Hey Arnold: Helga's Close Calls and Confessions

We’re finally in the home stretch!

And hopefully after all the hype, these last 2 posts live up to it.

One observation I made recollecting the series some time ago: Arnold as a character evolved a lot over the years. He started as the kid who wanted to investigate urban legends and help the local misfits. But after season one, he grew more into the to-go guy for giving advice or the residential moral compass.

The way he interacts with Helga changed as well and I noticed these differences would occur when his voice actor changed. In season one (Toran Caudell), he was regularly annoyed with Helga’s bullying, but he treated her no different everyone else. One exception was when she returned his lost hat and he hugged her to show his gratitude. She acted disgusted and shooed him away, but he still had a smile on his face when he left.

Season two Arnold (Phillip Van Dyke) is probably my favorite version. There were several instances where he told her to do the right thing and seemed to really care about her well-being. If that makes any sense…
He didn’t lose patience with her as often as other seasons with this voice actor. He’d brush off her verbal abuses, say “whatever you say, Helga,” and the scene ended on that note.
He also said on a few occasions that he doesn’t think she’s that bad deep down and is mean to cover up her own insecurities.

Then onward with his 3rd voice actor (Spencer Klein), it seemed like he adopted a bit of monotone sarcasm. He’d take her bullying a bit more personally and his dislike of her when she was mean was more evident. For me, it almost seemed like his character development went a step backward. Either that or the lengths Helga went to annoy him were greater and his demeanor was only reflecting that.
***

One of the most common storylines through the series is when Helga’s secret threatens to reach Arnold and she goes to extreme lengths in hopes of preventing that.
Gotta give the writers credit- they had some creative ideas for this so it’s never the exact story arc twice.

Little Pink Book
The first instance occurred in season one. Helga had all of her Arnold poetry in a book and it accidentally falls into Arnold’s hands. And he and Gerald spend their afternoon trying to figure out who wrote it.

What makes the situation a little more urgent- she filled the last page with a poem that spells her name. 

H is for the head I like to punt

E is for everytime I see the little runt

L is longing for love's first kiss

G is for how good that longing is, and

A is for Arnold, of course (duh!)

So she sneaks her way into Arnold’s room and hides in his closet to keep an eye on the investigation. Arnold’s convinced his 6th grade crush Ruth McDougal wrote it, but Gerald believes the lock of hair taped inside rules it out. (Both of them fail to realize it’s actually a lock of Arnold’s hair… not as gross as Helga’s collection of his chewed gum but still kinda gross).

They also obtain various objects from other girls in their class (thanks to Abner) to compare the handwriting and chew marks on the pencil.
Midway through, Gerald says “hey Arnold, we gotta call it a night. The next name on this list is Helga Pataki.”
Long pause… and they burst out laughing, prompting her to growl.
Gerald- what was that?
Arnold- Hmm… must be coyotes.

The next day, Arnold is reading from it on the school stoop to a crowd and he announces he’s on the last page.
Helga hastily rushes over, tears it out and turns it into a spitball she throws at him.
“First spitball of the day, football head.”
Arnold (to Gerald) “What is it with her?”

So her secret is safe… for now

Helga Blabs it All
So Helga has to have dental work done and is under the influence of laughing gas. She feels so good that she goes on and on about Arnold and goes so far as to leave a confession on his answering machine. Then she snaps out of her stupor and the entire office is laughing at her.
Essentially she finds her way into his house and steals the tape from the machine... but there's a lot of obstacles that must be overcome to accomplish this.

Helga’s Parrot
Technically it was her dad’s, but it becomes her problem. 

He got it to help him sell beepers but he can’t get it to talk. Somehow it gets into Helga’s room and overhears a poem she writes in the middle of the night. And it’s able to recite it word for word.

Oh Arnold

My sultry preteen

Why must I hold you only whilst I dream?

Will I be forever enslaved by your spell?

Why must I worship you and never ever tell?

You make my girlhood tremble

My sense all go wacky

Someday, I'll tell the world

Or my name's not Helga G. Pataki

Yeah... I have a pretty good knack for remembering all these poems. It's kinda crazy.

