Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie - After 11 years, one of Nickelodeon's worst mistakes has been fixed

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Hey Arnold!, Nickelodeon's animated series starring a 9-year-old football-head boy with a tiny cap, the most creative bedroom for a 90s cartoon character, a big shirt which is mistaken for a kilt and an idealism with attitude.



Hey Arnold! is the sixth Nicktoon and one of Nickelodeon's most significant cartoons of all time. The show mixed adult humor with complex and relatable characters. It blended realistic storylines in an urban setting with surreal fairy tales starring urban legends. It blended a kid-friendly point of view with adult characters dealing with adult issues (alcoholism, gambling and stuff that could only be seen in live-action dramas). As a result, it was the most ecclectic Nicktoon. In addition, the ending theme song was pure jazz and the show is what made kids interested in jazz.

A kids' cartoon that has Arnold's grandpa confronting Adolf Hitler is a perfect example of combining humor with adult innuendos.

But the show's core theme was the idealism-vs-cynicism debate. We have our title protagonist called Arnold Shortman (this last name wasn't revealed until the show ended), a boy who believed that as long as everyone worked together the world could be a better place to live, and that was always ready to do his part in helping whoever has a problem. He's always giving advice to people and helping his friends to solve everyday's problems, both his classmates and his adult friends.

"Arnold, saving the neighborhood isn't a game. It's real life. And in real life, you can't always win. I mean, I can win Runaway Bus every time I play it but that's because it's a game."

But the scene-stealer is Helga G. Pataki. She's Arnold's opposite. Helga is an abusive school bully who's always beating and cursing at the living snout out of everyone to get whatever she wants. She's bossy and sassy and has a grimdark vision of life and, due to Arnold always claiming that anything goes with everyone's efforts, wouldn't hesitate on knocking poor football-head back to his senses that real world is nothing but hell.

"This is the real fucking life!"

Helga's actions are consequences of her miserable family life at home, thanks to her abusive dad, her drunken mom and her older sister whose success detracts Helga from achieving any expectation from her parents as they base it on their favorite firstborn. She has no room at home and built her own outside, using brutal violence and tyrant cruelty, as she didn't learn other ways of respect.

Helga had to go to school on her own too early due to her parents' negligence.

At school, she took it on the other children.

On the other hand, Arnold lives in an unusual home where he was raised by his grandparents who own the boarding house where Arnold interacts with several houseboarders who helped raise him, without knowing his biological parents who disappeared mysteriously. This is where Arnold gets love and respect from the adults who listen to whatever he says and let Arnold help them in their predicaments, building up the idea of Arnold helping anyone as long as he does the least.

While not blood-related, they're still a happy and perfect family as they all live together in the same house. For example, Mr. Hyunh raises Arnold as if he is an uncle while his daughter Mai does the same as if she is a distant cousin. They spend holidays and birthdays together and, whenever every single one of them has a predicament, they help. They may not seem a traditional family, but they're still a family.

What makes the opposites, which are Helga and Arnold, attract is that Helga lusts over Arnold ever since preschool days because Arnold is the first person to show her any single kind of compassion (for example, noticing that she was wet, offering his umbrella and praising her attire). And Helga always torments and abuses Arnold to conceal her true feelings for her (as she is unable to deal with them), though she secretly supports and roots for him and hopes that the world is not as cruel as far to crush the poor boy's pure heart. Ironically, Arnold is oblivious to this and can't remember the day he loaned his umbrella to Helga. He's unhappy with Helga's abusive behavior and this is how things are like this in the world.

Helga's love for Arnold reaches to not-so-healthy levels, such as stalking and shrines to lick the boots out of his image. However, she's a talented poet for her age.

This is Hey Arnold!. The story of one of Nickelodeon's most complex cartoon characters (alongside Zuko) and her cynical feelings, her endless suffering and lust for acceptance, and of the boy she loves.

