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The FAQ - or should I call it FAOAQ?
PART ONE - THE BASICS
1.1. What's the show supposed to be about?
1.2. What's the history of the character Arnold?
1.3. When is the show on?
1.4. Why do they keep replacing it with another show?
PART TWO - A FEW COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS
2.1. What's Arnold's last name?
2.2. What is that orange thing Arnold wears around his waist?
2.3. Why does Arnold live with his grandparents? Where are his parents?
2.4. Where do you find out what the new episodes are going to be - and why are
they wrong sometimes?
2.5. What merchandise is available? What about DVDs?
2.6. What other shows have the actors done?
2.7. I liked (choose one: Toran Caudell, Phillip Van Dyke) as Arnold. Why did they replace him with (Phillip Van Dyke, Spencer Klein)?
2.8. Will there be any more new episodes of Hey Arnold!?
2.9. Where does the show take place?
2.10. Where are Arnold's other grandparents?
2.11. Where can I get a copy of a certain episode?
PART THREE - A FEW NOT PARTICULARLY ASKED QUESTIONS
3.1. Who lives at the Sunset Arms?
3.2. What's the story behind "The Jungle Movie"?
3.3. Whatever happened to that contest where the winner got a speaking part on the show?
3.4. At the end of the fifth season, there will be 100 episodes; does this mean
that other stations will start showing Hey Arnold! in reruns?
3.5. What's this "Party Wagon" thing I've heard about?
3.6. What is "The Patakis"? Is it going to be a new
series?
3.7. What is Helga's middle name?
3.8. Are there any Hey Arnold! animation cels out
there?
3.9. Which characters are left-handed?
3.10 Is thre really a "P.S. 118" somewhere?
3.11 Why does someone as old (and angry) as Helga wear a large
pink bow in her hair?
3.12 How do I contact the show's cast? The Staff?
Craig Bartlett? Nickelodeon?
3.13 What are the
words to (some song heard on the show)?
PART ONE - THE BASICS
1.1. What's the show supposed to be about?
Hey Arnold! is supposed to be
about "life in the big city as seen through the eyes of a nine-year old boy with a football-shaped head".
(Originally, "and a vivid imagination" was added to the end of that, and at the beginning of some first-season
episodes - for example, "Downtown as Fruits" and "24 Hours to Live" - you see Arnold daydreaming;
however, that doesn't happen nearly as much now.)
1.2. What's the history of the character Arnold?
Back in 1986 or so, animator Craig Bartlett (who also did the first set of "Penny" cartoons (a girl with
actual pennies for eyes) for Pee-Wee's Playhouse)
developed the character "Arnold", a young boy usually dressed in a school uniform, complete with little
hat (this is why Arnold has a hat on the show), who was always daydreaming, whether in church, in school, or just
watching TV - and his daydreams were quite vivid. (When a preacher read Psalm 23, Arnold visualized it literally;
when his school band played "The Skaters Waltz", Arnold daydreamed he was a figure skater.)
In 1991, "Arnold" became a comic strip in the short-lived "Simpsons Illustrated" magazine.
(It didn't hurt any that Craig is married to one of the sisters of
The Simpsons creator Matt Groening.)
A few years later, Nickelodeon was looking for some new ideas for animated shows, and asked to see Craig's work.
When they saw Arnold, they said that they wanted a show based on him. The pilot episode (an early version of "24
Hours to Live", with a few differences, such as Arnold wearing an orange sweater and a blue shirt) was shown
in movie theaters along with Nickelodeon's first movie, "Harriet the Spy". On October 7, 1996, the show
debuted on television. (It was the first show to air on Nickelodeon (as opposed to Nick At Nite) at 8:00 on a weeknight.)
(The answers to your next three questions are:
(1) Craig's wife's name is Lisa (Lisa's younger sister Maggie is
involved with some of the Hey Arnold! "chapter books");
(2) Yes, she is the person whom Lisa Simpson is named after;
(3) No, she doesn't really play the saxophone.)
1.3. When is the show on?
The schedule changes so much that this is hard to answer
accurately.
