The fourteenth episode of the fourth season of Hey Arnold!.
Helga Sleepwalks
When Helga starts snacking on Pork rinds, it causes her to sleepwalk to Arnold's house.
Fighting Families
Arnold and the other residents of the Boarding House get picked to go on a Double Dare (1986)-style game show.
"Helga Sleepwalks" provides examples of:
- Bait-and-Switch Silhouette: Helga sees what looks like Arnold's head staring out his bedroom window. however, this turns out to be a potted plant shaped like his head.
- Bland-Name Product: The sandwich shop that Helga stops at is named Sub King, the name being a combination of Subway and Burger King.
- Circling Birdies: Stars spin around Brainy's head after Helga smashes a discarded guitar she found over it.
- Furniture Blockade: To keep herself from sleepwalking to Arnold's house, Helga places the furniture from her bedroom over her door. This doesn't work, as she ends up pushing the furniture out of the way in her sleepwalking state.
- Gilligan Cut: When Helga finds out from Miriam that there's no food left in their house except for Bob's pork rinds, she says that there's no way she's eating them. Cut to Helga eating Bob's pork rinds and enjoying them.
- Imagine Spot: Upon spotting a discarded guitar, Helga has one where she plays it to Arnold as part of her way of confessing her love to him.
- It Kind of Looks Like a Face:
- When Helga starts eating Bob's pork rinds (since there's no other food available due to Miriam having left her groceries on top of the car again), she finds a pork rind shaped like Arnold's head.
- When Helga sleepwalks to Arnold's house and wakes up in the kitchen, Gertie serves her a breakfast of bacon and eggs which look Arnold's head.
- Missed Him by That Much: When Phoebe finds out that Helga has sleepwalked, she decides to find Helga and stop her. Helga goes inside a sandwich shop just as Phoebe stands outside it and decides she needs to take a shortcut to Arnold's house to stop her in time.
- Scatterbrained Senior: Gertie, as usual. When Helga sleepwalks to Arnold's house and wakes up in the kitchen, Gertie makes her breakfast, having mistaken her for Eleanor Roosevelt.
- Sleepwalking: In this episode, Helga begins to sleepwalk as a result of eating Bob's pork rinds.
"Fighting Families" provides examples of:
- Accidental Misnaming: The host of Fighting Families keeps getting Mr. Hyunh's name wrong. He calls him "Mr. Hee-yun" and "Mr. Who".
- Alliterative Title: Fighting Families.
- Chekhov's Gag: Gertie keeps singing "Camptown Ladies", which annoys Phil. That turns out to be the correct answer to the question the host asks, "Name one great song written by Stephen Foster", which leads to Arnold's family catching up to Cindy's and the tiebreaker event.
- Comically Missing the Point: When Ernie, Mr. Hyunh, and Phil threaten to give each other knuckle sandwiches during the human pyramid challenge, Gertie says "That's odd, I don't remember packing any sandwiches.
- Family of Choice: When Arnold is chosen to compete with his family on Fighting Families, Gerald points out that he has a non-traditional family. Arnold has his grandparents substitute for the traditional parents and Ernie and Mr. Hyunh substitute for the traditional siblings.
- Gilligan Cut: When Arnold gets picked to appear on Fighting Families, he tells Gerald that there's no way anyone in the boarding house would want to join him on the game show. Cut to everyone in the boarding house wanting to be on the game show.
- Family Theme Naming: The family that Arnold and his family compete against consist of Cindy, Carl, Cheryl, Candy, and Chuckie.
- Human Ladder: One of the challenges on Fighting Families is to form a human pyramid within fifteen seconds. Cindy and her family win this challenge due to Arnold's family fighting with each other.
- The Napoleon: Ernie. As this episode reveals, he is short enough to fit in a briefcase, and he's also short-tempered, proven when he tells Mr. Hyunh that Pluto is the coldest planet, not Bluto.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: During Arnold's rather sobering speech about how they've been fighting each other, Grandma Gertie looks rather saddened at their prospects, despite that she currently thinks they're on a beauty pageant. This is meant to imply that despite coming off as senile, she's aware of the situation enough to recognize their fighting is costing them a victory on the show.
- One-Steve Limit: Stinky reveals that Arnold is the only student at P.S. 118 with that name, so the "Fighting Families" rep doesn't need to announce his last name.
- Rooting for the Empire: An In-Universe example; as retribution for not being chosen on Fighting Families, Oskar roots for Cindy's family out of spite.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: Harold and Stinky hold up a sign that says "Go Arnuld" as they cheer Arnold on.
- Rousing Speech: Arnold gives his family this speech during the commercial break when they are behind Cindy's family by fifteen points due to arguing with each other.Arnold: Look, I told you we were gonna have to get along, but instead you're acting like a bunch of babies. If we stop fighting and work together like a family, I bet we can still win. Come on, you don't want to lose to them, do we? (points at Cindy's family)
Mr. Hyunh: Yes, they're very creepy!
Arnold: What do you say? Truce?
(Phil, Gertie, Ernie, and Mr. Hyunh all hold out their hands) - Scatterbrained Senior: Gertie, as usual. She mistakes Fighting Families for a Beauty Contest and keeps singing "Camptown Ladies".
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When Arnold chooses Ernie and Mr. Hyunh to be on Fighting Families, he tells Oskar that he can be an alternative. Oskar leaves, saying he doesn't want to be an alternative.
- Show Within a Show: Fighting Families, which parodies both Family Feud and Nickelodeon's own Double Dare (1986).
- Tiebreaker Round: After successfully managing to catch up to Cindy's family, Arnold's family is tied with them with 30 points. To win the final round, they have to win a tug-of-war against Cindy's family. They succeed because by this point, they've learned to work together as a team, while Cindy's family start fighting with each other.
- The Unreveal: When Arnold is chosen to appear on Fighting Families, his last name is not revealed due to there being a smudge on it. Stinky tells Arnold that it must be him since he's the only student in P.S. 118 named Arnold.note