She finds out and tries to catch it, but is unsuccessful. It actually gets outside and finds Arnold… and Helga naturally stalks him, hoping to get it back before it says that final line. The comedy of errors of her failures stretch on for at least a day. She follows him to a pet store, it squawks when she tries to grab it and as a cover story as to why she’s there, she gets a monitor lizard… and promptly dumps it on Phoebe until she can find a solution. Her attempt to grab it while hiding at Arnold’s room fails because the moment he leaves, it squawks and he comes back to take it with him, thinking it’s crying from separation anxiety.

Making matters worse, Lila comes by and admires the bird, suggesting he take it to show and tell.
Once there, Helga decides she has one option left- smack it with her umbrella (it was storming at the time) while it’s reciting the poem. On her way over, Phoebe tells her that her parents won’t let her keep her lizard so she brought it to school with her. Then just as the parrot gets to the last line, the lizard breaks loose and eats it. Everyone’s shocked. Lila offers a comforting shoulder pat. Mr. Simmons goes on about the circle of life before he passes out. And Helga scratches the lizard’s chin (“you and I are gonna get along just fine.”)

…yet we never see the monitor lizard again…

Helga Sleepwalks
This comes about because her mom accidentally left her groceries on the top of the car so there’s nothing to eat. Then she finds a bag of pork rinds and Helga decides to munch on them.
But then she starts sleepwalking and it’s always to the same destination…

Yeah, she’d recently had a fantasy about going to Arnold’s house and going into a long confession monologue. So when she sleepwalks, she goes to his house in the middle of the night and recites her long winded confession. But she wakes up before she can reach him. Once she was at the table and Grandma was talking to her, thinking she was Eleanor Roosevelt. And another time, she woke up in the boarding house shower. She becomes so alarmed about this that she asks for Phoebe’s help.

How long Phoebe had known her secret, it’s never implicitly shown, but clearly she has been aware for a while. But she’s more than willing to help, especially since it gives her a chance to study her sleeping habits to find a cause. They have a sleepover and because she’s a super light sleeper, she puts her sleeping bag in front of the door.
…they don’t count on the fact Helga winds up going out her bedroom window instead.

On her way to chase after her, Phoebe comes upon the empty bag of pork rinds and reads something peculiar on it.

By the time she reaches Helga, she’d already recited her confession on his fire escape. Luckily for her, he heard none of it. There happened to be a plant whose shadow looked like his head and it’s the only one who heard everything. Arnold of course wonders what they’re doing there.

“What does it look? We're taking a walk.”
“A walk (narrows eyes) up my fire escape?”
“Yeah, it’s a free country…”
“Whatever you say, Helga.” (Closes window)

On their way back, Phoebe tells Helga the cause of the strange goings-on in the night. Apparently, consuming pork rinds can sometimes lead to extreme sleepwalking. They laugh it off and Helga ends by saying “and Phoebe, this night never happened.”
“Right. Forgetting…”

***

For the record, the two Confession episodes I'm highlighting aren't Helga confessing to Arnold. But they're notable instances because she tells someone else and has complete confidence they won't tell anyone. 

They're also two of my favorite episodes of the entire series.

The Play

This is a two-parter.

Mr. Simmons wants to direct a student body version of Romeo & Juliet. What makes things interesting is that none of the guys want to play Romeo because there's a kissing scene in the play. So he's on his knees when he begs Arnold to do it... and he does.

Helga finds out and this makes her want to audition. The only problem is that the role had already been cast. Rhonda was the only one of the four who was able to recite the balcony scene perfectly without having the script in front of her, so she gets the role. Sheena, Phoebe and Lila are the understudies. Mr. Simmons is impressed by Helga's enthusiasm, but says all four girls will have to drop out of the play before she can have the role.

Ultimately she succeeds by exploiting all of their weakness. She volunteers to do costumes and creates a hideous dress for Rhonda to wear. Being the fashionista snob that she is, she refuses to wear it and drops out of the play.