The schedule chart on the home page of this website has the
schedule for the next two weeks or so, although Nickelodeon can
(and has) change the schedule at the last minute.
1.4. Why do they keep replacing it with
another show?
There was a time when this question was "Why do they keep
replacing it with Rugrats?". However, sometime in 2001,
SpongeBob SquarePants replaced Rugrats as
Nickelodeon's most popular show (in part because it has a large
following in universities for some reason). Anyway, back
when Rugrats was popular, Nickelodeon liked to replace
airings of its other shows with Rugrats marathons,
sometimes on very short notice; what was supposed to be the
first airing in the USA of "Grandpa's Packard / Phoebe's Little
Problem" was replaced with a Rugrats episode.
However, there doesn't seem to be as much of this happening with
SpongeBob.
Anyway, it's usually for one of two reasons; either Nickelodeon
thinks another show would get better ratings, or there's a show
(usually a newer one) Nickelodeon wants to get people to watch.
PART TWO - A FEW COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS
2.1. What's Arnold's last name?
"Shortman (pronounced "SHORT-min"). It is revealed in The Jungle Movie.
2.2. What is that orange thing Arnold wears around his waist?
You don't recognize the kilt of the Clan MacArnold? Well, that's because there's no such thing.
Seriously, in "Cool Party", Rhonda asks Arnold this question - and Arnold removes his blue sweater to reveal his
orange shirt, which isn't tucked into his pants and usually sticks out from underneath the sweater. (Then again,
the way Grandpa quickly takes to golf in "Grudge Match", maybe there's some Scottish blood in Arnold
after all...)
2.3. Why does Arnold live with his grandparents? Where are his parents?
The story is explained in "Parents Day" and "The
Journal"; the short version is, Arnold's father is a doctor
who visits out-of-the-way parts of the world (Flying Doctors/Voladores, Medicines sans Fronteirs/Doctors Without
Borders, that sort of thing). His co-worker considers him a "ladies' man", but he figures that no woman
would ever put up with the amount of travel he does...until he meets one that travels just as much; an archeologist.
It's love at first sight; they get married, have a son (Arnold), and settle down. At least, until Arnold's father's
friend asks him to perform another mission; despite his protests that he has a wife and son, he gives in, and Arnold's
mother joins him. Leaving Arnold with his parents, they take off in their two-seater biplane...and haven't
been heard from since.
(By the way, for those of you outside of North America, Mother's Day is the second Sunday in May here. For those
of you in North America, the UK celebrates "Mothering Sunday" in March.
Father's Day is the third Sunday in June pretty much everywhere
in the world, but that's another matter.)
2.4. Where do you find out what the new episodes are going to be - and why are they
wrong sometimes?
Nickelodeon sends what they think they are going to show two weeks in advance to the online TV listings companies.
Nick.com seems to be the most accurate, but it does tend to
change with only one or two days' notice.
2.5. What merchandise is available?
What about DVDs?
"Not much", and as Nickelodeon feels there are shows that sell
merchandise better (most stuff is bought by really young kids),
don't expect much more any time soon (except for movie-related
items).
There are five video tapes, four of which have about 1 1/4
hours' worth of the show, and the fifth ("Arnold's Christmas")
about 45 minutes' worth. Other than for some
"Nicksclusives" on the first two tapes ("Urban Adventures" and
"The Helga Stories") that haven't aired in years, they don't
have anything you haven't seen over and over again.
There are a couple of CDs with some of the songs on them, "The
Best of Nicktoons" and "The Newest Nicktoons". The first
one has long been out of print (it's also the only CD with
Ren & Stimpy songs), but the second one should still be
available online, and possibly in music stores (in the
children's music section).
There is a "Nickelodeon online store" at
http://shop.nickjr.com that
has some merchandise.
