Hey Arnold! - "Helga's Love Potion"

To love, or not to love, that is the question for Helga G. Pataki in our next review. I know it's super bowl night, but I'm more focused on this, okay? This episode was directed by Dan Povenmire with storyboards done by Dan and Sherm Cohen, the storyboard supervisor for SpongeBob.

Helga gets tired of her love for Arnold making her feel mad and mixed up all the time. After considering it, she goes in to a "gypsies" store, asking her for a potion that will make her fall out of love. Out of her sight, the gypsy gives her a "potion" that would erase Helga's feelings  After drinking that "potion." Upon waking, Helga feels unusually bland. Know how I know? Because she acts more like a civilized person more than a bully with a passion for love. She moves quietly about the day, not responding to any aggression. This doesn't feel like her at all if you ask me. Can she get out of this blandness? Well, just watch and yourself.

This is a pretty weird episode, but in a good way. It has a lot of good laughs, for example, Brainy beating the heck out of himself since Helga was under the "spell." And I say all of this with air-quotes because the twist is that the potion is actually grape juice, boy did Helga get ripped off by a con person? Probably the weirdest part of the episode is that by the time Helga drinks the "potion," she goes through a extremely upside-down dream sequence! Which has her breaking the locket, her sinking into ice cream, and landing flat onto her bed, and it's not mentioned again! It's definitely a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment! Also, this is one of the few episodes where Helga uses the word "crap." I wonder why they got away with that in a cartoon like this. If I didn't know better, Francesca Marie Smith probably ad-libbed that line unscripted without Nickelodeon even noticing, either that, or she just says that by herself whenever she gets frustrated in real life, but that's just me.

So, the moral of the story is never trust a gypsy who want your money, second, don't drink any sort of love potion made out of grape juice, otherwise, you'll end up having weird dream sequences. Also, you can't escape your obsession no matter what you do. You are who you are and you can't change that. And Helga had to learn that out the hard way.

Overall, this episode is pretty weird, but funny, and good, funny and good. Yep, those are the three words I can describe this episode, folks.

SpongeBob - "Texas"

Now, let's review an episode that was later in the first season of SpongeBob, this episode is of course, Texas. No, not the state of this country, I'm talking the episode in general.

The episode is that Sandy gets homesick from being away from Texas after a ocean wave destroyed her Texas shaped sandcastle. So, after she sings about how she misses Texas, Patrick and SpongeBob come up with a plan to try to have Sandy stay in Bikini Bottom. But it doesn't help that when Sandy gets on the bus and leaves for Texas, Patrick says out loud "What's so great about dumb old Texas?" and Sandy overhears this and comes back really ticked off about how he said that. Will they handle this problem, easily? Watch to find out!

Let's now go for the pros and cons on this episode. First off, I like the song that she sings called "Texas," with music composed by Junior Brown and lyrics by current SpongeBob crew members Vincent Waller and Sherm Cohen. The one thing is I never liked is that Patrick and SpongeBob make fun of Texas. You should never insult Texas in any shape or form. It also doesn't help that when they run off for the Krusty Krab, Sandy gives chase and ropes away Patrick and crashes into an explosion. And just when SpongeBob reached the door to the Krusty Krab, it almost looked like he was about to get torn apart by Sandy. Why doesn't he just fight back? Or for that matter, why not this guy?

Yeah, have the Beast come in, save SpongeBob by fighting Sandy like he did with the Killer Wolves from Beauty and the Beast, but also tell SpongeBob, if you haven't made fun of Texas, this wouldn't have happened. But that's just me.

So, bottom line, this episode is okay, it's just not my kind of episode, it's just another typical Sean Dempsey animation directed episode that has crying in it. Maybe it's just me but Sean Dempsey might have a fetish for crying or something.

This is just a weak, weak, episode, with SpongeBob having no brutal strength to fight back at Sandy just because he made fun of Texas, and the fact that there was nobody to save him.

Again, this is all my opinion. If you don't agree with me, that's totally fine. At least the episode that came along with this, "Walking Small" was better.