Stoop Kidz!: A Hey Arnold! Podcast

We’re thankful, all right – for Hey Arnold!, for our listeners, and for superproducer Jason Dafnis (https://twitter.com/nintendufus), who’s stepping out from behind the soundboard to celebrate Thanksgiving in May with the rest of the Stoop Kidz!

Hey Arnold! kind of has its knives out for Turkey Day. At Sunset Arms, the boarders all go along with Grandma’s delusion that it’s actually the Fourth of July, and Arnold doesn’t love that it doesn’t look like a traditional Thanksgiving. At the Pataki household, on the other hand, it couldn’t be a more traditional affair: the whole family gathered around the table, a smorgasbord of food, and football on the TV. But because her family’s got plenty of issues that keep them from really connecting, Helga doesn’t like her holiday any more than Arnold likes his. United in disillusion, they both think they’ll find the meaning of Thanksgiving at Mr. Simmons’s house, where he’s gathered all his loved ones – only to be surprised (and a little depressed) at what they find there.

It’s a charged episode and we dig right in and ask for seconds! We touch on how the show lampoons the colonialist myth of Thanksgiving, Mr. Simmons’s increasingly obvious queerness, what the Thanksgiving experience does to Helga and Arnold’s relationship, and how the episode almost doesn’t stick the landing.

Find Jason on Twitter or on his website, which you can access from any of these URLs:

- https://www.jasondafnis.com/

- http://jasondafn.is/

- https://veggietales.exposed/

- http://weenie.zone/

- http://shalloween.net/

- https://nintenduf.us/

Wanna see more Hey Arnold! stuff? How about some fun, goofy posts? Follow us on https://twitter.com/stoopkidzpod and www.instagram.com/stoopkidzpod/ between episodes for more fun stuff from the Kidz! While you’re at it, rate us on Apple or Spotify and leave us a review if you love the show – not only does it help us grow, we read every single one!

All Stoop Kidz show art is created by our own Emily Csuy (https://www.instagram.com/emilycsuy/). Intro music: “Hey Arnold! Theme” by Jim Lang. Intermission music: “Groove Remote” by Jim Lang. Outro music from Arnold’s Thanksgiving by Jim Lang.

Niky Horowitz is back on the stoop!

Helga, queen apparent of leaving the right messages in the wrong places, confesses her love for Football Head on an alleyway wall in “Arnold & Lila” only to change it to “Arnold Loves Lila” a hurried scrawl before anyone can see. When Lila gets wind of the supposed back-alley confession, Arnold himself is left wondering if there’s some truth to the writing on the wall.

There’s strength in numbers in “Grand Prix,” where the kids form an unlikely alliance to take down a common enemy. WIth each of their go-karts trashed in the qualifying round of the All-City Junior Go-Kart Race, Arnold, Sid, Stinky, Eugene, Helga, Phoebe, and Harold scrap them all to create a brand-new kart – the Mauve Avenger – just in time to take down Wolfgang.

Listen to Niky’s music at https://horowizard.bandcamp.com/releases

Wanna see more Hey Arnold! stuff? How about some fun, goofy posts? Follow us on https://twitter.com/stoopkidzpod and www.instagram.com/stoopkidzpod/ between episodes for more fun stuff from the Kidz! While you’re at it, rate us on Apple or Spotify and leave us a review if you love the show – not only does it help us grow, we read every single one!

All Stoop Kidz show art is created by our own Emily Csuy (https://www.instagram.com/emilycsuy/). Intro music: “Hey Arnold! Theme” by Jim Lang. Intermission music: “Groove Remote” by Jim Lang. Outro music: “Stompin’” by Jim Lang.

Drew is back on the stoop to shoot the breeze about more Hey Arnold!

Grandpa’s convinced his 81st birthday will be his last in “Grandpa’s Birthday,” despite being told by the doctor that he’s so healthy he could live another lifetime. Seriously, medical science can’t explain how healthy he is for his age. All the same, Arnold treats every minute with Grandpa like it’s his last… even though he knows it isn’t.

Helga and Miriam hit the road in “Road Trip” and quickly fall into a spiraling series of mishaps, left gasless and directionless until they find out that the solution to all of their problems was each other all along. It’s either very Goofy Movie or very Lady Bird, depending on what movies you watched as a kid.

Follow Drew on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AshCoolBro

Play Drew’s indie games at https://drewbys-games.itch.io/

Buy Décorum, the tabletop game Drew and Harry and Charlie created: https://floodgate.games/products/decorum

Wanna see more Hey Arnold! stuff? How about some fun, goofy posts? Follow us on https://twitter.com/stoopkidzpod and www.instagram.com/stoopkidzpod/ between episodes for more fun stuff from the Kidz! While you’re at it, rate us on Apple or Spotify and leave us a review if you love the show – not only does it help us grow, we read every single one!

All Stoop Kidz show art is created by our own Emily Csuy (https://www.instagram.com/emilycsuy/). Intro music: “Hey Arnold! Theme” by Jim Lang. Intermission music: “Groove Remote” by Jim Lang. Outro music: “Stompin’” by Jim Lang.

