Let's Talk Cartoons!

I know it has been QUITE a while since I updated, but here I am again, with a brand new Thanksgiving recap! Yes, this time Hey Arnold himself is getting the turkey treatment. 

(Also, it’s surprising how few Nickelodeon cartoons have Thanksgiving episodes - Rugrats, Hey Arnold, and As Told by Ginger are the only ones I think). 

Anyway, the city is preparing for Thanksgiving as Arnold rides his bike past a recreation of the Mayflower ship that is about to set sail. Although this seems like sort of a cool idea, it also seems like a bad idea. Did they retro-fit an existing ship, or did they somehow build a Mayflower ship from scratch? 

Arnold can’t stick around though, because he’s late for his class’ Thanksgiving Pageant Play. 

Elementary school Thanksgiving plays seem to be a huge deal in cartoons and TV shows, but I don’t remember ever having to do anything like that. The closest thing we did was color in some cornucopias and read books about turkeys that ran away from farms or whatever. 

Mr. Simmons seems to have penned this particular play himself, and this dude seriously needs to chill. Like he’s having fourth graders perform it, what was he expecting, Fiddler on the Roof? Not to mention the dialogue is so maudlin and sweet it just makes you want to barf. Mr. Simmons should definitely keep to teaching and stay away from play authorship. (Although when the kids are freaking out during scene changes he keeps shouting “STAY FROSTY!” and I found that hilarious). 

The play is a collection of scenes about the history of Thanksgiving (go figure) that start at the first Thanksgiving and goes all the way up to a 1950′s Thanksgiving, where Helga and Arnold are given the parts of Son and Daughter. I was surprised to see that Helga actually seemed to be pretty on board with the role of a traditional 1950′s woman, something I would think she would rebel against, but my theory is that she feels she has never had a real Thanksgiving, and so gets to pretend at having one here. 

The play ends, Mr. Simmons sheds a tear (Dude. Come on. Get a grip.) And the kids are released for their Thanksgiving holiday. 

Everyone’s excited to celebrate Thanksgiving except for Arnold and Helga. Arnold because his grandma always thinks it’s the 4th of July and they have to celebrate accordingly, and Helga because her mom is always a drunken mess and burns the stuffing, Big Bob sits in front of the TV and ignores her, and she is constantly compared to her “perfect” older sister Olga. 

I do see where Arnold is coming from about not wanting to celebrate the 4th of July on the roof in the middle of November, but I feel like Helga gets the more raw deal here, because at least Arnold is still surrounded by his loving (if very weird) family. 

Thanksgiving Day arrives at the Boarding House and Grandpa Phil starts delegating out roles such as grilling the hot dogs, putting up red white and blue flags, etc. Arnold suggests that maybe this year they should have a real Thanksgiving and everyone is like LOL Arnold you fool, obviously your grandma is confused and we must go along with her every year. 

You know, even though Arnold is annoyed by it, I think it’s kind of sweet that the Boarding House just generally goes along with Pookie, as she clearly has some kind of dementia. They could try to force her to celebrate Thanksgiving like “normal”, but that would make her unhappy, so they just go along with her 4th of July thing. Arnold ain’t having it this year though, so he GTFO’s in hopes of finding a real Thanksgiving somewhere. 

Over at Helga’s house, Miriam is super hung over - I mean, uh, “tired” - and overcooked the stuffing again.  Hegla enthusiastically tells her dad happy Thanksgiving and shows him the centerpiece she made, but he’s more interested in his football. Aw. That hurt my heart a little bit. 

It looks like Miriam is about to burn down the entire house. Luckily super-woman Olga is there to take over the cooking and make a beautiful feast - except she ropes in the whole family to help her. You know, I don’t understand why everyone is so against helping Olga make dinner? Like they wanna eat, right? Do they just expect her to do everything by herself? I swear I could write a whole essay just on the family dynamic of the Patakis. 

Helga goes along with it for a bit, but when it comes time to say what she’s thankful for at the dinner table, she’s had enough and says she’s thankful for nothing in her stupid family. Big Bob tries to send her to her room, but she hits the mean city streets in hopes of finding something better instead. 

