A Lila episode?

What would you guys think about doing an episode on Lila's past? Like, maybe how she became to be so poor? (but her dad DID "get the job" in Ms. Perfect, didn't he?)

Or maybe Lila's dad gets in huge financial trouble, and Arnold tries to get the neighborhood to help???

Ugh, I don't know. I just thought having a Lila-and-her-dad-themed episode would be kind of interesting. Leave feedback, please.

ElegantVamp wrote:What would you guys think about doing an episode on Lila's past?

Okay, I'll bite.

How about this...

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Helga finds out that Lila was a real troublemaker back in Pleasantville, and publicly ousts her in front of all her classmates at P.S. 118. Embarrassed and devastated, Lila skips school for a couple of days.

Meanwhile, Arnie pays a visit to Arnold at Sunset Arms. Knowing of Lila's crush on Arnie, Helga lies and tells her that he's REALLY into bad girls. As a result, Lila falls back into her old ways in an attempt to impress Arnie.

In the end, Arnie leaves Hillwood without even noticing Lila's advances, despite her best efforts (and Helga's assistance) to be the baddest girl she could be. Rather than go back to her perfect good girl ways, Lila realizes that she misses causing mischief and decides to show her real self more often...

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The problem with this storyline, however, is that it dramatically changes Lila's character from the show. A slight variation on the ending could be that Lila goes back to being a good girl, but not a 'Ms. Perfect' (perhaps at the end of the episode, Lila hugs Helga and she puts a 'kick me' sign on her back. And Lila walks away with a mischievous smirk)

Thats a great idea especially at the end, and the kick me sign. LOL

AWESOME IDEA SHAMEONPRETZEL! (lol I'm so jealous)

What if at her old school, she beat up a group of kids for making fun of her? Like, with a chair or something? Or breaks the windows in the school? (wait- no, someone already did that. . .) I'm trying to think of something you can get expelled for. I can only think of firearms, or arson, but that's WAAAY too intense, I think.

And when she starts causing mischeif for Arnie, she does amateur pranks like. . . I don't know, drawing a bad picture of Mr. Simmons, or stealing some chalk? Because it's been a long time since she's done stuff like that. But soon, she begins to get the hang of things, and writes a list of things that she wants to do to cause chaos in the school. Then maybe Arnold or Mr. Simmons finds it, and asks WHY Lila became so bad all of a sudden, and she breaks down and confesses everything; her motives, her past.

ElegantVamp wrote:AWESOME IDEA SHAMEONPRETZEL! (lol I'm so jealous)

What if at her old school, she beat up a group of kids for making fun of her? Like, with a chair or something? Or breaks the windows in the school? (wait- no, someone already did that. . .) I'm trying to think of something you can get expelled for. I can only think of firearms, or arson, but that's WAAAY too intense, I think.

And when she starts causing mischeif for Arnie, she does amateur pranks like. . . I don't know, drawing a bad picture of Mr. Simmons, or stealing some chalk? Because it's been a long time since she's done stuff like that. But soon, she begins to get the hang of things, and writes a list of things that she wants to do to cause chaos in the school. Then maybe Arnold or Mr. Simmons finds it, and asks WHY Lila became so bad all of a sudden, and she breaks down and confesses everything; her motives, her past.

Me likey the idea. Especially Helga trying to bring the bad out of her, with minimal results at the start.

And I think you and I are on the same page with how bad she should be. I'm not talking 'Lola' bad (i.e. sleazy and flirtatious like in Arnold's dream version of her), but more like a rebel, doing stuff just 'cause she can.

Perhaps her bad behaviour stems from her mother's sudden death, and it's her way to let out her anger and grief. When she and her father move after losing the farm she decides to turn a new leaf and be the best little angel she coule be. After all, that's what her mother would want...

"Perhaps her bad behaviour stems from her mother's sudden death, and it's her way to let out her anger and grief. When she and her father move after losing the farm she decides to turn a new leaf and be the best little angel she coule be. After all, that's what her mother would want..."

PERFECT! Maybe after her mother died, her family began to fall apart, so she began to take it out on others. And then they lost the farm, and she was expelled from all the schools in the district of PleasantVille. And she's asked, "What would her mother think? Or her father?". Then she could be assured that she doesn't have to be "perfect", just don't be the old Lila. Maybe a nice mix?

uhh. . .maybe?

Well, actually I already proposed an episode about Lila's past (Shadows of Lila's Past or Helga's Masquerade II), but a story explaining how Lila became Ms. Perfect would be fun.

XD Wow, there's a bunch of us who favour Lila having a dark past.

I have to be honest when I say it's a really iffy (i.e. controversial) matter to make an episode that talks about how Lila used to be a real bad girl before she came to Hillwood. I don't know why, but Lila seems to be a real touchy issue around some people. Some love her to death for various reasons, while others just want to smash her with a splintery, solid two-by-four. And this is where you need to do a little bit of research to find out why some people love her and why some people hate her.

And I think that the one of the reasons why people love and hate her is because she symbolizes perfection and innocence. So it might be a huge deal when you get an episode that tampers with what she represents (perfection, innocence, naivety, ect.). They might even argue that it's "out of character", even if it's her past.

Like, I see no problem with Helga trying to trick Lila into thinking that Arnie likes bad girls, but I feel really iffy about Lila being an actual bad girl when she was younger. Depending on how you display Lila, it can really tamper with her character.

