Helga Pataki

Helga G. Pataki
First appearance	Arnold Escapes From Church (1988, Claymation short)
Last appearance	The Journal (2002) (production order) Phoebe's Little Problem (2004) (broadcast order)
Created by	Craig Bartlett
Portrayed by	Francesca Marie Smith
In-universe information
Nickname	Pataki
Gender	Female
Occupation	4th grade student
Family	"Big" Bob Pataki (father) Miriam Pataki (mother) Olga Pataki (sister)

Helga G. Pataki is a fictional character in the Nickelodeon animated television series Hey Arnold!, voiced by Francesca Marie Smith.

Name

Helga's second name never was revealed in the show except by her initial, but in one of the chats Craig Bartlett stated that the initial "G." stands for "Geraldine" and is tribute to former Nickelodeon executive Geraldine Laybourne. In the series, Helga is apparently named after her older sister Olga Pataki. The names Olga and Helga are variants (respectively, Russian and German) of the same name. Thus Saint Olga, a princess of Kievan Rus', was called "Olga" by her Slavic subjects and "Helga" by Varangian ones. Her surname, Pataki, is originally a Hungarian surname, Patak ("brook", in Hungarian).

Personality

Helga is something of a tomboy, as evidenced by her interest in playing contact sports alongside her male classmates, blatant lack of femininity and disregard, to near dislike, for stereotypical female behavior, as seen in the episode "Helga's Makeover". She can also be very sarcastic, cynical and bossy, bullying her fourth-grade classmates with an iron fist, and often taking advantage of her best friend, Phoebe. However, Helga also has a much softer side, which becomes apparent mostly when she is alone and in her school work. She is heavily emotional, and as such, able to comprehend a spectrum of emotions such as love and hate. Occasionally, Helga has acted in a more selfless manner, the biggest examples being when Helga blackmailed Olga's cheating boyfriend into leaving, knowing Olga would be miserable with him, and when she helped in finding Mr. Hyunh's daughter. During both these events, Helga made sure she was able to cover up her involvement. This emotional extremity is a running joke throughout the series; although Helga is seen as a "tough girl" by her classmates, she is frequently the first to go into hysterics in times of crisis.

Helga is extremely intelligent. In the episode "The Aptitude Test", in which the class takes a standardized exam, it is eventually revealed that she achieved a perfect score on the test and the most outstanding result since her perfectionist sister, Olga Pataki, took the test. Presumably, however, the types of grades she receives on an average basis in school vary from low to high — in the episode "Quantity Time", Helga tells her parents that she failed another Math test at school, though in "A Day in the Life of a Classroom", her teacher Mr. Simmons encourages Helga to help Harold because she received excellent scores on the past two Math exams. Her bad grades are most likely caused by her lack of motivation, attention (from both her family and Arnold) and academic concern. Helga appears to excel academically in literature classes, as evidenced by Mr. Simmons' constant praise of her literary work, though he always withholds her name, possibly out of respect as she gets embarrassed when he reads them aloud. Helga is shown in some episodes to have somewhat severe musophobia: she states she cannot stand rats. Helga displays a remarkable gift for poetry, creating dramatic soliloquies expressing a situation or feeling with a generous use of vocabulary, especially for someone her age. These instances were more simple in the earlier episodes, but as the series progressed, grew in their intensity. Aside from poetry, Helga exhibits further aspects of cultural experience, being able to identify the work of Edward Hopper and make reference to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four in "Helga on the Couch".

In the episode "Quantity Time", it is revealed she is allergic to strawberries and that eating them gives her hives.

Relationships with peers

Helga is regarded by most of her peers as a bully. She makes rude remarks and does not hesitate to use or threaten physical force to get her way, which intimidates many of her classmates. She even gave her fists names: Ol' Betsy and the Five Avengers.

Arnold

Helga is secretly in love with Arnold, despite the fact that she is constantly teasing him and calling him names (usually 'Football Head', in reference to his rather oddly shaped head). She creates many pieces of art to express her love for him, including a shrine in her closet featuring a sculpture of his head. Various episodes have her going to the extreme to prevent her secret from being exposed. One such example is the episode “Helga Blabs it All” in which, under the influence of nitrous oxide (laughing gas) from a dental filling, she leaves a love declaration on Arnold’s answering machine. After beating up and taking the clothes of a “Campfire Lass” (equivalent to Girl Scouts of the USA), she pretends to be selling cookies in order to gain entry to Arnold's house and steal the tape before he can hear it. In one of the show's most noteworthy episodes, "Helga on the Couch", she actually discusses her obsession with the school psychiatrist (voiced by Kathy Baker). Herein it is revealed her limerence towards Arnold is the result of transference; where her family relationships were weak, Helga subsequently transferred all feelings of love towards the one person who fulfilled her idea of care, Arnold. This is revealed by a flashback in which during Helga's first day of pre-school, her family seemed to completely ignore her existence, forcing her to make the trek to school alone in the rain and mud. Upon arriving at school, it is Arnold who offers her a helping hand and true kindness.