Dan Nagan of Everything We Learned makes Stoop Kidz! history as the first guest to join for an episode in all three seasons!

“Sid’s Revenge” is a downright psychological horror episode: Sid carves an effigy of Principal Wartz to get back at him for detention, but is SHOOK when the principal ends up in the hospital. Assuming he’s killed his principal, Sid descends into anxious, sleepless nights. Can his friend Arnold save him from his own paranoia?

In “Roller Coaster,” Eugene “The Jinx” is still a magnet for bad luck. Despite his reputation, Arnold extends an olive branch by hopping on a roller coaster with him – and, of course, gets caught up in Eugene’s tropical storm of misfortune. Trapped for hours at the top of the ride, Arnold and Eugene respond to their predicament in different ways (Eugene by singing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and Arnold by losing his mind), and it’s only together that they can lift each other out of it.

Find Dan and listen to his movie podcast, Everything We Learned, at the links below:

- https://twitter.com/adapperdanman/

- https://letterboxd.com/adapperdanman/

- Everything We Learned on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/everything-we-learned/id1184071273

- If you play Final Fantasy XIV, find Dan on the Diabolo server as “Hulk Smashworth”

Wanna see more Hey Arnold! stuff? How about some fun, goofy posts? Follow us on https://twitter.com/stoopkidzpod and www.instagram.com/stoopkidzpod/ between episodes for more fun stuff from the Kidz! While you’re at it, rate us on Apple or Spotify and leave us a review if you love the show – not only does it help us grow, we read every single one!

All Stoop Kidz show art is created by our own Emily Csuy (https://www.instagram.com/emilycsuy/). Intro music: “Hey Arnold! Theme” by Jim Lang. Intermission music: “Groove Remote” by Jim Lang. Outro music from “Roller Coaster” by Jim Lang.

It’s been two seasons and more than 40 episodes since Wayne Stainrook joined the Kidz, but he’s back for a stoop encore (https://twitter.com/stainwaynerook)!

Arnold finds himself between rocks and hard places in this double (football) header: First, he’s compelled to help coach Coach Wittenberg through his marital struggles and ends up sharing a bit of sage fourth-grader advice in “Best Man”; in “Cool Party,” he’s happy to join Rhonda’s bash – until he realizes why not everyone was invited.

Wanna see more Hey Arnold! stuff? How about some fun, goofy posts? Follow us on https://twitter.com/stoopkidzpod and www.instagram.com/stoopkidzpod/ between episodes for more fun stuff from the Kidz! While you’re at it, rate us on Apple or Spotify and leave us a review if you love the show – not only does it help us grow, we read every single one!

All Stoop Kidz show art is created by our own Emily Csuy (https://www.instagram.com/emilycsuy/). Intro music: “Hey Arnold! Theme” by Jim Lang. Intermission music: “Groove Remote” by Jim Lang. Outro music: “Stompin’” by Jim Lang.

Featuring special guests (and Emily’s cousins) Erica Csuy and Ellie DeMuth!

To get one over on Olga (and maybe earn Big Bob’s affection), Helga risks her friendship with Phoebe by asking her to throw a school contest in “Phoebe Takes the Fall”. In “The Pig War,” the students are treated to a bit of local history when Grandpa signs them up – along with Arnold’s pet pig, Abner – to participate in a reenactment of a British-American conflict. What Grandpa forgot to tell them was that the winner gets to make bacon out of the volunteer pig!

Wanna see more Hey Arnold! stuff? How about some fun, goofy posts? Follow us on https://twitter.com/stoopkidzpod and www.instagram.com/stoopkidzpod/ between episodes for more fun stuff from the Kidz! While you’re at it, rate us on Apple or Spotify and leave us a review if you love the show – not only does it help us grow, we read every single one!

All Stoop Kidz show art is created by our own Emily Csuy (https://www.instagram.com/emilycsuy/). Intro music: “Hey Arnold! Theme” by Jim Lang. Intermission music: “Groove Remote” by Jim Lang. Outro music: “Stompin’” by Jim Lang.

PhD Candidate and writer Hannah Borenstein (https://twitter.com/hborenstein23) stops by the stoop to talk about two classically nuanced, more-mature-than-they-seem episodes of Hey Arnold!

The boarders at Sunset Arms rally to convince Grandpa he shouldn’t sell their home and move to a tropical resort in “Casa Paradiso,” an exemplary Hey Arnold! episode about how communities are made and broken. (It also shows up in Hannah’s recent article for Slate – check out the link below!)

“Gerald’s Tonsils” – in which Gerald’s voice deepens after having his tonsils removed just before the school play – was written to keep Jamil Walker Smith, Gerald’s voice actor, in the role while his voice was changing after he hit puberty. But it’s also a story of Gerald finding confidence and inspiration through his Black community and Black art.

