Meet Arnold - TV Tropes

Meet Arnold!

Meet Arnold is an animated science black comedy YouTube series similar to This Is Bob only it is Americanized and based around snarky humor. The series revolves around a man named Arnold who is put through excessive torture by a sadistic and sarcastic narrator for science. There is a new video every week or couple of days and poor Arnold never gets any peace.

The show premiered on August 2, 2017, and later spawned a spin-off named "GubShow" starring two dimwitted aliens, Snot and Gob, who previously worked for the narrator.

Meet Arnold…. Hey Arnie. Is that your tropes?

• Anuscape Plan: Done by Arnold to himself in "What If You Swallowed the Most Vicious Piranha Ever?". Arnold has a "Freaky Friday" Flip with the piranha, which immediately eats him. Arnold, as the piranha, has to experience his own digestive system, ending with this and partially Censored for Comedy. He is understandably traumatized.
• Black Comedy: Arnold’s Amusing Injuries at least once per video.
• Buried Alive: The most popular video “What If You Were Buried Alive?” was done thrice due to its popularity among fans and the creator themselves.
• Butt-Monkey: Who do you think? Arnold.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: The narrator puts Arnold in bizarre or regular scenarios turned deadly or excessive to the point of being lethal.
• Crapsack World: The world the narrator created contains jerkasses, criminals, perverts, maniacs, and it is full of inconveniences. This includes the unpleasant periods the narrator puts him in.
• Deadpan Snarker: Oh boy, is the narrator a sarcastic one to Arnold? He teases him and makes nasty remarks about the misfortune he places him in.
• Disproportionate Retribution: “What If You Became Immortal?” An old lady shoots Arnold for cutting in line at the amusement park.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • In the first videos Arnold had more visible bangs and he had more of a bowl cut instead of just messy hair. He also had buck teeth.
  • The narrator sounded deeper, more relaxed and he actually cared for Arnold. Arnold also survived most of the scenarios with the narrator cheering him on. Sadly the narrator becomes a bully to Arnold later on and this side of him was dropped.
  • The cartoon designs were brighter and almost cheerful-looking.
  • The thumbnails were more detailed and expressive. Arnold was more likable and had dynamics of being a ladies' man and even somewhat being friends with the narrator. Now, he's an Everyman who is the victim of the narrator’s bullying.
  • The narrator himself was more crude and vulgar. This side of his being scrapped was because YouTube‘s guidelines got stricter.
  • Lastly, the videos were science-based and fun, whereas later on they became just informational and almost bland in formula.
  • Arnold used to actually star in his own social media videos and was more of a virtual celebrity. But now it’s all about the narrator and less Arnold on those pages.
• Edutainment Show: The show is classified as this.
• Fingore: Arnold loses his finger in every video and experiment he’s put in, and usually first. It becoming nothing but a femur.
• Four-Fingered Hands: The show Zig-Zags between three fingers and four fingers for characters. Arnold usually has three.
• From Bad to Worse: Almost every time. The narrator has more tricks up his sleeve every time you wouldn’t think it could get any worse for Arnie.
• Hard Truth Aesop: Many videos have them.
  • The dinosaurs cannot survive today no matter how hard humanity tries. "What If the Asteroid Never Killed the Dinosaurs?"
  • Being the last person alive is all fun and games until you can’t have a fridge, power, heat for your food, or even a companion. It is better to live in a world with others. "What Would Happen If Humans Disappeared???"
  • Humans are not built and never will be made to last forever. "What If You Live 1000 Years?"
• Immune to Bullets: “What If You Became Immortal?” Arnold gains skin that is bulletproof that is similar to Superman.
• Impact Silhouette: In “What if you jump from 30,000 ft without a parachute” Arnold lands in the snow with a perfect silhouette of his body.
• Jerkass: The narrator, no less. He puts Arnold through literal hell in either deadly, bizarre or a deadly amount of something of everyday life.
• Large Ham: The narrator is a loud guy who loves to shout and announce everything energetically.
• Meet Your Early-Installment Weirdness: Sometimes, Arnold meets his old self in some videos.
• Running Gag: Arnold’s finger keeps getting chopped off.
• Potty Emergency: “What Would Happen With your Body if You Stopped Peeing?” Arnold is trapped in a conference he must attend, and holds his urine to a hellish degree due to his drinking spree the night before, and gets hugged by his touchy neighbor when he reaches home which caused his bladder to explode. He then goes to heaven complete with angel wings, and approaches a giant toilet in the clouds.
• Quicksand Sucks: "How Long Can You Stay Alive In Quicksand" explores how to survive it.
• Shout-Out: Lori Loud from The Loud House appears at one point in "What if You're the Unluckiest Person in the World!".
• The Speechless: Arnold only grunts and screams and never says a word.
• Stock Femur Bone: When Arnold loses his finger, it becomes a femur bone.
• Swallowed Whole: The subject of "What If The Whale Swallowed You Alive?" Arnold escapes through its blowhole.
• Unexplained Recovery: Even when Arnold shouldn’t survive in one piece of the experiment, he always does.
• Villain Protagonist: The narrator. He is a bully to you know who.
• World of Jerkass: The citizens of the city Arnold lives in aren’t very nice or are complete criminals.