Also, from December, 1997 to January, 1999, there were a number of Nickelodeon stores in malls throughout the country
(like the Disney and Warner Brothers stores). Although most stores concentrated on Rugrats and Blue's Clues,
the three large stores - one at the Great Mall of America in Minnesota, one just outside of Chicago, and one just
outside of New York City - had larger selections for the other Nicktoons (as well as "Nick At Nite"-based
stuff). (For whatever reason, there was no merchandising of the "live-action" shows, except for the occasional
T-shirt.) Supposedly, the original intent of the stores was to see which items were popular, so they could be marketed
in larger chain stores (like, say, K-Mart) nationwide. Most of the Hey
Arnold! stuff (besides the videos and the dolls - and there weren't any
Helga dolls to begin with) was small plastic items, like curly straws with characters on them and plastic characters
that fit on pencils. (Only Arnold and Gerald were available; I can only assume that Helga's hair would have been
considered a sharp-edge hazard of some sort.) The smaller stores also had T-shirts and hats (the hats just had
the show's logo). The large stores had other items at various times; for example, a plastic yellow heart-shaped
locket with Arnold's picture in it, or a picture frame with Helga in one corner.
In late 1998, Viacom (the company that owns Nickelodeon) decided that it didn't want to be in the retail store
business, so all of the Nickelodeon stores, as well as the main Viacom store in downtown Chicago (which, among
other things, sold a lot of "Star Trek" stuff - and probably the only place in the world to get Duckman stuff, if you're familiar with that show),
closed in January, 1999. (Although the closings were announced months in advance, no exact date was given, so it
came as quite a surprise to some of the stores' employees when they showed up for work on February 1 and discovered
they - and their bosses - were out of jobs.)
(Warner Brothers did something similar with its stores in 2001.)
(No, I don't know what happened to the existing stuff. It could be in a landfill somewhere. Between you and me,
that's pretty much where the Arnold pencil topper belongs; unlike most of the others, Arnold had to be put on top
of the pencil, over the eraser, and it kept falling off.)
Back issues of Simpsons Illustrated, which contain the Arnold comic strips, are hard to come by. You
can try searching eBay, but be prepared to pay a lot (and remember that there is a web site that has all ten of
the comic strips on it).
Two of the original Arnold claymation shorts are available on
the International Tournee of Animation video series; #3
has "Arnold Escapes from Church" and #4 has "The Arnold Waltz".
www.amazon.com and
www.reel.com may have these
tapes available; the last time I looked, each tape cost about
$20.
Nickelodeon has released a number of "chapter books" for some of
its shows; they sell for about $4 each. (A chapter book
version of the movie sells for $5.)
There are no DVDs, except for the movie; in fact, until early 2002, there were no
Nickelodeon DVDs at all, other than the two Rugrats
movies. Only Nickelodeon's currently popular shows are on
DVDs, except for the Christmas and Halloween DVDs, which contain
episodes from different shows.
2.6. What other shows have the actors done?
The list is too long to include here - and even if I tried, it would be quickly out of date. There are two sources
I use to find out things like this.
First, the Internet Movie Database (us.imdb.com in the USA; in other countries, www.imdb.com will point you to a "local"
copy), which includes the cast lists for a large number of movies. The only problem with it is, the information
comes from volunteers and is not necessarily entirely accurate. (For example, IMDB
had a listing for an "upcoming
movie version of The Simpsons"
at one time, even listing a writer and director, despite the fact that everyone on the show's staff says that there's no
plans for a movie as it takes all of the time they have just to do the TV series.)
Second, The Complete Guide to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows - a new version has just come out at the end of 1999. (The newest version has a blue cover
that includes a picture from South Park
on it; the previous version has a red cover that includes a picture from Ren
& Stimpy; earlier versions do not include the words "and cable"
in the title.) The latest version is complete through mid-1999; it includes CatDog and The Journey of Allen Strange but not Rocket Power
or The Amanda Show. (They do make
one mistake in the "Hey Arnold!" listings; Rhonda's last name is listed as Willington instead of Lloyd.)
(There's also The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television,
which covers daytime shows, including Saturday morning ones, but it's not particularly accurate and the voice lists
for cartoons isn't very full; besides, most Saturday morning cartoons list everybody who does a voice in any episode
in every episode's cast list (Nickelodeon's episodes of Doug also do it this way), and sometimes they have to get the list ready before they've recorded
every episode so some names are missing.)
