MovieChat Forums > Hey Arnold! (1996) Discussion > What are your Favorite Episodes?

What are your Favorite Episodes?

posted 11 years ago by AlwaysSunnyIsAlwaysFunny
12 replies | jump to latest

Even though an "episode" of Hey Arnold! usually consists of two 11 minute segments, for this thread's sake, I'll just refer to the 11 minute segments as episodes. I'm doing a list of 10, even though it was pretty difficult narrowing it down to only 10. ;) Your list can be however long you want it to be.

1. Helga On The Couch (Season 4) That was probably the deepest and saddest episode they ever made. For me, anyway. Helga is my favorite character, and I loved seeing how her obsession with Arnold started.

2. Arnold Visits Arnie (Season 5) I am assuming this one is in most people's top 10. It was hilarious, yet it also had a bit of an eerie feeling to it. And it showed that if the real Helga was a nicer person, Arnold would actually "like her-like her." Or maybe he already does, and that was his subconscious showing it? O_o

3. Summer Love (Season 5) It was great seeing Helga being nice to Arnold without hitting him or saying something rude or sarcastic right after. Any episode that focuses on Helga's love for Arnold is a great episode.

4. Buses, Bikes, And Subways (Season 5) An episode with just Helga and Harold was a great idea. I loved how they were being chased by angry midget circus clowns.

5. Helga Blabs It All (Season 3) What was one of the two funniest moments in the entire series, in my opinion, was when Helga fell through the ceiling and into Arnold's room. The way she walked out in silence still makes me laugh out loud to this day.

6. The Sewer King (Season 1) In my opinion, this is the creepiest episode of the whole series.

7. Stuck In A Tree (Season 5) This was one of my favorites when I was a kid. When I bought the whole series on the Shout! Factory website last month, it was the episode I was most looking forward to watching. I still really like it. The 'future' dream was hilarious.

8. Haunted Train (Season 1) Along with Helga falling through the ceiling in "Helga Blabs It All," the moment when Brainy come out of nowhere, and then gets thrown into the lake by Helga, is also one of the funniest moments of the series, in my opinion.

9. Dinner For Four (Season 4) Helga was at her funniest in this episode.

10. Biosquare (Season 2) This was my favorite episode when I was a kid. It seemed like it used to come on TV all the time. I don't quite enjoy it as much now as when I was a kid, but I still really like it.

Dee! You gangly, uncoordinated bitch! I am not getting hogtied over your lack of grace! - Dennis

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] no54 11 years ago

Heat/Snow

[–] b_natrl88 11 years ago

1. Helga on The Couch
2. What's Opera Arnold?
3. Sid's Revenge
4. Eugene! Eugene!
5. School Play
6. Summer Love
7. Olga Gets Engaged
8. Curly Snaps
9. Helga's Masquerade
10. The Journal

[–] willkins-jason 11 years ago

1. Stuck in a Tree
2. Parents' Day
3. On the Lam
4. Bag of Money
5. Arnold Saves Sid
6. Fishing Trip
7. Operation Ruthless
8. Eugene's Birthday
9. Arnold's Room
10. Hooky
11. Eating Contest
12. False Alarm

It's in no particular order after #4.

"Long live your idols, may they never be your rivals"

[–] Gserrano66 10 years ago

In no particular order:

1. Stuck in a Tree
2. Rhonda Goes Broke
3. Student Teacher
4. False Alarm
5. Helga on the Couch
6. Curly Snaps
7. Arnold's Thanksgiving
8. Parents Day
9. Big Sis
10. Olga Comes Home

[–] lee-rundle-544-446716 10 years ago

My absolute favourite is Helga On The Couch, but I'm surprised that no one has chosen Arnold's Christmas, the episode where he reunites a father with his daughter and the fact that, unbeknownst to Arnold, it's down to Helga's selfless sacrifice. It's amazing that a cartoon character can have so much depth. It's very touching how vulnerable Helga is and how much Arnold means to her. Her love for him is the one thing keeping her going.

[–] jptf2 9 years ago

Going through this, it's really clear that Steve Viksten was the key to this show's success. He was huge for Rugrats during the classic 65 and he was huge here, when the show was at its best.

Anyway:

Quantity Time: I thought the way they ironically bonded at the end was clever. Loved the moment Big Bob said something along the lines of, "So you're not going to talk to me anymore? How am I supposed to know what's wrong? Don't you pull a Miriam on me, young lady."

Arnold's Valentine: Parts of this are silly, but it's an emotionally charged episode. Great acting performances. Revealing Ruth is actually a conceited airhead nicely subverted expectations.

Arnold's Christmas: This is really pushing it with the sentimental Christmas story content, but it still works.

