Hey Arnold can be seen as one of the more underrated nicktoons. The show center around a boy named Arnold whose head was shaped like a football and the day to day adventures he had while living in New York with his grandparents. There really isn’t a whole lot to say about the show it’s just the story of a kid living in New York and his interactions with his friends and neighbors around him. Truth be told I never really found Arnold’s character a strong lead for the show. Don’t get me wrong I like him, he’s a nice guy who always does the right thing, cares about his friends and family, and will always speak his mind on something he thinks is wrong or right but as far as a main lead character goes he’s kind of bland. Not as bland as Doug as there is some character to him and he does have a little tragedy in his past. In one episode we find out that his parents were explorers who went out to find this rare plant to save the lives of people when Arnold was a baby but never returned from there exploration. The show never really comes out and says that Arnold’s parents are dead but they don’t make any hints that they’re alive either. In fact, the show only brings them up for that one episode and never touches on the subject again and Arnold really doesn’t seem all that fazed about possibly losing his parents. I’m sure he’s had time to coop with this and his grandparents are there to fill in the gap but still it would have been nice if they set a few episodes aside and just showed how he’s handling that aspect of his life.
So since Arnold wasn’t really that strong of a lead in my eyes, you’re probably wondering what made me like this show growing up? Well the answer to that question is simple, the secondary and side characters. These are the characters who made the show watchable for me and kept me coming back. I loved all of these secondary and side characters and the show kinda knew that these characters were the main driving force of the show so a lot of the episodes usually revolved around them with Arnold helping them out. Arnold’s grandpa was a wacky man who was wise and often gave Arnold advice when he needed it but he was also a kid at heart. His grandma was also wacky and cool in that she was always doing something crazy such as practicing karate on a watermelon, convincing Arnold to help her steal a sea turtle from the city aquarium because they treat it badly, and probably the coolest thing she did was go down into the subway tracks and help start a train that got stuck. Arnold and his grandparents also ran a boarding house where other unique characters live like a dysfunctional couple, a midget who’s a construction worker and likes to destroy buildings, A Vietnam man who’s a good country singer, and another resident named Mr. Smith who we never saw and was very secretive. Outside of the boarding house there were Arnold’s friends like Gerald the cool black kid, Eugene the jinxed kid, Stinky a southern kid with an accent trying to be more than just normal, Harold the local bully who was really a nice guy, and Helga another school bully who always picked on Arnold and secretly had a crush on him. Helga was hands down the best character of the show, I’m surprised the show wasn’t centered around her, the episodes that I liked the most were episodes that centered around her character and her feelings for Arnold. She had a lot more to offer as the show’s main lead than Arnold did. She comes from a family who really doesn’t pay that much attention to her (in fact there are times when the family forgets she exists) and an older sister who’s in every way possible perfect and thus casting a shadow over Helga. She has a very troubled life and the only person who ever showed her kindness and look at her as herself was Arnold. I remember her character being one of the most influential cartoon characters for females at the time too. There were times when I was a kid and there was a girl in my class who was constantly bullying me for no reason and I couldn’t figure out why they were doing it until middle school when they finally came out and said they had a crush on me. I think my overall favorite episode is Helga on the couch where Helga is forced to go to a child psychologist and she opens up about her family, confesses that she loves Arnold, and we see how she first met Arnold and came to fall in love with him. I heard that the creators of Hey Arnold proposed a spin-off series where Helga was the main character and it would focus on her, her family, and her psychology sections but Nickelodeon said the series was too dark for kids and refused to greenlight the show. Yeah that was one of Nickelodeon’s major faults in the mid-90s they played their shows safe. Unlike Cartoon Network at the time who did in fact take a few more risk with their shows and actually added in a few more adult themes. While the character Arnold may not have been a memorable character or a strong leading character it was the secondary and side characters who made this watchable, memorable, and good. And the soundtrack on the show was also good to listen to.