S1, E17: "Abner Come Home" / "The Sewer King"

"Abner Come Home"

Wouldn't it have been more visually appealing to place this episode with "Olga Comes Home?" You know, so you have "Olga Comes Home" first, then after the commercial break "Abner Come Home." And just so we get a nice, big red bow wrapped around the series as a whole, why not "Arnold's Parents Come Home"? Craig Bartlett, the ball is in your court.

So, Abner wakes Arnold out of one of his drug-induced dreams again. I don't know why we stopped seeing the little mini-adventures going on in Arnold's head. I kind of miss them, but then again, I can understand why. Having someone (particularly Helga) constantly calling Arnold to bring him back to reality like he was just in the middle of a partial seizure every episode would have gotten old fairly quickly.

What would have been a neat idea is if Arnold had those fantasies once every several episodes, and they would be key clues to the disappearance of his parents, leading up to "The Journal" episode. Man, if only I could write for Nickelodeon...

So, Abner wakes Arnold up so Arnold can make his breakfast. Let me just get this out in the open. Abner is a dog. Abner is a dog in a pig's body, kind of like how Gary the snail is a cat in a snail's body, or how Toothless is a cat in a dragon's body. Abner pants, begs, and even plays fetch. The extended sequence of events is rather odd, though, as we've never seen much of Abner before. If this is supposed to be his and Arnold's daily routine, how come this is our first time witnessing it?

But that routine is about to change when that night after Arnold goes to sleep, Abner sees a cat outside Arnold's bedroom window, and tries to escape the boarding house to chase it down. Why? He's a dog, that's why.

Abner remembers that a block has been put in place in his dog flap because of all the times he's tracked in mud and brought in bags of garbage. I'm sorry, is this a pig, dog, or a raccoon?

But Abner is desperate to chase that cat down, so he rips through the block, successfully launching himself out to the back porch, and chases the cat down all night. Damn! Well, I'm not too surprised Abner was able to rip through what looks like a rubber mat--look at how fat and bulky he is.

The next morning, Arnold realizes that Abner has gone missing, since he didn't even have the decency to return home after playing tag with the neighborhood strays. Arnold looks all around the boarding house and the area for him, and does that famous Charlie Brown scream when he realizes that Abner is gone.

Arnold goes to the kitchen, where, ironically, Grandma is cooking bacon for breakfast, and announces that Abner is missing. Grandpa reassures Arnold that Abner will find his way back home, but Ernie's like, "Oh, I don't know--pigs aren't dogs, you know." Um, have you seen Abner, Ernie? He is most definitely a dog--a suinae labrador.

So, we catch up to Abner, who is literally faced with juvenile, distinct signs directing him to two paths: one is an ad for the boarding house, providing "good old-fashioned hospitality" and what looks like a pig barbecue.

Pigs are allowed. Porcine Co. Damn.

Now, the joke here is that Abner isn't smart enough to read signs (since he is not a human, obviously), so he can't understand that the picture of a pig is really a warning to the viewers that it's the wrong direction. But, seeing as there's a picture of a dead pig on the sign, the animal that Abner is, Abner follows it to his fate ahead.

For a show like this to be this blatantly obvious that Abner is going to get himself int trouble is quite shocking, as I know the animators could have done a lot better job at showing the kind of danger Abner is about to get into than telling us with a sign that says "Wrong Way Danger!" I mean, come on. Give us some creativity here! This is just so lazy.

Arnold goes to the dog pound to see if the dog catchers have seen him, and shockingly, they haven't. Then, Arnold goes to the copy shop to print out lost pig signs to post on every telephone pole in Hillwood. Hell, he even rents out a billboard! I thought Arnold and his family were poor. How the hell did they afford this?

"Have you seen this pig? Goes by the name of Abner. If any information, please call Arnold 555-PORK and hurry!"

The pig puns in this episode are just atrocious. 555-PORK? Why would Arnold use a phone number like that? If Arnold lost his child in the future, would he give out the same phone number? (After a quick Internet search, I found that human meat is very similar to pork.) It's just outrageously juvenile and does not fit in at all with the realistic, down-to-earth vibe Hey Arnold! is known for. These kinds of jokes and puns would be more akin to The Fairly OddParents or some other slapstick show. And, frankly, it's making me uncomfortable. It's a good thing I don't like the taste of pork very much, because this episode would have turned me off of it.

Abner nearly gets skinned alive at a pig processing plant, but escapes just in time.

