Friday, August 24, 2018

Jim Lang Reveals Nickelodeon Has No Current Plans to Make 'Hey Arnold!' Season 6

The Tunes/Toons Podcast, a show dedicated to all things concerning anime, music and life, has unveiled a fantastic interview Jim Lang, the composer on Nickelodeon's beloved '90s animated series Hey Arnold!, which you can check out below!:



Update (8/24): Kazzie Weller, a member of the Save the Jungle Movie Facebook group, has been in contact with a member of the Hey Arnold! production team, who has revealed that Craig Bartlett, the creator of Hey Arnold!, and the show's production team pitched a sixth season of Hey Arnold! to Netflix a while ago, but unfortunately, the streaming service rejected the pitch. This doesn't necessary mean the end of the road for the beloved series, as there's lots of streaming services out there, such as Hulu, so keep showing your support for Hey Arnold! season 6 as much as possible!

Quick note: Thanks to everyone who has linked to this article! Please make sure to credit Tunes/Toons in your posts and articles, as they're the Podcaster's who conducted and published the awesome interview, though! :)

In the interview, Jim chats with hosts Harold Storey and Mike Allen about scoring the many hit shows and movies he's worked on, including Hey Arnold!, as talks about the new projects he is working on, some of his inspirations behind Hey Arnold!'s iconic jazz score and much more! Jim also plays a Hey Arnold! theme song that never made it to the show - although it was used for a Nickelozone trailer a few years later!

During the podcast, Jim also reveals that, although Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie received great ratings from millennial viewers when the movie aired during Thanksgiving 2017, the film wasn't watched by as many children in Nickelodeon's core demo as was hoped for. As Nickelodeon doesn't think the show would be right for the network's current audience - as management perceive it to be at the moment - Nickelodeon unfortunately has no current plans to make a sixth season of Hey Arnold!.


However, the good news is that Jim has also revealed that a sixth season is currently being shopped to subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) services, such as Amazon, Netflix and Apple, which would fit into Viacom's recently launched initiate to identify intellectual property within it vaults that could be an ideal fit for a digital or linear programmer outside of Viacom! Under this initiative, Netflix has acquired the rights to Nickelodeon's Pinky Malinky, and the newly formed MTV Studios is currently working on reboots of Daria (titled Daria & Jodie), Made, Aeon Flux and The Real World!


Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie ended with Arnold and his gang starting sixth grade, and, in the lead up to the premiere of "The Jungle Movie", Craig Bartlett, the creator of the iconic Nicktoon, said that he hoped the movie would eventually lead to a sixth season.

Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie is available on DVD today!

More from Digital Spy:

Is Hey Arnold! about to return for new episodes on Netflix?

A big streaming platform calls for a big head.

Weekday afternoons are coming back in a big way as Hey Arnold! might be getting a reboot on Netflix.

Nickelodeon's classic cartoon hasn't had a new season since 2004 — and while composer Jim Lang confirmed the studio has no plans to resurrect Hey Arnold!, Netflix is interested.

Lang, who penned the show's memorable soundtrack, was on Tunes/Toons podcast to discuss his life's work in film and TV, but also got onto the subject of millennial favourite Hey Arnold!

During the interview, he revealed that broadcaster Nickelodeon decided not to make another series after Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie failed to bring in younger viewers.

"Look at the numbers!" said Lang. "When the movie premiered, in your age group [millennial] we totally killed."

He added: "With the Nickelodeon audience, not so great. So they decided, 'Nah we're not gonna do it.'"

However, Lang went on to reveal more information about the show's future on streaming services.

"Netflix, Amazon, Apple were all people that they were going to go out to with the idea of trying to make a season six of Hey Arnold!" he said.

"We haven't heard anything yet but we've got our fingers crossed."

Hey Arnold! ran for five seasons between 1994 and 2004, but returned with a special feature-length film, Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie, in 2017.

The new film was a direct sequel to 2002's Hey Arnold! The Movie and was co-written by original series creator Craig Bartlett.

A new actor, Mason Vale Cotton (Mad Men), was used to voice Arnold as original Arnold voice actor Lane Toran was too old at 34.

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Watch all your '90s Nickelodeon favorites on NickSplat, your late-night destination for your favorite childhood Nickelodeon cartoons and live-action shows! NickSplat doesn't question football-shaped heads, but embrace them - along with Reptar bars, a Big Ear of Corn, orange soda, and even slime for Pete (and Pete's) sake. Make your slime-covered Nickelodeon childhood dreams come true every night at 11 PM ET/PT, only on TeenNick USA! #NickSplat!

More Nick: A Chat with ‘Hey Arnold!’ Composer Jim Lang, Who Folded Jazz into 90s Childhoods!

Originally published: Sunday, August 19, 2018.

H/T: ToonZone Forums /@Nero Zero Hero, @jjc927; Additional source: ToonZone Forums.
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