Find Hannah on Twitter and Instagram at @hborenstein23 and find her work at https://www.hannahborenstein.com/

“The Nickelodeon Cartoon That Taught a Generation to Hate Capitalism” by Hannah Borenstein for Slate: https://slate.com/culture/2022/03/hey-arnold-gentrification-capitalism-millennial-nostalgia-podcasts.html

Wanna see more Hey Arnold! stuff? How about some fun, goofy posts? Follow us on https://twitter.com/stoopkidzpod and www.instagram.com/stoopkidzpod/ between episodes for more fun stuff from the Kidz! While you’re at it, rate us on Apple or Spotify and leave us a review if you love the show – not only does it help us grow, we read every single one!

All Stoop Kidz show art is created by our own Emily Csuy (https://www.instagram.com/emilycsuy/). Intro music: “Hey Arnold! Theme” by Jim Lang. Intermission music: “Groove Remote” by Jim Lang. Outro music: “Moonlight Bay” from “Gerald’s Tonsils”.

“Career Day” again exposes the kids of PS 118 to the working class of Hillwood, but The Jolly Olly Man isn’t so jolly to be working for his profiteering dad. While the other kids fight fires, jiu jitsu criminals, and demolish buildings, Arnold helps the Jolly Olly Man smooth over some rough edges to make the best of a job he doesn’t love so he can get back at his dad. Yeah, it’s got some muddled messaging – and we talk all about it!

“Hey Harold!” cooks up an unlikely romance between Harold and Big Patty that mirrors Helga’s obsession with Arnold in a few fun ways. More importantly, it’s an episode that makes the case for Big Patty as one of the series’s best characters.

Wanna see more Hey Arnold! stuff? How about some fun, goofy posts? Follow us on https://twitter.com/stoopkidzpod and www.instagram.com/stoopkidzpod/ between episodes for more fun stuff from the Kidz! While you’re at it, rate us on Apple or Spotify and leave us a review if you love the show – not only does it help us grow, we read every single one!

All Stoop Kidz show art is created by our own Emily Csuy (https://www.instagram.com/emilycsuy/). Intro music: “Hey Arnold! Theme” by Jim Lang. Intermission music: “Groove Remote” by Jim Lang. Outro music: “Stompin’” by Jim Lang.

With returning guest Drew Tenenbaum (https://twitter.com/AshCoolBro), the Kidz talk about two episodes that focus on social performance and maintenance of appearances!

When Sid and Lorenzo become study buddies in “Arnold’s Room,” the class division between the kids of PS 118 comes to a minor head. Lorenzo’s house is decked out, while Sid is ashamed of his meager digs. So Sid cons Arnold into letting him pretend Arnold’s cool “urban post-industrial rebop batcave” is actually his own bedroom – one too many times.

Then Helga discovers a hidden side of one of the school’s most misunderstood girls in “Helga vs. Big Patty,” but it’s not as easy as seeing her softer side.

All that and a good bit of talk about Lorenzo’s mom. We know who we are.

Wanna see more Hey Arnold! stuff? How about some fun, goofy posts? Follow us on https://twitter.com/stoopkidzpod and www.instagram.com/stoopkidzpod/ between episodes for more fun stuff from the Kidz! While you’re at it, rate us on Apple or Spotify and leave us a review if you love the show – not only does it help us grow, we read every single one!

All Stoop Kidz show art is created by our own Emily Csuy (https://www.instagram.com/emilycsuy/). Intro music: “Hey Arnold! Theme” by Jim Lang. Intermission music: “Groove Remote” by Jim Lang. Outro music from “Arnold’s Room” by Jim Lang.

Writer, podcaster, gamer, and all-around fan of ‘90s stuff O’Dell Harmon, Jr. (https://twitter.com/ODellHarmonJr) joins the Kidz to chat about two of his favorite Hey Arnold! episodes!

Arnold comes to grips with his true strength in “Dangerous Lumber” and thinks he has to decide between the love of the game and the safety of his team. But some sound advice from retired Hillwood Black Sox player (and current stadium janitor) Mickey Kaline brings Arnold back around.

In “Mr. Hyunh Goes Country," Arnold and Gerald see dollar signs when Mr. Hyunh’s ineffable twang makes him a radio hit – but what does Mr. Hyunh really want for himself?

In this episode, we reckon with these two classic stories, remark on Mr. Hyunh’s songwriting chops, lament the new Chicken McNuggets formula, and wonder how the heck two fourth-graders manage to get away with so much.

Follow O’Dell on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ODellHarmonJr

Listen to Full Circle Podcast on Apple or wherever you listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/full-circle-podcast/id1378825248

Wanna see more Hey Arnold! stuff? How about some fun, goofy posts? Follow us on https://twitter.com/stoopkidzpod and www.instagram.com/stoopkidzpod/ between episodes for more fun stuff from the Kidz! While you’re at it, rate us on Apple or Spotify and leave us a review if you love the show – not only does it help us grow, we read every single one!

All Stoop Kidz show art is created by our own Emily Csuy (https://www.instagram.com/emilycsuy/). Intro music: “Hey Arnold! Theme” by Jim Lang. Intermission music: “Groove Remote” by Jim Lang. Outro music: “The Simple Things” written by Craig Bartlett and Steve Viksten and sung by Randy Travis.