Trivia / Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie

• Acting for Two:
  • Anndi McAfee voices both Phoebe (affecting the same childlike timbre she had in The '90s) and the reporter at the Sunset Arms covering Arnold winning the contest (using her natural adult voice).
  • Wally Wingert voices Oskar and Mr. Hyunh, who were originally voiced by two separate actors.
  • Of all people, the show's creator Craig Bartlett, who voices four characters in the movie (Miles, Abner, Brainy, and Monkeyman), to the point of being credited for more roles than veteran VAs Maurice LaMarche, Tress MacNeille, and Wingert (see above).
  • Lane Toran voices four characters, primarily the tour guide Che, though ironically his two regular roles on the series proper, Arnold and Wolfgang, are not among them.
• Acclaimed Flop: This seems to be the case. Despite being critically well-received (especially over Hey Arnold! The Movie) , it didn't do so well in ratings. On its premiere date on the main Nickelodeon channel, it had about 1.4 million views in the first hour and roughly 1.1 million views in the second hour during Nick@Nite despite being heavily hyped, though this may have been because it aired against Trolls Holiday, a special based on a wildly-popular Cash-Cow Franchise among children which got six and a half million viewers. In comparison, the new The Loud House episode that preceded it got over 1.6 million views despite it just being a regular episode. The encores that were planned on the main channel for 11:00 am on November 25 and 8:00 pm on December 1 were both pulled, and its current encores are only on TeenNick.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: Alfred Molina as Lasombra, though it's downplayed in that he's done a good amount of voice work beforehand.
• Character Outlives Actor: When Dino Spumoni appears in the video of people thanking Arnold for helping them, he is accompanied by his friend and lyricist Don Reynolds, who has no dialogue due to his voice actor Harvey Korman passing away nine years before this film was released.
• Children Voicing Children:
  • Except for Harold, Stoop Kid and Brainy, who are once again voiced by Justin Shenkarow, Danny Cooksey and Craig Bartlett, all the boys in this movie are voiced by child actors.
  • Among the voice actresses for the girls, only Nadine plays this straight, being voiced by 13 year old Laya Hayes. All the other actresses, who were at least in their 30s, reprised their roles.
• Creator Cameo: Besides voicing Miles, Abner, Brainy, and Monkeyman, Craig Bartlett also appears in cartoon form in Abner's flashback sequence as the man sitting next to Abner in first class.
• Dawson Casting:
  • All the actors for the kids that returned for The Jungle Movie are in their thirties at the youngest, when their characters are supposed to still be minors. Thankfully, they all still sound like they did 16 years before.
  • We also have Hope Levy, who's 46 years old, voicing the queen of the green eyed people, who's at least 9 years old.
• Deleted Scene:
  • There was supposed to be a carnival scene at the beginning of the trip that centered on Olga annoying Helga by dancing on a float and making Helga (who was dressed in a monkey-like outfit) join her. It was storyboarded, but never animated.
  • In the interlude years, director Raymie Muzquiz put up a storyboard file on his website of a scene where Lasombra interrogates Arnold in his hut. This scene was not used for the new movie.
• Directed by Cast Member:
  • In addition to voicing his regular characters and co-writing the movie, Craig Bartlett also served as co-voice director for the movie.
  • In Brazil, Ursula Bezerra (Gerald) directed the Portuguese dub.
• Extremely Lengthy Creation: The Jungle Movie was originally worked on from 1998 to 2001 as a theatrical film. However, when Hey Arnold! The Movie flopped at the box office, The Jungle Movie went completely dormant for over a decade. Ultimately, fan interest put it back into production in 2015/2016 as a Made-for-TV Movie and it premiered in November 2017. However, this allowed fans to play a huge part in its development and Craig strongly listened to the fanbase, interacted with it a lot, and tailored the movie on a much more intuitive level, resulting in a movie that did not go to theaters but far surpassed the first one (which was meant to be a TV movie as well, ironically).
• Franchise Killer: While the movie's low ratings desensitized production for a reboot, the real damage was to the network's plans to relaunch classic properties: Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling and Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus, already in production, were shelved and then sold to Netflix, a Ren and Stimpy short originally planned to premiere in theaters alongside The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run never seeing the light of day, while further plans (including a rumored theatrical "mega-crossover" film featuring most Nicktoon characters, which could likely have been the starting point for a Shared Universe) were cancelled by the network's new heads, except for a Rugrats film and 2021 revival (though the former was later axed after being removed from Paramount's schedule).
