Helga in Love

by HAFanForever

My first Hey Arnold! essay in over two years, this focuses on Helga's love for Arnold and the different ways it is expressed as a major theme for the show in different episodes.

Introduction

I said that one of the big reasons why I loved Hey Arnold! as a kid was because of the unrequited love Helga exhibited towards Arnold. A lot of episodes that featured Helga would often show her taking out her locket and going into one of her "I love Arnold" monologues or swooning at him when she was alone. Some episodes focused on Helga's feelings for Arnold entirely, a few of which would involve her going to the extreme to prevent Arnold or anyone else from discovering her secret. There were occasions in which she would help Arnold in small to big ways, sometimes without him finding out. Other times would revolve around Arnold and his crushes, specifically Lila, and Helga would often be somewhere in the background, completely jealous of the girl(s) who had Arnold's affections.

I call this essay "Helga in Love" because I will be discussing episodes that feature Helga's love for Arnold as part of the plot, minor or major. Episodes will be separated in categories with some of important focuses as mentioned above, and some episodes have more than one focus, therefore I will discuss some more than once.

This is also the first Hey Arnold! essay I have completed in over three years, which I had put off because I started to drift away from the show and develop addictions to moves enough to give them their own essays. But I have had this idea for quite some time and wanted to finally complete it. So to any of my old Hey Arnold! friends if you see this, I hope you enjoy, and I also want to take a chance to give this to my very good friend Buu (Crystal-Buu), because she has loved Hey Arnold! and Helga as much as I have. :)

Helga and her Love

Although nearly every episode that centers on Helga features her alone and going crazy over Arnold, only a few episodes actually have her love for him as the core of the episode, showing the ways she obsesses over him or how she tries to win his attention and affections.

• "Arnold's Valentine" – Helga disguises herself as Arnold's French pen pal, Cecile, and meets him for dinner at Chez Pariz. Although Arnold tries to race back and forth between her and Ruth, Helga shows Arnold her true self the entire evening, and even comforts him after he is disappointed with Ruth's behavior. They admit that they are having a good time together, and though he doesn't answer about whether he likes her when she admits that she does, it is clear that he does a lot. In the end, Arnold discovers she is not really Cecile, but she doesn't admit that she is really Helga. He hopes to see her once again, and after they part ways, Helga is overjoyed in realizing that Arnold does truly like her when she shows him her true self, unbeknownst to him.

• "Helga's Love Potion" – Helga gets fed up with her obsession with Arnold making her angry and mixed up all the time. She drinks an "out of love" potion to end her love for him, but becomes very depressed and bored. She feels that her obsession is part of who she is and wants to love him again. Once Helga learns that the "potion" was nothing but grape juice, she immediately returns to her Arnold-loving self.

• "Helga's Boyfriend" – Helga pretends to be dating Stinky in order to make Arnold jealous. However, it backfires when Stinky ends up falling for her, and when Helga talks to Arnold about having a friend meet her at the park, she is shocked to discover the person is Stinky and not Arnold. By the end, Stinky is over Helga, who goes back to daydreaming about Arnold only.

• "Helga on the Couch" – The backstory of Helga's love for Arnold is revealed in this episode, which occurred on her first day of preschool at three years of age. Arnold is the first person she meets and who shows her true kindness when he shares his umbrella with her and compliments her bow. He later shows her more kindness when he gives her his graham crackers after Harold steals and eats hers.

• "Helga's Masquerade" – Desperate to win Arnold's affections, Helga decides that she has to act more like Lila to get his attention. She later attends a costume party dressed as Lila and acts so much like her, which instantly charms Arnold, and they spend the whole evening together. But after he accidentally calls her Lila, Helga ends the charade entirely and takes off the costume, realizing that Arnold is only spending time with her because she reminds him of Lila and he isn't really doing it for her. However, she gets a lift in her mood when she overhears Arnold talking to Lila about the good evening he had with Helga, and that he does actually like her when she's not acting so mean.

• "Arnold Visits Arnie" – Although Helga does not have a major role in this episode, Arnold dreams of visiting Arnie and seeing the antitheses of his friends. With Hilda, she is actually Helga being her true self, and given that Arnold falls for Hilda, this proves that he could definitely fall in love with Helga if she wasn't a bully.

• "Married" – After hearing that Arnold got paired up with her from Rhonda's marriage predictor, Helga is overjoyed about it. That night, she has a silly, fantasy dream of her and Arnold living happily married and Helga becoming president. Lila intrudes a few times, and as reference to real life, she claims to love Arnold now, and Arnold denies being in love with her anymore, much to Helga's joy (which also intensifies whenever they manage to get rid of Lila).

Helga's Secret

The issue of Helga's love for Arnold being kept a secret is what helps it as one of the show's major themes. There have been episodes where the secret is the main focus in different ways. These include items of Helga's that could reveal her feelings of love (which leads to her attempting to get them back or destroy them before Arnold discovers they associate with her), Helga actually confessing her secret to someone, and even Helga almost confessing to Arnold himself (but something often happens at the last moment that makes her forcibly stop or change her mind, causing her to put up her front again). When it comes to the items that could give her secret away, something manages to happen at the last minute so that Helga's secret stays safe. By the time of the movie, however, Helga finally does confess to Arnold how she really feels about him. She does it when they are alone, and the only interruption that occurs is done so after she has finally come clean.

• "The Little Pink Book" – Helga fills up her pink book with poems about Arnold, and during the ride home on the bus, she writes one on the last page that is an acrostic of her name. As she gets off the bus, the book falls from her bag and into his lap. On her stoop, she sees that her book is missing, so she rummages through her bag. She gasps loudly when she suddenly realizes where it is, screaming as she runs to Arnold's house. Helga manages to get into his room while Arnold and Gerald are out. But Helga gets trapped and hides in Arnold's closet while Arnold and Gerald spend a lot of time running experiments in order to figure out who wrote the poems. When Arnold goes to bed, Helga ends up falling asleep in the closet, and gets out only after Arnold has left the next morning, with the book still in his possession. At school, Arnold reads it in front of his classmates and comes to the last page. Before he can finish reading the entire poem, Helga runs up and tears the page out of the book, makes it into a spitball, and throws it at Arnold.

• "Helga Blabs It All" – Helga becomes drugged by nitrous oxide while getting a cavity filled at the dentist, making her feel giddy. In this giddy state, she calls Arnold's house and leaves a love message with her name on the answering machine. Just as the effect wears off, Helga finishes the message and screams with horror when she realizes what she has done. She runs to the boarding house and steals the clothes of a Campfire Lass, pretending to be one at the door, then she sneaks inside and hides inside a grandfather clock when Arnold and Phil have their backs turned from the door. Helga sees a phone on the downstairs floor, but sees that it has no answering machine. She runs into Mr. Hyunh and claims that was checking it to see if it was working correctly, claiming she's "an internet public phone school." As she walks upstairs, she sees the phone that is holding the tape with the message, but before she can steal it, Arnold and Gerald come down from Arnold's room, so she hides in the corner of the hallway ceiling, then inside the dumbwaiter from Phil and Oskar. She makes her way through the vent above the phone that is holding the message and lowers herself down with a rope, but she is interrupted when the other boys show up at Arnold's for a meeting and decide to have it in the hallway. Helga uses her cell phone to call Phoebe to have her get the Jolly Olly Man outside so the boys will leave. However, while they are gone, Gertie listens to the message and decides to write it down. But she doesn't catch all of it, as the boys soon come back and their commotion blares out much of the message. When she tells Arnold that a young lady called, she starts to pronounce Helga's name as "Hel…" several times, and briefly gets cut off when she hears a rattling sound, which is Helga trying to close the vent and getting her fingers stuck. Gertie finally says that it was "Helen of Troy…and Ms. Troy wanted to tell you that she was selling a kind of passion fruit drink or something." After they leave, Helga is in shock that she was nearly exposed, so she faints and falls through the vent, but finally manages to get the tape. She then crawls back up the vent until she reaches the end, but when she tries to swing over to the window across from her, she falls onto Arnold's collapsible couch, which flips over to its normal position in Arnold's room. However, she is covered in dust, and the boys say nothing as she walks over to the door, and then they act as if nothing happened once she is gone. Helga races outside the boarding house with great relief that she has the tape and that her nightmare is over, but then she is chased by more Campfire Lasses for stealing the uniform and cookies of the one from earlier.

• "Helga's Parrot" – Bob starts to get annoyed by his new parrot and sticks it in Helga's room during the night. Not knowing it's there, Helga begins reciting a new love poem about Arnold, which ends with her saying, "…or my name's not Helga G. Pataki." The next morning, the parrot recites the entire poem in front of Helga. Out of shock and fury, she pounds on its cage as she yells at it to shut up (making it scared of her from then on), then decides to kill it before it can recite the poem to anyone else outside of her home. But Bob releases it outside before Helga can kill it, so she chases after it through the city and screams in horror when it flies into Arnold's room through his open roof. She rings Arnold's doorbell and when he answers, she starts to say what she is doing, but stops and laughs nervously when the parrot flies over and perches itself on Arnold's head. She claims that she is looking for her pair of roller skates, and when Arnold says he hasn't seen them, he asks her if she knows who the parrot belongs to, but she denies that. Through the kitchen window, Helga watches Arnold tell his grandparents about the parrot and asks them if he can keep it. She sneaks into the back seat of the Packard when Arnold and Phil go to the pet shop, and she is revealed to them when the parrot sees her and squawks loudly. When Arnold sees her and asks what she's doing there, she buys a monitor lizard to avoid suspicion, then she asks Phoebe to hold onto it. Helga sneaks back to the boarding house and into Arnold's roof with a net and swings it at the parrot, but it squawks frantically, so Arnold comes to it and takes it out of the room. Helga falls into the room and hides behind Arnold's couch before he and Lila come back into the room. Lila fawns over the parrot, and Helga's eyes widen in horror when Lila suggests Arnold bring the parrot to school for Show-and-Tell the next day. The parrot continues to recite pieces of the poem, so Helga frantically pulls on Lila's hair, flicks Arnold's ear, then pushes Lila off the couch so that the parrot will stop talking. When Lila leaves, Arnold briefly leaves the parrot alone at the couch, then comes back and takes it out before Helga can grab it, and she ends up sleeping behind the couch for the night. But as soon as she wakes up, Arnold's alarm goes off and she drops the remote outside of the couch as she hides back there, so she breaks through the floor to get out. At school, Arnold brings the parrot and it starts to recite the entire poem in order. Phoebe also has the monitor lizard with her and tries to tell Helga that her parents won't let her keep it. Helga, who is limping due to her fall from earlier, refuses to be interrupted as sneaks up with an umbrella to kill the parrot. Just as the parrot comes to the last line of the poem, the monitor lizard breaks free of its leash and jumps onto the stand with the parrot, swallowing it.