Helga and Arnold run into each other, and since they both are having shitty Thanksgivings, decide to hang out together. Arnold says they should try to be optimistic, but Helga isn’t having that either. They decide they should go see what Mr. Simmons’ Thanksgiving is like, because the Thanksgiving he wrote about for the play was so perfect. 

I get where they’re going with this and all, but if I was a teacher and two of my students showed up at my door, I’d be a little weirded out. 

Mr. Simmons isn’t weirded out though - he’s happy to see Arnold and Helga and doesn’t question why the hell they’re there or if he should call their damn parents. He brings them into his dining room to introduce them to everybody, and it turns out he named the characters in the play after his own family. Except, instead of being perfect 1950′s-esque people, Mr. Simmons’ family is the absolute worse. They’re depressing, rude, and selfish. 

Also this is where we meet Mr. Simmons’ “friend”, who based on cues and the fact Mr. Simmons is coded as gay, this is probably Mr. Simmons’ boyfriend. Which would explain why Mother Simmons is so hostile to him.  

The abject awfulness of the Simmons family makes Arnold and Helga a little uncomfortable and they adjourn to the kitchen to discuss it. Mr. Simmons overhears, and lets them know that even though his family is difficult, he loves them, and that’s why he makes an effort to bring them together every year, because he’s thankful they’re in his life. 

This flips a switch in the kids’ brains and they decide if Mr. Simmons can deal with those whackos, they can deal with their own families, and they head back home. 

When Helga gets home, she finds her family in a rampant craze, calling the police and making flyers in order to find her. This touches her enough that she is able to forgive them, and shares a group hug with her family. Aw. 

Arnold returns to Grandpa Phil apparantly freezing on the roof, and everything deserted. When he asks what’s going on, Phil said everything descended into chaos after Arnold left, and when they heard he was looking for a “real” Thanksgiving, they all decided to throw him a surprise party, with all the traditional Thanksgiving food (plus fireworks). Awww. 

And that is Arnold’s Thanksgiving. 

THOUGHTS: This is a great Thanksgiving special. Whereas a lot of specials focus on teaching kids the lesson of being thankful for what you have, Arnold’s Thanksgiving shows that nobody really has a “perfect” Thanksgiving, and everyone’s family is just as weird as yours. (Of course they’re kids - they haven’t discovered yet that the real joy of Thanksgiving is getting wine-drunk and falling asleep on the couch). I did feel that Arnold’s disappointment with their weird November 4th of July tradition wasn’t as meaningful as Helga’s story with her (frankly, rather abusive) family. I liked seeing the kids come to their own conclusions after meeting Simmons’ family, and the ending is very sweet. 

Marvin the Tap Dancing Horse was a show on PBSKids in the early 2000′s. It wasn’t my favorite, but I watched it because hey, I needed to watch something while I waited for Arthur to come on. Like many shows from that era, my memories of the animation are a lot better than the animation actually is. The animation kind of sucks. What’s up with that kid’s eyes? Is he possessed by a demon? 

As you probably can guess from the title, the main character of the show is a horse named Marvin who tap dances for a circus, although my memories of the show say his tap dancing didn’t actually come into play that much. Considering how circuses are viewed now, this little inoffensive show would probably never hit the airwaves now. 

I remembering looooooving this show as a very young kid. And that just goes to show that very young kids have shit tastes in shows, because, honestly, I’m not even sure you can call this a cartoon. 

The premise of the show is that Orbie, an alien, crash landed in a little girl’s backyard (the eponymous Katie), and then just continued to live with her and learn about the earth and whatever. 

However, someone behind the scenes on this show was a money saving genius, because they don’t actually MOVE. It’s essentially just a moving book slideshow -- sort of the types of things they used to put on Reading Rainbow. 

Also, the theme song goes on for two minutes. TWO MINUTES. And not only that, but most of it is just “It’s Katie! And Orbie! And Katie! And Orbie!” over and over and over and over AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. 