This also about all these other characters which, while lacking Helga's development and Arnold's collaboration, are all interesting characters. After all, Craig Bartlett was heavily influenced by the works of Charles M. Schulz to create the then-next Nicktoon.

A great cartoon. Timeless, magnificent, groundbreaking and... unfairly canceled by Nickelodeon. One of the most heartbreaking cases of Nickelodeon sabotaging their own animated offering (it wasn't certainly the only case, as The Ren & Stimpy Show got ruined by Nickelodeon amid irreconciliable creative differences which caused the departure of John Kricfalusi and his animation company Spümco, Invader Zim had his planned finale unfinished, not to mention Nickelodeon's abusive cruelty towards The Legend of Korra)

The tearjerking consequence of Nickelodeon's mishandling of their Nicktoons

"How could you (Nickelodeon) say those horrible things to MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE???????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Hey Arnold! officialy has 100 episodes (split into 120 segments) and a feautre-length film. A made-for-TV feature film released theatrically as Hey Arnold! The Movie and 100 episodes split into 5 seasons. However, as the show's renewal for a fourth season was in planning stages, it was actually renewed for fourth season episodes and two movies, one of which would conclude the series. So, the number was supposed to be four seasons and two movies (because Craig Bartlett feared Nickelodeon would do the same thing to his creation than they were doing to Rugrats and other Klasky-Csupo Nicktoons at that time and they would do to Spongebob Squarepants and The Fairly Oddparents as we know it: seasonal rot), instead of five seasons and one movie. So, what in the blazes happened?

The original movie Hey Arnold! The Movie went south in box office. Actually, it was successful on test release, but became a critical and commercial tragedy as Nickelodeon decided to give it a theatrical release instead of keeping it made-for-TV and direct-to-video. The results: the movie was blasted by critics and audiences, prevented Nickelodeon from releasing future Nicktoon films theatrically for a while and, not only that, put plans for a sequel in jeopardy.

Yes, the fourth season finale was to be a 2-part ratings trap that would lead to the second movie that was supposed to be the series finale. So, by cancelling the movie, they cancelled the entire series finale. I think it was too unparalleled believe that a little movie with no pretensions intended for TV could be paralleled to a rushed movie to be the series finale, the definite ending of the series that, as long as the writers are good (those from Hey Arnold! were the best), is the best point of the series.

Concept art from the new movie's unfinished version by Roger Luan

No-no-no! 2001 has come, but Nickelodeon, wanting to turn Hey Arnold! into their next Spongebob/Rugrats, divided the already in-production episodes into two more seasons and spaced their releases, but the show could have continued until 2004 with new episodes, with or without Craig Bartlett. This is how Nickelodeon stripped the show from his finale.

Yes, the potential sixth season which could give the series at least a more coherent ending and not end in a great cliffhanger was out of question.

In the ending of the 2-part episode The Journal, Arnold finds a map that would indicate where would his parents supposedly be.

Everything happened in 2001. So, in 2004, Craig Bartlett was already busy in another cartoon as production of Hey Arnold! wrapped in 2001, but Nickelodeon found out that he was working for Cartoon Network and it was John Kricfalusi and his Ren & Stimpy all over again because Bartlett had signed an exclusivity clause with Nickelodeon, which didn't help as he wouldn't even give the series a closure. But this officially soured the relationship between Nickelodeon and Craig Bartlett, not unlike what happened in the Ren & Stimpy days.

So many petitions for production of the film have been made, despite all of this.

The 2-part episode that would lead to the movie aired before the last episode and Nickelodeon selected a typical episode to be the last, just to hype up for a movie. On June 8th 2004, Nickelodeon aired the episode "Phoebe's Little Problem" (what a series finale). This was the end of Hey Arnold!.

The last episode of the series.