However, probably the "biggest" roles by any of the kids who have done voices on the show belong to Lacey
Chabert (Penny on the Lost in Space
movie, Eliza on The Wild Thornberrys,
Claudia on Party of Five - and
Ruth in "Arnold's Valentine" and "What's Opera, Arnold?") and Haley Joel Osment (the boy who
could see dead people in The Sixth Sense,
Murphy's son Avery on Murphy Brown
- and Curly in "Deconstructing Arnold"), although Alex D. Linz
(Arnold in "The Journal" and "April Fool's Day") is making a name for himself as
well.
A number of celebrity adult actors have done voices; they fall
into three categories - famous for things done years ago (for
example, Rose Marie, who was Sally on The Dick Van Dyke Show
and is in "Crabby Author"), famous at the time (for example,
Andy Dick in "Monkeyman!"), and "before they were stars" (Ryan
Seacrest was in "Fighting Families" long before he started
hosting American Idol).
2.7. I liked (choose one: Toran Caudell, Phillip Van Dyke,
Spencer Klein) as Arnold. Why did
they replace him with (Phillip Van Dyke, Spencer Klein, Alex
Linz)?
Most animated shows use adult women to do the "kids parts" (including boys). (For example, Tommy, Chuckie,
and Phil on Rugrats are
voiced by
women, as is Bart on The Simpsons.)
This is because it is very hard for a man to do a voice that sounds like a boy, as men's voices change from high-pitched
to lower-pitched, usually when they're about 13. Somewhere between the first and second season, Toran's voice changed
to the point where he could no longer sound like Arnold, so they had to replace him with Phillip; two years later,
the same thing happened with Phillip, so they had to replace him with Spencer.
If you don't think their voices can change that much, watch "New
Bully on the Block" and tell me that you can tell that the
voices of Wolfgang (Toran) and Ludwig (Phillip) were Arnold at
one time.
Arnold is not the only character replaced; there have been a
number of Eugenes, and Sam Gifaldi is replaced by his brother
Taylor in "April Fool's Day". Also, Hey Arnold! is
not the only show that has had this problem; there have been
three Sams and two Twisters on
Rocket Power had to be replaced for the same reason.
(Sometimes, they will write "voice changes" into the show,
presumably because they can't find anybody else who sounds like
the character; Gerald's "removed tonsils" in "Gerald's Tonsils" was written to explain
his voice changing.)
2.8. Will there be any more new episodes?
Right now, there are no plans to make more episodes of Hey Arnold!.
("Phoebe's Little Problem / Grandpa's Packard", which aired on
Nickelodeon in June, 2004, was the last one that Nickelodeon had
not aired.)
(Then again, never say never - Rugrats
isn't the only cartoon to make new episodes years after it "stopped"; The
Flintstones had a break of about ten years, and The
Jetsons over twenty years (the episodes that end with George and Astro
chasing a cat were made in 1962; the others are from at least 1984).)
2.9. Where does
the show take place?
It's not meant to take place anywhere specific, but in "a big
city, just like the one you live in (or near)". However,
some episodes have "clues in the background" that might give
Arnold's city and state a name.
First, the city: in "April Fool's Day", there's a window that
says "Hillwood City Hats", so I assume the city's name is
"Hillwood City". (There is also a "Hillwood City
Zoological Garden" in "Monkeyman!" and "Timberly Loves Arnold",
and a "Hillwood Medical Center" in "Helga on the Couch";
also, in "Stuck in a Tree", the fire department is "HFD".)
Second, the state. They never come out and say it, but at
the end of "Road Trip", Helga and Miriam are entering
Washington, and as they were originally headed to South Dakota,
either (a) they were headed back home, into Washington, or (b)
they were still headed to South Dakota, and for some reason,
went through Washington. Only the first one makes any
sense.
Actually, the city is supposed to be some combination of (a)
Seattle, Washington, (b) Portland, Oregon, and (c) Brooklyn, New
York.
2.10. Where are Arnold's other grandparents?
In "The Journal", when Stella names Arnold, she says, "That was
my father's name"; as she said "was" instead of "is", I assume
Arnold's other grandfather died before he was born (which would
also explain why he wasn't at the wedding). Other than
that, there is no mention of them.