• "Helga's Locket" – Helga has a love message to Arnold, with her signed name, inscribed in her locket with Arnold's picture. She climbs onto his fire escape and looks up at Arnold by his window while also looking at the locket. As she recites a soliloquy, she slips on a puddle and drops the locket. Abner catches it and brings it into the house, then gives it to Gertie, who gives it to Phil. Thinking it's an anniversary present, Phil starts wearing the locket around his neck everywhere and showing it off to everyone, which embarrasses Arnold. Helga breaks into the boarding house and makes several attempts to steal the locket back without getting caught. First, while in the living room, she tosses a quarter onto the floor to distract Phil and grab the locket, but is quickly forced to hide under the couch before she is spotted. Then from an upstairs window, she lowers a fishing pole down to the stoop where Phil is sitting, and tries to use an attached magnet to slip it off of Phil's neck, but she fails again. When nighttime comes, Helga tries to steal it from Phil as he sleeps, but then Arnold comes and takes it, so she sneaks to his roof. When Arnold is gone, she sneaks in through the skylight and takes the locket, but then drops it when trying to leave, and Phil finds it on the bed and takes it back. Helga is infuriated with her failure at getting the locket, so she dons a disguise with a black coat, hat, and mustache to get back in the house. She pretends to be an art collector looking for a room in a boarding house, then tries to convince Phil to give her the locket, saying that it may be worth a lot of money. But then her cover is nearly blown blow when her pigtails start to pop out from under the hat and her mustache falls off. After she runs outside and tosses the disguise away, she briefly decides that she can live without the locket and the fact that her secret will become public knowledge. But she quickly changes her mind and is more determined than ever to get the locket back. She uses a grappling hook to climb onto the roof and watches Arnold and Phil talk through the skylight, and they decide to go to the basement to unhook the clasp. Helga sneaks inside through a small window in the basement, then quickly hides in a rolled-up rug just as Arnold and Phil start to come downstairs. They use all of the available tools to open the clasp, but to no avail. Then when they try to pry the locket open with a shish kabob stick, Helga sneaks over to the circuit breaker and successfully shuts off the lights just as the locket is opened. In the dark, she manages to steal it back, then hides in a nearby trunk. When Arnold and Phil leave, she sneaks back out through the basement window. Once she is outside entirely, she holds the locket stretched out in front of her like always and expresses her relief in having it back. But then Abner comes and steals the locket from her once again by grabbing it in his mouth as she has it in her extended arms, and Helga races after him into the sunset as she screams for him to come back.

• "School Play" – As Helga tries to get Lila to give up the role of Juliet so she can do it and kiss Arnold in the final scene, Lila won't give in as easily, and of course, Helga won't say why she wants the part. When Lila asks Helga if she likes Arnold, Helga immediately denies it, but when Lila mentions the kiss, Helga reluctantly confesses that she likes Arnold.
Helga (Mutters quietly): I like Arnold.
Lila: Pardon? I couldn't hear you.
Helga (Mutters slightly louder, but faster): I like Arnold.
Lila: I'm sorry, Helga, you're mumbling.
Helga (Practically screams to her face): I LIKE ARNOLD! (Pants) I'm head over heels, hook line and sinker, over the moon, loop-de-loop, wa wa doot, in love with the boy! Happy now?! Happy?!
Lila (Stares at her, then smiles coolly): I kind of had a funny feeling you liked him.

• "Helga on the Couch" – When Helga is recommended for sessions with Dr. Bliss, she is determined not to reveal her secret about Arnold. But she opens up more about her rotten home life, and Dr. Bliss says she has seen Helga express more of her anger at Arnold than anyone else. She tells Helga that if she is keeping a big secret regarding Arnold, now is a good time to do it, but swears that she will not say anything about it. In another passionate outburst, Helga breaks and confesses to Dr. Bliss that she loves Arnold.
Helga: I…I love Arnold! There, I said it! I love him! I love him! Arnold, Arnold, Arnold! I'm absotively, posilutely in love with the boy! I wanna grow up and have a fabulous life, traveling around the world with him: coffee in Paris, roses, sailboats, the whole nine yards! I wanna have a perfume named after us: Arnold and Helga! I LOVE ARNOLD! Satisfied?!
Dr. Bliss: Now we're getting somewhere!
Helga: And if you ever tell anyone, I'll rip your tongue out and wrap it around your neck!
Dr. Bliss: Don't worry, you can trust me.

• "Monkey Business" – Helga thinks she has caught a disease called "monkeynucleosis" and will eventually die from it. When she thinks she has reached the final symptom of the disease, she decides to hold a funeral-like event for herself and give all of her classmates her belongings or tell them personal things. This includes her wanting to admit to Arnold that she loves him. Helga starts to tell Arnold why she calls him names and tortures him, and that she doesn't really hate him. Just as Helga is about to admit her true feelings for him, Phoebe bursts into her room and tells Helga that she doesn't have monkeynucleosis (having read Helga's library book on it). Realizing she isn't dying after all, Helga happily gets out of her bed and cheers, then Arnold asks her what she wanted to say that was so important. Helga says, "Uh, nothing. I was, um…I was delirious," then she crosses her arms as she finishes, "and what would I want to say to a football head like you, anyway?" This annoys him and he starts to leave, but she tells him to wait a sec. As he turns to look at her, she clasps her hands together and hesitantly says, "Um, I just…well, I-I wanted to tell you that…well, I…I think you're…okay. I mean… you're…an okay guy, and I just think you're…okay." They look at each other, then Arnold smiles and pats her arm as he tells her that she's okay, too.

• "Helga Sleepwalks" – Helga has a daydream of confessing her love to Arnold. Later that evening, she goes back to his house by means of sleepwalking (and buys a bouquet of flowers) after snacking on pork rinds. That night, she tries to stop herself by covering up her door with items from her room, but she finds herself inside Arnold's kitchen the next morning. She drinks a lot of coffee so that the caffeine will help her stay awake. But she sleepwalks again that night and wakes up in Arnold's shower. When Helga leaves her house once again, Phoebe (who is sleeping over) follows her, knowing she will be going to Arnold's. Once there, Helga starts walking up Arnold's fire escape and recites all of her lines from her first daydream. We hear certain pieces of it as we see her on the fire escape. As she climbs, she says in a sleepy voice, "Oh Arnold, don't you see? Despite the fact that I may act like a total loon…" Then as Phoebe starts to climb up, we hear Helga say, "…utterly nutty, mad as a hatter, gaga in love." Phoebe temporarily falls behind while Helga continues, "…until now, I've been too shy to tell you the truth, too bashful to come out and say that…I love you, Arnold." By now, Helga is on the second level of the escape, and Phoebe cries, "No!" as she hears Helga say the last sentence. When Helga starts to climb the first level, she finishes with "Love you!", and Phoebe runs to her and grabs her by the leg, then pulls Helga down to the second platform, which causes Helga to wake up. Helga asks Phoebe where she is, and Phoebe tells Helga that she was sleepwalking on Arnold's fire escape and spoke to Arnold, who was near his window. As both girls believe that Arnold heard everything Helga said, Arnold comes up to his window and sees them there, then he says that he heard a crash and it woke him up. Helga then sees the plant in Arnold's window with a design that is shaped like his head, and when Arnold says that the crash was all that he heard, she covers up her actions by claiming she and Phoebe were "talking a walk." As they walk back to Helga's house, Phoebe shows Helga the empty bag of pork rinds she has been eating and Helga reads the ingredients, ultimately determining that they were the cause of her sleepwalking.

• "Grudge Match" – Helga gets hit in the head by a golf ball by her dad, which puts her in a short daze. Arnold is standing right by her when she gets hit, and when he asks if she's okay, she responds in a dream-like tone, "Oh, Arnold! I'm fine as long as you're near me!" As she says this, she holds her arms out to him, and Arnold gets a confused look on his face as Helga continues, "Your honest eyes so full of concern, and lo…," but she immediately gets cuts off at the last word when her dad comes up to her and yells at her for being in the way, which messed up his shot, and she shakes her head, snapping back to herself.

• "Helga on the Couch" – Shortly after she has confessed her feelings about Arnold to Dr. Bliss, Helga crashes into Arnold. After they fall down, he apologizes and helps her up. Since she is surprised to see him, she thinks about confessing to him. They look at each other in the eye as Helga says, "I just want to say that…that…that…," then she decides not to confess and puts up her front again, finishing with "…that you should watch where you're walkin', Football Head! Quit crashin' into me all the time! Sheesh!"