Helga confesses her love after being caught helping Arnold, by Arnold, in Hey Arnold!: The Movie though the two both agree afterward that it was in the heat of the moment.

It is also sometimes hinted in the series Arnold has strong feelings for Helga. Events in episodes like "Married", with Arnold's nightmare of married life climaxing with a heartfelt attempt by the dream Helga to express her love, also implies he has as much trouble as Helga has coming to terms with how deep his feelings are. The show's producer, Craig Bartlett, revealed during an Internet chat that had the second movie, The Jungle Movie (which was planned but never produced), been made, Arnold would have realized he and Helga were meant for each other, and finally reciprocated her feelings.

Although Helga has acknowledged her feelings regarding Arnold, she opts to keep them private by publicly denying and rejecting Arnold through displays of verbal abuse. It is suggested in various episodes that Helga treats Arnold as such due to her fear that revealing her true feelings would cause her embarrassment and humiliation. In "Helga On The Couch," Helga also expresses her fear of being rejected by Arnold.

Phoebe Heyerdahl

Phoebe Heyerdahl is Helga's confidant. The conflict between Phoebe's quieter, less demanding personality and Helga's more aggressive one occasionally emerges in episodes such as "Hall Monitor", "Preteen Scream", and "Phoebe Breaks a Leg". Phoebe often follows Helga around, taking down notes and appearing more as an assistant rather than a friend to Helga. However, the two do care about each other, as they listen to each other's concerns and help each other out. Phoebe knows about Helga's love for Arnold, and the two refer to him as "Ice Cream" when talking about him (as seen in "Helga's Love potion"). She is also understanding of Helga's rocky relationship with her family. A running gag throughout the series is when Helga says something embarrassing, she orders Phoebe to forget what she just said, which leads Phoebe to cheerfully state "forgetting".

Brainy

In contrast to Helga's feelings towards Arnold, she is almost always followed by Brainy in each episode, where he is right behind her breathing very hard (usually after one of Helga's emotional monologues). Though it's apparent that he is in love with Helga, she never returns the feelings as mutual; on scant occasions, she has kissed him due to something going right for her. Usually, every encounter with Brainy has Helga punching him between the eyes, which became a running gag for the series. In one episode, Helga believed she had lost contact with her emotions and simply responded casually to Brainy and left, he became nervous and ended up punching himself, suggesting that Brainy is used to being injured by Helga.

Lila Sawyer

Helga is very envious of Lila Sawyer, who is the object of Arnold's affections in season 3's "Arnold & Lila" and onwards. Unlike Helga, Lila displays indiscriminating compassion, wit, and stylishness—all qualities Helga outwardly lacks. The two do not get along very well from Helga's perspective. Helga's resentment of Lila worsens when Olga "adopts" Lila in a "big sisters" program in the episode "Big Sis". However, she was able to figure out that Helga was in love with Arnold during the play of Romeo & Juliet, where she noticed Helga desperately wanted to play Juliet when Arnold was selected to play Romeo. She gets Helga to confess to her of these feelings, which she does, and allows her to take her place as Juliet (which leads Helga to take full advantage of the death kiss scene, kissing him for a full minute). She also helped Helga act more kind towards others, though disregarded this advice after Arnold accidentally called her Lila.

Appearance

Like the other characters on the show, Helga's attire rarely changes: she usually wears a pink dress over a white shirt and a large pink bow in her hair. She has bright, blonde hair, which she wears in long pigtails without any visible hair ties, and a black unibrow. She has made some appearances in other outfits, though: throughout the show's run, she has dressed up as a French girl, a hall monitor, a sophisticated lady, and others. In the pilot and clay animation shorts, Helga's outfit consists of a dark pink dress with sleeves and a white collar.

The color of Helga's eyes was stated to be blue by Arnold in the episode "Married," and there was actually a close up of them in "Helga Blabs it All" in which we get to see that her eyes are in fact, blue.