Look at the license plate on the truck: "OINK1" Ugh. Now I know why people hate puns.

Grandpa comes into Arnold's room as he lays on his bed waiting for a phone call, and Arnold asks Grandpa if Abner didn't come back because he doesn't like him anymore. This is strangely out-of-character, but you know what? This entire episode is out of character. Grandpa spreads out some truth serum and tells Arnold that Abner hasn't come back yet because he is a dumb animal. As much as I love all animals, Grandpa is right. I think Abner just likes exploring Hillwood and running into his dead brethren. And then Grandpa tells Arnold that Abner will eventually come back. And if he doesn't, to remember all the good times he's had with him, like watching him eat eggshells and coffee grounds. And that gives Arnold an idea on how to bring Abner back home.

Arnold enlists Gerald to help him set up fans in the boarding house windows, soak the ground in water, hire garbage men to dump garbage into the water, and turn the fans on to waft the stench all over the city. Wait, WHAT?!

I have several problems with this plan:

1) How is Arnold so sure that the smell of wet garbage is going to bring Abner back? Sure, he loves garbage, but I doubt with an entire city full of it, Abner isn't going to immediately bypass meals in cans for this one, giant stench on a stick. I am, however, 100% sure that the stench is going to attract more than just a single pink pig-dog-raccoon. Like mice, cockroaches, and angry neighbors with pitchforks and torches. Maybe even the little old lady with a can of Febreze.

2) The city is going to fine Grandpa like HELL for disturbing the peace with the smell.

3) If and when Abner comes back, how does Arnold plan to get rid of that garbage?

4) What the fuck was Arnold thinking?! Does he have no consideration for the other people in the city who now have to smell that for who knows how long?

The workers at Pig Skins R Us drop a trail of milk bones for Abner to follow and eat so they can capture him, and it almost works, until Abner looks up and sees the wanted poster showing him and Arnold, as well as catches the stench of wet garbage from the boarding house and runs after it. Hey, what do you know?

And then Abner and Arnold reunite--in one of the most uncomfortable screenshots I will probably take during this entire blog:

I'm just trying to imagine how writer Joe Ansolabehere was pitching this in the storyboard room: "Okay, so Abner and Arnold see each other, and run to each other like two lovers in a romance novel. They leap into a big mud pit, and roll around together, hugging and laughing while soft, uplifting music plays in the background, and the entire neighborhood cheers them on." And then imagine the animators drawing this exact scene, frame by frame.

And some executive or whatever was nodding his or her head, watching the final product and thought, "Yeah, this'll work. I think the kids would be satisfied with this."

And hey, you can't blame me for taking this screenshot out of context when this is exactly what it looks like. But hey, Abner is home, and that's all that matters. Now clean that shit up, Arnold.




"The Sewer King"

During breakfast, Grandpa slips Arnold a receipt and tells him to go down to an unspecified jewelry store and give it to him. Grandpa had his gold watch cleaned and it is ready to be picked up.

Arnold then provides us with a description of the watch--the Schnitzenbauer Time Master 909 with the Swiss polar-aligned, triple synchronous movement escapement. Seriously, why does he do that? Why is it that every coveted gizmo or gadget has to have this fancy name with an arbitrary number and nonsensical description made to sound fancier than it actually is? It's a watch. A fucking watch. How Arnold is able to memorize the exact description of the watch is a mystery, but why all this fluff description? Does Arnold describe every mundane object this way?

"Hey, Arnold, did you see that massage chair in Brookstone?"
"You mean the FimbleFingers 4000 with the retrograde, crystalline mechanisms with platinum-plated footrest and German leather cushions optimized with all-body heat distributors and headrest stereo?!"

"Yo, Arnold, check out this new lamp I got for my room!"
"Whoa, is that a Borealis 999 multi-gyrating lamp? The one with the fully-automated motion detector and color-changing technology with gold-rimmed knobs and 360-degree swiveling neck for perfect light angles?!"

"Arnold, can you pick up a gallon of milk from the store?"
"Do you want the Moo Juice 5000, fully homogenized in the hourglass-shaped recycled plastic container, or the Dole Danse Dairy Milk 10,000 that has regular, chocolate, and strawberry milk mixed together with the three-tier spout and freshness lock-in technology?!"

God, make it stop!!!

Grandpa says that he trusts only Arnold with the safety of the watch, and also says he'd pick it up himself but is too old and lazy to pull his bony ass away from the TV.