For example, if you make it look like Lila intentionally and consciously act like a bad girl (i.e. she consciously chose/wanted to be a bad girl), then it's kind of implying that deep down, Lila IS a bad girl. The perfection thing is just a facade, because her bad attitude has been repressed (into the sub-conscious). The Lila-haters go wild and the Lila-lovers start chucking tomatoes.

It can be a different matter if you make it look like Lila's "bad girl" stage was ONLY because of her mother's death. Like, when her mother was alive, Lila was a good girl, but when her mother died, Lila started to express her anger via "bad deeds". That is a little bit more canonical, because it's understandable for a little child to not understand why her mother died or even how to properly express her confusion/anger/unhappiness. I'm okay with that.

And on a different side note, Craig Bartlett did say they kind of made Lila a monster (though unintentionally), because she seems to have a little devious streak that's she's not even aware of / has control of. You might even say that in the original series, she was, unconsciously, a bad girl. So I see where you guys are coming from.

I'm just going to need more input from other staff members aside from you three, to see what the others think, because, again, Lila = controversial. I'm pretty sure that there's different opinions that we have yet to see.

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Okay, now actually commenting on the current Arnie idea:

I would HIGHLY recommend that you merge this "Arnie likes bad girls" idea as a sub-plot to Annemiek's "Cousin Hilda" idea, because a lot of people only want to see Arnie return just so they can get a ArnoldxHelga moment.

Here's her thread: https://ha6s.forumotion.com/general-discussion-f1/cousin-hilda-t46.htm

PM Annemiek, if you must. I don't think her idea talked much about Lila, although it should because Lila does like Arnie.

lol sorry for the long read, but I think that's all I have to say for now. XD

LOL I like getting long messages. Thanks for having the patience to type all that out! XD

I never thought of Lila as a bad person or a person with bad intentions, in her past or present. I never really liked Lila because all of the torture she put Helga through, but that wasn't really Lila's fault. I think that's one of the biggest reasons that some people don't like Lila.
So, I guess I'm saying that I agree with Tendra in that I don't think deep down Lila is bad to the bone. On the other hand, I don't think that Lila really is perfect, because nobody's perfect.

I'm actually working on a Lila and Arnold video right now, so I'll be interested in seeing what other people think about Lila.

On a different (slightly related) subject, keep in mind that Craig Bartlett said the episode "Timberly Loves Arnold" ended Arnold's infatuation with Lila. I know I've said that before somewhere else, but it's just something to keep in mind when thinking about Lila episodes.

I've honestly never been a fan of Lila but I've never hated her either. She's a character that I've always been in between about. I've thought that the Lila haters were unfair towards her because I don't think she's a bad person deep down like some people tend to think she is. I don't prefer the Arnold/Lila ship and was kind of glad to see his infatuation end because to me, Arnold seemed to like her because he couldn't have her. I hope that comment about Arnold doesn't get a million things thrown at me because don't get me wrong, I love Arnold to death but it's what I've always thought.

As far as the episode idea is concerned, I don't think Lila having a past at Pleasantville where she was a "bad girl" is very canon at all. Also, what would Helga's motive be for trying to trick Lila into thinking that Arnie likes "bad girls?" As much as this is in character of Helga to trick someone, I don't remember seeing her do so without a motive. She's generally has to be very jealous in order to do something like that. Since Arnold no longer like-likes Lila (after "Timberly Loves Arnold") Helga has no real reason to go after Lila. She also isn't jealous of her for being "perfect" because at the end of the episode "Ms Perfect" Helga states that she actually likes Lila. It wasn't until Arnold started to like her-like her that Helga had motive to go after Lila after that episode. She was jealous.

. . .You're right.

hmmm. . .Helga is still annoyed with Lila. Even if she's not jealous, maybe Lila could just. . . I odn't know, get on her nerves again or something? I don't think the motive always has to be jealousy.

That's very true. The motive doesn't always have to be jealousy. I was just noticing Helga's track-record when it came to tricks like this and they generally boiled down to jealousy in previous episodes. But yes, you're right. It does seem in character of Helga to do something like that because she was annoyed with Lila. Hmm...maybe Helga thinks that Arnold still like-likes Lila? I don't remember her officially finding that out, did she?

Yeah! And... she's trying to get Lila away from him, becuase even though they're not "together" they'd still hang out, right?

So Arnie comes to visit for a change, and Helga has the wrong idea about Arnold/Lila?

Because I'm a fan of morally ambiguous characters, I'll throw this out.

Lila is kind of the female version of Arnold, so we can all assume she wants to help people/do the right thing/blah-blah-blah. Maybe Lila went through a phase of doing the wrong things for the right reasons? o_O Like white lies, Robin Hood-ing, etc... and it all just got out of control

Arnold, finding out about this for whatever reason, would probably empathize with her. It could be a sweet friend moment.

I can see Lila doing the white lies part at some point in her past actually. That would explain why she's so brutally honest now ("As I've told you oh-so-many times, I don't like you-like you, I just like you"). Perhaps she used to tell the white lies but they got her in so much trouble that she decided to be honest no matter what, even if it's not delivering the best news.

Oh yeah like Ned Flanders from The Simpsons! lol

Like his parents took him to a psychologist and apply the "spanking for one year" method, and it worked!

lol thats why he never swears or just says 'didly' mostly on all his words.


Maybe we could say that Lila took something, or went to the psychologist and the psychologist did something to her that makes her be SUPER kind and honest now

Haha.