No show brings about the nostalgic taste of childhood quite like Hey Arnold !
And you could argue that a large part of that was because of the way the show didn't talk down to its viewers
Yes, the quarry intended audience may have been children
But many of the episodes and characters got pretty real when
re-examined with a healthy dose of post childhood experience dusted with a little bit of
Melancholic cynicism and about three teaspoons of wonder and a cup of grounded realism
And this baking metaphor has gotten away from me so fast that it left dust trails. what I'm trying to say is hey Arnold got
Pretty dang real at times yo
but with how
Grounded the show was there is one episode whose ending has been contested among the viewers now for a while
And if you're anything like us and spend long sleepless nights browsing the internet rabbit hole of fan theories
Then you already know what I'm talking about. I'm Jacob with a cold from Channel Frederator and today
We're going way back to answer one of the Internet's most well known
cartoon theories today ahead of the long-awaited Hey Arnold jungle movie we will finally and
Unwaveringly put to bed this classic. Hey arnold conspiracy that asks did pigeon man actually kill himself, so
For the uninitiated who or what is a pigeon man no
He's not a pigeon who acts like a man nor is he a man who acts like a pigeon rather he's an urban
Legend that the kids tell each other some believed that he was some strange hybrid of pigeon and man while others
Believed that he was just a crazy guy in a chicken suit
But of course what the kids think is some sort of inhuman monster
Actually turns out to just be a reclusive man
Who copes with his loneliness by caring for his pigeons like the Birdman of Alcatraz?
If you're already familiar with the events of the pigeon man episode then awesome you have good taste in television
but for the rest of us dinosaurs
Who first saw the episode sometime in the late cretaceous period of
1996. here's a quick refresher after caring for Arnold's bird, pigeon man whose real name is Vincent tells him that since elementary school
He's led a life of social isolation
Developing serious trust issues when it comes to other people
But Arnold's being Arnold is able to persuade Vincent to grab a bite to eat
You know remind him of what human interaction is like
But obviously that's not where it ends while the two are out Harold, Stinky and Joey get the bright idea of messing
With Vincent's rooftop Pigeon Haven and of course the whole plan goes sideways pretty quickly effectively destroying the ENTIRE ROOFTOP
And I'm sure I don't need to tell you this but "In bird culture
This is considered a DICK MOVE."
After the bullies flee the scene, Arnold and Vincent return only to the carnage that was left behind. while Arnold tries to look on the
Bright side, Vincent laments to Arnold about how his refusal to trust people is more often than not proven to be
completely valid. He then says goodbye to Arnold before his pigeons fly him off into the sunset.
Taking him wherever else pigeons may need him. A pretty uplifting yet bittersweet ending, right
WRONG
Because when looking at the end of this episode closer it becomes pretty clear that there's something a little more sinister going on that perhaps
Instead of Vincent's pigeons carrying him off Vincent actually hurled himself off the roof to his death
I mean think about it as real as hey Arnold can get this is a pretty strange episode
ending this theory suggests that after Vincent's final speech which had a lot of language that denoted that he would probably never see Arnold again
That he killed himself
But because this show is viewed through the lens of children and more specifically,
Arnold this event was viewed differently by our hero because the actual events were just too
traumatic to handle his coping mechanism was just to simply repress the memory, replacing it with something a bit more, pleasant, and inspirational and uplifting
It's a horrifyingly dark idea, but it's not exactly one. That's unprecedented
Yeah
I see you over there Academy award-winning film
Birdman ripping off your ambiguous ending from a 20 year-old episode of hey Arnold you can't fool
everyone many have also examined the dialogue in the last exchange of the episode
It's at this moment where Vincent is probably at the lowest point in his life
By trusting Arnold a chain of events was set into motion that led to his life's work being destroyed
But instead of lamenting his loss
He tells Arnold to not be sad as it's his time to leave anyway as he makes his way toward the edge of the building
He tells Arnold things like "You've taught me that some people can be trusted and I'll never forget that."
Along with some other pearls of wisdom like "Some people are meant to be with people
and others like me
are just different." and "I just hope there's another (Honor?) where I go next."
It all seems very
Final and vague but on top of not
Elaborating where he's going
He also tells Arnold that wherever a pigeon is in need he'll be there as if he's going to become some sort of omnipotent
Ethereal pigeon man living on in all of the pigeons of the city and possibly the world
The language all feels very similar to how we would talk about our
Departed loved ones who are always with us in spirits. And others have built onto this idea still pointing out certain elements that suggest that
Vincent may not have actually survived the end of this episode
Noticing things like the Sun poking out from behind the clouds seeming eerily reminiscent of the symbol of the Rising Sun did not this
Rising Sun this Rising Sun
Specifically the Sun used on the military flag of Japan in World War two a flag that in the Western cultural zeitgeist has become closely
Associated with kamikaze pilots even though this design is still incredibly widely used for a variety of purposes
Heck some have even pointed out that the way Vincent out stretches his arms and flies toward the Sun could be seen as an illusion
to figures like Jesus or ascension into heaven
But I'll admit that pointing out certain elements of the scene
Composition that could be seen as helping our narrative could be seen as a stretch at best so with that in mind
I've got one more point to share when Vincent is being carried away by his birds
He's being suspended into the air, so there's no question that his pigeons are hanging onto him however
It's not a question of weary grapes
It's a simple question of weight ratios that is an excellent point random castle guard from Monty Python
And the Holy Grail if we look at actual
Pigeons is there any way they could actually lift a human like we see in the episode
well the species that we see in the show is most likely the most common form of pigeon found in cities also known as the
Rock dove and an average one of these birds
Generally weighs between nine and thirteen ounces not even half a kilogram
And if we round out the numbers the average pigeon can carry about 20% of their body weight while still flying comfortably
Which evens out to about two point five ounces?
