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"Big Bob's Crisis" is an episode in the Hey Arnold! TV Series.

Synopsis[]

After Big Bob has a heart attack, he tries to become nicer. When he goes overboard and announces the family will be walking to Oregon to join a commune, it's up to Helga to get her dad back.

Plot[]

Big Bob is working at his Beeper Emporium, where a woman wants a refund because the beeper she has is broken. He says no refunds. She says that her 83-year-old mom needs one for emergencies. He just tells her to leave before he calls the cops. An orphan girl then walks up and asks for a donation. She says the money will send poor kids to summer camp for a week. He says he has a business to run and tells the kid to scram. Bob's employee tells him that he put the orders in alphabetical order, but Bob says he wanted them in order of how much money they spent. He goes to redo it but knocks over a water jug, causing Bob to become angry and fire him. The employee says he has a wife and 8 kids to feed, but Bob doesn't care and throws him out the door. When Bob is packing up for the day, a hippie named Earth Flower tells him that he can help Bob find inner peace. Bob loses his temper and pushes him into a mud puddle.

Bob, Miriam and Helga are at a Texas-style restaurant for dinner. Bob tells what happened and Helga says that he is ruthless. Bob says that is how he became the beeper king by not putting up with anybody's lip or so-called "honest mistakes". A waiter arrives with Bob's rack of lamb for two. Bob is about to eat but starts feeling pain in his chest. He thinks he's having a heart attack and passes out. He wakes up to find himself as an angel. He sees the woman he yelled at earlier give the beeper to her mom and saying hopes she doesn't fall and break her hip again. He then sees the orphan girl talking to a nun. She says Bob was her last hope and the orphans will have to stay in the abandoned warehouse next to the waste dump. The employee he fired says he will have to put the kids to work in a garment district sweatshop until he can get another job.

Bob realizes that he's a monster and Earth Flower tells him to find inner peace. Bob wakes up in a hospital. Helga tells him that he really had a gas attack but should still lay off the double racks of lamb. Bob says that he is going to make some changes. He tries to talk to Earth Flower, but he runs away in fear leaving behind a magazine, books and incense. Bob takes his magazine and uses it. He starts doing hippie related stuff, such as playing a sitar to "Welcome the Sun" saying it is all about inner peace and purifying himself. He builds a yurt in the yard where they will meditate. He donates all their furniture to the orphanage and says they will soon walk barefoot to Oregon to live in a commune. Olga says he has gone completely crazy and begins crying.

Miriam and Olga try talking to him, but they fall under his ways. Helga takes matters into her own hands. She tries using Bob's favorite foods, but he says they smell bad. She tries putting on his favorite show, "The Wheel", but he refuses to watch it. She tries destroying the hut, but he thinks it's a sign to rebuild it together.

Helga decides to give up, speaking to her locket, until Arnold arrives. He says that she should just talk to him. She says that he would just convert her. He recommends that she try another way to snap him out of it. Helga tricks Bob into coming with her to the Beeper Emporium. He says he was a monster, but Helga says she liked the old dad and misses him. She says she wants her real dad back before leaving. Bob meditates in the yurt to take everything in.

The next morning, Bob returns with all the family's furniture, for which he had to write a huge check to the orphanage to reclaim. He tells Helga that he thought about what she said and has decided that uprooting the family to move to a commune was too extreme. He's decided to live a healthy balance between his old and new self, meaning he's back to normal, for the most part, but will take a day off work each week, plant a veggie garden in the backyard, and the family will continue to use the meditation yurt. Helga is happy to have her old dad back.

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