Gerald is Arnold's best friend. Even during his craziest do-gooder schemes, Gerald sticks by him no matter what.
The Johanssen household is typical. Gerald has a mom and dad. His dad is especially strict when it comes to keeping the household under budget, not using too much electricity and all that. He also has a bully of an older brother and an annoying little sister who just wants to tag along.
Gerald Moves Out
Gerald reaches a point where he's had enough of his dad's rules, his brother Jamie O beating up on him every morning when it's his turn for the bathroom, and his sister Timberly messing around with his stuff.
So he gets the bright idea to move out and get his own place. And the Sunset Arms boarding house happens to have a vacancy.
Gerald interviews with Arnold's grandpa about getting the room and Phil calls Gerald's folks to let them know what's going on. Saying they'll look out for him and all this is probably Gerald blowing off steam and he'll eventually come back around.
Independence winds up not being all it's cracked up to be. Gerald has his own room and some much needed privacy. But he has to wait in line with everyone else for the one shower and he also has other responsibilities: like doing his own laundry.
Mr. Hyunh has been crazy as of late about people leaving lint in the boarding house laundry room. We see him having an argument with Ernie Potts about it earlier in the episode. Later, he gets around to Gerald.
After he apologizes, Mr. Hyunh says, "I cannot keep cleaning up after you. I'm not your mother."
Gerald has reached a point where living on his own has gotten to much, so he decides "I need to take a walk."
After a dramatic pause, Mr. Hyunh shouts to the sky to no one in particular: "I'm not his mother."
Dunno why... I always found that kinda funny.
So Gerald more or less decides he's ready to come home and his mom and dad admit they wanted him to reach the decision to come home on his own rather than them forcing him to return.
Gerald's Tonsils
This episode is memorable for a bunch of reasons.
One interesting note: this series prides itself on using child actors to play the kids. But it can get tricky when the boys age and their voices change. Arnold had gone through at least four voice actors through the course of its runs. (Piggy-backing on that- two of his former voice actors went on to voice a couple of the bully characters, so they got to come back to the show in a different capacity).
But Gerald's was an exception and I'd only just recently read about this. Jamil Walker Smith's voice was changing and the show had tried to find another actor to take his place. But they couldn't find anyone who was good enough to fill those big shoes, so they came up with this storyline to explain the change in his voice. (Reading a bit further, they had his voice altered in post to a higher pitch so he'd still be convincing as a 9 year old).
In the episode, there's a big concert coming up where Mr. Simmons' class will sing "Moonlight Bay." Gerald has the big solo at the very end of the song and it's the thing that makes the entire piece work.
Someone comments to him to take care of his voice and he's like "Relax, nothing's going to happen to my voice."
He has to have his tonsils taken out this week because he'd had a series of sore throats lately and this will alleviate those issues.
He hears (as a lot of people have before getting their tonsils out) he'll get to have all the ice cream he can eat after the procedure... nope, not in the mood.
The next time there's a rehearsal, he tries to go high into his falsetto for the solo and his voice just cracks all over the place.
Arnold does all he can to encourage him, but to no avail.
"Come on Gerald, it's not that big of a change. It's big, but it's, it's not insurmountable."
"Insurmountable? Man, you read too much!"
...I don't know why, but I found this quote so hilarious that I reference it all the time. Whenever anyone says the word "insurmountable," I repeat the second part of that quote. In my mind, anyone who uses that word reads too much :P
What helps Gerald come around; a conversation with Harvey the mailman. When his voice changed, he got very raspy and he felt self-conscious about that. But over time, he learned to embrace it.
So on the night of the concert, Gerald does the solo, but sings down into baritone instead. And it's a massive success.
Gerald's Secret
I just recently remembered this one existed. Good thing I did because it's an important part of his character.
Gerald's always the guy who's the king of cool. The one everyone looks up to.
But there's one part of him that he doesn't want people to know... and Arnold being his best friend, he finds out about it and does everything he can to help him.
The episode opens with all of the kids riding their bikes. Gerald comes by and they ask him to join, but he makes all sorts of excuses why he can't.
After some digging, Arnold gets the truth out of him: Gerald doesn't know how to ride a bike. So Arnold tries to teach him and Gerald insists that these lessons have to be done in secret. Somehow, Harold finds out and tells the others how he's riding on a pink bike with training bikes.
Despite the humiliation this brings about, Gerald is able to learn and winds up winning the Bike-o-thon that's been hyped up for much of the episode.
There's also a part of the race where Harold busts the tires of his own bike and falls off course, so karma eventually catches up with him.
It's an interesting episode because it's not often where Gerald is out of his element or up against something he's not confident about tackling. But Arnold is able to work his can-do-attitude magic on him just he does with everyone else he comes across.
Also- just the way Gerald wears his bike helmet because of all his hair... that doesn't look like that's practical for reality...
Jamie O in Love
Gerald's older brother gets him so much grief on a daily basis. But for once, the tables start to turn more in his favor.