She takes out Sheena by offering to run lines with her and repeating how bloody and violent the story is. She gets so queasy that she opts out, preferring to do costumes, so Helga gives her the dress she created. "Start with this, it needs a lot of work."

With Phoebe, it's a similar situation. Except she paints a hypothetial picture of what would happen if she forgot a line in the middle of the play or just froze under the bright lights. This is enough to freak her out and she gives up the part.

Lila, on the other hand, is completely immune to all of those tricks. Plus Sheena finally made Juliet's dress presentable, so she thinks it's "just delightful." Helga insists she HAS to play Juliet and she won't come up with a proper reason. 

Then Lila asks, " this isn't by any chance because you like Arnold, is it?"

She brushes it off, thinking it's ridiculous. Lila says that if she liked him and wanted to kiss him, she'd completely understand and would step aside. Giving it some thought, Helga asks hypothetically if she confessed to liking him, she'd threaten to do her harm if she told anyone. Lila, somewhat alarmed, swears "I'm pretty sure I would never tell."

So, for the first time in the series, Helga tells someone that she loves Arnold... it's a long winded confession, but she gets it all out. Afterwards, Lila grins, "I had a funny feeling you liked him," gives up the part and solemnly promises not to tell anyone. 

At long last, Helga has the role. But she's left with only one day to memorize all of the lines. Her dad rolls his eyes at the mushy dialogue, but agrees to do it. Which was nice, all things considered. 

Arnold has his own pains with learning his lines. Oscar had Suzie write all of his lines down on slips of paper so if he forgot his lines, he could pull them out of his pockets. Mr. Hyunh, meanwhile, takes his assisting of Arnold so seriously... at one point, he shows up in a dress to be Juliet. It's funny but also kinda disturbing. 

The play finally happens. And despite a couple of hiccups (Helga tripping on the balcony and Arnold almost flubbing a line), everything came together as intended.

Then everyone (including us watching the TV) held their breath with anticipation as Helga kissed Arnold in the crypt in the final scene... she literally got as much as she could out of it. It probably lasted a solid 10 seconds. 

As they take their bows, he says they did all right. 

She replies "except for that kiss. I thought I was gonna puke."

"Then why'd you kiss me for so long?"

"I was acting, doi. You think I enjoyed that?"

"(sigh) Whatever you say, Helga."

That was also my first experience with the story Romeo & Juliet. For extra credit in 9th grade, I actually learned Juliet's "Wherefore Art Thou Romeo" monologue and recited it in front of the class. And last year, I was finally able to read the whole play. It's really good... tragic, obviously... but I navigated the Shakespearean language well enough. 

Helga on the Couch

This is probably my favorite episode ever. My sister and I both love it. It's another two parter.

Child psychiatrist Dr. Bliss is sitting in on Mr. Simmons class and takes a particular interest in Helga as she sees him blow spitballs at him and call him "football." What lands her in trouble is slugging Brainy after one of her asides and Dr. Bliss reports her to Principal Wartz.

A call is also placed to her parents that she needs to go to therapy as punishment. Big Bob answers the phone and groans, "Therapy? This never would have happened to Olga." Her parents take her aside and tell her how the Patakis don't talk to shrinks and some things are best swept under the rug.

...if you really think about how dysfunctional and messed up this household is, that's a red flag. Being threatened by your parents not to tell anyone about what goes on in the house. But while this is kinda dark by kids' show standards, there are far scarier cases of abuse in real life so I shouldn't harp on this too much. 

Things starts very casual. Helga talking about various objects around the room. Is she the type of doctor that could help her in the event of heart attack? At one point, Helga suggests Dr. Bliss lay on the couch and she plays psychiatrist. She talks about her childhood and they wind up jumping rope to Harbor Street.

When they get in fights/This is what they say

Boys are rotten, made outta cotton/Girls are sassy, made from molass-y

Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider/Girls go to college to get more knowledge

This provides a gateway to Helga complaining about her sister. How it's the perfect sitcom family with her and their parents, but the illusion is broken the moment Helga enters the room. And she talks about how they don't notice she exists. But before she says Arnold's name, she immediately goes in a different direction to distract her.

