So much for "I DEFINITELY WILL POST EVERY WEEK!" but somehow, I figured this would happen. Just bear with me!
Like any good cartoon blogger (I think) when trying to decide what to write about first , I found myself needing to choose between a light piece or a heavier one. I figured I’d hit the ground running and start off with a both, focusing on a childhood favorite of many in my generation: “Hey Arnold!”. I recently began rewatching this gem of a cartoon, and was completely taken aback by some of the more adult themes that I never noticed as a child . I figured I’d analyze these, seeing as most people have (presumably) not spent their summer rewatching old cartoons, so here goes.
Also, disclaimer: There will be some spoilers, seeing as I cite specific episodes. I assume most people reading this, however, will already have seen the entire series.
I. Disappointment Happens
I saw your face and WOW! It doesn’t look convinced. Let me explain. In “Preteen Scream” Helga Pataki’s best friend and sidekick, Phoebe Heyerdahl applies to a radio contest, and wins an opportunity to meet the singing sensation Ronnie Matthews. She drags Helga along, but then realizes that the heartthrob who she idolized wrote neither the lyrics, nor the music, and he doesn’t even sing. Humorously, Helga is excited by this con, but Phoebe is understandably upset.
Cons? Now THAT'S something Helga can get into! Pop music? Not so much.
She confronts Matthews about it, and here’s the kicker: he doesn’t care! In “Eugene Goes Bad”, Eugene, the “jinx”, discovers that his hero, humorously dubbed “The Abdicator” is a fake who doesn’t even do his own stunts. IN that episode, however, the Abdicator turns over a new leaf, and endeavors to be the hero he acts like on the TV. In “Preteen Scream” this doesn’t happen. Phoebe’s hours of writing the perfect contest entry are wasted, her former hero is too stupid to care that he let her down, and at the end of the episode, Helga is her only solace, making jokes with her to cheer her up. The point of the episode is: “People aren’t always who they seem and that sucks but it happens. Disappointment happens. Just be glad to have friends help you out when it does inevitably happen.” This isn’t the only “Hey Arnold!” episode to end with disappointment. In “New Bully on the Block”, Arnold and his friends have to deal with a new bully, Ludwig, as he enters a power struggle with the old bully, Wolfgang over Gerald Field. Arnold, ever the optimist, tries to have the two resolve their conflict over a football game. This plan goes awry, Arnold and his friends used as football players instead of the bullies. Arnold notices that the bullies are acting quite amicable as the game progresses, and once it is concluded, he suggests that they share the field with each other, and the Fourth graders. In any average cartoon, we would expect this to have a happy ending: Wolfgang and Ludwig decide, in the glory of their newfound friendship, to be benevolent for the time being, and share the lot with everybody. The real ending is this: Arnold and his friends get beaten up and hung from a field goal while Ludwig and Wolfgang laugh about it. Granted, the image is humorous, but it conveys a very important message in a very atypical way. This theme is an important one for kids to learn, that normal cartoons neglect, whereas “Hey Arnold!” makes sure to deliver it in episodic doses.
II. Eugene is (Probably) Gay
Firstly, power to the creators of "Hey Arnold!" if Eugene is, in fact, gay. If he isn't, then I must sound a little stereotypical. Oh, I must be saying it because he can dance, or because he has a deep interest in musical theater, or because his best friend is a girl. These definitely planted an inkling in my mind that he may be gay, but what really made me wonder was the episode “Married”. In it, Rhonda Wellington Lloyd makes a fortune-teller-cootie-catcher-whatever-you-want-to-call-it device to predict her classmates’ future spouses. When Rhonda tells Eugene and his best friend Shina that the two of them are going to get married, Shina is thrilled! Eugene? Not so much. He is made visibly anxious at this prospect. At the end of the episode, when Rhonda admits that her fortune-teller was wrong due to a mistake, Eugene is extremely relieved. Sure, this could mean that he just likes Shina as a friend, or that as much as he likes Shina, she’d be irritating to be married to, but in conjunction with the aforementioned stereotypes, it is definitely worth pondering.
III. Death/Murder/Suicide is Discussed Frankly
Sure, plenty of shows do this but it isn’t the majority. In “Grandpa’s Birthday”, Arnold’s Grandpa is positively convinced that he’s going to die, and he rants about it all through the episode. The comedy is that the old man thinks he’s going to die; a very real concept, but addressed in almost a sarcastic manner. In “Ghost Bride”, Stinky, a member of Arnold’s group, points out that one day, they all were going to end up in the Hillwood Cemetary. They talk about this in front of a CEMETARY. Oh, and while we’re talking about that particular episode, we can segway into MURDER and SUICIDE. In that episode, we hear about how the Ghost Bride of urban legend murdered her ex-lover and her sister after being abandoned at the altar, then flung herself out of a window. Did I mention she used an axe? SHE USED AN AXE. THEN FLUNG HERSELF OUT OF A WINDOW. ALL OF THIS DISCUSSED IN FRONT OF A GRAVEYARD.
