Arnold (Hey Arnold! character)
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Arnold is a fictional character in the Nickelodeon animated television series Hey Arnold!. Arnold is a dreamer and an idealist who always tries to see the best in people and to do the right thing . Whenever he sees someone in trouble, Arnold goes out of his way to help them out, even if it is not sensible to do so (example, when he tried to protect some of his classmates, who had mooned the school principal). Arnold often acts as the stable center to those around him, whether he is around his "family" in his grandparents' (Dan Castellaneta and Tress MacNeille) boarding house The Sunset Arms, or around his friends at his school, P.S. 118. According to the Parents Day and The Journal episodes, Arnold's parents, anthropologist Miles and biologist/physician Stella, were doing missions in the Central American jungle when they disappeared.
He's had two major crushes in the series: with 5th grader Ruth McDougal (through most of season 1), and with a classmate named Lila Sawyer (who was introduced in season 2). His crush with Ruth ended in Arnold's Valentine when after going on a date with her, he decided that she wasn't really interesting, and his crush on Lila ended when she didn't approve of him stopping hanging out with his best friend Gerald's younger sister Timberly in Timberly Loves Arnold. Most recently, he's had to come to terms with classmate Helga's confession in the movie based on the series.
Throughout the series' run, he was voiced by at least four different voice actors: Toran Caudell, Phillip Van Dyke, Spencer Klein (who did his voice in the movie), and Alex D. Linz (who did his voice in the final two episodes of the series). In one episode, all of the voice actors returned and alternated playing Arnold.
Last name
A question about Arnold often raised by fans is the that of his last name, which has never been disclosed on the show, or anywhere else. All other major characters have known surnames, except for Sid, and also Arnold's grandparents, who presumably have the same last name as Arnold, since in "Parents Day" and "The Journal" it is revealed they are his father's parents. This became a running gag on the show, by the name almost being revealed, then someone or something interrupting or otherwise preventing it from being heard (much like the location of Springfield on The Simpsons, or Timmy Turner's parents' first names on The Fairly OddParents). Some notable occasions when the name is almost revealed include:
- In a commercial for the show that aired in the early part of the show's run, Arnold talks to the viewer to straighten out some facts about himself. He ends with, "And yes, I do have a last name. It's..." at which point the screen becomes "snowy" and the sound cuts off.
- In the episode "Fighting Families" Arnold wins the school's raffle drawing for the chance to be on the game show Fighting Families. The lady doing the drawing announces, "The winner is Arnold...hmm, there seems to be a smudge over the last name." Here it is revealed that Arnold is the only one in the school with this first name, thus making his surname somewhat unnecessary.
- A similar instance to the one above occurs in "Eugene, Eugene!", where Tim Curry's character is casting the school kids for an upcoming play, and says, "I can't read my own handwriting", when he's casting Arnold as the villain. However, that scene did at least reveal Lila's last name (Sawyer, as mentioned above).
- In one episode, "Crush on Teacher", in which Helga does one of her many passionate monologues about her love for Arnold, she says that she would one day like to become "Mrs. Arnold...wait, what is his last name?", revealing that she is just as clueless as the viewer.
- In the episode "The Journal" Phil is reading the part of Miles' journal that recounts his and Stella's wedding. He gets to the part when they are pronounced "Mr. and Mrs...." at which point Grandma interrupts with a loud belch.
Series creator Craig Bartlett had been planning to finally reveal his last name in a second feature film for the series, which would also deal with his search to find his parents. Craig mentioned in a subsequent. online chat (http://www.geraldfield.com/unofficial/partywagonchat_edited.txt): "I had an idea for the Jungle Movie (how Bartlett refers to the planned film), in the opening scene, a man comes to the door of the boarding house, and Arnold signs his name. Right, that's how you find out." However, problems between Bartlett and Nickelodeon, as well as the low gross of the first film, have left the future of this second film in doubt.
In late 2002, Bartlett teased the viewers even further, by claiming that Arnold's last name is a name that was actually mentioned throughout the run of the show. [1] (http://pub5.ezboard.com/fheyarnoldfrm6.showMessageRange?topicID=38.topic&start=1&stop=20)