The teaser before the midpoint break, Dr. Bliss says they can talk about anything she wants and mentions Arnold at the end. While she says all of the negative things they did were a lot of attention to pay to one person, she says Arnold came up on her calendar that day and she does it to other kids.

It gets harder and harder for Helga to stay off the subject, though. Everything from inkblots and word association reminds her of him. 

They go back to her family and Helga tells a story about how her mom put together a sucky school lunch for her. 

"Moist toilettes, an individual pack of crackers and a can of shaving cream?"
"Oh, how'd that get in there? Uh oh, uh oh, that means the cheese whiz is in B's medicine cabinet..."

Helga says that she was able to trade Harold the shaving cream for actual food cuz he thought it was some whipped topping. 

When Dr. Bliss asks about her dad... all of us are treated to a really important flashback. It's a really sad scene up until the last few minutes, but it's one of my favorites in the entire series. 

It's Helga's first day of preschool, but her parents are too busy hanging around with Olga. She's playing piano and her mom talks about how she's a concert pianist at age 15 and class valedictorian. This goes on for so long Helga walks to preschool by herself. It's raining outside. A dog steals her lunchbox and a car splashes mud all over her.

Dr. Bliss: So nobody's ever noticed you...

Helga: There was someone...

That's when she meets Arnold. He puts an umbrella over her head and says "I like your bow... because it's pink like your pants." 

It was love at first sight. The whole day, she watches and admires him. But when the other kids catch her swooning and start making fun of her, she turns into the mean person she is now. All in an attempt to cover this all up.

At the end, she hides with his first ever Arnold locket and says "I love you, Arnold and I wanna marry you." Then little Brainy shows up, breathing at a quicker pace and she punches him. 

And the flashback ends.

First... that is so sad!! Seriously, who does that to a kid?

Second... all of the younger versions are so cute. Especially Helga and Arnold. And Brainy. His breathing sounds as a kid were so cute.

Third... it sucks that Helga has to resort to bullying to stop the other kids from teasing her. Kids can be so mean sometimes... 

Dr. Bliss then asks why Helga seems to take all of her anger out on Arnold and why he's the receipent of her bullying more than anyone else. She refuses to say anything.

Then she tries another tactic. 

"If you need to get something off your chest, like how you feel about Arnold, now would be a pretty good time to do it. Anything you say will be kept in confidence, of course."

Helga gets a proper definition of what this means and when she's ready, she explodes into a tizzy.

Honestly, I get her confessions to Dr. Bliss and Lila mixed up because they're both so similiar. 

At the end, she cries out, "Satisfied?"

"Now we're getting somewhere."

"And if you tell anyone, I'll rip out your tongue and wrap it around your neck!"

"Don't worry, you can trust me."

She calms down finally. Then there's a funny back and forth.

"I guess I'm pretty sick, aren't I? I once made Arnold's likeness out of wads of his used gum."

"You're not sick. You feel your feelings very strongly. You're very creative... did you say used gum?"

Dr. Bliss states the obvious: he'll never know how she feels unless she tells him. She's not ready to tell him, but she says she can when she's ready. And it's okay for her to boss the other kids around as long as she's not hurting anyone.

"What about Brainy? Can I still sock him?"

"No, don't sock Brainy. That's why we're here in the first place." 

The session ends there. Helga's kinda sad it's over cuz they're making progress and she reassures her they can talk about. She quickly hugs her before taking off. She runs into Arnold, but stops short of telling him anything and goes back to the normal banter.

The funny part at the end- Brainy shows up and gives her a ring from a coin-operated vending machine. Especially with the music doing a cheesy organ jingle and a quick drum roll.

She asks what he's doing there, was he waiting for her, etc. And she lets him go without hitting him. 

...

Honestly I'm too exhausted to write a proper conclusion. 

The last post will be a bunch of top Arnold and Helga moments...