Helga Geraldine Pataki is one of the main characters of the Nickelodeon animated series Hey Arnold! She is a student at P.S. 118 who acts like a bully around her schoolmates, especially Arnold, who she is secretly in love with.
Appearances in Christmas specials[]
Hey Arnold![]
Helga with her secret crush.
Helga naturally has a prominent role in the series' Christmas episode, "Arnold's Christmas". Early on in the special, Helga seems to think that Christmas is all about presents and is hoping to receive a pair of Nancy Spumoni snow boots. However, she also wants to find the perfect gift for Arnold, but can't seem to figure out what he would like. While trying to find the right present, she finds out that Arnold and Gerald are doing Mr. Bailey's Christmas shopping for him, and it turns out that a pair of Nancy Spumoni snow boots are the only item they can't find. Intrigued by this, Helga follows them around and eventually finds out that Arnold is trying to reunite his fellow boarder, Mr. Hyunh, with his missing daughter, Mai. When Helga receives the snow boots from her mother, she is at first ecstatic to have gotten what she wanted for Christmas, but she then remembers that Arnold was desperate to find these for Mr. Bailey. After some moral agonizing over this, Helga brings the boots to Mr. Bailey and gets him to search the records by making a passionate speech about Arnold needing a Christmas miracle. On Christmas morning, she brings Mai to the boarding house to reunite her with her father and, as Arnold is wondering how this miracle happened, silently wishes Arnold a Merry Christmas.
Other Christmas productions[]
Helga (on the right) with Arnold and Gerald in "The 12 Days of Nickmas".
Helga also appeared along with Arnold and Gerald in the Merry Nickmas interstitial shorts. The three of them are shown in stop-motion animation in "The 12 Days of Nickmas", where they sing the line "Three cans of hairspray." Also, in "Holiday Party", Sheldon J. Plankton attempts to kiss her under the mistletoe.