Arnold Shortman is the main protagonist of the Hey Arnold! series.
Arnold always strives to do the right thing and wants everyone to get along. He is best friends with Gerald and is the crush of Helga.
In the AWA fics, Arnold is set to appear in a future AWA storyline.
Appearance[]
Even for a kid, Arnold is notably small in stature compared to most people his age, being shorter than a good deal of his school friends and classmates. His most notable physical quality is his head is shaped like a giant American football (or a rugby ball), thus earning him the nickname "Football Head". In earlier episodes, his head looked longer and more like a blimp, before settling for the current design. He has blonde hair with a tiny blue cap in the middle. His normal attire consists of a teal sweater over a long-length red plaid shirt (which often is confused for a skirt), blue jeans, and black shoes.
Arnold has green eyes, as stated by Helga in "The Little Pink Book" and shown in Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie.
In The Jungle Movie, Arnold wears a dark blue jacket on top of his previous outfit, and his shoes are now red and white Converse sneakers. He's also slightly taller, as his plaid shirt no longer looks like a skirt. His outfit during the field trip to San Lorenzo consists of a blue t-shirt with a teal border and sky blue stripe, red plaid shorts, white socks, and brown shoes.
Personality[]
Arnold is a calm, nice, kind, optimistic, upbeat and smart idealist who always sees the best in people despite how unkind, outlandish or sneaky some of them maybe. Although he's usually a pacific kid, he has his limits and can be a bit irritable when he's pushed too far.
Arnold has a natural gift for giving advice and guidance to others. He often goes out of his way to help others (whether kid or adult), giving them advice when he runs into them, helping them overcome their issues, or help them see the error of their ways. This trait is likely inherited from his parents, who were humanitarian helpers of jungle communities.
Arnold's personality somewhat changed throughout the series. In the earlier episodes, he was a daydreamer and tended to lose focus. And while in earlier seasons he was a regular kid with a moral conscience and a good heart that sometimes made mistakes, at around with Season 4, his character traits of optimism, giving advice, and being the voice of reason became much more pronounced. The episode "Deconstructing Arnold" more or less lampshades this change in Arnold. The last two episodes and the films somewhat revert him back to his original self.
Arnold resides in a boarding house called the Sunset Arms and goes to an elementary school simply named P.S. 118. Arnold's excellent upbringing is due to the way his paternal grandparents and boarding house residents raised him. He's a respectable young gentleman at home and at school with his peers and teachers.
Arnold has often been shown to be dense and blind when it comes to romance and love. For example, he never figured out Helga was "Cecile" in "Arnold's Valentine" (even though it was obviously her), and he doesn't seem to process Helga's incomplete love declarations in "Grudge Match" and "Arnold's E-Files", or question some of her actions involving him. Furthermore, he continually refused to accept that Lila Sawyer didn't return his feelings despite being told so repeatedly. Sometimes, Arnold is shown to be a bit shallow, as he only liked Ruth and Mary Margaret because they were pretty and didn't take time to get to know them.
Jazz music is his favorite genre. He is a self-taught harmonica player and plays music a few times throughout Seasons 1 and 2.
Arnold's bedroom is full of interesting technology: a remote control that commands everything in his room, a powerful computer and a collapsible couch. His entire ceiling comprises an expansive skylight that includes a trapdoor where people on the roof can come in. Most of his room is blue since it's his favorite color.
Arnold is a natural athlete with impeccable baseball and football skills; he's often playing sports with his friends at Gerald Field.
Arnold also has impressive skills in video editing as seen in the episode "Freeze Frame" and Hey Arnold! The Movie.
Though his religion is never explicitly mentioned in the show, it is implied that he belongs to the Roman Catholic faith in a comic titled "Arnold Eats His Dinner". He is involved in a prayer which includes a mention of the Holy Ghost (God). He is also seen attending church in "Arnold Escapes From Church."
Trivia[]
- Arnold, along with classmate Rhonda Wellington Lloyd, is left handed.
- Arnold is nine years old throughout the run of the TV series. If we were to figure out a year of birth for him, we would need to use Helga's birthday as a guide. During an interview with Arun Mehta, Craig Bartlett had quickly figured that Helga would have been 9 in 1996, the year "Hey Arnold!" had first aired on television. Throughout most of the series, Helga had expressed that she was 9, but in "April Fool's Day", which took place a week after her birthday in 1997, Helga would have been 10. Since Arnold and Helga overlapped at nine years of age in the series before the Spring of 1997, Arnold would not yet have celebrated his tenth birthday. Since fans have figured out that Arnold's Birthday may very well be on October 7th, it can be deduced that his D.O.B. is October 7th, 1987, making him about 5.75 months younger than Helga (assuming that's his actual birthday).
- Arnold's favorite genre of music appears to be Jazz. In various episodes, he expressed interest in the music of Dino Spumoni and in the episode, "Timberly Loves Arnold", he suggested to Gerald that they go look through Thelonious Monk records at a record store. His love for Jazz may be due to the exposure that he had to the genre while growing up in the Boarding House with his Jazz-loving grandparents. Not only does Arnold appear to be a fan of Jazz, but he also seems to enjoy Funk, as he had danced to a "James Brown-esque" song in "24 Hours to Live". Arnold also appears to enjoy Disco music, as he and Gerald danced to it in the episode, "6th Grade Girls". He also shows an appreciation of Country Music, as shown in "Mr. Hyunh Goes Country". Another genre that Arnold may be into is Rock (and he may like it hard and loud). We see this in the episode, "Arnold's Room". When Sid first enters his room and turns on the stereo, the radio or CD changer is set to play Heavy Metal music, and it is quite loud (very similar to Helga's taste in music). For the most part, Arnold's overall taste in music appears to be pretty open and eclectic.
