'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."

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 4: The Loud House Season 1 Episode 9

Overnight Success

Ok, so this cartoon reveals that Lincoln’s best friend Clyde has two dads.  I applaud this revelation about the character because it’s a great sign of how much TV shows meant for family audiences have evolved and pays good respect towards the LGBT community.  Now that we got that out of the way, let’s talk about the actual cartoon.  Given the emphasis on family life, it’s only natural that we’d get a cartoon about Lincoln wanting to have a sleepover with Clyde.  After an explanation of why this is such a big deal for Lincoln which is aided by three hilarious flashbacks of his sisters’ sleepovers that caused havoc, Lincoln’s sleepover starts off kind of rough.  He has a schedule that’s beyond tight (devoting time to booger flicking and armpit farting? Seriously?) and puts more care in keeping to it than having fun with his best friend.  It gets even worse when Lincoln’s sisters offer some fun ways to make Clyde’s night at the Loud House exciting, and Lincoln doesn’t take this too kindly by only focusing on what he wants them both to do, constantly complaining about the whole deal in the process.  I understand that Lincoln really wants to have a great first sleepover, but this behavior just makes him unpleasant to watch, especially since his sisters mean well and have some admittedly fun moments and ideas for what Clyde should try out on this night.  Thankfully, the rest of the cartoon is a lot more enjoyable, and also insightful in how it adds depth to Lincoln and Clyde’s friendship.  When Lincoln tries to find another friend to have his sleepover with, everyone who comes leaves in shock and fear because they can’t handle the antics of Lincoln’s sisters, all of which bring out a lot of laughs and appealing characteristics.  It’s here that Lincoln grows to better appreciate Clyde as a friend, and at the same time, the audience is sure to appreciate Clyde more as a character.  He is the only outsider who can handle so much chaos from a house filled with so many kids, and even like it due to being lonely as an only child.  That’s certainly a trait to be found in an appealing character, and I really like that Clyde has the makings of one.  It’s only fitting that a revelation and moment of character development that strong warrents a satisfying happy ending of Lincoln, Clyde, and all of Lincoln’s sisters enjoying the sleepover.  Really, if you can get past Lincoln’s major jerky moments in the beginning, you’ll get enough fun moments to consider this as a real good sleepover cartoon. 8/10

Ties that Bind

Things get off to a good start as we open up with a nice display of an average chaotic Saturday morning in the Loud House with everyone getting up to their usual entertaining antics, meaning that this is a fun way of establishing the setting.  After that, the plot gets going with Lincoln ending up near the bathroom vent where he hears Mom and Dad talking about how 11 of something is too much and that they’ll need to get rid of some of them.  It seems like the plot is heading for some heavy subject matter as Lincoln comes to the conclusion that Mom and Dad are talking about getting rid of some of the siblings.  However, all tension for a great emotional experience is tossed aside when the audience gets the answer to what Mom and Dad were talking about.  In fact, they were talking about getting rid of Dad’s tie collection, which is frivolous.  This really effects the cartoon because even though Lincoln and his sisters don’t know what Mom and Dad are really talking about, we as an audience do, and it makes the moments where they lament about being let go from the house feel silly.  This is a problem because the cartoon treats these feelings as something serious and not as a joke, and their feelings should be treated as a joke because we know the truth.  In fact, the ways the siblings try and show that they deserve to stay work a lot better as jokes if you didn’t know why they’re doing them, especially moments with Luan as a mime.  Sadly, this isn’t the only problem with the cartoon.  At one point, the siblings come to the conclusion that Lincoln will stay while all the sisters leave, and Lincoln seems a little too happy about this, fantasizing about how great life will be as an only child.  I’m not very fond of how this makes the siblings’ bonds look in the cartoon.  I mean, from what we’ve seen, Lincoln’s relationship with his sisters may not be perfect, but it’s still good overall, so to see him happy about them possibly being gone is really uncalled for.  Not only that, but because of that scene, it’s a little hard to feel for Lincoln when he later gets the impression that he’ll be let go while everyone else stays.  There are, fortunately, enough good points to save the cartoon from true destruction such as some truly heartwarming moments with the sisters vowing to make sure Lincoln doesn’t get sent away regardless of how he felt about the matter earlier, all of them finally learning the truth, and this whole cartoon being a good example of how Mom and Dad show off a lot of character through body language since we never see their faces allowing everything to be seen from the kids' perspective (at least for Season 1).  Thanks to them, I can revisit the cartoon and enjoy myself, but the fact that we frustratingly know the whole story while the kids don’t and that this is one of the worst portrayal of the siblings’ bonds are pretty big problems. 6.5/10

The Ranking

1.      Undie Pressure

2.      Project Loud House

3.      Space Invader

4.      Driving Miss Hazy

5.      Left in the Dark

6.      Picture Perfect

7.      No Guts No Glori

8.      Changing the Baby

9.      Sound of Silence

10.  A Tale of Two Tables

11.  Overnight Success

12.  In Tents Debate

13.  Linc or Swim

14.  The Sweet Spot

15.  Heavy Meddle

16.  Get the Message

17.  Ties that Bind

18.  Making the Case

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where we learn about the hand-me-down process of the Loud family in "Hand-Me-Downer" and see both some of the best and worst moments from the Loud kids' relationships in "Sleuth or Consequences."