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Phoebe Takes the Fall
After Phoebe lets Helga win a school academic competition, and then trains
her day and night for the city finals, only one thing stands in the way of Helga winning the one trophy Olga couldn't
win: Helga's conscience
Written by Joseph Purdy
Storyboard Direction by Tuck Tucker
Animation Direction by Larry Leichliter
Storyboard Artists: Sam Flemming, Miyuki Hoshikawa, Caesar Martinez
Cast:
Arnold - Phillip Van Dyke
Phoebe (uncredited) - Anndi McAfee
Helga - Francesca Marie Smith
Mr. Simmons - Dan Butler
Big Bob Pataki, quiz moderators - Maurice LaMarche
- Helga wants to be "the golden girl" - but in "Spelling Bee",
that's the one thing Helga didn't
want.
- Helga doesn't seem to know anything, but then how did she do better than Arnold
and Gerald (and almost beat Phoebe without cheating)?
- During the team competition, the buzz-in buttons appeared only after the competition
ended (during the competition, Phoebe appeared just to touch the panel).
- Nadine doesn't appear to take her (and Rhonda's) loss in the team competition
very well - either that, or their score must have been so low that she feels humiliated.
- During the individual competition, Lila erases Arnold's name after he's eliminated.
- Presumably, the "all-city academic bowl" is open only to fourth graders,
as only the fourth graders competed at P.S. 118...
- ...and there must be only three schools with fourth graders in the city, if only
three contestants were in the finals.
- Didn't anybody call Phoebe's parents and tell her she was competing? They
were nowhere to be seen (which was to be expected while everyone thought Helga would be competing).
- Phoebe Really Takes The Fall: despite the fact that Phoebe was one of the main
characters, Anndi McAfee wasn't credited!
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The Pig War
Arnold and Grandpa participate in a famous battle involving a pig by volunteering Abner as the pig, unaware that
whoever captures Abner is allowed to eat him
Written by Craig Bartlett
Storyboard Direction by Dan Povenmire
Animation Direction by Frank Weiss
(only Dan Povenmire received a "Directed By" credit)
Storyboard Artists: Jay Lender, Steve Lowtwait
Cast:
Arnold - Phillip Van Dyke
Gerald - Jamil W. Smith
Helga - Francesca Marie Smith
Stinky - Christopher P. Walberg
Sid - Sam Gifaldi
Grandpa, Earl (the boat pilot), British kid - Dan Castellaneta
Rex (the older one) - Tony Jay
Rex III - Joey Stinson
Abner - Craig Bartlett
- Dale G. Abersold tells me: "You might be interested to know that the "Pig
War" was not fictional. It really happened!
In 1845, the boundary between British Columbia and (as it was known at that time) Oregon Territory was set at 49.5
degrees. Some of the islands in the Puget Sound were disputed, however. Chief among them was San Juan
Island, which is south of the line, but is only a stone's throw away from Victoria, capital city of British Columbia.
Anyway, both the British and the Americans claimed ownership of the island but there was no major dispute until
an incident in 1856: an American killed a pig that was tearing up his garden. Unfortunately, the pig belonged
to a British officer.
To make a long story short (too late) both the Americans and British sent troops to the Island. It looked
as thought there might really be war, since the Americans had no intention of backing down, despite being outnumbered.
Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed: the pig was the only casualty of war.
The dispute was finally settled by binding arbitration in 1872: San Juan Island was awarded the the U.S.A.
San Juan is now the smallest county in my home state of Washington."
(That's Dale's home state of Washington. Nothing interesting like that ever happened in my home state of
California, although things did get exciting around 1850 because of the gold rush.)
- The American troops are supposed to have "atrocious" costumes; that's
one of the reasons we won (British troops tended to fight in "line" formations and in uniform, while
American troops liked to use more "untraditional" methods - if you're familiar with the famous painting
of Washington crossing the Delaware River, it represents a battle where the British were caught entirely by surprise...because
they never expected an attack on Christmas!).
- Rex tried to drop Abner into a pot of something, which is neither roasting nor
barbecuing, the only two things the charter allowed him to do.
- Speaking of the charter, since the British side did capture Abner, technically they can demand that Grandpa hand
Abner over to be "roasted and/or barbecued". (Of course, Grandpa would probably hand over a different pig; Arnold could tell the difference,
but pigs probably look alike to Rex.)
- Arnold tells Grandpa that the Trojan Horse "worked for the Trojans";
in fact, the Trojan Horse was created by the Greeks so that the Trojans would take it inside their city walls.
(This is where the phrase "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" come from.)
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