If you think all of this is over, you're foolishly mistaken! There's the reason Craig Bartlett wanted the second movie - which, in now full production, is called The Jungle Movie - to be the series finale. He didn't want to cancel the show out of nowhere. He had future plans for Hey Arnold!. He wanted to create a spin-off starring Helga called The Patakis, which was planned for Nick at Nite - Nickelodeon's primetime block originally targeted for adults and teenagers. The Patakis was to focus on Helga, now 15-year-old, in a point where she and Arnold were finally open to each other only for him to leave the city soon. She would cope with her teen issues, her mom's alcoholism would be further explored, so would her dad's abusive cruelty (he would be based on Tony Soprano in the spin-off). Nickelodeon rejected this series as it was considered too dark for the network's standards.

They feared it would meet the same fate that plagued the spin-offs of their 1991 cartoons All Grown Up! and Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon. The first one, from Rugrats, wasn't as well received by fans as the original for being an unnecessary rehash of As Told by Ginger - also created by Klasky-Csupo - with the Rugrats texture and killed the Rugrats franchise, while the latter, from The Ren & Stimpy Show, was an adults-only cartoon for Spike TV - Nickelodeon's sister network - that was short-lived with horrible results.

Good ideas for spin-offs from 1991 Nicktoons that were horribly misused, which led to the deaths of the Rugrats and Ren & Stimpy franchises.

Craig Bartlett also tried to launch The Patakis on MTV - Nickelodeon's other sister network - , but the network rejected it as they viewed it as too similar to Daria, one of their own cartoons MTV was producing at the time.

Now that I talked about how The Jungle Movie, The Patakis and any possibility of a closure for the characters of Hey Arnold! went into development hell, I'll talk about Nickelodeon. It's time for animation history:

Nickelodeon is a channel created amid the Animation Renaissance of the 1990s when studios like Disney, Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera came to end the cheap, lazy and overcommercial way of producing cartoons from the 1980s, and produce better produced and more creator-driven cartoons that anyone could enjoy. This is the decade which cartoons like Sonic the Hedgehog: The Series, Darkwing Duck, TaleSpin, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron, Animaniacs/Pinky and the Brain and the DC Animated Timmverse came from. Cartoon Network is another channel that was born in the same decade and both CN and Nick became the parents of modern creator-driven animation.

The gems of Nickelodeon's animation crown

It's during the Animation Renaissance that Nickelodeon created many original cartoons called Nicktoons which became critical and commercial hits: Doug, Rugrats, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Rocko's Modern Life, Aaahh!! Real Monsters, KaBlam!, Hey Arnold!, The Angry Beavers, CatDog, The Wild Thornberrys, SpongeBob Squarepants, Rocket Power, As Told by Ginger, Chalkzone, The Fairly Oddparents, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Invader Zim and The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.

From this list, Rugrats, Hey Arnold!, The Wild Thornberrys, Rocket Power and As Told by Ginger ended their original runs in 2004. Rugrats was continued by a spin-off starring the grown-up title characters called All Grown Up! which was commissioned by Nickelodeon and overlapped with another spin-off planed by Nickelodeon starring Angelica and Susie in preschool. Those spin-offs weren't as succesful as the original source material and killed the Rugrats brand. Let's see the others from this list.

The Ren & Stimpy Show ended its production run in 1996 and got an adults-only spin-off Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon which was commissioned by Spike TV. That one crashed and burned even worse and killed the Ren & Stimpy franchise. Doug and Aaahh!! Real Monsters had their feature films cancelled by Nickelodeon, killing those franchises. Doug was sold to Disney who produced a Doug movie of its own. Other shows ended their runs and the last one to be cancelled was CatDog in 2005.

Two of Nickelodeon's most successful animated series that remain are SpongeBob Squarepants and The Fairly Oddparents. Nickelodeon currently has five cartoons, three of which have considerable success. Both those aforementioned shows, the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot, Harvey Beaks and The Loud House.

Nickelodeon's post-Renaissance cartoons were successful, but they weren't as successful as Avatar: The Last Airbender. Thanks to Nickelodeon not renewing the Avatar creators' contract, this is not what Nickelodeon would invest into.