Did I mention it was an axe? Because it was. It was totally an axe.
On the subject of murder-suicide (who ever would have guessed that I’d get to use that transition), but mostly suicide, in “Dino Checks Out”, lounge singer Dino Spumoni “falls off a boat” according to the news. However, they follow up this news by reading a letter written by Spumoni, full of rather negative things to say about his life and his career. It is clearly a suicide note. They never once state it, but when Dino Spumoni fakes his death, he stages it as a suicide. As you can all assume at this point, I love “Hey Arnold!” for a lot of reasons, but one that really makes it stand out from other cartoons is the way it addresses death, whether it be tongue-in-cheek, frank, graphic, or subtle.
IV. Helga’s Mom is an Alcoholic
When we’re little, Miriam Pataki seems a little off and irresponsible, but never anything more than that. As an adult, you start to realize that it’s a little bit more than that. For starters, the frequency with which she makes “smoothies” and the ingredients she uses, namely celery stalks and hot sauce. As a kid, this really confused me, those things not sounding very tasty in a drink, but now I can recognize them as being Bloody Mary components. Also, her speech pattern is very inconsistent. She goes from speaking clearly at times (when she’s sober) to slurring and speaking in a monotone (when she’s drunk or hung over). Not to mention Miriam has a bizarre habit of falling asleep in unusual places, such as behind the couch and on tables. It is also worth noting that her license has been revoked (as noted in both “Beeper Queen” and “Road Trip”) and she has to do community service (like in “Helga’s Nanny”), but they never once tell the viewer why. The writers just leave it for the older audience to figure it out. As sad and serious as it is that Helga’s mother has a drinking problem, the writers never once address it directly, and, in a wonderful use of the “show don’t tell” adage, leave it there to augment Helga’s family problems, but never exploit or directly address it.
V. The Jolly Olly Man is Crazy…No, Really, he is.
We’ve all seen episodes where the Jolly Olly Man “goes crazy” and starts to give out free ice cream. I’m sure as kids, we all wanted the Jolly Olly Man to be our own ice cream man, thrilled by the idea of him occasionally suffering a mental break and handing out free ice cream by the handful. However I am stepping in to say, “NO childhood selves, you do NOT want that man to be your neighborhood ice cream man. In fact, if you EVER see a man like the Jolly Olly Man coming toward you, run away screaming and don’t ever look back. If you look back, you’ll trip, and then he’ll kill you, presumably with a hatchet, because we all know that ‘Hey Arnold!’ is not at all shy about discussing hatchet-wielding maniacs.”
If this image doesn't convince you, I don't know what will.
Now let me elaborate on my warning. Firstly, during the episode “Career Day” we get a close view of the Jolly Olly Man as Arnold follows him to work. He is clearly a bit on the sociopathic side, ignoring kids, and scaring them away with his angry mien. Arnold teaches him how to be nice to his customers and the episode leaves us with the impression that the Jolly Olly Man just has had a rough childhood, and has some difficulties relating to others (things that sociopaths often have to deal with, mind you). We later see in the episode “Heat”, he tries to profit off of the misery of Arnold’s friends by charging an exorbitant amount of money for ice cream. People could just chalk this up to the heat making everyone in that episode a little bonkers, but no. I say it is because of his sociopathic tendencies and this episode is what convinced me of that: “Grandpa’s Packard”. In this episode, Grandpa’s precious old Packard is stolen after winning an award at a car show, and Arnold and his Grandma, in a film-noire-for-kids-style detective story, go to get it back. They learn that an attractive older woman from the aforementioned car show took it. At the end of the episode, it is revealed that this older woman is really the Jolly Olly Man in drag. I’ll let that sink in. THE JOLLY OLLY MAN IN DRAG. “Why did he dress in drag?” You must be asking yourself, “He must have had a good reason!” Well when the Jolly Olly Man explains his reasoning, we get to see the face of madness. He explains how at the beginning of the day, his dog was laughing at him. His dog was laughing at him. LAUGHING AT HIM. If that doesn’t spell out paranoid schizophrenic, I don’t know what does. Furthermore, we see that Arnold’s Grandpa accidentally runs the Jolly Olly Man off of the road (though he looks much more demonic in the Jolly Olly Man’s thoughts). So, naturally, the Jolly Olly Man thought the only reasonable course of action was to dress up like a woman and commit grand theft auto. I’m going to leave off here, and let you bolt your windows and doors, as you listen for the twinkling of an ice cream truck in the distance.
In short, (though I realize this isn’t very short after all) “Hey Arnold!” is a fantastic cartoon that is mature beyond its years, and even though it probably scarred me for life with episodes like “The Haunted Train” and “The Headless Cabbie” (I’ll write another post for those), I tip my hat to it, and cannot express how excellent it handles adult themes, be it death, alcoholism, or a psychopathic ice cream man.
