Hey Arnold!

In one episode, Principal Wartz overhears Arnold & Gerald talking about playing hooky.

When he confronts them, Gerald & Arnold insist they said they were going to play hockey.

Wartz seems to buy it but what if he didn't? What if he set up Surprise School Carnival Day to make Arnold & Gerald feel bad about ditching school?

It's highly unlikely but I find it hilarious Principal Wartz would go to all that trouble just to stick it to Arnold & Gerald.

Craig Bartlett has taken to instagram to tell the story of how Arnold is coping with the coronavirus pandemic. Little things we're learning is that Helga occasionally breaks the quarantine regulations to still stalk him, and dedicates songs to him on the radio but making sure everyone thinks she still hates him, which annoys Arnold. Arnold's also having daydreams again where he's flying.

> Little things we're learning is that Helga occasionally breaks the quarantine regulations to still stalk him

He needs to file a restraining order already!

Here's an update with Helga writing to Arnold

The relationship hasn't mellowed her any.

All the more absurd considering that my calculations indicate that they should be about 30 during the pandemic.

I wonder if somewhere deep down Bartlett still wants to make The Pataki's.

Was he even consulted on Arnold's use in that Paramount superbowl commercial?

I do wonder if they would eventually get around to making the Patakis down the line. It would be an interesting spin off to the series.

Doubt it given how the 2017 Jungle Movie apparently didn't do well in ratings.

I wonder if there were any plans to make a third movie for Hey Arnold.

They were going to make a whole new season if the Jungle Movie had been a ratings hit

Oh yeah. I heard in that season that it was going to focus more on Arnold and Helga's relationship with each other and that Oskar and Susie were going to divorce each other.

The Jungle Movie honestly just felt like something totally different from the cartoon itself. Instead of a Slice of Life story that takes relatable situations and exaggerates them, or otherwise fits into the realm of the slightly exaggerated believable, it instead was a silly adventure movie.

I found it fun, but it definitely did not feel like the cartoon at all.

I can only imagine how confused people whose introduction to Hey Arnold was through the Jungle Movie would be if it was followed up with a Slice of Life cartoon that's nothing like the movie!

That is true. The Jungle Movie had more of an adventure feel to it than the cartoon it was based off of. I can imagine that anyone who was introduced to Hey Arnold! through the Jungle Movie were confused about why the series was nothing like the Jungle Movie when they first watched the series.

I think that might be a reason why the first Hey Arnold movie bombed as well...it was more of an action/adventure flick and not slice of life. It also didn't help it was devised as a TV Movie first and rushed out to cinemas because for some reason Nick didn't want to do the Jungle Movie first.

I know that Nickelodeon had this thing back then that they didn't want shows to have finales or something like that because they wanted viewers to think that the shows were still running, despite the fact that the shows got cancelled. I'm thinking that's why they didn't want to do the Jungle Movie at first.

Honestly, I can see the logic in that. Neverending continuous stories has its own appeal, that a show with a clear finale kind of doesn't.

Now, there's a current trend in US cartoons to tell a continuing story with episodes that continue from the previous. It makes it very clear that there's an end, and also you can't just watch episodes at random. Skipping around to random episodes is like reading random chapters from a book - you're clearly getting pieces of a story without context.

I remembered when cartoons in the US used to have standalone episodes and you weren't required to watch every single episode of the show. However, as you mentioned, many shows nowadays are wrapped up in a single-story line that you have to watch every episode to understand what is actually happening.

That's what happened when I tried to watch the 2012 Ninja Turtles series on the "Best Episodes" DV Ds (which is the worst thing that I could have done) because the way those DV Ds are set up is that they pick random episodes to put on a DVD. But, because the 2012 Ninja Turtles series had overarching story plots, the DV Ds tend to skip over certain episodes that would have completed the arc and I wouldn't be able to see the actual conclusion to that arc unless I see the show in its entirety.

Wow, what a terrible idea. Packaging episodes together based on how good they are when there's a storyline they're part of - that's like taking the best chapters of a very long book and showing them out of context. Are they well-written chapters? Yeah, but without a context, it's a lot harder to appreciate them!

Exactly. I can understand if they did that for shows that don't have overarching story lines, but for the shows that do have overarching story lines, it can be very frustrating to look at, especially since having the episodes be out of order destroys the excitement of the plot.

I think episodic shows works best for Slice of Life stories and comedies. Like, well, Hey Arnold.

Story-driven is fantastic for action and adventure, and makes them far more exciting. It creates stakes in a much bigger way than standalone episodes possibly could, imo.

I agree. I always loved watching action shows because of the story lines they have to tell and how they tend to start up the tension for the plot. Not to say that there hasn't been any slice of shows that also have tension. I mean, Hey Arnold! had a lot of serious moments, like revealing Helga's troubled home life and of course, Arnold trying to find his parents.

That's true, and the brilliant thing is that due to the nature of the show, those things can be shown without having to be in any order. They don't actually change the story, but instead reveal more of the story.