2.11. Where can I get a copy of a certain episode?
The entire series, as well as both movies, are available on DVD.
PART THREE - A FEW NOT PARTICULARLY ASKED QUESTIONS
3.1. Who lives at the Sunset Arms?
Besides Arnold, Grandpa, and Grandma, there's Ernie Potts (the wrecking ball operator), Oskar & Suzie Kokoshka
(Suzie works at a department store; Oskar works at spending Suzie's money, although he did have a paper route once),
and Mr. Hyunh (who is a cook at a Mexican restaurant). In the first
season, there were three other boarders: Mr. Smith (whatever he did, he liked to keep secret - he never ate with
the others, and he usually kept his face hidden), Lana Vail (she's the one with reddish hair and usually wearing
a business suit), and Mr. Purdy (he only appears once - and that's just his voice - in "Gerald Comes Over";
however, they were soon removed, as none of them are in "Arnold's Christmas" when Grandpa says "that's
all of us". (Lana makes some "background appearances" in some episodes; for example, in "Dinner
for Four", she's in the restaurant when the cockroaches get loose.)
3.2. What's the story behind "The Jungle Movie"?
In the late 1990s, Nickelodeon decided to make its own theatrical movies.
After a couple of not particularly successful films (Harriet the Spy and Good Burger),
The Rugrats Movie was a major
success (it was the highest-earning non-Disney animated film until Shrek was released), so Nickelodeon decided to make
more theatrical movies based on its animated shows.
Originally, the next movie was planned to be a Hey Arnold! movie; the original plan was for it to be
"Arnold Saves the Neighborhood".
However, Nickelodeon thought that the show's planned "Nick Flick" at the time, where Arnold looks for his parents
(I assume it was meant to be the show's last TV episode), would do better in theaters, so that became the planned theatrical
release and "Arnold Saves the Neighborhood" a Nick Flick.
Months passed by, and while Nickelodeon released Rugrats in Paris, the Hey Arnold! movie was still not given the
go-ahead to begin production (I think somebody had a problem with the script). It was decided, in order to get a Hey Arnold!
movie out, to turn "Arnold Saves the Neighborhood" back into a theatrical movie, as the "Nick Flick" version was
finished, so most of the work was already done. (The name was changed to Hey Arnold!: The Neighborhood and then
Hey Arnold!: The Movie; my guess is that they wanted to get more people unfamiliar with Arnold to watch the movie.)
Back to "The Jungle Movie" movie: after what were thought to be the last TV episodes were completed, Craig Bartlett made
some deal with Cartoon Network for another show he was working on, "Party Wagon" (see question 3.5). Nickelodeon wanted Craig
to stay with them exclusively, and demanded Craig sign something to that effect; when Craig didn't, Nickelodeon pretty much ordered
all work on the second movie stopped and locked away somewhere. The strange thing is, after this whole "Party Wagon" incident,
Nickelodeon still wanted Craig to make three episodes of Hey Arnold! (so that there would be a total of 100; originally,
"Arnold Saves the Neighborhood" was meant to be split into three parts and be episodes 98, 99, and 100); episode 98 is
"April Fool's Day", and episodes 99 and 100 are "The Journal(Parts 1 and 2)" (if they're shown that way, like they
did on CBS once).
In the meantime, The Wild Thornberrys Movie and Rugrats Go Wild! did not do nearly as well as Nickelodeon had hoped,
so Nickelodeon steered clear of theatrical films for a while, although there were two SpongeBob SquarePants movies made.
Years later, Nickelodeon noticed an increase in the number of people who wanted a return to some of the 1990s shows like Arnold
and Rocko's Modern Life. In part because of this, it decided to "dust off" plans for The Jungle Movie as a TV-movie.
3.3. Whatever happened to that contest where the winner got a speaking part on the
show?
Back in 1998, there was a contest involving Kraft Handi-Snacks where the winner got a speaking part on Hey Arnold!.
Apparently, the winner was Jessica Sodd, and her part was the girl who read the opening speech to
"Romeo & Juliet" in "School Play".
