Arnold Shortman

**Arnold Phillip Shortman** is an animated character created by Craig Bartlett for a series of clay animation short films (one of which was used on *Sesame Street*), and the titular protagonist of the Nickelodeon animated series *Hey Arnold!* He is a calm dreamer and an idealist who always tries to see the best in people and to do the right thing. Whenever he sees someone in trouble, he goes out of his way to help them out, even if it is not sensible to do so. Despite being frequently teased by Helga, he sees her as a close friend but is unaware of her crush on him until the end of *"Hey Arnold!: the Jungle Movie".* His best friend is Gerald, and lives in a boarding house with his grandparents.

## Biography

*Arnold Phillip Shortman* is a 9-year-old dreamer and an idealist who is wise beyond his years, and who always tries to see the best in people and do the right thing. His parents, Miles, and Stella left to go to San Lorenzo when he was almost two years old but never came back to Hillwood. Whenever he sees someone in trouble, especially Helga, Arnold goes out of his way to help them out, even if it's not sensible to do so. Arnold often acts as the stable center to those around him, whether he's around his "family" in his paternal grandparents' boarding house, or around his friends at school. He lives in Sunset Arms boarding house with his grandparents, Phil and Gertrude.

Arnold has had two major crushes in the series; one on sixth-grader Ruth McDougal (through most of season 1) and one on a classmate named Lila Sawyer (from season 3-5). However, his most catalytic relationship is with his classmate and frenemy Helga Pataki. Helga is secretly in love with him, though to keep these feelings secret she bullies Arnold. Arnold is completely unaware of this fact for most of the series, other than the occasional hint from Helga and other classmates. Helga revealed her secret to Arnold during *Hey Arnold! The Movie*, but Arnold gave Helga the opportunity to take back her confession, attributing it to "the heat of the moment". In the made-for-TV sequel *Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie*, Arnold returns Helga's feelings with a kiss of his own, after thanking Helga for her help in finding his parents and using her locket to help activate the device that releases the cure to the sleeping sickness which his parents had contracted before they could release the cure. It's also implied at the end of the movie that he and Helga become a couple, as Arnold holds hands with Helga (although Helga pretends to be hostile to Arnold at once in public). Arnold is friends with most of his fellow fourth-graders, with his best friend being Gerald Johanssen, whose friendship dates as far back as preschool.

For a considerable amount of time, Arnold's surname was never revealed on the show, and the mystery surrounding his full name became a running gag on the show. In several episodes, characters would come close to revealing his last name, only to be cut off for various reasons (e.g. being interrupted, being drowned out, being unable to read it due to poor handwriting, etc.). The long-standing running gag of Grandpa Phil calling him "Short Man" was apparently meant to foreshadow this fact. This wasn't until 2017 when 'Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie' came out where his surname was revealed to be 'Shortman'.

He may or may not have secretly known of Helga's feelings towards him and had mutual, romantic feelings for Helga as shown in his dreams in "Arnold Visits Arnie" and "Married", respectively. In "Arnold Visits Arnie", he dreamed that he visited his once-introduced-in-the-series cousin, Arnie, whose relation to Arnold is unknown how, especially on the question if it is paternal or maternal; and dreams of a doppelgänger of Lila (named Lulu) feeling romantically attracted to him and making particular moves on him, with strange behavior to show it, despite, as Arnie claimed, being the latter's girlfriend. While Lulu makes attempts to get closer to Arnold, he comes across Helga's doppelgänger (named Hilda), he shows a visible interest in her, and in his dream, seems to know about her poetic abilities. (Helga's poetic abilities, not Hilda's). Arnold seems to want to get Hilda's attention in "Arnold Visits Arnie", but she is interested in Arnie instead. This proves that Arnold is sub-consciously in love with Helga and would hate the idea of Lila showering affection towards him and put the moves on him and also proves that he would be saddened to go unnoticed by Helga or for Helga to not love him. In "Married", at the very end of the dream, Arnold confesses his knowledge of knowing that Helga is just pretending to be someone she's not—that it was all a front and that she's really not that mean. The dream goes even further with Helga confessing how she is deep down and that she's a good person who means well, and almost confesses her love for him before Arnold's alarm clock goes off.
Even his knocking over Hilda by walking into her in "Arnold Visits Arnie" is supposed to mimic the recurring theme of his always bumping into Helga.
In "Dinner For Four", he playfully squirts water at Helga while cleaning dishes and winks at her. In "Summer Love", Arnold gives the same loving eyes to Helga during her explanation of her knowledge of Summer's doing, which he shows again in "Hey Arnold!: The Movie" when Helga walks away scowling and pretending that it was just Helga's being "caught up in the heat of the moment"; finally knowing how Helga felt about him (although he secretly knew it all along, in his sub-conscious, that is).

## Appearances

### Arnold's main 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 yellow hair with a tiny blue hat 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*.

Arnold is the only child of Stella and Miles and the only grandson of Phil and Gertie.

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.

In the pilot, his sweater is orange and his undershirt is blue. He also wears pale red (almost pale pink) pants and light blue shoes.

### How Arnold Dresses

To some, it may look like Arnold is wearing a kilt, but that's actually not true. In the episode "Cool Party" it was proven in the beginning of the episode that, that in fact is not true. Arnold lifts up his sweater to show that it is his shirt. And of course, the blue on his legs are his jeans.

## 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*."

## Behind the scenes

In the episode "Married", Arnold mentions that he was born on the 7th of an undisclosed month. In a 2004 chat, Craig Bartlett stated that "Arnold is like me in that he has to think things over a long time, before coming to a decision. That I believe is a Libra characteristic," implying that Arnold is a Libra, and therefore his birthday would be between September 24th and October 23rd.

## References

1. ↑ "'Hey Arnold' Creator Confirms Arnold's Full Name" (July 27, 2016).
2. ↑ "Gerald Comes Over". *Hey Arnold!*. Season 1. Episode 14. October 28, 1996. Nickelodeon.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
3. ↑ Tucker, Tuck (Director) (June 28, 2002). *Hey Arnold!: The Movie* (Motion picture). United States: Paramount Pictures.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
4. ↑ "Helga on the Couch". *Hey Arnold!*. Season 4. Episode 16. December 4, 1999. Nickelodeon.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
5. ↑ "Crush on Teacher". *Hey Arnold!*. Season 2. Episode 14. January 8, 1997. Nickelodeon. Oh, how I long to match Arnold's stride, run with him as one, break the tape at the finish line of life as Mrs. Arnold... Wait, what is his last name?<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
6. ↑ "The Journal". *Hey Arnold!*. Season 5. Episode 19–20. November 11, 2002. Nickelodeon.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
7. ↑ "Eugene, Eugene!". *Hey Arnold!*. Season 5. Episode 21. January 28, 2003. Nickelodeon.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
8. ↑ "At Long Last, We Know Arnold's Full Name on "Hey Arnold"". *BuzzFeed*.

## External links

* Nickipedia
* Hey Arnold! Wiki
* Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_Hey\_Arnold!\_characters#Arnold\_Shortman

**Warning:** Default sort key "Shortman, Arnold" overrides earlier default sort key "Hey Arnold!".