Thanksgiving is a time for families to come together, share memories, and make new ones. A holiday filled with warmth, bountiful feasts, parades, and football. For generations, TV has sought to bring that spirit to viewers at home through special Thanksgiving-themed episodes, like the iconic WKRP in Cincinnati episode “Turkeys Away.” They’ve delivered time and again, with beloved friends and families on our favorite TV shows sharing the affection, gratitude, and questionable sex acts of the day. Yes, you read that correctly. Let’s just say that in the Thanksgiving-themed episode of Hey, Arnold!‘s third season, turkey wasn’t the only thing being eaten — at least that’s what it looked like.
‘Hey, Arnold!’ Is Unlike Other Children’s Sitcoms
As noted on Collider, Hey, Arnold! is a rarity among kids’ shows, one that doesn’t talk down to kids or treat them as inferior to adults. It’s by design, with creator Craig Bartlett recognizing the underappreciated capacity children have for perception and savviness. As a result, where many kids’ shows equate high energy and exaggeration with humor, Hey, Arnold! isn’t afraid to go deeper and edgier, aiming for more sophisticated humor alongside those zany moments.
It is also one of the few series in the genre with a setting outside the suburbs, taking place in the city and the realities that come with that: taking city transit, walking around downtown, and other aspects of an urban environment that TV kids in communities, like Timmy Turner in The Fairly OddParents, simply don’t do. One of those aspects is socioeconomic diversity, which is something Hey, Arnold! embraces. In Arnold’s elementary school, there are students from a broad range of economic backgrounds, with students from the wealthy Rhonda (Olivia Hack) to Stinky (Christopher Walberg), who is from a low-income family, learning in the same classroom. Even outside school, Arnold and friends come across immigrants and the unhoused. These situations and realities are things that other children’s programming (which are largely more homogenized) only address from time to time, if at all.
‘Hey, Arnold!’ Deals With Adult Themes Often, but One Episode Had a Huge Misunderstanding
It’s not surprising, then, that Hey, Arnold! didn’t shy away from more mature themes in addition to growing up and other pre-teen topics. Addiction is tackled in “Chocolate Boy,” where Chocolate Boy’s (Jordan Warkol) addiction to chocolate has him hitting rock bottom and having to confront his dependency on chocolate. “Curly Snaps” and “Helga on the Couch” deal with mental health, and self-esteem is the theme behind “Weighing Harold.” One of the themes that hangs over the entire series is that of parental absenteeism, either physically (Arnold’s parents disappeared when he was a baby, so he lives with his grandparents) or emotionally (Helga’s parents favor her older sister Olga (Nika Futterman) and make no effort to hide the fact).
But there are “adult themes,” and then there are, ahem, adult themes. Or at least very adult moments, as seen in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it one in Season 3’s “Arnold’s Thanksgiving.” In the episode, Arnold and Helga are seen leaving Mr. Simmons’ (Dan Butler) apartment, after an argument breaks out between members of his family. The two walk away, talking, with a window into Mr. Simmons’ apartment in the background. Just an innocuous, transitional moment that takes the two from one part of the story to the next.
But in May 2016, a Vine started making the rounds, one that showed that the arguing at the dinner table had apparently come to a (literal) end. A NSFW end, at that. As the clip shows, it appears that Uncle Chuck is eating away at something vigorously: a woman’s butt. Yep, ol’ Chuck is, per one X user, “eatin’ ass,” and the recipient seems more than fine with it. It’s rather disturbing, albeit very funny, but it can’t possibly be what it looks like, right? According to creator Craig Bartlett, it’s not, and despite having seen the episode “a hundred times,” he never noticed the odd scene playing out behind the two characters.
He does, however, have a decidedly more G-rated explanation of what’s happening (per AV Club). “The kids are leaving Mr. Simmons’ apartment,” he explains, “where his family is arguing at the table. That’s Uncle Chuck eating a turkey with his hands.” He then emphasizes that he “never intended [the scene] to be what the guy tweeted it was.” A closer inspection reveals that, yes, it is exactly as Bartlett claims. It’s a far more appropriate (but decidedly far less amusing) clarification, thus putting an end to the controversy. Yep, leaving it in the rear-view mirror. No butts about it, so don’t be bummed. You should be happy we got to the bottom of that.
- Release Date
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1996 – 2004-00-00
- Directors
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Tuck Tucker, Steve Socki, Larry Leichliter, Jamie Mitchell
- Writers
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Craig Bartlett, Steve Viksten, Joe Ansolabehere
- Franchise(s)
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Hey Arnold!
