'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 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.