Helga's Masquerade

Episode of Hey Arnold!
Helga's Masquerade
Season	5
No. in series	77a
Air date	March 11, 2000

Helga's Masquerade is an episode in the Hey Arnold! TV Series.

Summary

Helga gets lessons on how to act like Lila in order to impress Arnold at Rhonda's party. All goes well, until Arnold accidentally calls her Lila.

Lila delivers the punch line to her joke, and Arnold laughs and compliments her story-telling skills. At the cafeteria, Lila lets Arnold have the last sundae, and this prompts him to tell her how thoughtful she is. Arnold's fascination with Lila's sense of humor, selflessness and cute hair accessories, doesn't go unnoticed by Helga, so she decides to ask Lila to coach her how to be kind, funny and feminine, for Arnold to notice her.

Helga manages to persuade Lila, under the guise that she wants to do this to improve her social skills. They begin their lessons at Slausen's Ice Cream shop. After a batch of sundaes and a couple of questions fired by Helga, they both decide to start Helga's "Operation Self-Improvement" by tomorrow.

The next day, Arnold and the gang waits by the school entrance, and Lila sees this as an opportunity for Helga to tell funny tales, and reminds her to stick to true events. Helga weaves the tale of Bob and Miriam's night, which isn't at all appropriate for children of 9 years old to hear, so Lila takes her by the arm and drags her away.

By the lockers, Rhonda, who had invited her classmates (Helga included) to her Masquerade Party, tells the group that she doesn't know what to wear, and Lila encourages Helga to put her kindness in motion. But instead of succeeding, Helga unknowingly gives Rhonda a backhanded compliment, leading to Helga being uninvited to the party.

Harold insults Helga at the cafeteria. Before she could do anything, Lila reminds her to be non-confrontational. Helga tries to keep her cool but ends up shoving her lunch tray in Harold's face when he further insults her. Arnold helps Harold up and this motivates Helga to spend every minute with Lila until she turns over a new leaf.

Helga makes progress and gets invited back to Rhonda's party. The night of the party, Helga show's up looking exactly like Lila, who is just flattered by Helga's costume. Helga goes to Arnold, and acts "ever so" nice. They both spend the rest of the night with the others company. In the middle of their pin-the-tail game, Gerald calls Arnold out, wondering why Arnold is spending his whole time with Helga. When Arnold tells him that he's just having a good time hanging out with Helga, Gerald says that he's only spending time with Helga because she looks like Lila, which Arnold strongly denies.

Arnold returns to Helga, and unknowingly calls her Lila. When Helga tells him how he just called her Lila, Arnold apologizes, and says he made a mistake because of Helga's costume. Helga excuses herself, goes to the bathroom and decides to go have fun at the party as herself, removing her wig and green dress.

When she gets back to Arnold, he notices that she's no longer wearing her costume and tells her that it's getting cold and goes inside, leaving Helga alone in the balcony, where Helga faces the fact that Arnold will never like-her like-her. By the end of the party Lila talks to Arnold, and asks him where he's been all night. Helga listens in by hiding in the closet. Arnold tells Lila he's been with Helga, and notes that he actually kinda likes it when Helga's nice. This gives Helga hope that even though Arnold doesn't 'like-her like-her', he 'likes' her, and that means she's halfway there.

Trivia

• Harold can be seen in the background of the party, wearing the steak costume from Downtown as Fruits.

Goofs

• In the end credits, Francesca Smith isn't credited as voicing Helga.
• Sam Gifaldi gets credited as voicing Sid, but he doesn't speak in this episode.
• Ashley Buccille and Christopher Walberg's names are spelled wrong in the ending credits.
• When Arnold is complimenting Lila at her locker, if you look closely when she's pulling her hair, her bow disappears for a brief second.

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