S2, E27: "Arnold's Halloween"

Hey, everyone. I'm putting this review out early today since I'll be out of town for a few days.



The alternate title for this episode should be, "War of the Worlds: Hillwood edition"

Ever heard of Christmas in July? How about Halloween in March? That's what we've got tonight. So, throw on your best costume, grab some candy, and let's kick off the first day of spring with a spooky tale that'll put a chill in your bones and nostalgia in your heart.

Now, I'll say right off the bat that this episode is a parody of H.G. Wells' science fiction novel, War of the Worlds. I've never read it, so I'm sad to say that I won't be making any comparisons of this episode to it. Anyway, let's go!


Arnold and Gerald are watching a scary alien movie (no, not Alien), because how else do you open a Halloween episode? With something original?

So, the movie ends and a show called UFO Tonight comes on, hosted by Brain from Pinky and the Brain, and all the boarders gather around the TV because it's super gnarly.

Grandpa turns the TV off to call a meeting for the annual boarding house Halloween Party. Hey now, if Grandpa turned off my favorite show to call a meeting that could have happened after, before, or even days before, I'd be pissed.

Arnold asks if he and Gerald could help out with the party this year, but Grandpa flat-out says no, as Halloween isn't for "kids." At first, I thought WTF? But then it hit me--Grandpa is throwing a Halloween swingers party. If you think about it, it makes sense. Ernie and Mr. Hyunh start fighting over which costume they get to wear. Arnold is not allowed to participate. Grandpa emphasizes that the point of Halloween is to scare the shit out of people--an obvious cover-up so Arnold won't realize that the boarding house party is going to be a hit on PornHub's Halloween section...

Arnold decides that he's going to get back at the adults for kicking him out of their orgy by scaring them... with aliens.

Even Big Bob is engrossed in UFO Tonight, as are Harvey the mailman and Mr. Green. Helga gets pissed because Bob calls her "Olga" again when ushering her out of the way so he can watch his show. I wish I could say how annoying it is for Bob to constantly call Helga by her sister's name, but then I realize that I'm always being called by my older sister's name. Really.

So, back to UFO Tonight. Big Bob tells Harvey and Mr. Green the story of his own personal encounter with aliens when he was driving down an empty road in North Dakota.

I'm surprised these alien encounters weren't in UFO central--New Mexico.

Bob insists that aliens do, in fact, exist because of this one unexplained incident. Did Bob ever consider maybe he was drinking while on the road and hallucinated that his truck was being abducted when really it was a tow truck carrying it away from the tree he crashed into? That's a more likely possibility.

But Harvey and Mr. Green roll their eyes at such hogwash. They're smart people.

The next day, Helga gathers all the classmates together and tells them that they're going to dress up as aliens to scare all the adults. Really, something like that would only fool Big Bob, who actually believes in aliens (I believe in aliens too--just not humanoid green people who just "happen" to appear on Halloween night). No one else is all that jazzed about the idea, but if Helga says they're doing it, they really don't have a choice.

She assigns people to collect the necessary supplies to make each of their alien costumes. She asks Arnold and Gerald if they're down with the plan. They're out... only because they have their own Halloween prank planned out, but Arnold tells everyone to come to the boarding house decked out in their alien costumes. Is he trying to scar these kids' minds for life?

Here's a Big Bob's a Dick moment to start your unofficial collection: Helga comes downstairs in a pretty damn amazing alien costume (minus the turtleneck and medal) and tries to show it off to Bob, but he's more interested in last night's football scores than his daughter's amazing artistic skills. That's not the part that bothers me so much, though. She practically has to force him to look up from his precious paper, he looks for one second, and goes, "There, I looked. You satisfied?" How much do you want to bet that Big Bob was out at the bar with Harvey and Mr. Green while Miriam, covered in sweat and stretch marks, was pushing Helga out her cooch almost ten years ago?

"Thanks for the mental scarring, Deebiedoobie, as if I don't have enough already with this fake head that weight ten pounds."

