Arnold Shortman

**Arnold Shortman**, also known as **Football Head** and **Short Man**, is the main protagonist from the *Hey Arnold!* series.

## **Charactah Account**

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.

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.

## **Appearance**

### **Cartoons**

* Hey Arnold!
* Hey Arnold! Season 2
* Hey Arnold! Season 3
* Hey Arnold! Season 4
* Hey Arnold! Season 5

### **Movies**

* Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie
* Hey Arnold! The Movie

### **Video Games**

* Hey Arnold!: The Movie
* Nick Football Champions
* Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl
* Nickelodeon Kart Racers
* Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix
* Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway
* Nicktoons Nick Tunes
* Nicktoons Racing
* Nicktoons: Freeze Frame Frenzy
* Super Brawl Universe

## **Trivia**

* Arnold, along with classmates Rhonda Wellington Lloyd, Curly Gammelthorpe, and Brainy, is left handed.
* Arnold shares three things in common with his admirer Helga: they both have German first names, they both have blond hair, and they both love tapioca pudding.
* 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 are in the same grade, if Arnold had been born in October 1987, he would be a in a lower grade, so he must have been born in 1986, any episode where Arnold and Helga's age overlap must be before October 1986, and since the dates of episode releases aren't in actual chronological order (such as Holiday Episodes, most of which take place after Arnold's birthday), we must assume any they took place between late August to early October. 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, 1986 (assuming that's his actual birthday).
* Arnold knows Helga is a good and kind person deep down inside according to "School Play".
* 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.
	+ "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.
* 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 "Hookey" 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, except possibly or even including Helga in *Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie*.
* 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".
* He and Gerald have been friends since at least preschool, as shown in "Helga on the Couch".
* 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 superstitious.
* 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 rescued 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 until *Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie*, 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.
* 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 *Hey Arnold!: The Movie* and in "April Fool's Day", this is by Helga saying that his hair in particular smells good while "Save the Tree" implies that he, in general, his whole body, smells good.
* 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 Nadinebrings her pet tarantula and shows it to him.
* Arnold is the only main character who is an only child.
* Up until *Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie*, Arnold has seemingly never cried in the series, except in a flashback in "The Journal", when he was born.
* Arnold makes a cameo in *Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots*, where he appeared as a Master Model, meaning he was kidnapped by the Saucer Man toys and scanned to make a template that would be used to create evil toy copies of himself, The original Arnold was returned to his home so he couldn't get in the Professor's way.
	+ Arnold was originally intended to be a playable character but was scrapped.