So, Arnold goes down to "Jewelry" to pick up the watch. And what do you know? It's the Schnitzenshit 909 all in its glory:

You know, with the superfluous description Arnold gave, I expected a grandfather clock, not this generic little plastic shit.

The camera zooms in on it a couple of times just to emphasize how shiny and amazing this time-telling piece is, which is an obvious foreshadowing that something terrible is going to happen to it.

As Arnold runs back to the boarding house, Gerald catches up with him and asks to chill. Arnold says he can't, because he has to return Grandpa's Schnitzenfuck 9090909. Gerald is also impressed that Arnold was trusted with such a thing and, once again, we're directed to how important it is to get this watch back in perfect condition. Arnold says nothing is going to distract him, except for a big explosion from a construction site and a big, gaping hole in the ground.

"Man, that's one deep hole. Bet it goes all the way to China." - Harold

Arnold and some of his friends gather around the amazement that is a hole in the ground and curiously gather around it. Helga suggests someone should throw something in to see how deep it goes, to which Harold jokingly picks up Sid. That got quite a hearty laugh out of me.

Naturally, Arnold leans in a little too closely, and the watch falls right out of his shirt and into the hole. Of course it does.

Sid, Harold, and Helga walk away laughing, leaving Gerald and Arnold with the decision to go in after the watch. Why isn't there at least one construction worker there guarding the hole so that things like this wouldn't happen? This is America for Christ's sake--people will be throwing their dumpster babies in here just to vacuum the money out of this construction company.

Arnold and Gerald descend the ladder into the hole and HOLY SHIT. It's a freaking underground Machu Picchu:

The boys chase a rat, who has the watch in its mouth, into a tunnel, but the rat ends up escaping while the boys nearly die falling down a sewer waterfall. Why does this tunnel even have a waterfall anyway? I'm honestly not even sure what this is supposed to be--is it a secret wonder of the world? A fancy sewage system? Judging by the episode title, it's a sewer, but it certainly doesn't look like one. The rat brings the watch to this strange, stout man who looks like a rat himself, praising him for bringing him a trinket from "the world above." Okay, we've got a nutter here.

How is that watch still in pristine condition after falling hundreds of feet and into raw sewage? Cartoon logic.

So, just as Arnold and Gerald are about to fall to their deaths, the rat man swings in Batman style and rescues the boys just before they hit the bottom.

Arnold and Gerald awaken sometime later to the rat man (and his hundreds of pet rats) to find that rat man--named Sam King--has Grandpa's watch around his neck. He's obviously lost his mind some time ago and has proclaimed himself the absolute ruler of the sewer world. Arnold plays along to this man's little delusion and tries to take back the watch, but the Sewer King won't let him have it, as it's his "royal icon." Arnold reveals that it's his grandpa's watch, but the Sewer King doesn't really give a shit.

Arnold then looks over and notices a chessboard in front of two toilets for chairs, and challenges him to a game for the Schnitzenprick who's-even-counting-anymore and the Sewer King agrees, cackling about the prospect of gaining two permanent child rat groomers if he wins.

So, Arnold wins every game, but the Sewer King still refuses to give up the watch, leading to a tackle and a chase. Gerald grabs the watch, and he and Arnold manage to escape the sewers just in time, beating the Sewer King once and for all by exposing him to the outside sunlight, which he cowers and hides away from like my boyfriend does. Is the Sewer King a vampire?

Arnold and Gerald shut the door and return to the boarding house, Schnitzen-whatever in-hand.

Arnold actually returns later than night, and for some reason, Grandpa doesn't even question why Arnold is all dirty and torn up. Neglectful old bag. Anyway, Grandpa takes the watch and tells Arnold how proud he is for getting the watch back in perfect condition, and then proceeds to accidentally drop it straight down the kitchen sink. WHHHAAATT?!

How the hell does that happen?!

Nevermind the obvious head-scratcher like why Grandpa is so nonchalant about dropping it down the sink, but how would a watch that large even comfortably slide down a kitchen pipe in the first place?

And guess where the damn thing ends up?

Do I even have to explain how illogical it is for the watch to just slip down into the drain and land directly into the Sewer King's hands, without a single scratch, nick, or chip? Or how the boarding house kitchen sink leads directly to his "lair"? Whatever. I'm so done with this episode.




Lessons Learned From These Episodes: if you want your pet to come home, stink up your neighborhood with their favorite foods soaked in water and hope they can follow the stench; don't trust Grandpa or Arnold with anything with a goofy name and arbitrary number attached to it.