3.4. At the end of the fifth season, there will be 100 episodes; does this mean
that other stations will start showing Hey Arnold! in reruns?
Probably not, at least not for the moment. For shows that are on network
TV, there's an unwritten rule that says that it will appear in five-days-a-week reruns once it has 100 episodes.
(More accurately, it's closer to 88 episodes, as shows usually run 22 episodes per season and have to run for four
seasons before there are considered to be enough episodes for reruns.) However, Nickelodeon doesn't usually sell
the rights to show its shows to other stations. (Besides,
the show is also on the Nicktoons channel.)
3.5. What's this "Party Wagon" thing I've heard about?
It's another show created by Craig Bartlett. It
involves a young man in the 1800s who joins a wagon train headed
towards Seattle, where they think a treasure is buried.
The 90-minute first episode aired February 27, 2004. (It
won't be on Nickelodeon, as it has a lot of gun shooting and
some alcohol drinking, two things that are absolutely forbidden
on Nick shows.) At first, it was going to be a series on
Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim", but then they told Craig to
"tone it down" so it could air along with their other shows;
eventually, they decided not to make episodes after the first
one.
3.6. What is "The Patakis"? Is
it going to be a new series?
There was a plan to make a "sequel" to Hey Arnold!
that took place five years later, with the fourth graders in
high school, and concentrating on Helga and her family
(including her sister Olga, who had graduated from college and
moved back in). It was a little more "adult" than Hey
Arnold!; for example, Miriam, whose alcoholism is "hinted
at" but never mentioned on Hey Arnold! (mainly because
they never mention alcohol on any Nicktoon - seriously, at a Big
Help-A-Thon once, they deleted the words "bottle of beer" from a
song), would be attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
The big change: in order to make sure Helga and her family
remain the focus of the show, Arnold would never appear (the
story would be that he found his parents and they moved away),
except that each episode would be written as Helga writing a
letter to Arnold describing what had happened (sort of like how
every episode of Doug is something written in his journal).
However, Nickelodeon realized that it was not a show meant for
its "target audience". There was talk of moving the show
to MTV (one MTV executive asked why it wasn't "darker"), but
that was rejected as well (it's possible that somebody noticed a
similarity to Daria, which didn't do particularly well on
MTV either). As far as I know, there are no plans to make
even a pilot episode of the show.
There is a website that is working on "fanscripts" and designs
of the characters; check the Links page of this site.
3.7. What is Helga's middle name?
It's never been mentioned on the show, but Craig Bartlett
says it's Geraldine. (The name refers to Geraldine
Laybourne, who was a Nickelodeon executive at one time and was
one of the founders (as was Oprah Winfrey) of the Oxygen network.)
(Helga isn't the only cartoon character with an "unspoken"
middle name; Bart Simpson's middle name is Jojo - at a script
reading one day, Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart - and the
new voice of Chuckie on Rugrats) asked The Simpsons
creator Matt Groening what the J in "Bartholomew J. Simpson"
stood for; Matt asked Nancy what she thought it stood for, Nancy
said Jojo, and Matt said that's what the name would be.)
3.8. Are
there any Hey Arnold! animation cels out there?
Yes, but they're not cheap, and they're not easy to come by.
There was an "official Nickelodeon animation cel studio",
Cricket Galleries in Atlanta, but they claimed never to have
seen any Hey Arnold! cels, and the last time I tried to
check their website, it wasn't being maintained.
Sometime during the third season, the show switched from
hand-colored animation cels to computer-colored animation, which
doesn't use cels, so no fourth-season or fifth-season cels, or
cels for Hey Arnold!: The Movie, exist, although it's
possible that "special" cels based on scenes from the movie
could have been specially made to sell (Disney does this with
some of its newer movies). Pretty much every animated show
has switched to "cel-less" work, mainly because it's a lot
easier; one of the last holdouts was The Simpsons, but
apparently they have switched as well, mainly because the
overseas studios that do most of the "grunt work" have switched
to computer coloring as well.
My suggestions: first check eBay, then do a web search on Google
(www.google.com) for something like "Nickelodeon animation cel".
