How did you first watch the show?

Thread title says it all: how'd you come across Hey Arnold?

I first watched it back in 1998 during the summer at a relative's house, since I couldn't get cable at home it was a treat to be able to watch Nickelodeon. I had watched the channel a year before at the same place and seen ads for Hey Arnold! (the Two Hot Toons Week ad made me start to grow a mild interest), but never got to seeing it until that year when I flipped on the TV one morning (a very small TV in the kitchen) and Magic Show/24 Hours To Live was on which I ended up watching all the way through. Immediately got hooked.

I saw it when I spent the night at a friend's house. I don't remember which episode...I just remember that for the longest time I thought Helga was supposed to be with Harold (before I really started watching it for myself). I have no idea where I got that thought from. I was probably ...8 at the time?

I got really into it right before the movie came out. It was coming on in the mornings one summer and I would get up and watch it before I had to do chores. I didn't go to the theater to see the movie because I was in my "I'm too old for cartoons" phase, though.

I actually remember seeing commercials for it first when it first came out in 1998...and my mom wouldn't let us watch it at first because the animation was "ugly" (she did the same thing with Rugrats, she was a bit picky) finally we convinced her (it may have been by the second season when the animation had drastically changed) and I had to watch it every day after that for ever more. :-)

I don't remember starting to watch it. It was on Nick and I watched cartoons growing up. It was just on with the others. I'd always liked it well enough, but I fell in love when the previews for the first movie came out. Helga confessing her love was too enticing for me.

I also had a HUGE crush on a classmate that I confessed my feelings to at the end of the school year before the movie came out and for some reason I felt so much kinship with Helga and felt like Arnold's reaction would somehow be THAT important to my crush's reaction.

Oh wow!  So I was debating how I should word it until I read LeSkuh's reply.  Her story is basically mine too: I was a Nick kid growing up, and Hey Arnold was just one of the shows.  I remember loving it right away, and watching it for years.  However, I don't remember when I stopped watching it.  Like perhapsormaybe, I might have started growing into that "I'm too old for cartoons" phase....or I didn't know when new episodes were coming on.  I remember that I had missed the movie.  I swear it was during the time my mom had breast cancer, so I was unable to go out and see it (or any other movie for that matter).  Either way, I loved it at the time and I love it again now!

I only remember watching it once (the episode was Field Trip) prior to it's end in 2004 so I was like 4-5? I saw a rerun sometime a couple years later (I don't know when it was to be honest, I know I said that I was 8 but I can't really remember) and it was "Buses, Bikes and Subways". Ever since a friend of mine recommended it to me I came into love with the show and that's how I got into Hey Arnold.

I first watched the show when it debuted in the fall of 1996, and at the time I was infatuated with it because I was the same age as Arnold's class (minus Torvald, of course). Arnold and Gerald were my two favorite characters back then, though I liked Gerald a little more because I thought he was the king of cool (though that reason still resonates well with me today). There's several things I remembered and had certain opnions of bat the time, but one of the few I remember the most was when I first saw the "Olga Comes Home" episode, as I was laughing my butt off at the scene where Olga broke down in tears when Helga changed one of her A's into a B+.

SkepticalMetalhead87 wrote:I first watched the show when it debuted in the fall of 1996, and at the time I was infatuated with it because I was the same age as Arnold's class (minus Torvald, of course).

This! When they first started showing teasers of the show, they would interview the VAs for Helga and Arnold (I don't remember anyone else, if they did). I was ecstatic that they were the same age as me because they definitely pushed the "kids voiced by kids!" angle. Which totally worked, lol. And, of course, the stories were great.

I was about 9 then too so I guess I could relate to it, although I wasn't aware they used kids until I read a Rugrats book where they mentioned that fact.

My story of starting watching Hey Arnold and becoming fan is pretty unique one. So, one day my dad got this huge satellite dish (this was before my folks divorcing) and he turned it little bit so we (mainly me and my younger sisters) got see and started watching German children channel like KiKa and Super RTL. Sure we didn't understand any of German (being little Finns at the time) but we didn't care. We used to watch Sonic Underground (I'm so sorry for admit that fact!) and Hey Arnold came before that (this was before Disney owned half of Super RTL). I knew about the movie and at first I didn't like Arnold at all. But in time I started to really like show. Years later I was able to watch series in original language. I think my first episode overall was that one where coach Wittenberg and Tish were about getting remarried and my episode in English was Egg Story.

Found it on TV shortly after its original airing, hooked ever since. I was Arnold's age when the show was on and it hit me on so many levels that I could really relate to... and this was reinforced when I started to watch the show again this summer.

I first saw the preview of it before Harriet the Spy in the summer of '96, I've REALLY been a fan since the beginning

I remember watching it while it was on during the later run, about 98-00, but it wasn't my favorite show. I liked Arthur, the Magic School Bus, and Rugrats better at the time (little me didn't know a good thing, I guess ).