While Danny Phantom and My Life as a Teenage Robot weren't very next to the 90s Nicktoons, they reasonated well with critics and audiences with their own merits and are still loved today.

Resuming: the good days of Nickelodeon were the entire 1990s. Despite still making good cartoons from that point, they felt threatened by the rise of Cartoon Network. And from the cartoons that made up the good days of Nickelodeon, the channel became content with running the best part of the bunch into the ground, including Avatar: The Last Airbender. Meanwhile, the channel spends much of its life in the current animation field with both 90s shows renewed to this day, both already in the same decay that affected The Simpsons and Family Guy.

Say what you will about Poof, Sparky and Chloe, but this picture is the rock bottom of The Fairly Oddparents losing his shock factor.

Nickelodeon is an endangered species that got on the verge of extinction when the Animation Renaissance ended.

In this game, Nick at Nite became the home of reruns of Nickelodeon's Renaissance cartoons instead of that originally intended programming for grown-ups, as those cartoons became the network's heart and soul.

Nick at Nite's logo changes are based on how the block's original concept was getting lost before becoming nothing but marathons of reruns of Nickelodeon's programming from the good old days.

Since the beginning of the current age of animation, there were attempts of turning DreamWorks Animation's most successful movies into TV series: The Penguins of Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness and Monsters vs. Aliens, all of which were discontinued experiences. The only critical and commercial darling is Dragons which moved from Cartoon Network to Netflix.

Desperate to bank on the popularity of Cartoon Network and Disney Channel/XD's cartoons such as Steven Universe and Gravity Falls, Nickelodeon announced last year that they would produce new seasons for their 90s library. With this announcement, the first show to be revived was nothing more than Hey Arnold!. After Nickelodeon and Craig Bartlett made amends, it was announced that, 11 years after the final episode of Hey Arnold! was aired and 14 years after it was cancelled, Nickelodeon would finally produce The Jungle Movie.

Everything goes back to the movie that almost never was.

And every single Hey Arnold! fan was finally able to give up the petition stites.

This means that, if The Jungle Movie reasonates well with critics, fans and viewers, Hey Arnold! will be brought back to production, whether it's a good idea or not, as the movie was meant to conclude the entire Hey Arnold! franchise. Whatever be a brand new season or The Patakis, there's still so much mystery in the announcement, but what's so important is that it will be back.

What does it mean? Certainly, Nickelodeon desperately wants to be relevant again and wants to know how to turn the tables. Since the beginning of the this decade, Cartoon Network has been enjoying a new age with Adventure Time (whose actual series was rejected by Nickelodeon), Steven Universe, Regular Show, Over the Garden Wall, We Bare Bears, etc. Now they decided to embrace pure notsalgia and jump the reboot bandwagon with everything they got.

Considering that Nickelodeon mooned at and gave a middle finger to The Patakis, I think that, even if they had produced Adventure Time, they wouldn't give a shit to anything that made the series so great.

Unless it's done right, this is the recipe for disaster. As much as I love Hey Arnold!, it's a desperate idea that could be executed in the very worst way possible. It was a 1990s show and I'm sure it will rely on more than nostalgia to be relevant today, with Craig Bartlett and the original creative team on board with a little help of some new blood to put effort into and passionate about it. Mr. Bartlett, you're all set for a successful revival movie. You've got a good combination of old veterans and newcomers, you've got a dedicated and talented staff and, above of all, you've got pure imagination and expertise to inject into it. Best of luck, and I hope Rocko's Modern Life, KaBlam!, Danny Phantom, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Invader Zim, Codename: Kids Next Door, Samurai Jack, Hi Hi Puffy Amiyumi, Sym-Bionic Titan, Megas XLR, SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron, Animaniacs, Kim Possible, Gravity Falls, etc. get the same kind of treatment.

Translated from dentrodachamine.wordpress.com/2015/12/01/hey-arnold-the-jungle-movie-depois-de-11-anos-um-erro-grande-erro-foi-desfeito/