I know a lot of people disparage Caillou as being annoying, but damn at least the characters in the animated cartoon ACTUALLY MOVE and the theme song doesn’t go on for a million years. 

Ah yes, the episode that taught me what a peaceful protest is. 

It’s (surprise!) Recess at Third Street, and the kids are having a grand old time on their jungle gym Old Rusty, even though it’s getting a little old, and... well, rusty. 

Their play is quickly interrupted when some workmen come and tape everything off. Principal Prickly explains that it’s going to be torn down to make a new one. Why they thought it was a good idea to start doing this DURING RECESS instead of on the weekend is beyond me. 

The kids are sort of excited about new play equipment, but TJ is horrified at the fact they’re going to tear down Old Rusty because it’s an institution, and he and his friends reminisce about the good times they had on it, like when some kid got grievously injured and had to have a metal plate put in his head. TJ also mentions having a big brother who went there, who I swear is never mentioned again. So far for non-existant siblings (or I suppose they could be “away at college”) we have Spinelli’s older brother, and TJ’s older sister AND older brother. 

TJ points out they all met at Old Rusty when they were in kindergarten for the first time. Notice Gus isn’t in this episode, meaning it takes place before he moves schools. 

The kids head on back to class but TJ decides to play hooky on Old Rusty for a bit longer so he can have more nostalgia or something. The workmen come up to start tearing it down, but obviously can’t with TJ sitting up there, and he refuses to move. I love how they try to bluff like they’ll knock it down with him on it, as if that wouldn’t be a massive lawsuit. 

Finster comes out to try to make him come down, but he refuses. The entire school is for some reason allowed to trickle back out onto the playground to watch the spectacle, and in true Recess fashion, TJ’s friends join him on Old Rusty, followed by the rest of the school.  Next out is Principal Prickly, and he tries to reason with the kids by telling them they’ll be getting a brand new jungle gym. This is where I would be on board, until he mentioned the new one will have a plastic captain’s wheel, making me think it’s gonna be one of these lame-ass bad boys: 

Tj and the school kids still stand their ground, and Prickly storms off to have a panicked meeting with the teachers to see what to do about it, since he’s worried this uprising will cost him his promotion to middle school Principal. There’s a running joke throughout this series about Prickly wanting to be Principal at Spiro Agnew Middle School. For those who don’t know, Spiro Agnew was Nixon’s VP who resigned in shame... and also I’m not sure but I think it might be a double joke as Prickly hates the elementary schoolers but teaching middle schoolers is way worse? 

 Ms. Grotke is all for the protest and giving the kids back their jungle gym, but Ms. Finster is worried that will lead to complete anarchy. Wow, kids leading a reasonable protest and the higher ups worried that will lead to a complete breakdown of the world as we know it? Things haven’t changed much have they? 

Prickly won’t have it, so he decides to call in the big guns... Plan P.... 

The Parents. 

I wonder how many parents in their little cubicles at work received this phone call and just thought to themselves, ‘ah f***, what’s Prickly on about now, I knew we should have sent Little Jimmy to a private school...’ 

The parents show up, and in a surprising turn of events, stand behind their kids in the protest. This is mainly based on nostalgia the parents have for Old Rusty, but if the thing was there when they were in elementary school, shouldn’t they be worried about the safety of it? It is kinda practically falling apart.

Turns out they should have been worried about it, because as soon as Prickly gives in and decides to give up on a new jungle gym, Old Rusty can’t take the weight of all the kids and parents and collapses beneath them. 

LAWSUIT!!!! 

No, there’s no lawsuit. That would be hilarious though.  

Instead, in a bit of a deus ex machina, the construction guys who were there to rip down Old Rusty figure out that they somehow have the schematics or parts or whatever for it, and so are able to build an exact replica, except this one is new so it’s not a lawsuit waiting to happen. Why didn’t they do that in the first place? 

The kids christen the new one ‘New Old Rusty’, and gleefully play on it, well into the future, when this whole thing will probably happen all over again.