• Hey Arnold!: The Movie – After having kept her crush on Arnold a secret from him for years, Helga finally confesses to Arnold himself that loving him was her motive in secretly helping him save their neighborhood from destruction.
Arnold: Helga, why'd ya do it?
Helga: I-I-It's my civic duty.
Arnold: Helga.
Helga: Uh, 'cause I love a good mystery.
Arnold: Oh, come on! What's the real reason?
Helga: Oh, I don't know, Arnoldo! I guess maybe I just took pity on you and your stupid friends!
Arnold: Well, why?
Helga: 'Cause…'cause I guess maybe I don't hate you as much as I thought, okay? I guess maybe I-I even kinda like you a little. Heck, I guess you might even kinda say that I like you a lot.
Arnold: You do? You did this for me?
Helga: That's right, hair boy! I mean, criminy, what else are you supposed to do when someone you love is in trouble?!
Arnold: Love?
Helga: You heard me, pal! I love you! LOVE YOU! Who else do you think has been stalking you night and day, building shrines to you in a closet, filling volumes of books with poems about you? I love you, Arnold! I've always loved you! Ever since I first laid eyes on your stupid football head! And from that moment and every moment since, I've lived and breathed for you, dreamed of the moment I could finally tell you my secret feelings and could grab you and kiss you and -! Oh, come here, you big lug! (Helga kisses Arnold like there is no tomorrow.)

Arnold (Nearly) Hears Helga

Even before the confession, there were times that Arnold caught Helga off guard by coming up behind her and saying her name in a quizzical tone just when she finishes a monologue (often saying his name out loud as if she was addressing him), and he comes close to hearing her. Whenever he does, she almost always exclaims "Arnold!" in a surprised tone and immediately reverts to her mean side, accusing him of sneaking up on her and/or insulting him in one way or another.

• "Arnold's Thanksgiving" – When Helga is on the streets, she comes up to a shop and looks in a window at a display of a family celebrating with an ideal Thanksgiving meal. She then questions to herself out loud about what Arnold might be doing for the day, thinking his day is going better than hers. She takes out her locket and says, "Oh, Arnold! If I have anything at all to be thankful for, it's that you exist in my miserable, loose sphere!" She hugs the locket to her chest and exclaims, "Oh, Arnold! Arnold!" Right after that, she hears Arnold's voice say her name, then she turns and sees Arnold behind her. After she shouts his name, he asks her what she's doing here while she puts the locket away at the same time. Then she yells, "Stop creeping up on me, you little creep!"

• "Weird Cousin" – After watching Lila rejecting Arnold's offer of them going to a movie together, Helga hides in the alley next to the movie theater and starts talking about how the thought of Arnold rejecting her is why she can't bear to tell him the truth about her feelings. Towards the end of her monologue, she kneels on the ground and holds her locket in front of her face, saying, "What is this wacky feeling that makes us feel attraction for one person and total repulsion for another?" Then she hears Arnold say her name, so she pulls the locket down and sees him standing in the very same spot where his picture was. He surprises her so much that she backs into a garbage can as she exclaims his name and tries to get up. He asks her who she was talking to, and as she stands up and turns to put the locket away, she says, "Uhhhh, no one, Football Head! I wasn't talkin' to anyone! I-I was singing, singing a song!" Keeping her back to him, she then scoffs and adds, "Not that it's any of your business!" as she stomps away.

• "Married" – Outside the school building, Helga jealously watches Arnold fawn over Lila as they go inside and walk to class together. Then she hides behind some garbage cans next to the school dumpster and recites a soliloquy of how Lila may act as the perfect girl, but Helga herself truly loves Arnold, despite the fact that she is not like Lila. Her last lines are "If only he could see past my mean, blustery veneer and into my soft, mushy interior wherein I adore him," and then she swoons. Right afterwards, Arnold comes up behind her and sees her behind the garbage can. After she exclaims his name, she stands up and puts the locket away while she snaps, "I-I mean, what are you doing, sneaking up on me, Football Head?!" He says he had forgotten his books, then asks her if she's going to class. She answers rudely, "Yeah, I'm goin' to class when I'm good and ready! Okay with you?" He answers warily, "Sure. See ya.", then he heads inside. (On a side note, it is extremely likely that he heard these very words because they are almost identical to her words in his dream, where he confronts her and gets her to admit that she's not as bad she makes herself out to be. In the dream, she starts with "You've seen through my tough, blustery exterior and into my soft, mushy, good-hearted center.")

• "Big Bob's Crisis" – Helga tries and fails to get her father to act like his old self again after he completely changes his personality and brainwashes both her mother and sister. One afternoon, she stands on the bridge over the river in the park and talks to her locket about how she feels that she has failed in trying to get through to her dad. Her last words are "Despite my efforts, I'm afraid I'm forced to move away and leave you and my life here in the real world forever." At the moment she finishes and lets out a swoon, Arnold comes up behind her with his bike and says her name. Once she hears him, she turns around and puts the locket away while yelling, "What in the heck do you think you're doing, sneaking up on me?! You're creepin' me out, you…creep!"

Helga and Arnold Crash

Much like the times that Arnold catches Helga off guard by stumbling upon her when she is in a monologue, he has also caught her off guard by colliding with her several times. Whenever they do, she usually exclaims "Arnold!" in her happy and romantic tone of voice, and then snaps out of it by shaking her head and rudely saying, "Watch where you're goin', Football Head!" or some variation of that.

• "Arnold's Hat" – Just as Helga steps off of the bus with Arnold's hat, she crashes into him and happily exclaims, "Arnold!" But Arnold barely notices as he apologizes just as she shakes her head and rudely tells him to watch where he's going. He immediately notices that she has his hat, and he excitedly takes it from her, then he hugs her.

• "Helga's Love Potion" – Arnold and Helga collide into each other in their school hallway, and this is after the time she has taken her "out of love" potion. Right after the crash, he asks her if she's okay, and she blandly responds, "I'm fine. I didn't feel a thing." Then he asks her if she's feeling sick since she didn't torture him at all during the day, and she answers, "No, I'm okay, Arnold. But thanks for asking." Then he tells her good bye and walks away. Later that day, Helga returns to her old self after discovering that the potion wasn't real. While humming and skipping merrily on the street, she slams into Arnold at a corner, knocking them both down again. She happily says his name, but right as he looks at her, she then angrily tells him, "Hey, watch where you're goin', you little yellow-haired shrimp!" and he apologizes just as she starts walking away.

• "Monkey Business" – Helga is walking on the street and when she comes to a corner, she slams into Arnold, who was skateboarding, and they both fall down. She does her usually act of happiness just before he apologizes. Then she feigns anger and tells him to watch it, and adding, "What a klutz! Sheesh!" But just after he gets up and walks away, she solemnly stares after him and begins to recite a soliloquy about her desire to tell him that she loves him.

• "Love and Cheese" – Arnold walks through the cafeteria doors and crashes into Helga off-screen, who ends up falling against a food cart after they run into each other, and she ends up getting food all over herself. After they have fallen down, she happily says his name, but then shakes her head and exclaims for him to watch it. He apologizes and starts to explain that "I'm just in a hurry, because…", then she asks, "Because why?" and he answers, "Because there's something really important that I have to do, and I'm just a little nervous." He stands up and wipes off her face before he walks away.

• "Helga on the Couch" – Helga rounds a street corner and crashes into Arnold, who is carrying a bag of groceries. He apologizes, helps her up, and looks at her as she seems to be considering telling him about her feelings. But then she changes her expression of surprise to anger, making Arnold wear an annoyed expression on his face as she tells him off. As she rounds the other end of the corner, he sarcastically replies, "Nice running into you, too, Helga."

• "Summer Love" – When Arnold leaves the school building, Helga is a few paces behind him on the steps. While she walks, she roughly pushes people aside and yells at them to get out of her way. Not looking right in front of her, she then bangs into Arnold, which knocks both of them down. As she gets up, she blames the crash on him, exclaiming, "Nice going, Football Head!", and he objects, saying, "What are you talking about, Helga? You're the one that plowed into me." After she dusts herself off, she exclaims, "Yeah, well, that's because I'm trapped in school everyday with a bunch of losers and when vacation finally comes, I want out of here as fast as I can! And I'll tell you another thing, monkeyface, this is gonna be the best vacation ever because I'll be far, far away from you!" As Helga says the last few words, she gets closer to his face and points at him. When she finishes, she raises her arms and throws them down in frustration as she stomps away, and Arnold watches her with an annoyed look.

• Hey Arnold!: The Movie – Arnold and Helga collide with each other twice in the film, and Gerald is with Arnold both times. The first time is when Arnold and Gerald turn the corner at the butcher shop. Even though Gerald is there, Helga primarily talks to Arnold and still blames the collision on him. Arnold apologizes and tells her they are looking for the document to save the neighborhood, but Helga laughs and tells them that they are dopey to think they are going to save it. Arnold and Gerald then admit they have no bus fare, so Helga gives them both change, and they board the bus. The second time the boys collide with Helga is at the bus stop, and Helga crashes into them as she steps off the bus. Gerald says her name and Arnold asks what she's doing here, and she answers, "I was walking. Walking until you knocked me down, Football Head!" Arnold starts to apologize, but Helga just mocks them both for continuing to try to save the neighborhood and for their secret agent-type suits and sunglasses. After the board the bus and leave, Helga watches them and says a monologue in which she wishes "Godspeed!" to Arnold.

Helga Helps Arnold

Even though Helga does spend a lot of time teasing and insulting Arnold, there are ways in how she has managed to help him. She doesn't always succeed, but she tries just for him.

• "Arnold's Hat" – After using Arnold's hat for one of her shrines, which gets thrown out, Helga spends several hours at the dump and finally finds it, then gives it back to him.

• "Spelling Bee" – Helga throws the citywide spelling bee so Arnold will win (although it's also partly because she discovers her father tried to bribe Arnold into forfeiting, making her realize her father didn't have faith in her to win on her own).

• "The Vacant Lot" – Helga helps Arnold to save Gerald Field after the adults around them try to take it over.

• "24 Hours to Live" – Helga stops Harold from pounding Arnold (although she stalks Arnold everywhere until the next day to make sure he doesn't leave town).

• "Arnold's Christmas" – Helga gives up her pair of Nancy Spumoni snow boots, the one item she wanted most for Christmas, to help Arnold locate Mr. Hyunh's daughter, Mai. She succeeds in helping Mr. Bailey find Mai, then sends her over to the boarding house on Christmas Day.