3.9. Which characters are left-handed?
This never seemed to be important in animation until somebody noticed that Bart
Simpson does everything left-handed (probably because The Simpsons creator Matt Groening is also left-handed).
Despite the fact that there was an "The N-Files" commercial that
claimed that Arnold and Helga were the only left-handers on the
show, the only character who seems to be a definite left-hander is Phoebe: she cuts her food with the knife in her left
hand ("Roughin' It"), she writes with her left hand ("Operation Ruthless"), and she throws
left-handed ("Pigeon Guy", based on the glove on her right hand).
However, she writes with her right hand in "Pre-Teen Scream", so
it must not be that important.
Helga throws left-handed in a number of episodes ("Pigeon Guy", "The Vacant Lot", "Helga's
Makeover", "24 Hours To Live"), but in "The Little Pink Book" she writes right-handed
(but throws spitwads left-handed).
There haven't been that many clues to indicate what hands the other characters favor, but most of the boys throw
right-handed...and bat left-handed! (Pretty much everybody bats left-handed, but this may be because the animators
want to show the batter's face while the ball goes from left to right.) There have been some switches: Harold has
been seen batting left-handed ("The Vacant Lot") and right-handed ("Helga's Makeover"), and
Arnold has baseball gloves for his left ("The Vacant Lot") and right ("The Baseball") hands.
Arnold tends to switch hands: in "The Little Pink Book", he (and Gerald and Brainy) writes right-handed;
in "Tutoring Torvald", he starts the test writing with his left hand (which he also uses to write on
the sidewalk), but ends writing with his right hand. (He's also shown with the chalk in his left hand in the Games
Animation logo at the end of each first-season episode.)
3.10 Is there really a "P.S. 118" somewhere?
(By the way, "P.S." stands for "Public School")
A quick search of the World Wide Web shows that there is a P.S. 118 in the New York City school system; it's located
in Hollis, at the east end of Queens borough in New York. Does anybody else out there know if other cities have
schools with "PS numbers", and if they do, do they go as high as 118? (Please note that the schools are
not numbered based on their location, so, for example, P.S. 117 is not near P.S. 118.)
3.11 Why does someone as old (and angry) as Helga wear a large pink bow in her hair?
I can only guess the real reason, but I would say it's for the same reason Arnold has a small blue hat;
they both appear that way in the original claymation shorts.
As for the "story" version, again this is a guess, but I think it's because of something in
"Helga on the Couch": when Helga meets Arnold for the first time, Arnold says
"I like your bow". Helga isn't about to change the one thing about her that she knows Arnold likes.
3.12 How do I contact the show's
cast? The Staff? Craig Bartlett? Nickelodeon?
Since the show has stopped production, it's hard to answer
the first two, as they've gone on to separate projects, and most
of the cast is off doing whatever it is they're usually doing.
Nickelodeon has a "viewer relations" department, if you want to
make comments about the show: the phone number is
212-258-7579. However, this is a number for all of
Nickelodeon's shows, so don't expect whoever is there to be able
to answer any Arnold-specific questions.
There's a "Write to Nick" page at the Nick.com website
somewhere, although considering how many shows they have and how
many E-mails they must get - plus, all of the E-mails go to the
same place first - there's not much chance that yours will be
seen by anybody involved with the show.
The show is produced at the Nickelodeon Animation Studios in Burbank:
Nickelodeon Animation Studios
231 West Olive Avenue
Burbank, CA 91502-1825
(818) 736-3000
The only address I can think of to send your fan mail to is Nickelodeon's New
York headquarters:
Nickelodeon
1515 Broadway
New York, NY 10036
(This is also
where you would write to, for example, ask that the second movie
be made. However, if you do write to Nickelodeon, be nice
(nasty letters are tossed into the trash) and be yourself (if
they think it's something that somebody else told you to write,
they'll ignore it).
3.13 What are
the words to (some song heard on the show)?
The original songs have their lyrics on that show's page.
(For example, the words to Dino Spumoni's song in "The Old
Building" are on the page for that episode; go to the Season 1
page, then find "The Old Building" and click on the title.)
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