Family

Helga has a very dysfunctional family. Her parents do not pay her any attention in a majority of the episodes. However, two episodes that show Helga getting attention from her parents are "Quantity Time" and in "The Beeper Queen." The only family member that gives her attention is her perfectionist sister, Olga. But Helga feels that her sister is disingenuous. It is heavily suggested that Helga's home situation is the root cause of her anti-social behavior.

Robert "Big Bob" Pataki

Helga's father (Maurice LaMarche), a successful pager salesman who suffers from workaholism, rarely notices her existence, favoring her over-achieving, neurotic college-aged sister Olga, whom Helga rarely gets along with. Helga refers to him as "Bob" or "Big Bob", indicating she does not really see him as her father. Bob generally does not pay attention to Helga unless she is involved in competition, but only to serve his own competitiveness or to encourage Helga to become a copy of Olga. In "Spelling Bee", Big Bob pushes Helga into winning for the sake of the family name. In most episodes, Big Bob prefers watching his big screen television to listening to Helga, and usually, absent-mindedly calls her "Olga". Although Big Bob is far more boorish in personality, he and Helga share some similarities that occasionally bond them. Both enjoy wrestling, ridiculing melodramatic theater, bullying, and eating. They also share similar speaking patterns, though Helga possesses a better command of language. Helga is deeply resentful of Big Bob's excessive attention to Olga. He also owns high-end vehicles, a Hummer and a Lincoln.

Miriam Pataki

As indicated in the episode "Road Trip", her mother Miriam (Kath Soucie) was born in late 1951 or early 1952 (she says that the Summer of Love happened when she was 15). Indicated by the presence of beepers and larger cell phones, the series is set in the mid-1990s, meaning Miriam had her first child, Olga, in the mid- to late 1970s while being in her mid-20s. When Helga was born in the mid-1980s, Miriam would have been in her early to mid-30s. This corresponds closely with Helga's voice actress Francesca Smith's birthday in 1985 when Hey Arnold! premiered in 1996. In "Olga Gets Engaged", Miriam advises Olga not to make the same marital mistake she did, and in "Road Trip", Miriam reveals that she used to be a rodeo queen. In "Olga Gets Engaged", Miriam mentions to Olga's intended fiancé that she was once an Olympic class swimmer and would have most likely been a contender for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich had she not married Big Bob.

Miriam often gives off hints of being an alcoholic: she looks depressed, speaks in a slow, slurred voice, exhibits emotional detachment from her husband and children, is often found asleep in odd places (behind the couch, on the living room table), drinks "smoothies" (some of which have items normally found in cocktails, such as tabasco sauce and celery stalks) and coffee (in a misguided attempt to stay sober). She also has to do a "community service job" at an animal shelter, indicating she has committed some sort of offense. It's also implied (according to the episodes "The Beeper Queen" and "Road Trip") that Miriam is a horrible driver and has had her license revoked, possibly for drunk driving, which may or may not tie in with the community service job she was sentenced. In the episode "Olga Comes Home", Helga changes one of Olga's grades sending her sister into a tail spin of depression. In one scene when Miriam and Bob look into Olga's bedroom to see her crying in bed, Bob says "She can't just mope around in bed all day. It's not good." Whereby Miriam replies "Why not? I do it all the time." This implies that Miriam suffers from depression which would probably tie into her alcoholism. Helga also refers to her mother as "Miriam" and relates poorly to her.

Though apathetic at home, it is suggested in multiple episodes that Miriam is capable of improving her life, but is stunted by her marriage to an overbearing Big Bob Pataki. In the episode "The Beeper Queen", Miriam's abilities are showcased when she fills in for Big Bob at his Beeper Emporium when he must stay home due to a back injury. Miriam packs Helga an exceptionally nutritious lunch, shares stories and listens to Helga, and helps Helga with her homework.

