Hey Arnold! is a show about a football-headed kid who lives a day in the life as an urban kid in the big city with his friends. It is noted that he is under the guardianship of his grandparents, Phil and Gertie, in a boarding house with a diverse group of people as their tenants. His parents have disappeared and never returned are presumed dead. However, there a list of theories which may address certain issues.
Phil & Gertie are actually Arnold's Parents:[]
Phil and Gerti are actually Arnold's parents, and his football head is the result of a birth defect made more likely by their advanced age when they had him. To cope with being bullied for his deformity, he constantly imagines himself living in a world where everyone looks odd.
Full summary:[]
Deadpanned: This theory was basically disproven when Arnold was reunited with his parents in the new 2017 Hey Arnold!: The Jungle movie.
The show is actually a narrative from Helga Pataki[]
Helga Pataki is the hot-headed classmate and on-and-off friend and bully to Arnold and the rest of the big-city youth. Secretly, however, it is no surprise she harbors an obsessive crush on the football head. Arnold is described to be a bold kid, who puts others before himself and is too good of a person to help other kids and adults with the toughest of problems they needed him for. For a 9-year-old, this is an impressive feat, makes him sound too perfect and too good to be true. What if this is because the story of Arnold is being told from the perspective of Helga?
We know Helga puts on this tough persona because she has a miserable home life with neglectful parents and it was revealed in the season 4 episode "Helga on the Couch" that she has been so alone and her crush on Arnold began because he was the first and only person to ever be nice to her. This day in preschool meant a lot to her enough to have this undying appreciation and love for him to fantasize and paint him as a perfect benevolent person. It was also the first time she developed her aggressive personality as this is behavior she picked up at home from a gruff father, but to also avoid being mocked or ridiculed for liking Arnold or even showing softness or weakness. Further evidence is how Helga a few times throughout the show talks to herself with a sophisticated monologue, most of the time, describing her affection for Arnold despite not making him an exception to a tough and mean-spirited girl to his face. Even the title of the show is Helga calling out his name.
Pigeon Man committed suicide[]
Hey Arnold! is portrayed as a cartoon with having a realistic setting of big city people. This is why the question would be raised about the one-episode appearance in Season 1 of the titular pigeon man's departure from the city. In his only appearance, Arnold's classmate shares an urban legend about this strange man living on the roof of an abandoned building with his only friends being the city's pigeons, even exaggerating tales of him being half-man, half-bird and/or a hostile person towards anything besides birds. However, Arnold goes to seek the man's help with his injured pigeon. The man nurses the bird back to health, and to show his gratitude, Arnold takes him out for pizza. He learns the pigeon man is actually lonely because he got ostracized by people for also bonding with the birds so well.
While Arnold has the pigeon man out with him for lunch, his classmates decide to visit the man's rooftop nest for the birds and goes about vandalizing it. Both Pigeon Man and Arnold were horrified to return to this rooftop all torn apart, despite Arnold assuring him they can rebuild and the birds will come back, pigeon man gives Arnold a heartbreaking speech about how he feels he cannot understand people like he can birds and that he tearfully feels he is not meant to fit in with other humans. Pigeon Man declared it is time for him to leave and go somewhere he can care for birds in peace, it is then, he gets a bunch of pigeons stringed up and fly him away into the sunset and thanking Arnold for at least making him realize there are still good people. Here is the dark twist from a Creepypasta legend, was this actually Arnold imagining Pigeon Man's departure? Did Pigeon Man actually jump off the building and took his own life? This is because of he had such a heartbreaking speech and Arnold unable to cope with the trauma imagines pigeon man departing from the city and from life in a more beautiful way to move on. How else could a couple birds carry a regular man?
Deadpanned[]
This was a rumor that actually got debunked by creator, Craig Bartlett. He did state in a 2016 interview that him being flown by birds actually happened. He initially gave vague details that he has plans for pigeon man and that just he is not dead and would imagine pigeon man would go to Paris as it be an ideal city to care for pigeons. This was further followed up on, as the 2017 movie Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie, Arnold's friends put together a humanitarian video about Arnold to include everyone Arnold has ever helped, showing Pigeon Man being among them, showing he is doing well in Paris and continuing to raise pigeons.