• "Runaway Float" – Helga gets her dad to sponsor Arnold's float for the city parade. She also brings in the needed materials and helps Arnold and the others make it.

• "Biosquare" – Helga saves Arnold when the greenhouse floods by pulling him onto her inflatable mattress.

• "Save the Tree" – Helga helps Arnold save Mighty Pete (although she initially sides with her dad after she argues with him and can't get him to change his mind).

• "Arnold & Lila" – Helga actually shows Arnold sympathy and comforts him after Lila rejected his feelings. She then accepts his offer when he asks to walk home with her.

• "Arnold's Thanksgiving" – Arnold and Helga spend the day together, wandering around the city and sharing how their holidays are going badly. They go to visit Mr. Simmons and discuss how bad his family members are acting, which makes them realize that their families aren't so bad after all. Although Helga does make a few sarcastic remarks, she doesn't act like her usual bully self with Arnold, which gives them a chance to get along.

• "Parents Day" – Helga tries to offer Arnold comfort and apologize after her dad calls him an "orphan boy," even though it doesn't really work and as he walks away, she calls after him about how she'll kick his butt the next day. (However, she thinks the apology went well.)

• "Deconstructing Arnold" – Helga provokes Arnold into giving up helping other people and giving advice. But after things get out of hand with the other kids, she convinces him that his friends need him and are a complete mess without him.

• "Weird Cousin" – Being in a good mood, Helga comforts Arnold about how disappointed he is with Lila falling for Arnie, then helps him try to make Lila jealous, even though it doesn't work and Arnie ends up falling in love with Helga.

• "Summer Love" – Helga warns Arnold of Summer's true intentions of using him to win the sandcastle competition. He initially doesn't listen to her, but later discovers she was telling him the truth. Afterwards, they enter the competition together and win.

• "Beaned" – Helga pretends to continue having amnesia to spend time with Arnold, but then fakes getting it back to set him free.

• Hey Arnold!: The Movie – Helga goes against her father to help Arnold save the neighborhood from being destroyed and having Scheck's mall built (and Bob's beeper store moved there), despite the success it would have given her father and the wealth it would have given her and her family.

"Arnold's Christmas" and Hey Arnold!: The Movie are often considered the two most notable times that Helga has helped Arnold, going to extreme and miraculous lengths and giving up her own material gain to help him all because she loves him.

Jealous Helga

Because Helga loves Arnold, she is very jealous of any and every girl on whom Arnold has a crush. This includes his short-lived crushes on Ruth and Summer, then his longest one on Lila.

• "Operation Ruthless" – At the setup of the Cheese Festival, Helga spots Arnold through a hole in a large slice of cheese, and she also sees him head in Ruth's direction. Once she sees him actually approaching Ruth, she crushes the cheese and says, "Why, that little yellow-haired runt! I oughta squash him like a bug!" After that, she laments to Phoebe about idiotic it is for Arnold to be in love with Ruth, then asks what Ruth that she (Helga) doesn't have. She decides to put "Operation Ruthless" into plan, in which she decides to keep Arnold away from Ruth at the festival. As Arnold walks to Ruth to give her a cheese kabob, Helga foils this by pretending to chase after Phoebe and purposely slamming into Arnold's side, making him fall on his stomach and drop the cheese. She then follows Arnold and Ruth into the Hall of Mirrors, and after Arnold backs up into her, she makes fun of him for liking Ruth and for Ruth's own name. For the bumper cars, she tricks Ruth into sitting the fourth car because the acceleration sticks. When Ruth drives up alongside Arnold, Phoebe (who is in the car with Helga) slams Ruth from behind and comes up beside Arnold. Unfortunately, Helga realizes at the last moment that they are in car #4 and crash into a truck outside the ride. At the Tunnel of Love, Helga tries to line up along the fence so that she will be matched up with Arnold on the opposite side (and that includes pushing people out of the way), while Arnold tries to make sure that he will line up with Ruth. Ultimately, neither of them is paired up with their desired person. Afterwards, when Arnold and Gerald watch Ruth leave the festival, Helga says that she believes that "Operation Ruthless" was a success. Gerald says Ruth has no idea Arnold exists, but Arnold says the challenge of pursuing Ruth just makes him like her even more. Helga clenches her fist in anger, then sadly watches Arnold, Gerald, and Phoebe leave, just as the festival turns off all of its power.

• "What's Opera, Arnold?" – At the opera house, Helga stands behind a pillar and sees Arnold looking at Ruth through binoculars. Seeing this, she exclaims, "Ruth! Ruuuth! If I only I could get that football-headed torero to feel that way about me! What am I doing wrong? What?!" Then when Helga falls asleep, she dreams of seeing Arnold with Ruth in an opera. When she appears, Helga pulls out a picture of Ruth and tearing it up, then takes out a golden slingshot and aims it at a trap door switch, through which Ruth falls.

• "Arnold & Lila" – Helga watches the boys fawning over Lila as she tells jokes outside of the school building, exclaiming, "Oh, brother! Why does everybody have to be so crazy over that Lila, even Arnold?!"
Then after word gets out about the love message Helga wrote on the wall, Lila tells Arnold on the bus ride home that she wants to keep spending time with him. When Rhonda comments to Nadine how the pair make a cute couple, Helga who has been watching jealously, says, "Arnold, that stupid football head, and coincidentally the tortured object of my most hallowed and best affections, is glued to Lila instead of me! And the worst part is I did this to myself! If only I had left what I wrote on the wall! If only I wasn't so gutless, maybe Arnold would be cozying up to me instead of that little miss perfect phony Lila!"
Later, after Arnold realizes he has a crush on Lila, he meets Lila again on the bus and asks her to meet him later in the park. Again, Helga jealously overhears, saying, "This is it, my worst nightmare come true! Today, in the park by the fountain, Arnold will express to Lila feelings of love, of romance, that, for tortured years, I prayed he would someday express to me! Only he'll be gushing them, not to me, but to another, to Lila! Oh, what fresh torment is this, what ultimate nightmare of my nine-year-old existence am I about to endure!"

• "Dinner for Four" – Sitting several rows behind them in the school theater, Helga jealously watches how Arnold praises Lila for being sophisticated due to her interests in ballet and opera. She asks, "What does he see in her? All she is is pretty, smart, funny, and the nicest girl in the school! Big deal! And now he's all impressed because she's 'sophisticated'! Anybody can be sophisticated! I can be sophisticated! If Arnold wants sophisticated, then I'll show him sophisticated! All I gotta do is come up with a plan." Then when she wins a coupon to a French restaurant, she works out a way to invite Arnold so she can impress him by showing him her sophisticated side, thinking Arnold will believe that she (Helga) is the most sophisticated person he has ever met, even more than Lila. She later stalks Arnold and Gerald behind a fence while they walk on the sidewalk, and she overhears Arnold say that he can't see Helga in a fancy restaurant, since "she's just never seemed that sophisticated. Now Lila is really sophisticated." This irritates Helga even more, and once the boys are out of sight, she comes out from hiding in a garbage can and says, "Oh yeah? I'll show you sophisticated, bucko!"

• "Helga's Parrot" – Helga walks up her front steps, then turns around when she hears Lila laughing. When she sees Arnold and Lila walking together, she frowns and clenches her fists as she exclaims, "Lila!" Then she says, "Arnold and Lila together. Oh, perfect! What could possibly go wrong next?" Later, she sneaks into Arnold's house to retrieve the parrot. When she hears Arnold mention Lila is at the door upon hearing the doorbell ring, she exclaims, "Lila?! What's she doing here?"

• "Love and Cheese" – In the cafeteria, Helga hides behind a trolley and watches as Arnold walks up to Lila, and she says, "Lila!", then scowls and growls furiously. After she hears him ask Lila to the Cheese Festival, Helga declares, "That little jerk! How dare he ask Lila to the Cheese Festival! Just because she's so pretty and smart and funny, and he has a big stupid la-dee-da crush on her! He probably thinks he's gonna impress her and then she'll start to like him like him instead of just liking him! Well, fat chance, because I'm gonna be at the Cheese Festival, too, and by the time I get through, Lila is going to hate Arnold!" At the festival, Arnold comments that they're going to have a lot of fun, and Helga peeks out from hiding in a garbage can and says, "Not if I can help it!" While riding the bumper cars, Helga slams Arnold and Lila from behind and alongside, saying, "Say good night, Lila!", and laughing evilly. Arnold apologizes to Lila for getting their car slammed, but Lila admits she is impressed that Arnold didn't get violent and fight back like the other kids. Helga overhears this and says to herself, "Oh man!" At a game stand, Helga glues bottles together so Arnold can't knock them down and win a stuffed bear for Lila. Even though he tries several more times, he always fails. He apologizes to Lila again, and when she says that he did his best, Helga declares, "But his best wasn't good enough! She probably thinks he's a real chump!" Out of pity, the game host gives Arnold a turtle, which he then gives to Lila. When she says, "Turtles are my favorite, just my absolute favorite! It's much better than a big teddy bear. I'm allergic to stuffed animals, anyway," Helga widens her eyes in shock, then facepalms her forehead and exclaims, "Doi!" Then she overhears Lila tell Arnold that she gets queasy on big rides, so when Arnold and Lila ride the Tilt-A-Whirl, Helga has the ride sped up. This makes Lila so sick that she vomits on Arnold. But Lila is pleased that Arnold is not bothered by it, and also for when he held her hair back the second time. He says it was the least he could do, and Lila says, "And it was sweet of you, Arnold. Just ever so sweet." Then Helga comes out from hiding in a garbage bin and vows, "All right, no more Mr. Nice Guy!" Lila asks Arnold if they can ride in the Tunnel of Love, Arnold accepts, and Lila says, "This'll be fun." Helga hears her say this and says, "Oh yeah, this'll be fun. This'll be ever so much fun! I'll turn your Tunnel of Love into a Tunnel of Disaster!" and she laughs evilly again. Before they step into the boat, Helga drills a hole in it, and Helga watches them as they go into the tunnel, saying, "Oh, this is gonna be sweet!" To keep an eye on them, she climbs aboard the boat behind them, which has Brainy in it, and she tosses him out. The boat starts sinking as Arnold and Lila go further into the tunnel, and they eventually come to a waterfall. Helga continuously laughs deviously and says, "Who's having fun now?" The boat breaks apart and Lila falls down, and Arnold comes after her since she can't swim. Helga sees this as she passes by and says, "This is getting' pretty good!" After Arnold saves Lila, she gives him a small hug and thanks him. As Helga's boat moves along after she sees the rescue, she says to herself, "Perfect. Why do none of my evil plans ever work out? What am I doing wrong?" As Brainy comes up from the water and to the boat, Helga hits him with her oar as she says, "Maybe I'm just trying too hard." Back outside, Lila admits to Arnold that she has grown to really like him during their time together at the festival, and Helga peeks out from a nearby stand following what Lila says. Although Lila says that she still does not like like Arnold, he asks if there is hope for them, and Lila replies, "Oh yes, Arnold. Just ever so much." As they leave the festival together, Helga comes out from hiding nearby, and she harrumphs and throws down a towel, clearly in dismay and anger that her plans to drive Lila away from Arnold have failed.

