Geek It! Animation: Nickelodeon’s Hey Arnold fever strikes again

Nickelodeon’s Hey Arnold aired its finale episode back in 2004. Since then, fans have been left in the dark wondering whether we would ever have a follow-up and/or conclusion to the series.  

What happened to Arnold’s parents? Is Helga and Arnold ever going to end up together? After many years of patience, rumours, and drama beyond Nickelodeon’s walls, 2017 is finally going to be THE year for Hey Arnold creator Craig Bartlett and Hey Arnold fans. 

So when we first saw this video a few years ago, you can imagine the type of excitement that triggered amongst Hey Arnold fans. 

And the cat finally got out of the bag in March 2016 — when it was officially announced by Nickelodeon and Craig Bartlett himself that Hey Arnold will be returning for a two-hour special film dubbed ‘Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie’.

One of the cool things about Hey Arnold was that they actually used child actors to play the characters in order to make the story authentic. To many fans’ delight, some of the original voice actors will be reprising their characters including Francesca Marie Smith as Helga, Anndi McAfee as Phoebe, Justin Shenkarow as Harold, Olivia Hack as Rhonda, Nika Futterman as Olga, and Dan Butler as Mr. Simmons. However, this cannot be said for Arnold and Gerald’s characters as they will be receiving new voice actors — Mason Vale Cotton and Benjamin “Lil’ P-Nut” Flores Jr., respectively.

At a recent panel, Nickelodeon gave fans a first look at the character art for the movie. The artwork featured Arnold, as well as Helga, Gerald, Phoebe, Grandpa and Arnold’s pet pig, Abner. We even got a coloured image of Gerald and Arnold enjoying their ice-creams on the front porch whilst Helga look annoyed at her fallen ice-cream.

In Hey Arnold: The Jungle Movie, Arnold is on his way to becoming a sixth grader, and luckily for Arnold and his friends, they get a bit of update on their overall character design.  

Arnold Gerald’s hair and jumper got a tweak. Helga and Arnold gets cool sneakers. But the most surprising change has to be Phoebe’s character design. Phoebe has always known to be a super nerd — but never before has she looked this intelligent and stylish at the same time! 

Are you excited? Keep that flame burning by checking out Nickelodeon’s first look of The Jungle Movie — let us know what you think in the comments below! 

If that wasn’t enough to satisfy your Hey Arnold thirst, we highly recommend you to watch the Craig Bartlett interview videos below — enjoy!