Hey Arnold!
So I haven't been feeling great for almost a month now, and the past two weeks really have been kind of lame. I don't have cable, so I pretty have been wasting my life away via NetFlix. I started out with Law and Order: SVU, where I then moved on to Weeds, and I've since been looking for a new show to bide my time. Those two shows started giving me trippy dreams, so I thought I should start shows from another angle. Hey Arnold! came up on the "we think you'll like" list and I have been watching this all morning.
Now, in order for you to perhaps match my thinking, I'd like to paint you a picture:
Imagine a quaint little suburb, about as far West from Chicago that you could go and still consider it a Chicago suburb. It takes roughly 15 to 20 min to get to a Jewel or other any other store establishment that is not a pizza/fast food joint. There are corn fields between nice, friendly little streets and the Jewel. Everyone at school knows each other, even though there are a good amount students (not 250 like small towns). All the students are from subdivisions or neighborhoods with ranches and two story homes. This is where I am from. I don't know if you've ever seen Hey Arnold!, but the kids are all from flats, apartments, live in boarding homes. It's a very different city setting than my quaint little suburbia.
The kids from this lovely, intriguing cartoon always have lively adventures, interesting tales, and even more, awesome random people like Pigeon Man, the Sewer King, or Stoop Kid. Where I come from is pretty tame, aside from the teenage drug trade and boozing, but we never had anyone like that. We never had stories about ghost trains that ride from the steel mills or took out hoses after a 14 inch snow to freeze the streets. Is this just me?
I wonder if the people who write shows think like Gordon Korman; they find the most random thing the could think of and just add a twist? Or are they just like me looking for something more interesting? Are there really people who live underground keeping company only of rats?? How much of lunatic would you have to be to decide to move down to a sewer just so you could name yourself king... The whole thing is just baffling.
Moving on to a bigger point, shouldn't people be concerned about the shape of Arnold's head? I mean, how does he get his head through shirt holes? Is his brain a different shape? What if he hits his head really hard; does he have a good amount of fluids surrounding the brain still? Maybe, that head shape is what keeps him so intelligent. He does conquer activities and skills ridiculously quickly and always seems to come out on top.
Another baffling character is Helga G. Pataki, a girl who at the age of 9 is a bullying, ugly, mean snot where on the inside she is a true Shakespearean lovebird. She constantly is torn between the two. How could someone be so incredibly two-faced without having Schizophrenia? She seems pretty crazy though. In a couple episodes she leaves her crazy-diary of love laying around, she has a bust of Arnold's old chewed gum in the shape of his head, stalks him when he's with another girl he likes, Ruth McDougal. I don't think I knew anyone like that in elementary school... Luckily.
I do have to say, Gerald and Arnold's Grandma are probably 2 of my favorite characters. Gerald is completely living in the wrong era. He is truly one "cool dude", without the fun, sexual connotation as found in Friends. His ridiculously awesome haircut that I'm pretty sure originated in 1992 via Will Smith, his 1960's dialect and even more, his "keeper of" voice when he passes down the kids' tales from generation to generation. Gerald is prob one of the coolest people ever. And then, there's Grandma, ohhhh Pookie, how I love her. I hope when I am old, I have theme dinners, call my grandkids Kimba, and swat bugs dressed in safari gear. An ex-cop, an activist, and just a general nut-job, I hope I am that cool.
Oh how a cartoon could make one think so much....
Now, in order for you to perhaps match my thinking, I'd like to paint you a picture:
Imagine a quaint little suburb, about as far West from Chicago that you could go and still consider it a Chicago suburb. It takes roughly 15 to 20 min to get to a Jewel or other any other store establishment that is not a pizza/fast food joint. There are corn fields between nice, friendly little streets and the Jewel. Everyone at school knows each other, even though there are a good amount students (not 250 like small towns). All the students are from subdivisions or neighborhoods with ranches and two story homes. This is where I am from. I don't know if you've ever seen Hey Arnold!, but the kids are all from flats, apartments, live in boarding homes. It's a very different city setting than my quaint little suburbia.
The kids from this lovely, intriguing cartoon always have lively adventures, interesting tales, and even more, awesome random people like Pigeon Man, the Sewer King, or Stoop Kid. Where I come from is pretty tame, aside from the teenage drug trade and boozing, but we never had anyone like that. We never had stories about ghost trains that ride from the steel mills or took out hoses after a 14 inch snow to freeze the streets. Is this just me?
I wonder if the people who write shows think like Gordon Korman; they find the most random thing the could think of and just add a twist? Or are they just like me looking for something more interesting? Are there really people who live underground keeping company only of rats?? How much of lunatic would you have to be to decide to move down to a sewer just so you could name yourself king... The whole thing is just baffling.
Moving on to a bigger point, shouldn't people be concerned about the shape of Arnold's head? I mean, how does he get his head through shirt holes? Is his brain a different shape? What if he hits his head really hard; does he have a good amount of fluids surrounding the brain still? Maybe, that head shape is what keeps him so intelligent. He does conquer activities and skills ridiculously quickly and always seems to come out on top.
Another baffling character is Helga G. Pataki, a girl who at the age of 9 is a bullying, ugly, mean snot where on the inside she is a true Shakespearean lovebird. She constantly is torn between the two. How could someone be so incredibly two-faced without having Schizophrenia? She seems pretty crazy though. In a couple episodes she leaves her crazy-diary of love laying around, she has a bust of Arnold's old chewed gum in the shape of his head, stalks him when he's with another girl he likes, Ruth McDougal. I don't think I knew anyone like that in elementary school... Luckily.
I do have to say, Gerald and Arnold's Grandma are probably 2 of my favorite characters. Gerald is completely living in the wrong era. He is truly one "cool dude", without the fun, sexual connotation as found in Friends. His ridiculously awesome haircut that I'm pretty sure originated in 1992 via Will Smith, his 1960's dialect and even more, his "keeper of" voice when he passes down the kids' tales from generation to generation. Gerald is prob one of the coolest people ever. And then, there's Grandma, ohhhh Pookie, how I love her. I hope when I am old, I have theme dinners, call my grandkids Kimba, and swat bugs dressed in safari gear. An ex-cop, an activist, and just a general nut-job, I hope I am that cool.
Oh how a cartoon could make one think so much....