• God Never Said That: Many people thought that the show would get a sixth season after the movie. Craig Bartlett said that it could be revived, not that it would be, and that was only if the movie did well in ratings (which it did not).
• In Memoriam: The film was dedicated to the following:
  • Steve Viksten, one of the main writers of the show and the original voice of Oskar.
  • Vincent Schiavelli, the original voice of Pigeon Man and Mr. Bailey.
  • Kevin Iwaki, an archives coordinator at Nickelodeon.
• The Original Darrin: During the original run of the series, Craig Bartlett voiced Monkeyman in his minor appearances before Andy Dick voiced him in his self titled episode. This movie has Craig voice the character once again.
• The Other Darrin: Thanks to the long gap between the show's original production run and The Jungle Movie, several characters were recast since many of the previous voice actors were either too old to reprise their roles, had died, were unavailable, or had retired from acting. The new cast members includes:
  • Mason Vale Cotton replaces Alex D. Linz as Arnold (though Linz's final line from "The Journal" can be heard in the opening titles).
  • Benjamin “L’il P-Nut” Flores, Jr. replaces Jamil Walker Smith as Gerald.
  • Gavin Lewis replaces Blake Ewing as Eugene.
  • Jet Jurgensmeyer replaces Christopher P. Walberg as Stinky.
  • Aiden Lewandowski replaces Taylor Gifaldi as Sid.
  • Nicolas Cantu replaces Adam Wylie as Curly.
  • Laya DeLeon Hayes replaces Lauren Robinson as Nadine, who is the only female character with a new actor.
  • Wally Wingert replaces the late Steve Viksten, who died in 2014, as Oskar. He also voices Mr. Hyunh, replacing Baoan Coleman, who retired from the industry after the first movie.
  • Stephen Stanton replaces Vincent Schiavelli, who died in 2005, as Pigeon Man.
  • Lasombra's voice actor in "The Journal" and the test footage of the original Jungle Movie was unknown (it's believed to have been Carlos Alazraqui, who portrayed Eduardo, though this is not confirmed). Here he is portrayed by Alfred Molina.
  • In Brazilian Portuguese, while most of the voice actors were able to return (even the male child actors who'd gone through puberty), Zezinho Cutolo (Harold) and Helena Samara (Grandma Gertie) had already died.
  • The entire French cast was replaced, as the dub moved to Belgium.
  • The German cast was also replaced, as the dub moved from Munich to Berlin.
  • Most of the Latin Spanish voice actors were replaced, with only the actors for Grandma, Oskar, Rhonda, Mr. Simmons, Stella and Pigeon Man reprising their roles. Most of the original actors, particularly those who voiced children, are either retired from dubbing or were unavailable.
• Production Posse: Obviously with Hey Arnold!, but also both Doc McStuffins and Craig Bartlett's own Dinosaur Train and Ready Jet Go! Joe Purdy wrote a few episodes of the former and was story editor for the two latter shows. The former also brings back Justin Charlebois (who co-wrote this movie), Nika Futterman, Kath Soucie, and Laya DeLeon Hayes, while Train also brings back writer Jack Ferraiolo (who served as a consultant for the movie).
• Promoted Fanboys: According to Bartlett, the crew for The Jungle Movie was made up of team members from the original series, and young artists and animators who grew up watching the series when was on the air, and went on to work at Nick Animation.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Due to the 15-year Sequel Gap, The Jungle Movie was slightly modernized to add smartphones in the beginning.^note Leaving the movie, which is supposedly set around 2001 in-universe, with 2008-2009 technology. This causes a bit of an Ambiguous Time Period via Comic-Book Time though, since the original series was quite the '90s product, with Helga's dad being a beeper mogul, which went out of business by the time of The Jungle Movie.
• Remake Cameo: Toran Caudell (original Arnold; now credited as Lane Toran) and Jamil Walker Smith (original Gerald) returned to lend their voices for The Jungle Movie, only they voiced additional voices for several jungle characters since they're far too old to do a child's voice.
