'Toon Reviews 1: Hey Arnold Season 1 Episode 19

Part Time Friends
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This cartoon follows one of those plots that involve characters who are close end up spending a lot of time fighting with each other, eventually deciding to end their friendship over frivolous means.  It’s a plot that’s not always pleasing to watch mostly because it’s hard to see such good friends at odds with each other especially when they’re both hard to get behind in their conflict.  About this cartoon specifically, Arnold and Gerald get part time jobs at Mrs. Vitello’s flower shop in order to gain money to buy certain things to have fun.  When Mrs. Vitello throws out her back, she has the boys manage the store alone with Gerald getting the higher authority.  Then we’re treated the two friends becoming at odds with each other with Gerald driving Arnold to work faster and not spend so much time on the quality of certain flower orders and Arnold carelessly getting flower orders wrong.  They both complain about each other’s flaws so much that the cartoon becomes significantly less entertaining to watch than it should be.  Arnold and Gerald have been shown to be a very loyal team sticking together no matter how the other acted.  Seeing them become the worst of enemies just because of this job environment just isn’t like them.  It gets even worse when Arnold decides to quit working for the shop under Gerald’s leadership and what follows is a series of dragged out scenes of the two former friends going out of their way to not speak with each other making their senseless bickering even more painful.  The conflict between them does get more engaging when Grandpa gets involved.  He shares Arnold a story about how he used to be friends with a kid named Jimmy Kafka, but like Arnold and Gerald, they broke their friendship while doing a part time job.  The catch is that they never spoke again, which is a pretty sad yet clever twist to the story.  As for the present matter, Grandpa’s story gets Arnold to see sense when he has a dream of him and Gerald similarly not being friends straight through senior ages which also includes this memorable piece of nightmare fuel to many longtime fans of this show:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, we end with Gerald being unable to run the shop alone and Arnold stepping in to make up with him which is nice, but the cartoon ends before they can use their friendship to fix everything at the shop.  They just set up a problem to solve, and they end without getting to it.  That’s sloppy storytelling, but at least Arnold and Gerald’s fight is over.  This really isn’t the worst cartoon of the show, but its fighting moments among other things grant it a low recommendation from me. 7/10

Biosquare

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Unlike Arnold and Gerald who are best friends, Arnold and Helga are a pairing who we rarely see get along mostly due to how much of a bully Helga can be to Arnold.  Yes, she has that crush on him, but for her own reasons, she keeps it secret by covering her love with mean-spirited nature.  So, when they’re assigned to do a science project that requires them to spend 24 hours together in a greenhouse, it’s easy to predict that things are bound to get tense between them.  Through it all, we see a clash of the personalities of these two people who rarely get along at work.  Arnold is easily prepared for the experiment and approaches each part of it such as one involving a potato and another involving a red ant and black ant living together in the same ant farm with great enthusiasm.  Helga on the other hand is not at all thrilled with Arnold’s recent football-headed scheme.  She eats all her food instead of saving it for the coming 24 hours, complains about the lack of electricity, messes with Arnold’s side experiments, and demands the greenhouse be divided even though she and Arnold are supposed to be living together in the environment.  It’s a dynamic we’ve come to expect and it does have its moments, but most of the time, the entertainment of the situation is Helga’s constant complaining and irrationality.  I understand that she feels the need to be mean to Arnold instead of show him the real her, but this much of it can get somewhat annoying and I just wish she’d realize that things in the greenhouse are the way they are because that’s how the experiment is supposed to work.  However, the beauty of this plot is that it shows that while they are constantly at odds with each other, Arnold and Helga do care about each other enough to work together when the moment calls for it.  The moment does call for it when we reach the climax.  Helga becomes so bothered by a leaky faucet that she goes on to break it which causes a flood.  It only gets worse when Grandpa and Oskar humorously mistake the cries for help for wanting to add more water.  As the flood in the greenhouse gets worse, Helga actually takes initiative by blowing a raft and saving Arnold from drowning by pulling him aboard just as the greenhouse door bursts open.  Then they both show concern for each other’s safety and then share a passionate smile.  For all their bickering, this moment shows that Arnold and Helga can work as a pair if their hearts are really in it.  So, while some of Helga’s moments don’t make this cartoon particularly strong, this cartoon is still appreciative for its portrayal of her and Arnold’s dynamic. 8/10

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.  Magic Show

11.  Tutoring Torvald

12.  The Baseball

13.  Olga Comes Home

14.  The List

15.  Das Subway

16.  The Vacant Lot

17.  Downtown as Fruits

18.  The Old Building

19.  Field Trip

20.  The Sewer King

21.  Sally’s Comet

22.  Roughin’ It

23.  Gerald Comes Over

24.  6^th Grade Girls

25.  The Little Pink Book

26.  24 Hours to Live

27.  Abner Come Home

28.  Arnold as Cupid

29.  Snow

30.  Eugene’s Bike

31.  Biosquare

32.  Door #16

33.  Heat

34.  Part Time Friends

35.  Benchwarmer

36.  Operation Ruthless

37.  World Records

38.  Cool Jerk

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the 20th episode of the season: "Arnold's Christmas."

