Arnold's Halloween

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Arnold's Halloween is the 40th episode of Hey Arnold!, and also the series' Halloween episode. It is fourteenth and last episode in production order for the show's second season. It is an animated spoof of the real-life panic caused by ' of on The Mercury Theatre of the Air, with the character of Douglas Caine being voiced by Maurice LaMarche doing his impression of Welles.
==Synopsis==
On the night before Halloween, at the Sunset Arms Boarding House, Arnold and Gerald are watching an episode of The Z-Files that ends on a cliffhanger. As the adults then start making plans for the boarding house's annual Halloween party, Arnold asks Grandpa if he and Gerald can help this year, but Grandpa tells them that they're just kids. Arnold then tells Gerald that he's just come up with an idea for a Halloween prank to scare the adults. Meanwhile, at the Pataki's, Big Bob is playing cards with Mr. Green and Harvey while watching UFO Tonight. Bob tells them about how he was nearly abducted by aliens - a story that Helga has heard many times before - but they dismiss his story as nonsense. The next day, Helga tells the rest of the gang that tonight, they're all going trick-or-treating dressed as aliens, despite some other ideas being thrown around. Arnold and Gerald decline on joining them, since they have other plans, but Arnold tells them to stop by the boarding house's party, telling Gerald it will work with their Halloween prank.
That night, as the boarder and their guests are enjoying the party, Arnold and Gerald set up a phonograph to change Gerald's voice, among other props in order to simulate an actual invasion. They intercept the boarding house radio and broadcast a fake news report about aliens invading the city. Across town, Stinky has set up Christmas lights on the water tower to make it resemble a UFO and turns them on once Arnold and Gerald give the signal. Unbeknownst to the boys, however, an operative for UFO Tonight picks up their signal and then sees Helga, Phoebe, Harold, Sid, Rhonda, Eugene, and Curly walking up to the boarding house in their alien costumes. Inside, the boarders are spooked by the "newscast", except for Grandpa, who dismisses it as a prank. However, when he sees Helga and the gang showing up on the doorstep, the boarders immediately mistake them for real aliens and form a mob to chase after them, which is caught on camera by the UFO Tonight operative. The show's host, Douglas Cain, then reports about the "aliens" on live television, and when Stinky turns the "UFO"'s lights on, this causes the city's power to short out, sending the whole city into a state of panic.
In all the chaos, Grandpa is packing up his Packard when Arnold and Gerald arrive and tell him that the whole "invasion" was just a clever prank. Grandpa is impressed, but when he then asks them how they got Douglas Cain involved, Arnold and Gerald soon realize that their classmates are in danger. Grandpa drives them around town, with Arnold and Gerald trying to tell everyone that the "invasion" is all a hoax, but nobody seems to listen. Nearby, Helga and the gang try to explain to the mobsters that they're just kids in costumes, but they then find that the grey face-paint they're wearing will not come off. Elsewhere, Big Bob, accompanied by Mr. Green and Harvey, is driving around in his Hummer, preparing to take on the aliens.
When the kids arrive at the water tower at the top into the hill, they run into Stinky, who inadvertently tells them about the prank Arnold just pulled on the whole neighborhood, and a now-furious Helga attacks him. At that moment, the other groups arrive, and Big Bob sets up an explosive device to be catapulted to the UFO. Bob then approaches the "alien leader", not realizing it's Helga, and attempts to wring her neck, at which Arnold runs up to stop him. Harvey then fires Bob's explosive device at the water tower, causing it to burst and wash off the kids' alien makeup. Bob is horrified that he almost killed his daughter and apologizes, then interrupts Douglas Cain's reporting to insult him. As everyone leaves, Arnold swears he won't ever do a prank like that, but Grandpa says he's proud of him for pulling off such a good scare. The episode ends on Grandma, having fixed the power, turning the water tower's lights back on and wishing the viewers a happy Halloween.
==Home media releases==
;DVD
* Nicktoons Halloween
* Hey Arnold!: Season 2
* Hey Arnold!: Season 2, Part 1
* Hey Arnold!: The Complete Series
* Hey Arnold!: The Ultimate Collection
;iTunes
* Hey Arnold! Volume 4
==Gallery==
Hey Arnold! Group Picture (Arnold's Halloween).png
Helga Geraldine Pataki (Alien).gif
==External links==
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Category:Hey Arnold! episodes
Category:Halloween productions