• "Helga's Masquerade" – Helga watches as Lila tells a joke to Arnold in class, and he says Lila tells the funniest stories. When Lila tells Arnold "You're oh too kind," this makes Helga scowl and growl. She also watches in disgust when Arnold says that Lila is very thoughtful for generously letting him have the last tapioca pudding in the lunch line. When he compliments Lila's hair bows when they are together Lila's locker and Lila says he is "ever so sweet," Helga (who is standing nearby at her locker) laments of how Arnold is "forever under Lila's spell, eternally worshipping her every stinkin' move, constantly enraptured by her 'oh so' adorable sense of humor and her selflessness and her cute hair accessories!"

• "Helga's Locket" – Helga manages to get into Arnold's room to get her locket after he leaves to find something to open the clasp. Before she grabs the locket, she sees a picture of Lila on Arnold's computer. In a rage, she scowls and growls as she grabs the picture and tears it to shreds.

• "Summer Love" – When Helga sees Summer trying to hook up with Arnold, she becomes extremely jealous, clenching her fists and shaking in anger. While Summer and Arnold walk down the beach, Helga exclaims, "What in the heck is goin' on here?! I'm gone for two lousy minutes, and all of a sudden, some bimbo's movin' in on my territory?! Well, fat chance I'm gonna let that happen! Arnold's gonna be mine this vacation…" In her anger, she kicks down a sandcastle that Arnold made as she finishes, "and no little beach chippie's gonna come between us!" When Arnold and Summer are out on the water, Summer asks Arnold if he thinks that the water is relaxing, and Helga is nearby and says, "Oh, I wouldn't get too relaxed if I were you, honey." Then she sneaks under the water and shoots a dart at their lifeboat, which makes it pop and they fall into the water. At a restaurant, Summer tells Arnold how lobster is her "all time fave food," and Helga hides behind a plant with a live lobster, saying, "Lobster isn't gonna be your fave food for long, Princess." Then the waiter comes out, and Helga sneaks the lobster onto the plate with Arnold and Summer's lunch. At the table, the waiter takes the lid off, and the lobster jumps off the plate and into Summer's hair. On the beach, Arnold and Summer relax on towels, and after Arnold tells Summer that he really likes her, she says she feels the same, and how she never felt so comfortable with a boy before. Again, Helga watches and overhears them from nearby and states, "Well, I wouldn't get too comfortable, sweetheart." Then she sneaks over and places bread crumbs around them, making seagulls come down at them. After they duck away under a deck, Arnold hears Helga laughing out loud and saying, "Oh, this is the best one yet! I mean, sure, the lobster and the raft were all pretty funny. But this one, ooh, boy, this one takes the cake!"

• "Arnold Visits Arnie" – At Gerald Field, Helga assigns positions, and when she tells Lila that she's at center field, Lila expresses her joy at having the position, but Helga just scowls and says, "Uh huh," like she doesn't care. (To me, this shows the jealousy she is carrying because Lila is Arnold's crush.)

• "Married" – Helga overhears Arnold and Lila's conversation about the school bell ringing, and she is clearly jealous of the attention Arnold is showing Lila. She asks how can he be impressed that she knew when the bell would ring, showing that she is unimpressed herself. She exclaims, "Lila! Little miss perfect! That little goody two-shoes! So what if she knew the bell was gonna ring? Big deal! Any idiot could figure that out! All ya need is a stinkin' watch! How can he be so impressed by that?" When she hides behind the trash cans and recites one of her monologues, she says a line in reference to that, while Lila may act perfect and makes herself out to be the perfect girl, Helga herself truly loves Arnold.
"Sure, she looks pretty and acts smart, and she's funny and kind and popular, but that's still no reason to go all gaga over her. I mean, what's she got that I haven't got? Okay, so maybe I'm not pretty, and I'm not popular, and maybe I don't act nice and sweet and kind like Lila always does. That still doesn't change the fact that I'm the one, the one and only one who truly loves Arnold."
In her dream that night, Helga gets pleasure in her hatred of Lila by having her dream Arnold reject Lila once and for all. When Arnold and Helga are on their honeymoon in a gondola in Italy, Lila shows up in her own and says she now loves Arnold and wants him to love her again. But to Helga's delight, Arnold refuses. Her boat crashes and she starts to sink, but is fished out. When Helga is later sworn in as president, Lila is in the crowd to get to Arnold, but Helga has her secret service men (Harold and Stinky) drag her away. The final part of having Lila in the dream is where she disguises herself as a terrorist and holds Arnold captive in a castle in Italy. When the couple discovers Lila had kidnapped Arnold, Arnold says that her plan has failed, and Helga orders Lila to be locked up. All throughout her dream, Helga laughs deviously in her sleep whenever Lila is tormented, as she thinks of this as revenge for her feelings that Lila has caused her so much torment in being Arnold's crush.

Helga's Hugs and Kisses

Helga has actually received a couple of hugs from Arnold, though she always pushes him away afterwards, and has kissed him as well, with the most notable one being in the movie.

• "Arnold's Hat" – After she spends several hours in the dump to find Arnold's hat, she finds it and gives it back to him. He is overjoyed and hugs her to show his thanks. She sighs to herself before she pushes him away and acts disgusted, saying, "Hey, who said you could touch me? You tryin' to make me sick or somethin'?! Take your stupid hat and get outta here!" When he leaves, she swoons and says, "I'll never wash these clothes again."

• "Runaway Float" – Helga gets her dad to sponsor Arnold's float for the city parade. Upon learning what she did, Arnold is so ecstatic that he hugs her again. (Like the last time, she is overjoyed, but also pushes him away, though she is not as rough as before.)

• "Arnold Visits Arnie" – After waking up from his nightmare, Arnold goes to Gerald Field, and upon seeing Helga act the way she does, he is amazed to see that, exclaiming, "Wow, Helga! It really is you!" and then he hugs her. She sighs in a lovesick way and puts on her squiggle smile. But of course, she snaps out of it and roughly pushes him away.

• "School Play" – After she says her lines, Helga places her lips over Arnold's. She takes advantage of it and kisses him for a full minute, putting a good bit of passion and force into it, and she even moans as she does. As she does, Arnold opens his eyes and looks around, as if he is curious and confused about the whole thing.

• "Summer Love" – For their guest appearances on Babewatch, Arnold pretends to drown and Helga is supposed to pretend to give him mouth-to-mouth. But she takes advantage of the moment and places her lips over his and kisses him like she did the first time, and Arnold, again, opens his eyes and looks around.

• "Married" – In Arnold's dream, after he is tricked into marrying Helga, she plants a kiss on him to seal the deal, muffling his screams. In Helga's dream, Helga dips Arnold when they kiss at the altar. Later, when they are in the balloon, Arnold and Helga eat through the pastrami sandwich simultaneously until their lips meet. (This is the first time we see actually see their lips touching when they kiss, because before then, Helga's head is always faced towards the camera, so we've never seen their lips when they kissed.)

• Hey Arnold!: The Movie – This is the third official ArnoldxHelga kiss, and probably the greatest and weirdest of them all! After discovering Helga is Deep Voice, Arnold learns from Helga that she helped him to save the neighborhood because she loves him. She practically pours her heart and soul as she tells him that she has stalked him, built shrines of him, and wrote poems about him! To prove what she is saying is true, she grabs Arnold and plants a forceful and passionate kiss on him, moaning loudly as she does!

Helga Teases Arnold

While there are many episodes that show some elements of Helga teasing or insulting Arnold, there are only two episodes that focus on that the most, which are also important because Helga pushes Arnold far enough that he loses patience with her and retaliates.

