The third episode of the fourth season of Hey Arnold!.
Full Moon
Harold, Stinky, and Sid moon Principal Wartz. Arnold witnesses this, and Principal Wartz gives him thirty days of hard labor in detention when he refuses to rat them out.
Student Teacher
When Olga visits the Patakis for Spring Break, she becomes a temporary student teacher in Helga's class.
"Full Moon" provides examples of:
- Both Sides Have a Point: Between Harold and Arnold. Harold's not wrong to say that Arnold refusing to tell on him and his friends is just making things harder for him than if he ratted them out. But Arnold also has his reason to keep his peace, as he's doing it on the principle that he knows he did nothing wrong. If the Principal's going to punish him on the flimsy whim that he won't tell, that's on him, not Arnold.
- Detention Episode: In this episode, Harold, Stinky, and Sid moon Principal Wartz. Arnold is the only witness, and when he refuses to rat them out, Principal Wartz gives Arnold 30 days of hard labor in detention. If Arnold confesses before the end of the deadline, Principal Wartz will lift his punishment, and if he doesn't, he will mark Arnold as a "Failure to cooperate" on his permanent record, but Arnold still refuses to rat his friends out. Near the end of the episode, Harold, Stinky and Sid's guilty consciences catch up with them and they confess what they did to Principal Wartz just before he can mark Arnold as a failure to cooperate.
- Honor Before Reason: Arnold refuses to rat Hardld, Stinky, Sid to Principal Wartz because he's "not a rat".
- Mooning: In this episode, Sid, Stinky and Harold moon Principal Wartz. This leads to drama when Arnold, who knows they did it, refuses to rat them out and instead does 30 days of hard time in detention.
- Not Helping Your Case: While trying to convince Arnold to tell who mooned him, the Principal shares a childhood anecdote of when he tattled on his fellow students for a classroom prank. On one hand, his teacher awarded him with a gold sticker for coming forward, and he tells Arnold he appreciates it to this day ...but not before clumsily mentioning that on the other hand, his fellow students called him names, bullied and shunned him, and pulled pranks on him for many years on end all the way throughout his student career, even through college, to the point that he didn't even have his first date until he was 23-years-old. The way Arnold sees it, all this story has accomplished was teaching him that
tattling isn't really worth the backlash. - Psychological Projection: Throughout the episode, Harold keeps expecting Arnold to have told the principal who mooned him. And this is despite Arnold's insistence that he'll never tattle. To this, Harold makes it clear that if the positions were reversed, he would've ratted out Arnold by now, if only it would get him off the hook sooner.
- Writing Lines: Arnold is forced by Principal Wartz to write "Mooning is not funny" on both a sheet of paper and on the blackboard when he chooses not to identify Sid, Harold, and Stinky as the ones who mooned the principal.
"Student Teacher" provides examples of:
- Brutal Honesty: Sooner or later, Helga has to come clean to Olga that although she appreciates her company, they can't be together all the time.
- The Determinator: Olga's story about Helga (however embarrassing) is her favorite because it encapsulates how she admires her sister for never giving up.
- Foreshadowing: Helga flinching throughout Olga's story about "the girl who wore rubber underpants" hints that this isn't Olga's story.
- Innocently Insensitive: Olga meant well when she tried to cheer up a despondent Stinky with a story about someone she knew who never gave up, if only to let him know failure isn't final. The unwittingly insensitive part is that it's about Helga, and it brings up her embarrassing secret. If anything, Olga had no right to tell that story if Helga didn't even give consent to share it.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Helga convinces Olga to stop teaching at PS 118 and teach Inuit children instead.
