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Hey Arnold!: The Movie
has a long and reasonably interesting history that goes along
with it. After the success of The Rugrats Movie,
Viacom decided to make more movies based on its Nickelodeon
animatied shows; besides another Rugrats movie, plans
were made in 1999 to start making a Hey Arnold! movie.
Originally, the plan was for the movie to be about Arnold saving
his neighborhood from developers, but somebody at Nickelodeon
decided that the show had a better story for a movie: Arnold
looking for his parents, which was planned for a Nick Flick, and
that became the theatrical movie while "Arnold Saves the
Neighborhood" was written and animated as a Nick Flick. In
the meantime, "the movie" - which is nicknamed "The Jungle
Movie" as it takes place in a jungle - was going through a
series of rewrites. Eventually, it was decided that,
"while we're waiting for 'The Jungle Movie'", "Arnold Saves The
Neighborhood" would be reanimated as a theatrical movie and
released in 2002. (It didn't hurt any that Viacom CEO
Sumner Redstone had announced plans to have at least two
animated movies a year released.) The title was changed to
Hey Arnold!: The Neighborhood, and then Hey Arnold!:
The Movie, probably to get people who weren't particularly
familiar with the show to watch it.
But enough of that...you want
details on the movie, right?
Hey Arnold!: The Movie
A developer buys up most of the neighborhood where Arnold lives
so he can build a mall, and Arnold and Gerald have to find a
document that declared the entire area a national monument
before the bulldozers start tearing everything up.
Written by Craig Bartlett & Steve Viksten
Directed by Tuck Tucker
Art Director: Christine Kolosov
Sequence Directors: Tim Parsons, Carson Kugler, Chris
Robertson, Aldin Baroza
Animation Directors: Christine Kolosov, Frank Weiss
Storyboard Artists: Miyuki Hoshikawa, Diane Kredensor,
Caesar Martinez, Ted Seko
Cast:
Arnold - Spencer Klein
Helga, Deep Voice - Francesca Marie Smith
Gerald, "Rasta Guy" - Jamil Smith
Grandpa, Nick Vermicelli, Jolly Olly Ice Cream Man
(uncredited) - Dan Castellaneta
Grandma, Mayor Dixie, Red (Scheck's assistant) - Tress
MacNeille
Scheck - Paul Sorvino
Bridget - Jennifer Jason Leigh
Coroner - Christopher Lloyd
Mr. Bailey (Hall of Records employee) - Vincent Schiavelli
Big Bob Pataki, head of FTI security - Maurice LaMarche
Miriam Pataki, Mona (Murray's girlfriend), TV reporter -
Kath E. Soucie
Stinky - Christopher P. Walberg
Sid - Sam Gifaldi
Harold - Justin Shenkarow
Eugene - Blake Ewing
Rhonda - Olivia Hack
Phoebe - Anndi McAfee
Mr. Green, riot cop (who breaks up the party) - James Keane
Mrs. Vitello - Elizabeth Ashley
Ray Doppel (Dino Spumoni impersonator) - Michael Levin
Oskar - Steve Viksten
Ernie - Dom Irrera
Mr. Hyunh - Baoan Coleman
Brainy, Murray (bus driver), Grubby (man with cans knocked
over by bus), Monkeyman - Craig
Bartlett
Caesar (truck driver who almost drives off overpass) -
(uncredited)
Also, "Li'l Romeo featuring Master P" is credited as
singing one of the songs over the closing credits
- Apparently, somebody thought
it would be a good idea to have Arnold's and Gerald's faces
always in shadow for some reason. It ranks right up
there with the "gray-faced adults" in the outdoor scenes in
The Rugrats Movie.
- Don't bother looking for a
soundtrack CD for the movie, as none was made. This
isn't surprising, considering there were only four or
five songs (the ones I can think of: Li'l Romeo's song and the
changed theme at the end; Eugene's "song", which is
interrupted twice; the song sung in the club).
- Speaking of songs, if you're
wondering what the song "Coconut" in the closing credits is:
when Grandma is in the police van, she says "Put the lime in
the coconut, and mix it all up", which are lyrics from that
song.
- Just before the SPAT team
arrives at the block party, Harvey is wearing formal clothing,
but after they arrive, he's in his mail delivery uniform.
- "Why would Dino Spumoni be
singing in a small club like that?" That wasn't Dino
Spumoni, but Ray Doppel, the Dino impersonator in "Dino Checks
Out". (One way you can tell is by their noses.)
