Against all odds, Rockos Modern Life and Hey Arnold!
are picking up exactly where they left off.
This article was originally published in theDen of Geekmagazine SDCC special edition.Click here to view the full issue.
The executives at Nickelodeon rang up the creators of these beloved cartoons seemingly out of the blue.
A third of Nickelodeons employees were of that age25 to 30and fans of the show.
They had a town hall meeting and asked what the employees thought Nick should be doing.
And a lot of them said, Why dont you bring backHey Arnold!?
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Bartlett didnt need much convincing.
I felt really bad for a long time, Bartlett recalls.
I made this cliffhanger and broke the hearts of children everywhere.
Thats the ups and downs of showbiz.
Plenty has changed since.
The transition should be smooth for a series that was way ahead of its time.
Conglom-O Corporation is basically just Amazon at this point.
But even he was caught off guard when Nickelodeon was circlingRockoas its next classic Nicktoon special.
Theres a kid issue involved in the main storyline and theres lots of great visual animation.
It serves all the audiences.
How did we end up with a new feature-length movie?
CRAIG BARTLETT:Fifteen years ago this summer, we had just put outThe Hey Arnold!
This is kind of one and done for the feature.
He opens the last page, it was kind of stuck together, and he finds this map.
And its like, Grandma, Grandpa, I found the map!
Dun dun dun dun, big cliffhanger music and out.
And so, I had originally done that on purpose to dare Nick Movies to not makeThe Jungle Movie.
But the show still got cancelled.
Its just the way it goes.
Thats the ups and downs of showbiz.
So thats a really cool story.
I love that story.
The film will be closure for the old fans.
But it also needs to introduce the cartoon for a new generation.
How did you approach that?
We always talk about our actual audience, the kids.
Did you look to mix up the creative team with old and new talent?
That was a big part of the discussion.
So Nickelodeon said, We think thats a good story.
It would be really cool if they work on the show.
And so it was a negotiation between me and Nickelodeon to add the next generation to the crew.
How did a revival happen?
JOE MURRAY:When I first heard about it, I thought maybe its not a good idea.
I felt like we had done a really good job with the seasons that we did.
Why mess with it?
I said I had to think about it for awhile.
It was too abrupt for me to wrap my head around.
Did they come to you with the idea to do this revival as a movie?
The only choices they gave me were doing a long-form project or some shorts.
I opted for the long-form project, an hour movie.
I thought we could tell a good story and expand what we did before.
In the last episode ofRocko, we blasted him off to into space.
I thought it would be perfect if we had him come back and land 20 years later.
A long-form piece is a different animal than completing 13 individual episodes.
How did you approach it narratively?
It didnt seem like such a stretch because we were used to telling three-act stories.
We just expanded it.
I came up with the story that was really relevant to what is going on now.
Theres a twist in there [that] will be a surprise when it comes out.
There wasnt really anything they had discussed with me as far as what they wanted to do.
They wanted to know if I wanted to refresh the series and the characters.
I actually wanted it to be as close to the original as possible.
When we approached the production, we did all the backgrounds the same way, hand-painted.
We pulled recurring characters from the old series.
Its pretty close to what it was.
Its the 90s show being brought back in 2018.
How modern life is now and how the characters would have evolved.
With social media, do you think younger audiences are more mature now than during the original run?
We did all the gags with social media and technology.
That was fair game.
Its fun to see someone experiencing all this new technology.
Filburt and Heffer embrace it, and Rocko is averse to change.
Thats really how the story evolves.
Its all about change.
We had characters that were really demented.
Some of the audience didnt really catch on to it.
It was a little strange to them.
Over the years, things have gotten a little weird.
Not only in kids entertainment but look at the TV shows kids are watching these days.
They really dont have to make sense, and theyd probably rather it didnt.
Im feeling like a lot of our non-sequitur weird stuff is pretty much the norm now.
We really poured it on.
Its more accepted these days than when we first came out.
It was good that we hadRen and Stimpypave the way.
I think Nickelodeon was more open to doing the weird stuff we wanted to do.
We started developing the show right around the timeRen and Stimpycame out.
We had just done the pilot forRocko.
I came into it thinking I dont really care if they say no to it.
They came to me and said, Do your independent film work and put it on television.
I give a lot of credit to that.
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