Now figuring out one's ability to lift something isn't usually as easy as just saying well
Well it can lift this much, so that's how much it's gonna lift normally
We would also take a look at torque since properties like balancing are usually pretty important for lifting stuff
But since in this case pigeon-man seems to be carried by his center of gravity and because he's essentially deadweight pun completely intended
It's probably not something we need to worry about too much
So one pigeon can support about 2.5 ounces and still fly without, you know (pigeon gets FRIGGIN WRECKED) plummeting to the ground
If we assume the best case and say that adding another pigeon will simply add another
2.5 ounces to the total weight they can carry maybe if we add all of them together we can lift Vincent off the ground so
Exactly how many pigeons are carrying Vincent?
Thankfully we won't have to look too hard or resort to wild
Estimating because we get a pretty clear shot at the end of the episode and we can see about
25 give or take there, they are all right so 25 pigeons each capable of carrying about 2.5 ounces
So if we assume the best case and simply multiply 2.5 by 25 we get 60 2.5 ounces
Just a little under 4 pounds (Oh SHIIIII)
WELL THEN now I'm not a scientist
But I'm pretty sure we could try to futz with our numbers until the end of time and still never come to the conclusion that
Vincent weighs 4 pounds
Even if we were to very conservatively assume Vincent's weight to be something like
140 pounds then that would still mean that these 25 pigeons would have to lift over
700% their total body weight and still be able to fly comfortably and gain altitude
That's like if I tried to lift a fully grown cow off the ground
I'm not saying that it's impossible
but I really don't think that the average person or
pigeons would be able to do these things the most weight that these pigeons would carry would probably be something like a
Small chihuahua, although I got to say that that site is still pretty majestic so hopefully with this in mind
I've been able to convince you that there is
Absolutely no way that pigeon Mans birds could have carried him off the roof of his building
and that the episode pigeon man actually did have a
Significantly darker ending than we were led to believe a huge part of this theory was that the original plan was to have pigeon man
Kill himself, but the network creator craig bartlett to change the ending for obvious reasons, but based on this evidence
This is practically irrefutable, and there's nobody who can convince me, otherwise that this was not the intention
There is nobody who can tell me that this theory is not true so with that in mind everyone on the plausibility meter i'm going
To rate the conspiracy of pigeon man actually killing himself
Did you guys peel that just now?
Great research jacob, but how does it hold up?
It doesn't and I should know because I'm Craig Bartlett the creator of Hey Arnold
Yeah, I really hate that fan theory because he's not dead I don't kill off my characters
You know pigeon man was supposed to fly away and help other pigeons everywhere. He's a he's a hero. He's gonna fly away
Why do you think he's wearing that crazy rig for the whole episode?
As so that he can hook up the pigeons to it
And then they'll fly them away the idea that we would want him to die
To commit suicide of all things through the kids show and then have a network say we can and then have us go okay
So we'll read it this way I hate that it's like the network telling us we can't do something
We worked really well with the network and we all agree
we're making a kid show that was gonna be the kind of kid show where
Magic stuff happened enough people jump off of buildings and die yeah
I think it's worried about
believe these fan theories is that they kind of like that idea that the network wanted us to not do something you know like we
Wanted to do something crazy and the network didn't and they wouldn't last it's like that eggy thing
We make an episode that you know Arnold has to do this really humiliating thing, and then I finally see it
It's like how can I finally see Arnold betray Ziggy?
I didn't write it Steve Nixon wrote it, but I am in on the writing I do that
I direct the voices and do the recording I see every step of the storyboard and the cartoon gets mixed
I'm mixing it. How could I suddenly see Arnold betray Ziggy and go I hate this and you know punish my writers
That's really weird, and you know the worst thing about it. Is that it implies that I'm some kind of jerk
I'm not I made the show I made a pigeon man
I made Arnold betray Ziggy some came out great some came out less than great, but I made them all and I was there
So I'm not a jerk yeah
I hated that theory so much that I even made sure the pigeon man is in
The jungle movie so we can see these alive and well he's in Paris just like I said he was you know helping pigeons everywhere
That is why I brought him back because I can't stand that people think he's dead it really makes me mad
And that's why I give that fan theory a zero out of five yahoo service
Why do I even try anymore why do I even try well you heard it from the man himself
Not only was this never the intention for pigeon man
But Craig Bartlett has been given the unique opportunity to nukid history from orbit over 20 years after the episode first premiered
And he's done this in the most decisive way possible by straight up putting pigeon man in the jungle movie, and yeah
I guess it would be pretty difficult for Vincent to send Arnold a message from Paris if he were actually dead so kudos to you
Mr.
Bartlett you even debunked the Arnold betrays Iggy Theory so I guess this episode ended up being a double-header
But now as I speak to you on the other side of this screen
What do you think did you ever believe the theory that pigeon man actually jumped off the roof of his building
How hyped are you for the Hey Arnold jungle movie and which character in the show did you identify with the strongest?
I mean other than Helga obviously. I think we can all relate to he'll go a little bit which character
Do you relate yourself the second most to be sure to leave us your thoughts in the comments and also let us know of any?
Conspiracies you'd like us to take a look at in a later episode, and we also want to extend a huge massive
Thank you to Craig Bartlett for coming in this weekend
Putting me in my place
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