Move it football head! From behind the scenes shenanigans to concepts that got the boot, here are 10 interesting facts about one of Nickelodeon's best shows.
#10: Claymation time
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| Now that's using your imagination! |
Years before his show first appeared, Craig Bartlett made three claymation shorts starring Arnold: Arnold Escapes Church, The Arnold Waltz and Arnold Rides His Chair. These shorts had a strange dreamlike feel compared to the more down to earth tone the official series went with. The third short is notable because it showed up on Sesame Street.
#9: A long time coming
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| It was well worth the wait! |
The Hey Arnold Jungle Movie, which debuted in 2017, has been in development since the early 2000s. Development for it was originally cancelled after the critical and financial failure of the first Hey Arnold Movie, but a combination of fan petitions and series creator Craig Bartlett having meetings with executives eventually convinced Nickelodeon to give the movie a second try.
#8: The Patakis
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| What a shame! |
At one point in development there was an idea to give Helga and her family their own series. Nickelodeon rejected the idea because it was considered too dark for their intended target audience, while sister channel MTV rejected it because it was too similar to Daria.
#7: Good thing this was scrapped!
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| Some things are better left unused. |
During the early seasons of the show, one character who made mostly cameo appearances was Lana Vail. According to series creator Craig Bartlett in a now deleted video, she was originally gonna have a crush on Arnold and would ask him favors that would make him unconformable. When this concept was inevitable cut, the crew couldn't find another good concept for her, so she was relegated to short cameos and a single speaking role before being removed from the show altogether.
#6: The problem with child voice actors
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| All this because of puberty! |
This show was among the first to have real world children voicing the child characters, which inevitably came with the issue of what to do when the child actor's voices started to change. Fortunately in this case, the team found some interesting solutions. For Arnold's first voice actor, Toran Caudell, he would go on to voice the teen bully Wolfgang. In the case of Gerald, the team made an episode where he had his tonsils removed because they couldn't find a suitable replacement for his voice actor, Jamil Walker Smith.
#5: Real crushes, cartoon girls
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| You know what they say, write what you know. |
While none of them shared their counterparts' names, the girls in Arnold's class were all based off of real life girls that Craig knew and liked as a kid.
#4: Last name?
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| Arnold Who? Simpson? Griffin? Hill? Belcher? |
A running gag throughout the series is Arnold's last name never being revealed. It wasn't until 2016 when Craig Bartlett revealed in an interview that his last name was shortman. His last name also shows up in The Jungle Movie on a passport.
#3: Footballeo and Patakiette
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| At least it's not another Christmas Carol parody. |
During an interview at 2017 San Diego Comic Con, Helga's voice actress, Francesca Marie Smith, said that she used the episode School Play as part of her independent schooling. Specifically, she set up a thing to compare the show's version of Romeo and Juliet to the original play.
#2: Harriet The Spy
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| Harriet walked so Arnold could run! |
Outside of the claymation shorts, the pilot for this series was a theatrical short that first showed up before airings of Harriet the Spy. The pilot was based off of a 1992 comic strip called Arnold Narrowly Avoids a Thrashing and for the actually series was remade for the season 1 episode 24 Hours to Live.
#1: From Groening to Bartlett
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| They took a page from The Simpsons' book! |
During development, Simpsons creator Matt Groening gave Craig Bartlett the idea to design his characters so they can be identified from a distance, or in silhouette, hence the odd head shapes on several of the characters. Additionally, Matt's sister Lisa (who is also Bartlett's wife) gave him the idea to have a bully harbor a secret crush on Arnold, hence why Helga is the way she is.
For such a simple show, there sure was a lot going behind the scenes, and there's probably much more that I missed. Thanks for reading and happy late Valentine's Day.
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