

Speaking of a lazy bum, Oskar’s bad habits are still prominent when he finally gets a job as a paperboy, which is usually reserved for young boys.  Even after learning how helpful having a job can be, Oskar simply doesn’t want to do the hard work that comes with it, so he works around the issue by faking ailments so Arnold can deliver the newspapers for him.  These moments are some of the more problematic approaches to Oskar’s habits since Arnold buys into Oskar’s two lies despite being aware of what he typically does.  At least he’s quick to uncover the lies when he notices Oskar eating pancakes after claiming to have the Chinese stomach flu and dancing after saying he had a bad back. 

When confronted, Oskar remains likable by simply not understanding that it’s wrong to get other people to do hard work meant for him and doesn’t sound like he wants to make Arnold suffer.  Still, it’s great that Arnold breaks from his typical nice guy routine and is firm about how unappreciative he is of Oskar not actually doing his own job.  Along with subsequent moments of the boarders talking about how much of a loser he is, Oskar’s good side is finally made clear when he vows to deliver the newspapers the next morning, and he sticks to that vow. 

After so many scenes of him loafing about and trying to avoid actually working, Oskar gets that doing your own work is a necessary evil to get by in life, and through going through the hardships young Arnold faced and successfully delivering the papers, he brings the cartoon to a grand end.  He may still be a lazy moocher in future appearances, but moments like this prove that Oskar truly isn’t as bad as he lets on, which is always a great payoff to his big display of flaws, and make him worth watching. 

It’s truly an impressive feat to get a lot of endearment and strong comedy from a lazy jerk, and what Oskar gets up to here is no exception. 9/10

The Ranking

1. The Aptitude Test
2. Oskar Gets a Job

The next Hey Arnold review looks into the psychotic mindset of Curly when he goes on a relentless rage when he doesn't get the position of ball monitor, and Phoebe learns the hard truth of life that sometimes your idols are not the passionate artists they appear to be.

Next time on MC Toon Reviews is the start of another review set which covers Season 2 of the popular Netflix series, Voltron: Legendary Defender.

If you want to stay updated for more reviews, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter.

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