A fake boss we made up just for this blog post walks up to our fake cubicle to ask why we've done anything Hey Arnold related since 2015? I say screw this place ,I quit!
Anyway, that last "Hey Arnold" holiday post we've done was "Thanksgiving" so, it's time we come back and this time it's about Halloween.
From season 2 it''s Arnold's Halloween.
The episode starts with Arnold, Gerald, and residents of the boarding house watching some sort of "X-files" like show and then a show called "UFO Tonight". Fun fact: the voice of Douglas Cain is Maurice LaMarche who you will also notice is the voice of Brain from "Pinky and the Brain". Anyway, Grandpa Phil turns down Arnold's offer to help with the boarding house for Halloween but gets denied so, this up the start of plot of the episode where Arnold has other plans. Helga has a similar issue with her adults . Big Bob believes in aliens. Helga has decided to make her friends dress all like aliens. Arnold wants to combine his plan with Helga's plan to scare the the boarders. Remember this for if you watch it , Bob doesn't really look at his daughter's costume this is important for later.
I see no difference / Copyright Viacom
Since Arnold and Gerald are smarter than your average kids they have made some sort of radio broadcast thing to play into the boarding house. They create a fake news alert of an alien invasion. Brain is not a very nice boss so he makes this guy go around searching for alien activity , taking the pieces of the puzzle and connecting them means he hears the radio broadcast. The guy also sees Helga and friends in their alien costumes which are that convincing apparently. They go the boarding house thus, causing the prank.
This WHEY playing all repeat work day / Copyright Viacom
Cut Cut Cut. Now if you didn't get this already, this episode alludes to the 1938 Orson Wells broadcast of the H.G Wells (no relation) book "War of the Worlds" a story about Martians invading the Earth. It did cause some panic and convince some people that it was real but it wasn't that widespread. (More here) This episode is alluding to that by having a voice that is mimicking Orson Wells' voice with Dougas Cain and the radio broadcast that Arnold and Gerald were doing. (Bonus point when you hear the word Wells' Ridge, get it)
It's the real news/ Copyright Viacom
Big Bob sees the broadcast with Cain, and Cain's broadcast is broadcasting Arnold and Gerald's show. The plan was that elaborate where the kids even decorated the city water tower to look like a spaceship. Plugging that in causes the city power to go out so everyone sees the fake spaceship glowing. (That's how power works!) Arnold and Gerald don't know what really happened until they see Grandpa Phil and he tells them Douglas Cain found the broadcast and now everything is a mess.
This time of year is pretty/ Copyright Viacom
The episode gets slightly horrifying as people are chasing Helga and the gang in angry mob fashion thinking they are aliens. Meanwhile, Bob has decided to go military and decides to go out alien hunting or something. Now you the viewer might be wondering couldn't the kids just take off their alien costumes at least the paint and stuff? Well dear viewer, they are one step ahead of you. Harold got permanent paint.
Also Big Bob knows how to make beepers into a bomb?! He grabs Helga who thinks she really is an alien messing with his mind. Thankfully, releasing a bomb caused water to wash off the permanent paint (we don't know what permanent mean?). Everything is fine at the end so, wonderful!
This is a great Halloween special. It shows fear that we expect on Halloween but with a different tone showing fear of the unknown because of the aliens coming down and trying to take over the planet is something that really jars the sense of what we are used to. The episode gives a great tense feeling through out where even if you know things are going to be fine because it's "Hey Arnold" there's still a feeling of unease and tense on how far things go. I like the allusion to the 1938 incident even making a key plot area "Wells Ridge" a nice touch. So, take a look at this for Halloween.
That's our lookback tune in next time after the we surrender to our alien over lords.
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