Meanwhile, at the boarding house, grandpa scares the bajeebers out of the kids by offering them live worms and cockroaches. Mwahahaha!

No way would anybody let this slide in real life. Parents would call up the police on Grandpa so fast that he wouldn't even be able to say, "Dangnabbit young people are no fun!" before he's in handcuffs.

Arnold and Gerald have put together some nifty contraption using various wires and a phonograph that has enabled them to intercept the boarding house's radio. The hell? How did they do that?! This is something I'd expect from MacGyver, not two fourth graders. Are Arnold and Gerald secretly super geniuses?

Gerald deepens his voice and announces through the phonograph that there have been "alien" sightings in the neighborhood, referring to Helga and the gang coming down the street in their swanky costumes.

Meanwhile, our good friend Brain berates his intern employee and demands him to find anything on the streets that can be twisted enough into a fake alien sighting. And wouldn't you know? He turns on the news truck radio and hears Gerald "reporting" on Helga's gang of aliens. They approach the boarding house full of boarders who aren't getting their money back on their now-soiled costumes, ring the doorbell, and scare Grandpa and the boarders shitless. What a load of crock.

Ignoring the fact that Arnold and Gerald successfully intercepted a very complicated radio broadcasting system on the rooftop of the boarding house, ignoring the fact that the boarders are 99% convinced that the report on the radio is completely real (because since when does the media lie?), why would aliens go up to someone's house on Halloween night and say, "Trick or Treat!" as if they are aware of American culture and holidays? An epic prank this is, a legitimate scare this is not. It's Halloween, fools--they have to be as dense as a rock to not realize people are going to be pulling pranks this time of night.

And the intern reporter captures the entire thing, so we know this is going on the ten o' clock news. Maybe even the 8:06 news because it's aliens!

So, Brain goes on and delivers the news that aliens have landed--as per the video the reporter took--and are planning to enslave humans and take over the world. I just love how he assumes that just because these are supposed aliens, he thinks they came all this way to enslave humans. Right here is an extremely important lesson for the kids (and adults!) to take home. Everyone, repeat after me:

Don't trust the media. 
Kill your TV. 
Use common sense, you dolts.
Set your minds free.

Now for the cherry on top of the sundae--Arnold radios in Stinky from across town and tells him to plug in the lights around the water tower decorated to look like a mothership.

Looks more like a radioactive Easter egg to me.

The amount of electricity is too great, so Stinky ends up causing a city-wide blackout.

I find it hilarious that while Arnold is rhetorically asking if his and Gerald's "little radio show" scared anyone, you can hear a collective buzz of screams of terror in the background.

Now the city is in panic, Arnold and Gerald have caused mass hysteria, and their classmates are being chased around town with pitchforks and torches. That doesn't make sense--how can the city be in mass panic and be chasing after the aliens at the same time? Pick one! And to be honest, I would think chasing after the aliens is a dumb move. If they were legitimately dangerous extraterrestrial creatures, instinct would tell you to fear them.

Arnold and Gerald go to the street to watch Grandpa and the boarders shit their pants (not a pleasant thing for a swingers party), but it all becomes clear to them that their broadcast made it not only to the boarding house, but to the entire damn city. Arnold and Gerald explain to Grandpa that the whole thing was one big prank, so now Grandpa has to go collect Arnold's classmates before they get massacred.

Oh, and Grandma plans to go out and... catch the aliens herself? Whenever she slyly says, "Don't wait up," you know shit's going down.

Oh, and Big Bob throws on his gear to go and rip those aliens to shreds himself, leaving Miriam home alone with the candlelight and all the "smoothies" she can drink. Poor woman--then again, I love how groggy she is throughout this entire episode. It's like, "Aliens are attacking? Ah, I'm going to bed." Must be from all those "smoothies."

The kids try to prove that they're not aliens and that this is all a prank, but no one believes them. Perhaps if Helga took off her alien "gloves" instead of trying to smear off the permanent latex paint, she'd have better luck convincing the city folk otherwise.

