Hey Arnold is the Best Children’s Cartoon from the Late 90s/Early 2000s
And I can prove it.
From its jazzy theme song and colored pencil drawings to the regular looking characters and solid lessons that hold up 20 years later, Hey Arnold is the best cartoon of its time. And I can prove it.
Let’s start with the whole premise of the show. The main plot is that the show circles around a neighborhood in an urban area. Most of the characters are low income or blue collar city folks who work hard. There are so many diverse characters on there. Of course they feature some stereotypes, but most of the stereotypes are shown as superficial at some point. The kids learn so many lessons from the diversity around them: in race, socioeconomic status, traumas, personality types, and abilities.
Season 1, Episode 11 (Arnold’s Christmas) explores how people get wrapped up in the materialistic side of the holiday. In this episode, Arnold is given Mr. Hyunh’s name for the boarding house Secret Santa. He learns why the man is grouchy for the holiday, because he spends it alone. That’s not original. But the storyline behind it is something other children’s cartoons wouldn’t touch. We learn that Mr. Hyunh gave his daughter to an American soldier during the Vietnam War. He hoped his daughter would have a better life in America and worked hard for years to get himself there, only to not be able to find his daughter. Arnold tries to find her to reunite with her father. How sweet is that?! Gerald is prominently featured as Arnold’s best friend, who is also black. Gerald’s family shatters most stereotypes of the time: his parents are happily together and both have decent jobs. Let’s not forget the main character. Arnold has a non-traditional family, a big step for a main character on a kid’s show in that era. He is raised by his loving, but wacky grandparents in the boarding house they run. Arnold learns many things from the boarding house residents, who again, are pretty diverse: Ernie is a stereotypical New Yorker, Mr. Kokoshka is Eastern European, Mr. Hyunh is Vietnamese.
In Arnold’s class, you will also find a diverse group. There’s Harold, who is Jewish as shown in Season 1 Episode 22 (Harold’s Bar Mitzvah). Helga is Eastern European as evidenced by her family members names and her last name, Pataki. Helga’s dad is an upper-middle class business owner. Rhonda lives in a house that’s slightly nicer than her classmates' homes but is largely average compared to how rich she says she is. Lorenzo is the only Latinx character featured on the show and is hugely rich. As shown in Season 3 Episode 18 (Rich Kid), he rides in a limo frequently and has his own cell phone and laptop (a big deal for the late 80s time period the show takes place in). Stinky has a pronounced Southern drawl, as well as the rest of his family. Phoebe’s father is presumed to be Japanese and her mother has a strong, Southern accent. In Season 2 Episode 6 (Ms. Perfect) we learn that despite Lila’s genius, smarts, good looks, and kind soul, her and her father are very poor and struggle with food insecurity. Nadine is always there but doesn’t have an episode focused on her. However, in Season 4 Episode 3 (Stinky’s Pumpkin), we learn she has a black mother and a white father. In Season 3 Episode 4 (Arnold’s Room), we learn Sid is ashamed of his small room, and it is implied he lives with his single mother.
Most of these children have experienced some sort of trauma or have some kind of behavioral issue which is explored through at least one episode. There are a few episodes where Arnold is struggling to deal with his non-traditional family. Season 4 Episode 6 (Fighting Families) where Arnold and his family are chosen to compete on a game show. Arnold struggles with which boarding house residents to pick for his team (besides grandma and grandpa, of course). Helga has a workaholic dad and an alcoholic mother plus a perfect big sister so she is largely ignored by her parents. (Too many episodes to list as examples for this one. Season 4 Episode 16 (Helga on the Couch) is a good summary.) It’s very clear to anyone who works with children, as they see Helga’s home life, that she acts out and acts aggressively to get the attention that she does not get at home. In Helga on the Couch, Helga goes to a child psychologist and is finally able to tell someone that she feels ignored. We learn in this episode that her obsession with Arnold is due to the fact that he was nice to her when nobody else was. She ends up being able to tell her therapist that she is in love with him getting that huge secret off of her chest after four seasons and what seems like five years. Harold struggles with his weight in quite a few episodes. Season 4 Episode 7 (Weighing Harold) they shine light on the fact that his mom is an enabler and doesn’t want to tell him anything negative so she encourages him to eat whatever he wants. It seems like his dad is a little more realistic but doesn’t know how to nicely frame what he wants to say, which probably ruins Harold’s self-esteem. Through the character of Patty Smith, who the other kids call “Big Patty,” they also explore being a larger boned girl. Although she looks gruff, Patty is sweet, polite, and well mannered, as shown in Season 4 Episode 10 (Polishing Rhonda) when Patty aces polishing school naturally.
They are many episodes where the kids struggle with trying to be perfect in school because that’s what their parents expect of them. Helga and Phoebe are competing for the academic bowl in Season 3 Episode 16 (Phoebe Takes the Fall). Phoebe is used to winning everything, but her best friend Helga begs Phoebe to let her win because that’s the only thing Helga’s sister, Olga, did not win. In Season 2 Episode 9 (Phoebe Cheats) where Phoebe cheats in a poetry contest. She wants to win because she feels she has to be the smartest one in class. One of my favorite learning episodes is Season 1 Episode 13. Arnold is assigned to tutor Torvald, who has been held back a few years and is a 13 year old fourth grader. Arnold realizes that traditional teaching methods are not getting through to Torvald and uses the boy’s strengths and interests (bullying kids and taking their money) to teach him how to do math. He relies on the fact that Torvald can calculate money and interest that people owe him. As long as Torvald frames the problem in that mindset, Arnold realizes his new friend is actually very good at math. There’s Season 4 Episode 10 (Polishing Rhonda) where Rhonda and Patty attend polishing school as a punishment for fighting. Rhonda feels that because her family has been attending and donating to the school for generations that she should be class valedictorian. She comes to the harsh realization after getting her grades that she is very self-absorbed and does not know manners. Rhonda relies on Patty to teach her how to pass the final, even though Rhonda starts the episode thinking Patty is a big, dumb, clutzy oaf.
Honestly, I could go on and on about how great Hey Arnold is. There are so many hidden and explicit good messages in the show. The scenarios are not always believable from Arnold meeting one of the biggest baseball players of the time to making the world’s largest pizza and reuniting one of the world’s premiere music duos. If you have never seen the show or haven’t seen it in a while, I would definitely check it out on Hulu. It holds up and is even better as an adult.