• "Girl Trouble" – When Arnold and Helga are assigned to do a diorama project together with Gerald and Phoebe, Helga is secretly happy, but she continuously gives Arnold a hard time in class. She starts by snapping out of a daydream trance while holding her textbook (which has a mini shrine of him) and screaming, "What?! What are you lookin' at, Football Head?!" after he tries to get her attention by waving and repeating her name. When he asks her if she could move her desk, she rudely answers, "Yeah, yeah. Just don't crowd me, okay?" After the four desks are pushed together, she complains to Phoebe how the "clowns" they got stuck with are "Football Head" and "tall hair boy." Phoebe says she is looking forward to working with Arnold and Gerald, but Helga says she would rather have a root canal. She declares that she's in charge of painting and Arnold should make buffalo, but when he says he would like to do some painting, she sternly repeats, "I am in charge of paint. I'm in charge of the backgrounds. You make buffalo, savvy." When Arnold retorts, "Make your own buffalo," Helga says, "You are making the buffalo, Arnoldo!", and Arnold answers, "I am not making the buffalo, Helga!" Arnold ultimately does make a clay buffalo, and while Gerald says it's pretty good, Helga says, "You call that blob a buffalo? You're gonna have to do better than that if it's going in my diorama, Football Head! You stink! I can't believe I got stuck working with you!" She tosses it in the garbage as she says her second sentence, and Arnold growls in frustration. When he leaves his desk to get the clay back from the garbage, she pours glue on the seat, and he gets it onto his pants and shirttail when he sits down. When he stands up, Helga throws a box of feathers onto Arnold's behind, knowing they will stick to him and shouts, "Hey, look! Arnold's a bird!", which causes everyone to laugh at him. When he leaves school at the end of the day, Helga says, "Hey, zygote, look up!", which he does, and then he looks down after she tells him to, and then he sees gum on the bottom of his shoe. Along with the other kids, she laughs at him for all of his misfortunes, saying, "What a maroon! Feathers on his butt, gum on his shoe! He's killing me!" as he walks away. But when he is gone, she ducks behind the side of the school and scolds herself for laughing. Then she asks what is wrong with her, since she schemes for weeks to work with him, and she shows her joy by gluing feathers to him, and also how she hopes he can see through her disguise and see that her cruelties are a cry for his attention. The next day, Helga makes a vow to try and be kind to Arnold, so she tries to start by making an effort to compliment his buffalo. After Arnold thanks her, she slaps herself and gives into her bad side, saying, "I mean, yeah, if you want to call that pathetic blob a buffalo!", and she laughs deviously as she walks to her seat. Sometime later, Arnold and Helga fight over a can of paint they're holding, as Arnold wants to paint something, but Helga refuses, saying, "Forget it, buffalo boy! I'm doing the painting, not you!" When he says to give it to him, she lets go of it suddenly, making paint spill on Arnold's sweater. Fed up at this point, Arnold throws some paint back at her, and when she screams, the whole class gasps and Mr. Simmons gives him detention. After school, he decides to call Helga and apologize. Before he does, she is sitting in her closet and talking to her shrine about how she thinks his good side is gone forever. She is surprised when her dad tells her that Arnold is on the phone, but she acts just as hostile as always when she speaks to him the first time after picking up, with "What do you want?!" As Arnold apologizes and explains how he snapped and thinks they should forget about the day and both should try to be nicer to each other, Helga listens to him and recites to herself, "Oh, Arnold! So kind, so just, so moral! You couldn't help but return to the ways I know and love," and as she talks, she twirls around while the telephone cord wraps around her, then she falls to the floor. After not responding briefly, Arnold asks if she is there, and she sarcastically answers, "Yeah, yeah! An agreement sounds great. Have my people call your people and we'll draw up the papers! Yeah, in your dreams, Football Head! Like I'm ever going to agree with you about anything! And don't ever call me at my house ever again! EVER!"

• "April Fool's Day" – Much like the above episode, Helga pummels Arnold with pranks and insults during this one, and she pushes him far enough that he finally decides to fight back. When he first gets to school, Arnold opens his locker and is hit in the face by a punching glove on a spring. Helga immediately shows up and tells him, "April Fools', Football Head!", then laughs deviously. When he says it was a good one, she tells him, "Get used to it, bucko, 'cause you're gonna get it all day long!" She laughs again as she walks away, and Arnold glares after her. In class, Helga walks behind Arnold at his desk and quietly places a small sound box behind him on his seat. She glares evilly at him, but when he suspects she's looking at him, he looks at her, and she quickly changes her face and looks away before he notices. She throws a spitball at him, then drops her pencil near his desk and orders him to pick it up. As he does, she opens her desk and presses the button of a remote, which causes a farting sound to come out from the sound box on his seat. Everyone in the class starts laughing at him, and does so more when Helga "April Fools'" Arnold by pressing the button again. At lunch, Helga places a plate of chocolate pudding on one of the chairs at a table, and just as Arnold tells Gerald that he hopes that Helga is done playing pranks on him, he sits down on the very same seat. This causes pudding to end up on his pants and shirttail, and everyone laughs at him even more as Helga "April Fools'" him again and calls him a loser. Gerald tells Arnold that he should retaliate since she's just going to keep doing it. Fed up, Arnold agrees, so he calls his grandpa to bring a box wrapped up like a gift, which flashes a bright light when opened. He meets his grandpa outside the building, then rushes back inside with the box. Back in the cafeteria, Helga ridicules Eugene after he is pranked, saying, "You're almost as easy to bamboozle as that loser, Arnold! And speaking of which, where is the biggest sap of them all?" Arnold then enters, saying he has a present for Helga. She thinks it's just a gag and says, "Yeah, right. And I'm Mary, Queen of Scots" when Arnold says it's a belated birthday present. But when he asks if her birthday was last week, she thinks, "Oh, my gosh! I can't believe he remembered!" Out loud, she says, "Yeah, so?" and Arnold replies, "So, happy belated birthday," and holds up the box. Then Helga happily thinks, "Oh, Arnold! My beloved, you're so kind and good…I solemnly swear, I'll never play another prank on you again," and she thanks him and accepts the gift. Helga opens the box and the giant flash of light comes out, causing her to drop the box and cover her eyes, and Arnold "April Fools'" her for a change. As Arnold smirks triumphantly, everyone else laughs at her as she cries out that she's blind, and then they all stop and gasp when she uncovers her eyes, showing that they are teary and unfocused. Helga ends up in the nurse's office and manages to regain her eyesight. But because she is mad at Arnold for tricking her, she decides to pull an even bigger prank by pretending to still be blind. She adds that "Arnold, sentimental sucker he is, will feel so guilty and responsible, he'll have no choice but to be my slave, my servant, my Seeing Eye dog! I'll totally torture him." She walks out with a cane, starting her faking state of blindness. As Arnold apologizes, Helga hits him in the head with the cane when she hears his voice, claiming that "it's so dark." Arnold asks, "Are you going to be all right? How long is this thing going to last?" and Helga answers, "You mean my complete and utter lack of eyesight? Oh, you know. Maybe an hour…maybe forever." When Arnold asks if he can do anything, she says he could walk her home, and he accepts. As they start to leave down the hallway, she hits him in the leg with the cane. When they get out into the streets, he tries to apologize again and say that he never meant for her blindness to happen, and she says, "Aw, don't sweat it. It'll all blow over soon. And if not, well, you've got the rest of your life to make it up to me." When they stop at an intersection, Helga tries to further cover up her lie by feigning a dizzy spell and making Arnold carry her across the street. As he does, she squirms and pulls on his hair. Then she sees a cab rushing their way, so he races to the other side. When they get there, she claims that she smelled it coming, saying that "when you lose one of your senses, the others just kind of kick into overdrive. Then she sniffs at him and says, "Speaking of which, you might want try a stronger deodorant, Football Head," and Arnold says he'll keep that in mind. Helga then admits that she's thirsty, but refuses to just have water and forces Arnold to carry her back across the street to Slausen's for a milkshake. Inside, she covers up her seeing the waiter's name (Wyatt) by saying, "Why it...why it's gotten so very, very warm in here all of a sudden. Well, I'm gonna go sit outside." As she steps off her stool and walks around while stretching her arms out in front of her, she adds, "Be a good sport and pick up the check, would you, Arnold? " and he agrees. When they get to her house, Helga keeps up her charade by telling Arnold that, "I really appreciate all that you've done for me, you know, except for the part where you made me go blind." Inside the doorway, she intentionally trips and drops her books, and when Arnold offers to pick them up, she says, "Don't bother. It's not like they're any use to me now that I'm blind. Hey, I know! Why don't you take them? After all, I'm going to need someone to do my homework for me until I learn Braille" and he agrees again. Right before he leaves, she says, "Well, see you later. Oh, wait! I won't, because I'm blind, because of you," and she points at him as she says the last words. Then she slams the door on him and after he starts to walk off the stoop and down the street, she peeks at him through her mail slot, saying, "Arnold, what a sap, what a sucker, what an April fool. I mean, talk about blind. The guy can't even see the wool being pulled over his own eyes." Then she leans up against the door as she finishes, "Oh, well, I guess I'll just sit back and enjoy a dish of sweet revenge." Later, Arnold calls Helga to invite her to the April Fools' school dance, and she accepts being his "blind date" while saying that their transportation "better be first class all the way – nothing on the cheap" and she's glad that "we're seeing eye to eye, you know, figuratively speaking, since I'm blind." After they finish talking, she evilly laughs to herself about how Eugene should forget about being crowned the King of Fools because "at this rate, Arnold's the shoe in for victory. And when I'm done with him, he'll wish he never tried to beat me at my own game." At the dance, Helga brings a walking stick and wears sunglasses to make it look like she really is blind. Arnold brings her some punch as she sits down, but she purposely knocks it out of his hand spills it on both of them, then wipes her hand on his hair, claiming she thought it was a towel. Helga accepts Arnold's offer to dance, but he is filled with regret when she pretends to be limp and he ends up dragging and holding her across the dance floor. As he thinks, "Oh man, I really hate this," she simultaneously thinks, "Oh, man, do I love this or what? I'm actually dancing cheek to cheek with Arnold! He's holding me tight. His hair smells yummy. Oh, who am I kidding? I love this guy!" She hugs him around his neck as she says the last sentence. Then as they hold each other awkwardly, she wonders, "Maybe I should stop torturing him," but then smiles slyly to herself and decides, "Nah, this is way too much fun." Then she deliberately trips Arnold and flings him across the room. When she complains that she needs to use the bathroom, Arnold walks her to there. Inside, Helga finally removes her sunglasses and runs into Phoebe and admits to her that she is faking her blindness to pull Arnold into "the greatest April Fools' joke in history," saying, "I totally have him fooled, the fool! He's the one who's blind!" As she says all of this, she blows on the bathroom mirror and fogs it up, then draws Arnold's head with her fingers, making X's where his eyes are. Helga claims that she's chumping everybody because they are all lamebrains and saps, and that "the biggest lamebrain is Arnold! I can't wait to see the look on his idiotic face when I break the news to him. There's just one more dance to go and then it's time to announce the King of Fools." Phoebe is impressed and decides to help Helga with her prank. But Gerald overhears them talking and tells Arnold about Helga. Infuriated, Arnold decides to give Helga a taste of her own medicine with Gerald's encouragement and help. The next dance is the tango, and as the music starts, Arnold finds Helga in the gymnasium and says, "Oh, there you are Helga. Just in time for the tango." Helga holds out her arm to Arnold and says, "Bring it on, Football Head. Let's cut a rug." Arnold starts by gently pulling Helga out onto the floor with him, but then he suddenly starts whipping and pulling her several times in a very aggressive manner, which catches Helga off guard. When he pulls her close to him (with their noses touching) and stares at her, he says, "It must be strange not to be able to see anything," and narrows his eyes at her as he finishes, "…anything at all," and she answers, "It is. It's very..." and then she gets cut off when he dips her roughly. She says how he's being rough, and he replies, "Don't worry my poor blind friend. You're in good hands." As they continue dancing across the floor, Arnold says, "Helga, there's something I've been meaning to tell you," then he flings her right out and over the pool under the dance floor (which was opened up by Gerald), then brings her into his embrace. Helga then says, "There is? Funny, there's something I've been meaning to tell you, too." Then she grabs him by the arm and flings him off to her side, causing him to hit Sheena. But he grabs her back into his embrace in which Arnold grabs her wrist and they place their other hands on each other's backs. He says, "Yeah. I've just been waiting, waiting for the right moment," and she responds, "So have I." At that moment, Mr. Simmons says it's time to announce the King of Fools, and before he names the real winner, Helga dances away from Arnold and pulls off her glasses as she points at him and proudly shouts out that it's "You, Arnold!" She smiles widely and holds her hands out triumphantly, but soon has the last laugh when Arnold (who is smiling arrogantly) pulls her close to him, dips her roughly, and spins her out over the pool as he says, "Actually, it's you, Helga! April Fools'!" While he says the last words, Helga screams and falls into the pool. As soon as Helga surfaces wearing the King's hat (which was won by Eugene, who also fell into the pool), Arnold declares, "Joke's on you this time, Helga! I know you're not blind!", and Helga admits, "All right, fine. You win. The least you could do is help me out of here." She holds her hand out, but just as Arnold leans down and takes her hand, Helga pulls him into the pool with her. When he surfaces, Arnold sadly looks at Helga as she gleefully announces, "Gotcha again, Football Head!"