- Speaking of characters you
may not remember, Mr. Bailey was the man Arnold and Gerald
went to in order to find Mr. Hyunh's daughter in "Arnold's
Christmas".
- Look fast: at Blockapalooza,
Lorenzo dunks Lila, Maria and Connie are in line to kiss Jamie
O at his "Kissin' Booth", and Timberly is getting a flower
from Mrs. Vitello.
- Usually Jim Lang handles all
of the music, but the movie had an "Orchestrated and Conducted
by Bill Liston" credit.
- I realize this was written
as a Nick Flick, but for something this big, why not give more
characters lines? Where were Curly, Nadine, Mr. Simmons,
and
Principal Wartz? (How about Sheena? She was next to Lila in the opening, and it wasn't as if Francesca
Smith wasn't available...) Even Phoebe only had one
line.
- One of the reviews pointed
out that Grandpa's grandfather was involved in the tomato
incident, "but how is that possible as it would have been over
225 years ago" and Grandpa was born around 1920 (remember,
he's in his early eighties). Technically, parts of the
northwest USA were under British control until the mid-1840s
(see also the story of "the real pig war" in episode 315), so
it could have happened. (Unlike "the pig war", I think
the tomato incident is fictional; it sounds much too close to
the events that led to the Boston Tea Party.)
- Somebody forgot to tell Lila
that you're not supposed to wear your normal clothes when
you're in a dunk tank. We know she has a bathing suit;
she's wearing it (one-piece yellow) in the opening
scene. Of course, those of you who are not particularly
fans of Lila (and you know who you are) probably didn't
mind...
- Arnold had to borrow bus
fare from Helga in order to ride the bus the first time.
Why? In the past, all he had to do is show his bus pass.
- The coroner tells Arnold
that FTI is located on Riverside Highway. Christopher
Lloyd, who voiced the coroner, was also Doc Brown in the
Back to the Future movies, and Doc Brown lived on
Riverside Drive.
- Arnold used some sort of
lock-picking device in order to get into Scheck's office - why
couldn't he have just used that device to open the safe
deposit box instead of going through the trouble of getting
the key?
- Get your names in while
you've got the chance: Nick orders a "Bartlett" in the club,
while one of the stores that is closed is Viksten's Bicycle
Shop (named for Craig and Steve, respectively).
- At least one of the
computers in Mr. Bailey's office uses tubes - something they
stopped using in the 1960s.
- If there was a problem with
somebody finding the document, why didn't Scheck just burn it
in the first place? For that matter, why didn't Scheck
start bulldozing the minute he thought there were any
problems?
- Yes, that is a Jewish prayer
you hear Gerald saying, but it's doubtful that he's Jewish, as
he didn't recognize the Hebrew in Harold's book in "Harold's
Bar Mitzvah". (Another example of the two Nickelodeon
answers to "What religion is that character?": Jewish and
"uh....")
- Except for a strange mix
version at the end, you never hear the TV theme song.
And why wasn't it the first song in the credits? Because
then the song that was first wouldn't be eligible for the
Academy Award for original song (it has to be in the movie or
the first song in the closing credits)...and that assumes the
song was written specifically for the film (another
requirement).
- It's strange that they mention
that Mr. Green has a son, but they just leave it at that
(instead of, say, the son showing up in some
reconciliation scene at the end). For that matter, he's
never mentioned that he ever had a wife.
- At the end, Big Bob tells
Scheck to "tell it to your cellmate in Folsom" - which is
impossible, as Folsom is limited to criminals who commit
crimes in California. Besides, when you consider Big Bob
assaulted Nick twice, he just might end up being that
cellmate.
- "I would have gotten away
with it, too" - usually, the next words are "if it wasn't for
those meddling kids"; this is how pretty much every episode of
every version of Scooby-Doo ends.
- I'm confused...did Mr. Green
and Mrs. Vitello sell to Scheck or not? If not, how
would the bulldozers know which buildings to tear down?
If they did, what was Mr. Green doing in his store when the
bulldozers showed up?
- Was every building in the
neighborhood built before "the tomato incident" took place?
If not, then there must not have been a problem with tearing them
down even after the area was declared a historical monument,
so why is it a problem now?
- Now the big question:
what happens next? Certainly, Grandpa, Ernie, Oskar,
and Mr. Hyunh aren't going to get just a slap on the wrist for
illegally setting off explosives and demolishing a building
they didn't own. As for the rest of the neighborhood
(except the Sunset Arms), Scheck still owns the buildings, so
they can't just move back in. As for Arnold and
Helga,...no, I can't mention that as it might give away what
really happens when Helga confesses to Arnold.
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