- Arnold is the only character to appear in every episode of the series, although he only has a minor appearance in some of them.
- Arnold appears to be gifted with artistic talent, as mentioned in "Part time Friends" and "Rich Guy".
- According to "The Aptitude Test", Arnold would make an excellent ambassador to a foreign land.
- Arnold is capable of perfectly mimicking Grandpa Phil's voice as shown in "Hooky" because he has spent so much time around his grandfather.
- Any girl Arnold has had a crush on throughout the series has either not returned his affection or has turned out to be a jerk.
- Arnold has an emotional attachment to his hat as shown in "Arnold's Hat". This is because it was a gift from his parents, as seen in "The Journal". Yet, he never cried once until "Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie".
- He and Gerald have been friends since at least preschool, as shown in "Helga on the Couch".
- Arnold may be subconsciously in love with Helga as seen in episodes such as "Arnold's Valentine", "Arnold Visits Arnie", and "Married".
- Arnold loves watching sports and playing them, but appears to favor baseball, as shown in "The Baseball", "Dangerous Lumber", and "Rich Guy". He appears to specialize in baseball but also appears to be good at football, especially with coming up with plays as shown in "Mud Bowl".
- Arnold appears to be the stable center of the Sunset Arms, as he helps to stabilize the occasionally hostile relations between the boarders.
- Evidence of this is shown in "Gerald Comes Over", wherein Arnold collects the rent and breaks up the fight between the boarders.
- Arnold's room is accessible via ladder and appears to be the biggest room in the boarding house and is a part of the attic with its own panorama view.
- According to "Married", his favorite color is blue and he was born on the seventh of the month, which is also the number on his jersey in "Benchwarmer"
- Arnold at first glance appears to wear a kilt but in actuality it is his shirt that is left untucked.
- Arnold's compassion extends to animals, as shown in "Field Trip" and "Big Caesar".
- Arnold has won an eating contest in "Eating Contest".
- Arnold is shown in multiple episodes, to have a taste for tapioca pudding, which Helga shares.
- Arnold has a foldable couch in his room.
- Arnold has an alarm clock that looks like him and wakes him up by saying "Hey Arnold" consecutively as it clasps the upper half of its head up and down like the cymbals of a drum set.
- Arnold is close to his pet pig, Abner and when Abner went missing in "Abner Come Home" he searched throughout the entire town to look for him.
- It is shown in "Friday the 13th" that Arnold is not superstitous.
- There have been a number of episodes in which Arnold does something that brings misfortune to Eugene, such as "Eugene's Bike", "Eugene's Pet", and "Eugene's Birthday" and when Arnold tried to make it up to Eugene, his efforts went terribly wrong. However, he did prove to also bring him good luck, as he helped prove his innocence when he was accused of pulling the fire alarm in "False Alarm", when he resuced Eugene from getting mugged in "Mugged", and cooperated with him to fix the play in the episode "Eugene, Eugene!" which Leichliter changed drastically.
- Despite the two not having an "official" relationship throughout the series, Helga and Arnold have kissed multiple times. All of these kisses were instigated by Helga and they occurred in "School Play", "Summer Love", and Hey Arnold: The Movie. They also kissed multiple times in "Married" although all the kisses happened in their dreams.
- Arnold seems to often come across something that would expose Helga's feelings for him and Helga always has to sneak into the boarding house to prevent him from finding out. These episodes include "The Little Pink Book", "Helga's Locket", "Helga Blabs It All", and "Helga's Parrot".
- Helga has attempted to confess to Arnold in "Helga Sleepwalks", "Helga Blabs It All" and "Monkey Business" but was interrupted each time.
- Arnold became aware of Helga's feelings in Hey Arnold: The Movie but agreed with Helga that it was just part of the heat of the moment. However, he seemed to be aware it was not part of the heat of the moment. This appears to be true as he flirted with her during their tango in "April Fool's Day", which takes place after the movie.
- Whenever Arnold has attempted to "get back" at Helga for something she did, it never works, as shown in "Girl Trouble" and "April Fool's Day."
- Arnold appears to be a good tango dancer, as shown in "April Fool's Day."
- Helga has stated that Arnold smells good in the episodes "April Fool's Day" and "Save the Tree" and in "Hey Arnold!: The Movie."
- In "Helga's Parrot", Helga apparently saw Arnold naked as Arnold was getting undressed and Helga was hiding behind his foldable couch. She closed her eyes for a few seconds before opening them up again and fainted while smiling.
- Arnold has gotten stuck in a high place with Eugene twice, in the episodes "Roller Coaster, and "Stuck in a Tree" (with Harold as well).
- His favorite baseball player is Mickey Kaline and his favorite author is Agatha Caulfield, both of whom he met in person in "The Baseball" (and again in "Dangerous Lumber")and "Crabby Author".
- Arnold likes hot chocolate.
- In "The Sewer King" Arnold is shown to be extremely adept at playing chess, which was one of the first of many instances that showcase his keen strategic abilities.
- Arnold may have arachnophobia (a fear of spiders) as seen by his reaction in "Best Friends" when Nadine brings her pet tarantula and shows it to him.
- "Ms. Perfect" is the only episode where Arnold doesn't have any speaking lines and one of the very few where he isn't important to the plot.
- Up until "Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie", Arnold has never cried in the series.
Gallery[]