• Role Reprise: Though many characters were recast, some of the kids and most of the adults retained their original actors. Such as:
  • Francesca Marie Smith as Helga. ^note This involved her coming out of retirement, as she quit acting after the show ended and is now an academic pursuing her doctorate. Fortunately, the subjects she has studied include fandom - she knows more than almost anyone how important it was that she come back to play Helga. She also stayed close with Craig Bartlett and a few of the cast members over the years, which probably helped.
  • Anndi McAfee as Phoebe.
  • Justin Shenkarow as Harold.^note  Notably, he's the only actor for the boys who wasn't an adult during the original who was able to reprise his role.
  • Olivia Hack as Rhonda.
  • Danielle Judovits as Big Patty.
  • Danny Cooksey as Stoop Kid.
  • Craig Bartlett as Brainy, Miles, Abner and Monkeyman.
  • Antoinette Stella as Stella.
  • Dan Castellaneta as Grandpa Phil.
  • Tress MacNeille as Grandma Gertie.
  • Maurice LaMarche as Big Bob.
  • Kath Soucie as Miriam.
  • Nika Futterman as Olga.
  • Dom Irrera as Ernie.
  • Rick Corso as Dino Spumoni.
  • Carlos Alazraqui as Eduardo.
  • Dan Butler as Mr. Simmons.
  • James Belushi as Coach Wittenberg.
  • Most of the Brazilian Portuguese voice cast returned for the movie, even Marisol Ribeiro (Rhonda; who had retired from voice acting), Carlos Falat (Eugene; who was semi-retired) and Fábio Lucindo (Arnold; who had moved to Portugal).
  • Only a couple actors returned in the Latin Spanish dub: Olga Hnidey (season 2) as Grandma Gertie, Claudia Motta (season 1) as Rhonda, Jorge Ornelas as Mr. Simmons, Liliana Barba as Stella, and some temporary replacement actors.
• Saved from Development Hell: Production of the original film halted in 2001 and was outright cancelled after Paramount refused to green-light it following the flop of Hey Arnold! The Movie. However, after fans began Sending Stuff to Save the Show towards the end of the decade, the series was Vindicated by Reruns in The New '10s, and Craig Bartlett had returned to Nickelodeon to produce a new show called Sky Rat (that was not picked up), the decision was made to Uncancel the film.
• Screwed by the Network: As the movie didn't receive the expected ratings, the reruns planned for the main channel on November 25 (Though this was pulled a day before "The Jungle Movie" premiered) and December 1 (Which may have been a placeholder, as it was only planned to have one encore on the main network, and a second on TeenNick according to press releases) were pulled, and the movie now only has encores on TeenNick and Nicktoons. It did, however, still get a DVD release, for people that only got to see it on just Nickelodeon and wanting to see it again.
  • To make matters worse, Nickelodeon's marketing did not make it clear when this movie was going to air. Most, if not all, promos carried a vague "Thanksgiving weekend" release date — not making it clear if this was going to air on Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday or either of the two weekend days. One had to look up that this was going to air on the Black Friday of Thanksgiving weekend, which probably hurt its ratings.
• Sequel Gap: The Jungle Movie premiered in 2017, 13 years after the final episode of the series aired and 15 years after Hey Arnold! The Movie.
• Thanking the Viewer: To acknowledge the fans helping to bring the movie out of Development Hell, a message during the end credits says Thank you to all the fans who wrote letters and signed petitions encouraging the making of this movie.
• Trolling Creator: That scary moment right near the end where Arnold seems to have had another All Just a Dream moment, creating the terrible prospect that this movie which was supposed to resolve a conclusion years in the making just invalidated itself... fortunately leading into a subversion of that with a Real After All scenario. Oh, dear God, Craig Bartlett, you have a dark sense of humor... if the intensified Black Comedy in this movie didn't prove it already.
• Vanilla Edition: The DVD lacks bonus features (which, to be fair, isn't entirely unprecedented for Nick DVDs), and chapter breaks within the movie.
• What Could Have Been: Shares a page.
• Working Title: The Jungle Movie was a working title that was never actually replaced. Presumably if the first movie had remained a TV movie and kept its original title and The Jungle Movie had been released to theatres, it would have been called Hey Arnold! The Movie instead.
• You Look Familiar: Toran Caudell and Jamil Walker Smith, the original voice actors for Arnold and Gerald, voice Che and Paolo, respectively. They also voice several of Lasombra's henchmen, and Toran voices the crewman yelling at Grandma for stealing his stair truck.