Helga's Shrines

Several episodes have featured Helga's shrines that are sculpted to appear exactly like him. Almost every one of these shrines has been made from different materials to look like Arnold. They are all hidden in her closet behind her clothes so that no one will ever see them, and she has even made mini shrines of him in some of her textbooks.

• "Arnold's Hat" – This is the first episode to feature one of Helga's shrines and likenesses of Arnold, and it is probably the most well-known, or maybe even the most infamous, one she has created, as it was made of wads of Arnold's own chewed gum! (It was funny to me to see that there were flies buzzing around it, obviously implying that it's really old! XD) Besides having the gum as the most-used part, other parts of the sculpture include half-bent bottle caps for his eyes and cotton swabs for his ears. The sculpture is surrounded by fruit along with jars of his hair, his baby teeth, his toe nail clippings, and half of his eaten sandwich. There is also an arch-like structure that is placed behind it and includes pictures and newspaper clippings about Arnold. Helga manages to get Arnold's hat and uses it to cover up the similar bald spot on the sculpture, then she dances around with it to romantic music. She even had the boldness to kiss it where the lips would be on his real face, then, like the gum it is, it gets stuck to her lips!

• "Helga's Love Potion" – In the beginning, we see a likeness of Arnold with leaves and feathers for hair and an actual football for his head, tomatoes for the eyes, and pink flowers for the ears. She keeps pictures of Arnold and her books of poetry around the shrine as well, which is sitting in what looks like a big clam shell. The shrine is seen when Helga goes to her closet and kneels down before it while she plays a tape. She talks to it, calling Arnold her muse and inspiration, and hopes that today will be the day that "you see me with love's eyes, as I seeist you, oh, flaxen-haired angel!" She also keeps a diary in front of the shrine and writes in it after she comes up with "flaxen-haired angel."

• "The Aptitude Test" – The end scene shows a shelf in Helga's closet and she keeps the sculpture of Arnold at the top. This one includes a pillow or some kind of stuffed item as the head along with socks and what appear to be propeller blades for the hair. We see that she also has loads of new books filled with poems about him, and scattered around the closet and on the other shelves are pictures of Arnold and other trinkets related to him, including a mini stone statue of his head. Helga sits in front of the shrine as she starts writing a new poem.

• "Girl Trouble" – This is the first episode where we see Helga have a mini shrine of Arnold in one of her textbooks. It includes a spool for the body, thumb tacks for the arms and neck, an eraser with a drawn face as the head, and small pencils for the hair, and at the base of it is some paper clips and small balls of paper. She stares at it and recites a monologue about Arnold, then hugs it before she is put into her group with Arnold, Gerald, and Phoebe. Later, we see her closet shrine, where the sculpture has a football for the head and feathers for hair, along with bottle caps for eyes and a button for the nose. For the hat, she used what looks like an old teacup on a saucer. Like the above mentioned episode, she also surrounds the statue with volumes of her poetry and pictures of Arnold. This time around, the shrine is placed on the floor again and is covered by an umbrella and surrounded by candles and a string of lights. Helga kneels before the shrine and asks herself if Arnold's good side is gone forever after what she put him through during the day, and even strokes the cheek part of the football as she talks about him.

• "Helga's Parrot" – We see fewer items in her closet this time, aside from a dark pink curtain with two green bows, a few candles, lights, a soda can containing two pink flowers, books, and trinkets that once belonged to Arnold. She has a paper heart on the wall that says "A+H" and "LOVE" spelled out with each letter on an individual sheet of paper. Her sculpture is placed on an old popcorn bowl, and it consists of a watermelon for the head, bananas for the hair, an apple for the hat, and a big slice of cheese for the neck. Helga goes into her closet and looks at the shrine while writing her latest poem, and at one point, she picks up the head piece and hugs it to her chest.

• "Helga on the Couch" – In this episode, we see another small shrine of Arnold hidden in one of Helga's books. This one includes having a chunk of cheese as the body and some for hair, a lemon for the head, two tiny buttons for the eyes, an olive for the nose, and toothpicks with colored wrapping as the arms, legs, hands, and feet. While in class, she takes a moment to peek at the sculpture, then smiles at Arnold (who is sitting in front of her). Later, while in Wartz's office, she nervously glances at her textbook after Dr. Bliss says she wants to uncover some emotions that Helga may be hiding. As for the closet shrine, the likeness includes a small stone statue with a face and hands, where the head consists of a big Native American-type mask with feathers for the hair and a small traffic cone as the hat. Behind the sculpture are a circular, net-like substance and another Native American mask. It is surrounded by candles, strings of lights, a pair of moccasins, a small shelf with books and a tape player, and a table that has a tablecloth with hearts on it. Helga (while wearing her nightgown) puts a tape into the player, applies lipstick under her eyes, and puts a blanket on her like a cape as she bows down to the shrine, asking it to "give me the strength and animal cunning to outwit the school shrink!" But before she can do anymore, her feet get caught in the lights and she trips over them, falling through the door of her closet as she trips.

• "Helga's Masquerade" – The shrine in this episode appears very quickly when Helga is in her closet sewing her Lila costume. The likeness of Arnold includes a stone figure for the body, and it is wearing shorts, socks, and mittens. A small, wooden stake is attached as the neck, while the head is a pillow covered with assorted plaid fabrics. (A rope is tied around the stake so that the head with stay connected to it.) The head has two buttons for eyes, a teacup for the nose, a wooden cone as the hat, and a broom head and dust pan broom as the hair. The likeness is leaning up against some wood that is extending outward and a small, arch-like metal structure. The rest of the shrine includes surrounding lights, a bookshelf with jars, papers, books, and a radio. As Helga puts her costume together, she talks to the shrine about how she will impress Arnold by acting like Lila and then he will be hers at last.

• "Married" – This shrine also appears very quickly and is shown after Helga has overheard that she and Arnold have been paired up to be married one day. The likeness of Arnold consists of a coat stand for the body with a blue jacket and bow tie, and even in the heart area is a pink paper heart that says "Helga." There is a cooking pan for the head, pink flowers for eyes, a baseball for the nose, a bucket handle for the mouth, a top hat, and feathers for hair. Surrounding the statue are small bookshelves with poetry volumes, and on top of it is a pot with flowers, two cups, and a soda bottle. The other shelf is next to another flower pot and on the top is a small, three-layered cake with Arnold and Helga figurines. Other items around the shrine include two candles, yellow and pink flowers, wallpaper in blue, pink, and green with hearts, and string of lights which forms a heart shape over the cake. Behind the shrine on the wall is a picture of a man and woman running on a beach (which actually resembles a moment from a Babewatch episode she sees in "Summer Love"). Helga wears a white nightgown and veil as she stands before it, happily declaring that she is going to marry Arnold.

• Hey Arnold!: The Movie – Instead of Helga's shrine being in her closet, we see that there is a door on the ceiling of her closet that leads to the attic, which is where this shrine is kept. The majority of this likeness includes a stuffed bear for the body. There is also a fake armadillo for the head, a stuffed eagle with wings for the hair and hat, two baseballs for the eyes, and a horseshoe for the nose. Above the statue is a string of lights and strings of colored lights are behind it. In front there are lit candles lined up on the floor and a couple on candle holders. Off to the side are some other jars with unidentified objects as well as Arnold's underwear! Helga kneels before the shrine and talks to it by addressing her dilemma of siding with her father and getting rich or finding a way to help Arnold.

Helga's Poetry

Among the episodes about Helga's poetry, there are only four episodes in which the poetry is said out loud, which mortifies her because they are about Arnold and have a chance of giving her name away as the author of the poems.

