Eugene Horowitz

Eugene Horowitz is a fictional character in the Nickelodeon animated television series Hey Arnold!. He is basically a jinx (similar to Li'l Abner's Joe Btfsplk). He's not particularly good-looking, not really popular, lives in poverty, appears to have lost an eye at one point, and he has the most rotten luck of anyone in Arnold's world. In fact, his fortune is so awful, he seems to be the exception to Arnold's rule that "every dork has his day" (even on his birthday, all of Arnold's do-overs went wrong one way or another). In the episode "The Headless Cabby," it is shown he has excellent aptitude at clog dancing.

What makes Eugene truly unique, though, is his ability to be happy and optimistic no matter what happens, even if the rest of the people around him are covering their eyes. A hidden talent of Eugene's is singing, as seen in Hey Arnold!: The Movie and "Eugene, Eugene!" (he's cast as the lead in a musical). His optimism and singing talent are featured in the episode where he, Harold, and Arnold get stuck in a tree. While Harold starts panicking and Arnold becomes annoyed, he just continues to sing, "Every minute turns to an hour, every seed will grow to a flower" accompanied with motions. He is also known to idolize a TV hero known as "The Abdicator," who he temporarily hated when he discovered that the Abdicator was just an actor named Maurice, but liked him again after he and another boy were saved by Maurice.

Arnold has inadvertently added to Eugene's misfortune several times---killing his fish, destroying his bike, etc. This once caused Eugene to conclude that Arnold is a jinx, as every major misfortune Eugene had involved Arnold. However, many misfortunes in Eugene's life alluded to (but not seen on the show) were not involved with Arnold; nor were the many minor accidents (crashing his bike, falling down, etc.) that he experiences every time he appears. The propensity for Arnold to be around Eugene during trouble is probably based on the fact that few other characters want to associate with Eugene much of the time, for the simple fact they fear his unluckiness.

Voiced by actors in order

 * Christopher J. Castile (early season 1)
 * Jarrett Lennon (later season 1)
 * Ben Diskin (seasons 2 to 4)
 * Blake Ewing (season 5).