Big Fish, Big Ambitions (by Laura)

 'What happened to you, bro? You look like a gigantic muscley thumb,' Oscar says to Milo, the protagonist of the episode 'Big Fish', from the children's TV show Fish hooks. This particular episode begins with a tiny little fish called Milo, who goes to a gym class to get closer to the girls from the school. Ashamed of not weight-training as intensely as girls do, Milo decides to become strong to impress the girls, so he goes to 'the big tank,' a place in which fish grow up in size. But the moment that Milo turns into a muscly boy, he becomes ambitious to get even more muscles and to obtain popularity. Milo's unstoppable desires of being the most popular boy at school do not work out very well for him by the end of the day. Throughout the episode ‘Big Fish’, Fish hooks teaches children how ambitiousness can be very dangerous.

At the beginning of this episode, Milo instantly becomes bigger and stronger. The new Milo starts lying to his friends about his 'exhaustive workout routine'. Milo is now extremely big but as he needs to be stronger to continue impressing the girls, he goes back to the big tank. Milo feels very powerful but his ambitions are turning him into a terrible person. Throughout the episode, children realise how Milo's ambitions have changed the way in which he acts. The new Milo is vain and narcissist as he proudly shows his physical strength to the entire school waiting for recognition and popularity, especially from the girls. His ambitions as regards being the strongest guy at school leads him to keep lying to his friends so they would not find out how he became a big fish. At this point of the episode, children get the chance to understand that ambitiousness can make them lie to their friends. Children will also learn that being ambitious can make them turn into awful people such as Milo, who ends up being totally irresponsible and blind by his ambitions.

By the end of the episode and due to his unstoppable ambitiousness, Milo falls apart from his friends. His uncontrollable necessity of becoming bigger and stronger also affects his relationships at school. At first everyone loves the big, strong and now popular Milo, but the moment he becomes a giant monster everyone is scared of him, even his best friends Bea and Oscar. There is a particular scene from the episode that shows to children how ambitiousness can leave someone completely alone. All the people, who at the beginning seem to love Milo's new appearance, are now scared of the monster that Milo has become.

Milo finally realises that he is a giant creature and asks for help, but in order to be a small fish again, he has to stay in a shrink tank for thirty-six hours. At this moment, children will get to see Milo dealing with the consequences of his desires for muscles and popularity. They will also realise that as soon as Milo decides to stop getting stronger, his friends opt to accompany his process to become tiny little fish as he was at the beginning.

Fish Hooks' episode titled 'Big Fish'; gives children the message that ambitiousness can provoke terrible consequences in someone's life. Due to his ambitions, Milo decides to change his body to be more popular, but when he loses control of the situation he has to face the consequences of his ambitions. As it is shown in the episode, it is important to avoid worrying about frivolous stuff such as popularity. It is also necessary to know that being ambitious can work well at the beginning but by the end of the day, you will realise that you may have become an awful and lonely person.