Jamie O has a girlfriend, which has turned him into a pile of mush and he's not beating up on Gerald like he used to.
Then Gerald overhears his brother's girlfriend talking to someone else and she's bragging how Jamie O is doing all of these favors for her, buying her all of this stuff, but in the end, she's just using him.
She uses him so much that he's falling apart just to meet all of those committments. Gerald finally takes Arnold's advice and tells Jamie O the truth. And he happens to walk in on his girlfriend revealing her "grand scheme" and he breaks up with her.
Jamie O goes on to thank Gerald for clueing him in and decides he'll be nicer to him... every now and then. But then he takes Arnold and Gerald out for ice cream so things have a nice end.
Ransom
Gerald's younger sister, Timberly, had lost her favorite stuffed animal, Wally the alligator. And since Arnold and Gerald had recently been playing detective, she wants them to help her find it.
They interview a few suspects. Harold happens to have his own Wally alligator, but one of its eyes is missing.
Curly was another one, but his alibi that he was at ballet lessons checks out.
It turns out that Timbely staged the kidnapping herself because she wanted so badly to play with them. And they ultimately decide they can't be too mad at her.
In another episode, Gerald wants to make money selling chocolate turtles for the Campfire Lasses... but he gets a member's discount so he'll pocket half of the proceeds.
His plan goes array when Timberly winds up eating their entire stock; he and Arnold were busy watching one of their favorite shows and Gerald was half distracted when he said she could have a couple, but "keep it down, we're trying to watch our TV show."
Then they try to make their own turtles, but she added a secret ingredient- salt.
Their next plan: they take Timberly around to all of the people they'd sold chocolate turtles to, she tells them her sob story and the patrons give the money they owe anyway.
But when the Campfire Lass finds out the guys don't intend to join the troupe, she takes all of their money and leaves them empty-handed.
***
A couple episodes I didn't have anywhere else to put, but Arnold and Gerald are central to the story.
Hookey
Sick of school, Gerald suggests that he and Arnold skip for a day. Arnold isn't entirely up for it, but later agrees.
Their alibis are all set up. Arnold impersonates his Grandpa over the phone and says he's out sick. Gerald says there's a stack of cards in his house where they can fill in the lines for which kid and the ailment they have.
Their entire day is spent trying to have fun, but it proves trickier than they anticipated. They're either dodging teachers or people they know. And it becomes such a huge hassle that they go back to school.
Then they find out it was surprise carnival day and they'd picked the worst day to skip school...
As Gerald put it, the lesson they learned from all this: "stay in school and pray it's carnival day."
Roughin' It
Arnold and Gerald are out camping for the first time with Arnold's grandpa. And things aren't exactly going according to plan.
Phil teaches them all kinds of tips about surviving in the wilderness. Like how to find camp based on the side of the tree moss is growing. Or which wild berries are edible.
"Red and sweet are good to eat. But I swear by this sonnet, green will make you vomit."
Arnold: I thought it was 'green and sweet are good to eat'.
"No, I've been saying it all morning. Red and sweet. Red and sweet."
"Excuse me for a minute.... (hurl)"
The two of them have had enough of nature and want to go home. Amidst Grandpa's attempts to sway them, they receive some unexpected company.
Big Bob Pataki drives into the campsite with his big old RV with Helga and Phoebe in tow. An RV that has TV and a frozen yogurt machine.
Wanting an opportunity to get some alone time with Arnold, Helga suggests for her dad to invite them over for breakfast. Steak and eggs... first time I'd ever heard of a steak and eggs for breakfast being a thing.
Then Helga suggests a hike in the woods. Despite not hearing half of what she says, her dad is skeptical, "I thought you hated hiking."
"Whatever gave you that idea?"
Phoebe reasons, "Perhaps it was on the way over here when you were saying I hate hiking, I hate hiking, I hate hiking...(Helga kicks her under the table)... Ow!"
Part of the reasonsing behind this trip was also testing out some new equipment, so Big Bob is all for it. And the guys come too, leaving Grandpa on his own.
The hike goes as well as you could expect. The gadgets all wind up failing or backfiring. And Big Bob chucks all of them off the side of the mountain.
And on top of everything else, he has no idea where they are.
"I'd been lost ever since we started seeing those signs in Spanish."
Helga: What?! We're all gonna die!
Arnold and Gerald wind up helping the others find their way back, all based on the survival skills they were taught.
Then when camp is on the horizon, Arnold suggests they should keep to the path, but Big Bob interrupts him, "Forget the path, kid! Camp's right there!" and he cuts directly through the brush.
What he didn't know until too late: the brush had poison ivy.
All of the kids are having a good old time by the campfire with marshmallows and Big Bob is dealing with poison ivy, sunburn and mosquitos... probably his karma for littering.
...
It seems like whenever there's a camping episode on Nickelodeon, some of the best writing takes place.
The Spongebob episode literally called "The Camping Episode" is a noteable highlight in that series as well.
The tips about the berries might not be true for all berries, but some of the other survival tips wound up being very useful.
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