School Play: Two parts really make this for me: Stinky's role as an actor in the Romeo and Juliet play, which I found him hilarious in. And Helga confessing to Lila that she liked Arnold, which was unexpected and ironic. Lila is the last person you would have expected to be the first for Helga to openly confess this to. I also enjoyed Mr. Simmons telling Curly, "Curly, no improvising. This is Shakespeare." They revisited Curly being an improvisational actor in "A Day in the Life of a Classroom."

Olga Comes Home: This and "Quantity Time" do a brilliant job of depicting Helga's home life (which is why I think "Helga On the Couch" was ultimately redundant...we already understood and didn't need her to say it out loud and spell it out for us). Excellent character development and another clever conclusion, with the implication that when Olga says she's not going to tell their parents, Helga finally sees a little bit of a rebellious side in her and feels closer to her.

Spelling Bee: Really funny and memorable. "Qualm." Of course, doing stuff with the concept of spelling bees has become pretty common, but well done nonetheless.

Tutoring Torvald: Really nice ambiance to this one. It has this quiet, independent feel to it in some scenes in terms of the sound effects and things of that nature. Funny, and it stops short of being too mean, showing an underlying sadness to it and redeeming Torvald.

Magic Show: The anti-It's A Wonderful Life theme, along with the hilarious "Gloria" thing.

6th Grade Girls: Smart and witty.

Gerald Comes Over: This is perfectly executed character development and really blows open the doors for all kinds of stories now that we understand Arnold's living situation and the personalities of all the boarders.

Stuck In a Tree: One of the few season 5 episodes I find entertaining.

Synchronized Swimming: Funny.

Stinky's Pumpkin: Hilarious.

Helga's Love Potion: I thought the "placebo" idea was interesting. An interesting statement about it being better to experience both the highs and lows than apathy.

[–] Purplecover101 9 years ago

1) Summer Love: Felt bad for poor Helga trying to protect Arnold from that 2-faced girl. But glad she never gave up and that they finally made up towards the end, then Helga kisses him lol.

2) Romeo and Juliet: Loved how Helga kissed Arnold for a long period of time.

3) Baby Oskar: ok.. I don't like Oskar's selfish personality, but I personally think it's funny when he constantly nagged Susie to make him a sandwich. I also think it's adorable when Oscar finally bonded with Baby Oskar.

4) Helga Sleepwalks: super funny and entertaining, though a little bit odd and creepy. Nobody really sleepwalks like a zombie after consuming pork ring chips.

5) Helga's parrot: Lmfao at Arnold getting undressed and Helga sighing while watching behind the couch, Then fainting when he takes his pants off and possibility sees either his butt or private parts.

[–] AlwaysSunnyIsAlwaysFunny 9 years ago

I see you prefer the Helga-centric episodes too.

Dee! You gangly, uncoordinated bitch! I am not getting hogtied over your lack of grace! - Dennis

[–] SelenaQP 8 years ago

Haha..I love the Helga ones too probably because I can relate to her in some ways than the rest on the show, but the episodes featured both Arnold and Helga are the the best!

These are my top 10 favorite Helga episodes, along with the honorable mentions.

1. Helga's Parrot: her antics were very Lucy Ricardo-ish, and I got a real kick out of her when she was watching Arnold undressing in his room. She didn't want to at first, but she couldn't really help herself. That sounds like me right there. And that parrot was HILARIOUS! Too bad he never lasted that long.

2. What's Opera, Arnold? : Her comedic timing in this one was just impeccable! "Ruth is a loser, how you could choose her? How could you do that, football head?" 

3. Helga's Couch: This episode was very insightful and pretty relatable, indeed. She had the same type of fears that I had when it came to liking a guy. It shows why Helga grew up to be such a mean-spirited person and why she was so crazy about Arnold. It was obvious that she fell in love with his caring nature. He was the only one giving out compliments to her and looking out for her. What a guy! I wish it could be that easy to find a good looking, sweet, and kind soul like Arnold. Lucky for Helga, she never really had to search that far.

4. School Play: The episode kinda made me feel a little bit jealous. I wish I had an opportunity to steal a kiss from my crush back in the 4th grade.

5. Summer Love: One of the few episodes where Helga really shows how much she deeply cared for Arnold, and not because she was just in love with him. This is the second time we see Helga finding an opportunity to give Arnold a long, drawn out kiss and giving him that side eyed look.

6. Helga Blabs It All: another episode with Helga and her Lucy Ricardo-ish antics. I found it so funny that when she dropped into Arnold's room, all the boys including Arnold just kept staring at her without saying one word. Then, started talking to each other after she left like it never happened.

7. Arnold's Valentine: This is probably the episode where Helga acting her nicest to Arnold, even though she is in disguise. You couldn't help but feel sorry for her when she couldn't reveal to Arnold her true identity in disguise.

8. Olga Comes Home: I'll admit that it was wrong for Helga to change Olga's grade out of her own expense, but I sympathized with her because it was a desperate attempt for attention that she hardly ever receives from her parents. How sad.