Olga Pataki

Olga (Nika Frost) suffers from perfectionism (psychology) which creates a great strain on her relationship with Helga. She and Helga do not relate to each other well, causing great conflict and resentment on Helga's behalf. (Much of the resentment is exerted by Helga, for Olga doesn't seem to resent her little sister at all). Helga is jealous of Olga's image of perfection and the attention she receives from both Big Bob and Miriam. In the episode "Helga on the Couch" she tells the school psychologist Dr. Bliss about her homelife. The viewer is soon taken back in time to when Helga was a toddler and in the scene, Olga is playing a tune on the grand piano for their parents. When Olga finishes the tune, she receives praise from Bob and Miriam. However, when Helga interrupts by tugging on Bob's pants to tell him "I have to go to preschool!" He replies "Not now! Go play or something." Eventually Helga announces that she's leaving for preschool. All the while Bob, Miriam and Olga ignore her as she walks out the door. Soon the episode returns to a 9 year old Helga talking to the school psychologist and revealing once again that she believes Olga hogs all the attention and is insincere. However, viewers only see the sibling relationship through Helga's eyes. The viewer doesn't know with any certainty if Olga is intentionally a selfish attention seeker as Helga perceives her to be or in denial and oblivious to the family dysfunction. Over all, Olga is kind to Helga and has good intentions. But Helga does not respond to her kindness because she feels it is insincere, as Olga does not listen to Helga's more serious concerns about their family and relationship. Olga condescends to Helga, calling her "baby sister" and refusing to address the problems in their family since it appears that she has a tendency to view life through rose colored glasses. However, during one episode, Olga, rather dramatically, retreated to her bedroom for a few days, believing that she had got a B+ grade on her report card rather than her usual straight A's. It turned out that Helga had deliberately changed it to knock her sister down a peg or two and to gain some attention for herself, it is revealed that Olga does feel pressured by their parents, telling Helga that she's lucky that their parents don't notice her, whilst Olga "has to perform all the time like some little wind up doll".

However, there are times where Helga showed some affection and concern for Olga. In the episode "Big Sis", when Olga becomes Lila's big sis after joining a "Big Sis, Little Sis" program, Helga continually tries to muck up Olga and Lila's plans unbeknownst to them. At the end, she reveals to Olga that she is jealous and envious of the relationship she has with Lila. Helga is reassured by Olga that she will always be her "baby sis" and that they have a strong "bond" that only real sisters have that no one can break. If she really didn't like Olga, she wouldn't have been jealous of her spending time with Lila and wouldn't have exerted all her time and energy into messing things up. In another episode when Olga becomes engaged to a man named "Doug," it becomes apparent to Helga that he is a cheating liar. Initially Helga is amused at the thought of Olga marrying Doug and becoming a disappointment to their parents. But at the end of the episode, Helga has second thoughts and intervenes on Olga's behalf which helped end her sister's risky engagement to Doug. Also worth making note of is in the episode titled "Student Teacher" when Olga becomes Helga's assistant teacher. In this episode Helga does everything in her power to make Olga lose her assistant teacher/internship position at her school and urges Olga to become a teacher in Alaska as was Olga's original plan. After Helga has a heart to heart conversation with Olga, she eventually convinces Olga to leave for Alaska. The episode ends with Helga reading a post card she received from Olga and writing a letter in response. Helga initially writes "From" and then looks at a picture she has of Olga. After looking at the picture of her sister, she crosses out the word from and instead writes "Love."

In the episode "Helga on the Couch", when Helga has a flashback to when she was between the ages of 3 and 5 years old, Olga is seen playing a tune on the grand piano. Helga interrupts and asks her parent's, "Who's going to take me to preschool?" However, she is ignored and when Olga finishes her tune, Miriam praises her saying to Bob, "Can you believe her! Olga only fifteen years old and already a piano concertist and class valedictorian!" It is assumed that since Helga's age is not revealed in the flashback, that Olga is probably 10 to 12 years older than her. Although Helga says she attends Bennington College, it is discovered in "Olga Comes Home" that she attends Wellington College.

The Pataki's

This was supposed to be a spinoff of Hey Arnold! According to Craig Bartlett, the spinoff would have been about a teenage Helga's life after Arnold has moved away. Arnold and Helga would have broken up mainly because of a long distance situation but in mid section of the series Helga would have ran away to go look for Arnold. Even though they would have broken up for a part of the series Craig Bartlett has stated in numerous interviews that yes "Arnold and Helga" are meant to be together. Yes they will be together in the end but he needed Helga to have the spot light with out Arnold being in the way of the spin off. It would have also included Olga's returning home after graduating from college while Miriam would be attending Alcoholics Anonymous. Originally the television station Nickelodeon was interested in the idea but when they read what it would entail, they decided that it would be too dark for the network's intended audience. However, MTV then became interested in the spinoff. But when they learned more about the details, they turned it down because the network thought it was too similar to the television show Daria. The spinoff never aired on television.

References

http://tendraheyarnold.wordpress.com/2009/04/04/confirmed-notes-about-the-patakis/

External links

• Alsace Solamo, "Toontime: Helga Geraldine Pataki," Sun Star Kidsters (March 11, 2007).
• "Helga G. Pataki (and family)", a Hey Arnold! Character & Episode Guide.