Hey Arnold! (TV Series) The List/Haunted Train (1996) User Reviews

This Is Strictly A Review For The "Haunted Train" Segment

[michaelgarykelley1994 · 9/10 · 29 October 2018]

When I was a kid, I loved "Hey, Arnold!". The show is fantastic, and the blues-esque feel to the series always made it stand-out. Everything from the intro to the ending credits were special, and the show always had more good about it than bad. Always more heart than filler.

There were always two individual, special, nostalgic episodes that I had forgotten about until I bought the complete series in a box set, a couple years ago: the Christmas episode about Arnold and one of the boarding members of his house (which I HIGHLY recommend, if you want an amazing Christmas thing to watch), and this just-over-ten-minutes segment called "The Haunted Train".

I love the urban legend feel this episode has.

I love the atmosphere to it (which, again, "Hey, Arnold!" always did well).

The animation is a little wonky, and that's why I didn't give it a perfect score, but the episode is legendary for children's horror.

It's also a very short-lived thrill that I'm not entirely convinced an adult who hadn't seen this as a kid would feel the same way I feel about it.

The episode premiered the day before I turned two-years-old, and it has stuck with me ever since as a frightening episode. I'm turning 24 in less than two weeks, and I can't beleive this thing still effects me in similar ways, twenty-two years later. It effects me in some new ways, now, too. I love the episode. I think every kid should be allowed to see it, by the parents who grew-up on the eerieness this episode had. I think your kids will thank you, one day, for things like this. This is, again, one of the best episodes "Hey, Arnold!" has EVER had, period.

Even the closing credits blues song about the crazy train engineer is eerie and beautiful. It reminds me of the way I always felt about the episode of "The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy", when the meteor alien lands and sings a song about eating neighbor's brains.

The art style of "Hey, Arnold!" has always amazed me, but the ending of this episode is visually mesmerizing. I can't get over it, after just now re-watching it.

What a wonderful time, the 90s were. I miss old Nicktoons like this.

"One of those days that memories are made of..."

[Foreverisacastironmess123 · 10/10 · 25 September 2013]

Yeah right(!) Both stories in this, yet another classic and brilliant episode of the generally fab first season of this show, are equally great, but in two very different ways. To me "The List" is all about how things never quite work out the way you'd like them to, and also sweet hope and the unexpected little things that can "come out of the blue" to brighten up a cloudy day... As a kid, I'd try to emulate the inspired magical idea of the story and try my hand at my own little kid's day! I love the freaky little tribal ways of those neighbourhood kids as they reverently listen to the legend of "The List!" There's several really great laughs in the first half, like the parody hyper-action show tune that blares from the cartoon that poor Arnold plans to watch until the TV promptly explodes, and also all the noises in the movie theatre of the B-movie that's showing just before the screen breaks down crack me up every time! "What are you doing!? No! Where are you going!!?!" That whole scene reminds me a lot of a very similar scene from one of my favourite '80s horror movies-"The Blob!" Euch, the ugly 'kid' that runs off with Arnold's ball sure was creepy... And then there's the uplifting ending where the kind of a subplot with and Granma and her piano and Arnold's plight converge in such a perfect way that for me just makes for the most heartwarming moment in the whole series. The way she sets everything right with nothing but a sweet simple song is beautiful and sure to put a smile on anyone's face. It's a very true and great message, in that song. The feeling of the closing scene is one so profoundly positive and warm that it practically shines like the pure gold it is. "There ya go!" ::: Ever since I saw my first ghost train ride when I was really little, that was topped by this awesome giant model of a skeleton with glowing red eyes grabbing hold of a doomed train that was plummeting off the tracks that was filled with skeleton passengers of the damned as it were, I have always dearly loved the notion of the "Haunted Train" and found the whole macabre idea so spooky and darkly enchanting. And Granpa's urban legend(or is it?) of one is my very favourite of all the folk tales that he ever told. And after all the shenanigans it turns out to be the bizarre practically mute "Brainy" that ends up actually seeing the phantom locomotive. The Mad Engineer's song that plays over the usual end credits theme is so cool! Hey Arnold's fantastical elements was one of the series' best traits, it had such a great sense of fantasy when it had a mind to. And it was precisely the bluesy rhythm and sheer uncanny moments like that, and episodes like this, that helped to make this timeless show so damn special and gave it its very endearing identity. "I'm have to say so long!"