 

 

 

 

 

 

'Toon Reviews 1: Hey Arnold Season 1 Episode 18

Magic Show

 

 

 

 

 

 

The title suggests that this cartoon is about a magic show.  However, that’s just a small element to the real plot which is all about Helga and her mean personality.  It is true that it makes sense for her to be so mean to the people around her due to her neglectful parents, but it’s not surprising that her behavior gets people to not like her.  As a result, we get a major display of mean behavior from Helga.  She completely neglects her father’s birthday, is rude to all the kids in the audience of the magic show, including her best friend Phoebe, and when she’s called to volunteer for the magic show’s disappearing act, she leaves the act instead of coming out of the box to re-appear as part of a prank to get people to miss her.  Helga’s actions are clearly despicable, but they do their part to prepare us for what Helga’s about to go through, and they’re the traits we’ve come to expect from her.  As for her prank, it leads to Helga walking into a pole which leads to the outcome of that prank.  As Helga observes the city, she realizes that everyone’s noticed that she’s gone, but they don’t miss her.  They’re happy that Arnold apparently made her disappear and it appears that they’re lives are better without her existing.  Her parents are closer than ever and use what used to be her room a place to carry out their creative passions, Phoebe has a new much nicer friend, and Arnold has reached great success, and has even hit it off with Ruth.  As mean as Helga was before she committed her “disappearing act” prank, this whole part of the cartoon is pretty depressing for giving the idea that the world would be better if Helga didn’t exist.  It could easily be interpreted by anyone watching that they themselves make the world worse by just existing, and that’s something no one should ever feel.  That’s just a cruel message that denies people of their potential value.  Thankfully, this cartoon has a few aspects that make it work.  It’s not just Helga’s mean actions in the beginning, but also the fact that everything she saw was in her head.  With that in mind, this can be interpreted as her realizing that maybe being mean isn’t the way to get around further showing her depth as a character and not just a simple bully.  She’s actually aware of the negative effects of her edginess that can happen.  It’s only fitting that after this reveal, she goes on to show acts of kindness to everyone in her life, yet she’s still unable to be nice to Arnold.  That kind of shows that she hasn’t completely learned from her dream which is a disappointment, but given that she still wants to keep her crush a secret, it makes perfect sense sense.  Still, this is a pretty strong cartoon for everything it does for Helga’s character. 9.5/10

24 Hours to Live

 

 

 

 

Here’s a fun fact: this cartoon is a reworked version of the original series pilot created in 1994, two years before this show aired.  BTW, check the original pilot online when you get the chance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssbKhOODcaQ).  Its general idea is that Arnold gets into trouble when he accidentally beans Harold with a baseball who had been taunting him constantly, and is scheduled to face him in a fight in 24 hours.  This is a problem because Harold has built himself up to be such a tough bully figure, and Arnold has little chance at surviving against him.  This is a decent set-up for a story, and Arnold’s fear of what he’s about to face is identifiable, especially if you look at the situation from the point of view of a kid, since it’s a common occurrence for them to deal with bullies.  However, the time leading up to Arnold’s confrontation with Harold is not all that enjoyable mostly because of Helga constantly badgering Arnold about how much time he has until he “dies” and no one, not even his grandparents, having anything encouraging to say to him.  It just makes what Arnold is put through not very pleasing to watch not to mention somewhat annoying on Helga’s part, which is a rare thing to say about her antics.  These points however are why the cartoon really picks up when Arnold has a dream of when he fends off against his enemies by acting crazy, showing that he does have a way of fighting back against a bully.  Then we get to the highest point of the cartoon when Arnold finally faces Harold where he fights back in the most unique way possible.  He breaks out into an energetic rock number where he declares “I’m Crazy.”  It’s fast-paced, has a lot of fun visuals to go with the lyrics, and it’s a cool way for Arnold to show off some self-defense.  In the end, Harold is actually amused by how crazy Arnold acts, and that ultimately leads to them becoming friends.  It’s especially good that the two of them are seen on good terms with each other for the rest of the series.  It also shows the great appeal of Harold.  While, as a bully, he doesn’t have the same sad background as Helga, he’s one of the show’s most relatable characters. Even though he acts like a bully with the taunting and pounding threats, that side is just a cover to his true side as a friendly kid who’s mostly a softie, which would explain his tendency to cry for his mommy.  He’s like a kid who only acts mean to impress other people, which we’ve all seen or been at least once in life.  Overall, it may not be executed in the most pleasing way, but this cartoon is still a nice look at a day in Arnold’s life, and the fact that it was based on the original pilot makes it even more interesting to check out. 8/10

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.  Magic Show

11.  Tutoring Torvald

12.  The Baseball

13.  Olga Comes Home

14.  The List

15.  Das Subway

16.  The Vacant Lot

17.  Downtown as Fruits

18.  The Old Building

19.  Field Trip

20.  The Sewer King

21.  Sally’s Comet

22.  Roughin’ It

23.  Gerald Comes Over

24.  6^th Grade Girls

25.  The Little Pink Book

26.  24 Hours to Live

27.  Abner Come Home

28.  Arnold as Cupid

29.  Snow

30.  Eugene’s Bike

31.  Door #16

32.  Heat

33.  Benchwarmer

34.  Operation Ruthless

35.  World Records

36.  Cool Jerk

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the 19th episode of this season: "Part Time Friends/Biosquare."

 

 

'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."