• "The Little Pink Book" – Helga keeps a small pink book full of poems about Arnold. After it accidentally falls into Arnold's hands, two of them are read out loud. The one on the final page is read by Arnold out loud before she snatches it and makes it into a spitball, saving her secret.

• "Helga's Love Potion" – Mr. Simmons praises Helga for her poem, which is about Arnold, unbeknownst to anyone. Helga has her name on it at the top, but signs it as anonymous. Out of respect for her, Mr. Simmons doesn't say her name out loud, but Helga face palms her head because she is embarrassed by her poem being read to the whole class.

• "Phoebe Cheats" – Helga writes a poem about Arnold for a class assignment. She again signs it as "anonymous," and is extremely mortified when Mr. Simmons reads it in class out loud, to the point of her trying to duck under her desk. Although Arnold's name is not said in the poem, she is still humiliated when it is read out loud to the entire school in the auditorium, after which she faints.

• "Helga's Parrot" – The parrot overhears Helga say her new poem about Arnold, then it repeats the whole thing to her the following morning. After it escapes and comes to Arnold's house, it constantly says different parts of the poem, and it only gets close once to saying Helga's name before Helga is able to intervene. The following day at school, the parrot begins to recite the entire poem, word for word, from start to end, but just before it can say, "Helga G. Pataki," it gets gobbled up by the monitor lizard.

Helga's Dreams

Because she loves Arnold, Helga has had several dreams, both day and night, of her and Arnold being a couple or him actually saying sweet things to her, and she is only sweet right back to him, though a couple of them are more depressing as they deal with her ending her love for Arnold or being rejected by him.

• "Runaway Float" – When she hears about Arnold's float, Helga is one person who wishes they could make it, saying that they could ride on it like royalty. At one point, she daydreams about being on the float with Arnold during the parade, and she tells him that it's "a beautiful float, Arnold. You're such an artistic spirit. Then he tells her, "I'm nothing without you, my queen," and she bats her eyelashes and fluffs one of her pigtails as she gazes at him adoringly.

• "Helga's Love Potion" – After taking her "potion," Helga dreams that she becomes surrounded by little colored hearts in a black, empty space, then she sees and runs towards an enlarged version of her Arnold locket. Upon reaching it, she touches it with one finger and it falls to pieces, then she and all the hearts start falling down. The space below her is empty and dark, but then she falls into an ice cream sundae, which is sculpted like Arnold's head. After that, she sinks into the ice cream and falls out from that into a chasm that contains more colored hearts, footballs, and pictures of Arnold's head.

• "Monkey Business" – Helga dreams that she is half human and half monkey after believing she has contacted monkeynucleosis. After being shown to an audience, she breaks free and runs into the outside world. She sees Arnold and tells him to wait. He sees her and asks, "Sorry, I, uh…do I know you?" She tells him that she's Helga and admits, "There's something I have to tell you, Arnold." Then she confesses, "I…I love you. I really love you." She grabs him by his shirt and finishes, "I never had the guts to tell you." But after she says that, Arnold pushes her arms off of him and starts to back away as points at her and says, "But you're not Helga. You're a…a monkey! A monkey girl!" Helga cries out again that she loves him while Arnold continues to back away until he disappears into the fog. Feeling rejected by Arnold, Helga is left alone as she cries hysterically.

• "What's Opera, Arnold?" – While at the opera house, Helga dreams of being a Viking and singing how Arnold could choose a loser like Ruth. After she gets rid of Ruth by making her fall through a trap door, Helga changes into the same clothes that Ruth had been wearing. Calling herself CarmHelga, she and Arnold (Don Arnold) start dancing together until they are interrupted by Curly (Curlimillo), who tries to win Helga over and convince her to dump Arnold. When Arnold engages in a duel with Curly, Helga watches and says, "At last, my dream comes true! Arnold, my true love, saving my honor, dueling to the death! Be still my beating heart! Hush my distempered breath!" Arnold wins the fight and goes up to Helga, who says, "Don Arnold, my love!" They then lean into kiss, but then the earth trembles and everyone runs away including Arnold. Helga calls after him "Arnold! Don Arnold! Wait, my love, wait! Don't go," then she is left alone in the darkness.

• "Best Man" – After being asked to be Tish's maid of honor, Helga initially declines, but when she hears Arnold is the best man to Coach Wittenberg, she fantasizes getting married to Arnold (though they are still their child selves in her daydream), and when asked if she takes Arnold to be her lawfully wedded husband, she continuously says, "I do!" She keeps screaming "I do!" out loud, and when Tish hears her and asks, "You do what? Why are you screaming 'I do! I do!'?", Helga snaps out of her fantasy and covers it up by telling Tish, "Because…I do…agree to be your maid of honor," and she laughs nervously. She has almost the exact same fantasy later as she goes shopping with Tish to find her dress, and repetitively says, "I do!" out loud again. Again, When Tish hears Helga and asks her why she keeps screaming, Helga covers that up by saying, "Because…I do…really love this dress," and laughs nervously again.

• "Girl Trouble" – Helga is ecstatic to be part of a group history project that also includes Arnold. She looks at a small likeness of him in her textbook and hugs it. As she does, she daydreams that she and Arnold are near a riverbank. She is wearing a painter's hat and holding a painting tray as she stands next to an easel. She asks Arnold, who is sitting down, to hand her one of the brushes, to which he does and says, "Yes, angel," and then she adds, "There's a love."

• "Dinner for Four" – As Helga prepares herself for having dinner with Phoebe, Gerald, and Arnold, she daydreams about having dinner with Arnold alone. She charms their waiter by complimenting how good the food was, then offers to pick up the check. Arnold then admits, "Helga, I daresay, you're so witty and sophisticated. I must say, I, well, frankly, I've fallen madly in love with you," and she says, "And, I, you." The frame freezes when they take hands and lean in to kiss.

• "Helga Sleepwalks" – Helga daydreams about playing a romantic tune on a guitar on Arnold's stoop while kneeling and being surrounded by roses, and holding one in her mouth. When Arnold comes out, he is surprised to see her there and says her name out loud. Right after he does, she takes the rose out of her mouth as she stands up and states, "That's right, Arnold, it's me, Helga G. Pataki! The girl who's always staring at you from across a crowded room!" She presses her nose to his as she says the second sentence, then she circles him and stands in front of him again (and he watches her the whole time) as she continues, "The girl who's constantly lurking in the shadows spying on you, the girl who's forever stalking you and following you home," then she picks up one of the roses and adds, "standing here on your stoop, ready to confess unto you my most hallowed of secrets!" Then the scene changes to Arnold standing on a balcony while Helga is below him, and she confesses, "Oh Arnold, don't you see? Despite the fact that I may act like a total loon, in reality, I'm just a shy girl afraid to tell you that I absolutely adore you! Yes, Arnold, you heard me correctly! I'm positively mad for you! I'm mad as a hatter, utterly nutty, gaga in love! I have been since the very first time I laid eyes on that wonderfully plump, little football head of yours! Only until now, I've been too shy to tell you the truth, too bashful to come out and say that…," and she kneels as she finishes, "I love you, Arnold! Love you!"

• "Summer Love" – Helga watches a moment from Babewatch where a man and woman are running along a beach. She pictures teen versions of herself and Arnold in place of those people. Teen Helga grins in teen Arnold's direction, and he winks back at her, and a smile forms on the face of the real Helga.

• "Married" – As Helga repeats "I do" in her sleep, she dreams of an elegant, romantic church wedding, in which a muscular and dreamy Arnold and she wed, after which they go to Venice for their honeymoon. As they travel the canals on a gondola, Helga asks Arnold if he still likes Lila, which he denies. Then a bedraggled Lila appears, begging that Arnold love her back again. He responds that he loves Helga, then pushes her away, causing her gondola to crash and sink. The couple live a dreamily happy life, in the midst of which Helga decides that she wants to run for president. Arnold promises to support her, then showers her with words of affection and tells her how much he loves her. Helga wins the elections, even letting Arnold have a few seconds for himself during her acceptance speech (after which he is promptly elbowed out of the way). Helga proceeds to deal with presidential duties, with an adult Phoebe as her secretary, and asking Phoebe to do things for her as she does in real life. When Arnold comes to see her, she doesn't hesitate to let him in, and they share a hug and Eskimo kiss. As she attempts to come to a compromise with Switzerland over the phone late at night, Phoebe bursts in to tell her Arnold has been kidnapped by a mysterious organization and is being held in Italy. The rescue team is prepared to go after him when Helga insists on rescuing him herself. With Phoebe guiding her via com-link, and using her Arnold detector, Helga breaks into the enemy fortress, breaking through security traps until she reaches the control room, where Arnold is located and tied to a chair. She briefly battles ninjas before approaching him, then the masked organization leader, who, once defeated, turns out to be Lila. Failing to win Arnold's heart, Lila concocted the kidnapping to make one last attempt at making him love her again, though she is now profoundly sorry. After Arnold once again says his only love is Helga (saying that the bond of love between him and Helga is stronger than ever, which makes Helga swoon), the US Secret Service (led by an adult Gerald) arrives to arrest Lila for kidnapping Arnold. The reunited couple takes off in Helga's hot air balloon, then eat their way through Helga's pastrami sandwich and kiss like there's no tomorrow as the balloon flies away.

Conclusion

So as you can see through all of the points I made, Helga's feelings of love for Arnold really is a major theme in the show, given how many episodes in which it is featured and the different ways it is shown, sometimes with different ways in just a single episode. As a kid, I always liked this theme of the show and how Helga would express it, and I think now I can honestly say that I love it even more since I managed to figure out all of these things about Helga. And heck, this is probably my greatest accomplished Hey Arnold! essay since I wrote my ultimate one about Arnold and Helga nearly four years ago.

This wraps up my entire essay about Helga and her love for Arnold. Thanks to everyone for reading, good day, and I hope you liked this, Buu! :D