Arnold and Gerald lean out Grandpa's packard with a megaphone announcing that it's all a hoax, but no one believes them either. And then for dramatic effect, Big Bob pulls a Grand Theft Auto and nearly kills about six people while speeding down the avenue with his big ass Hummer.

"Who in the name of Hedy Lamarr is that?!" - Grandpa

Big Bob calls up Harvey and Mr. Green and tells them to meet up in the street so they can plan their next move.

Brain and the rest of the news crew head up to Wells Ridge (ha-ha, because H. G. Wells) to announce to the entire world that aliens have arrived to enslave them all. Oh, Arnold and Gerald are going to jail, for sure. Again, people:

Don't trust the media. 
Kill your TV. 
Use common sense, you dolts.
Set your minds free.

Not that I'm trying to push an agenda, but the media generally knows the real story--they just like to twist information around to suit what they want people to see. Brain here isn't in on the gag, so this whole "aliens are going to take over the world!" shtick is being passed off as an honest mistake when news in real life "engages in misinformation" (STRAIGHT-UP LIES). I would think this guy would find out that Arnold and Gerald were pulling the prank for the boarders since they did intercept public radio transmitters, but decides to announce on the news that they attempted to create mass hysteria for shits and giggles. That would be a more interesting take on this plot.

Big Bob, Harvey, and Mr. Green kidnap Principal Wartz, who considers offering the students to the aliens. What the fuck?! Anyway, he's carrying a bunch of packages which turn out to be chocolates and nylons as a peace offering to the aliens.

Aliens don't want chocolates. They want your head on a stake to put in their collection. That, or your chest cavity to carry their kin.

Helga and her alien brethren run to the top of Wells Ridge and run into Stinky, who is just now hearing about the mass hysteria all over the city. Stinky nonchalantly reveals the details about the radio prank, enraging Helga and the others. Helga screams Arnold's name into the sky, and, miles away, Arnold swears he can hear someone screaming his name, but no one else can. It's the best running gag on this show.

Big Bob and the guys reach the top of Wells Ridge right as all the kids disappear from it. Pure coincidence, ain't it?

Anyway, Bob ties together a bunch of beepers that will somehow blow the "mothership" water tower back to wherever the "aliens" came from. And for some reason, they tie up Principal Wartz. I guess they're using him as bait or something...?

The kids run back up Wells Ridge for some reason, just a hundred or so feet away from the news station and Big Bob. Bob spots one of the "aliens" "pushing" Stinky up into the "mothership" so he runs over there and grabs Helga, ready to kill her.

Of course, even when Helga is screaming that she's not an alien, Bob is struggling to believe her because he doesn't know that it's Helga in costume. Well, maybe if you would have looked at your daughter when she was showing off her costume, you wouldn't think she was a human-enslaving alien, you blowhard asshole.

Arnold tries to stop Big Bob from committing first-degree murder, but to no avail. Harvey and Mr. Green launch the beepers via catapult, making a huge hole in the water tower, and washing away everyone's makeup. Permanent latex, huh?

What the hell was in with that bag of beepers, anyway? A bomb? Unless those were beepers from Nokia, it's impossible that a bag of them would cause even a dent in an enormous water tower. What a load of crock from a bunch of idiots.

At least Bob shows remorse for almost killing the daughter he barely acknowledges. Lucky thing Harvey and Mr. Green were there to save Helga's life.

Meanwhile, Grandma welds the power switch back together and restores power to the city. Aww, that's what she was doing? I would have loved to see her try to fight the "aliens."

And the best part was that the whole incident was caught on the news. At least Bob calls Brain out on being a fraud. No more believing in aliens for him. So I guess this means UFO Tonight is officially cancelled. That's pretty neat.

And so, everyone goes on home. Arnold and Gerald get off scot-free for putting their classmates' lives on the line and causing mass hysteria that will go on their juvenile criminal records, but hey, Grandpa is proud. And I suppose that's all that matters.



Lessons Learned from this Episode:

One more time, everybody:

Don't trust the media. 
Kill your TV. 
Use common sense, you dolts.
Set your minds free.