9. Married: It was nice to see how both Arnold and Helga envision what married life would be like between the two of them. Their perspectives on marriage really makes you realize how minds really work differently between the guys and the girls, if you know what I mean.

10. Beaned - This one is my absolute favorite because this shows how Arnold is DEFINITELY husband material, and makes you want to fall in love with him for sure! He was a TOTAL gentleman on here of all the episodes I've seen so far. I found it incredibly sweet how Arnold took Helga home and tuck her and put a stuffed doll next to her. He even waited until her mother comes home from work. What 9 year old would be willing to do that???? Even though Helga got over her amnesia, Arnold still insisted to take her home just to make sure she was alright.

Honorable Mention:

Helga's Makeover - To be perfectly honest, Helga overdid herself with the makeover thing that she made herself looked like some kind of hooker. 

Helga's Love Potion - When she started losing feelings over Arnold, she said how she started to feel empty and uninspired. This sounds like me. I can definitely relate to that. Being crazy over Arnold obviously gives her some kind of meaning in her life. The motive to go forward. Whenever I like a guy, I feel like I have something forward to look to. When I don't, I start to feel empty and miss the feeling of the excitement and the anticipation. This episode also reveals that Arnold is the main inspiration of her poetic writing. Without him, writing poems is simply pointless and full of "crap" to her. 

Helga's Boyfriend - she was manipulative and a major bitch in this one, but it just shows how Helga will go thru great lengths just to get Arnold's attention.

Helga vs. Patty - this was an epic showdown between the toughest girls of P.S. 118.

Olga Gets Engaged - As much as Helga despises Olga, she really came through for her big sister when she sees that guy was no good for her.

Monkey Business - my favorite moment was when Helga was about to reveal her feelings to Arnold, but got interrupted by Phoebe.

Helga's Show: I love her jokes on Stinky.

Helga's Sleepwalk: "Taking a walk on my fire escape?" "That's right. It's a free country. We can walk wherever we want to." 

Biosquare: It was fun to see Arnold and Helga spending the night together, but in separate sleeping bags, of course. 

Weird Cousin: of course, Helga grabs the opportunity to pretend that she's Arnold's girlfriend, so Arnold could make Lila jealous after seeing Lila spending too much time with his cousin.
My favorite scene is when Arnold and Helga was sharing gum by putting it in each other's mouth.

These are my favorite Non-Helga centric episodes in no particular order:

I agree that Season 1 and 2 had the most iconic episodes, but the other seasons were good. The only episode I really can't stand is the Fishing Trip from Season 5. All those farting noises were so annoying, and perhaps the most immature in its writing and wit. 

1) Downtown As Fruits
2) The Little Pink Book
3) Arnold's Hat/The Stoop Kid
4) The Old Building
5) Heat/Snow
6) Operation Ruthless/The Vacant Lot
7) Cool Party
8) Mugged/Roughin' It
9) Door #16/Arnold as Cupid
10) Arnold's Christmas
11) Cool Jerk
12) Das Subway
13) Gerald Comes Over
14) Pigeon Man
15) Sally's Comet
16) Magic Show/24 Hours To Live - I love the part where Arnold was dancing like James Brown and holding on to Helga's collar. That looks like something my crush would do back in 4th grade.
17) Save The Tree/New teacher
18) Gerald's Secret
19) The Biggest Scoop/Harold's Kitty
20) Longest Monday
21) Big Caesar
22) Phoebe Cheats
23) Best Friends
24) Steely Phil
25) Rhonda's Glasses
26. Crush on Teacher
27) Hall Monitor
28) Harold The Butcher
29) Gerald's Tonsils
30) Stinky Goes Hollywood
31) Preteen Scream
32) Sid's revenge
33) Arnold's Thanksgiving
34) Crabby Author
35) Girl Trouble
36) Jamie O. In Love
37) The Beeper Queen/Oskar Can't Read
38) Phoebe Skips
39) Weird Cousin
40) Bag of Money/Principal Simmons
41) Ernie In Love
42) Arnold Visits Arnie
43) Curly's Girl
44) Eugene, Eugene
45) The Journal

"Arnold, my love, why must I worship you...and NEVER EVER tell?" 

[–] Vodkie 8 years ago

my top 5

1. helga on the couch

2. summer love

3. stuck in a tree

4. Arnold's Valentine

5. married

Love, em & leave Em & take half of everything. That's my motto - Granny from ice Age

[–] tylerthomas-51938 8 years ago

Ghost Bride is my absolute favorite. I love it when Gerald tells the story, and that ending with Curly locked up, and than it just ends. Plus, it's a pretty scary episode when you think about it. I'm surprised a Cartoon show would tell a story about a woman killing her ex husband and sister.