We might have said goodbye to the stoop of Sunset Arms: Boarding House back in 2004, but it turns out that while we fans have grown a lot older during that time, the kids from Hillwood haven’t aged nearly as much. Because in this video from Nickelodeon, when we join back up with the Hey Arnold! gang for an all new adventure, it will only have been a year or two in their lives since we last saw them. But don’t worry, because while their shoes might have changed (while our hairs were turning gray), they’re still the kids we always loved when we were kids.
This first-look featurette for Nick’s upcoming original T.V. film, Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie, is narrated by the show’s creator Craig Bartlett, who catches us up on everything we’ve missed while we’ve been away from our favorite oddly-head-shaped children, as well as what we can expect when they head to the jungles of Central America.
You really have to be a kid of the ’90s to appreciate just how big it is that Arnold now wears a jacket. A jacket! Ooh, look at Mr. Fancy Pants 6th grader with his cool jacket. And while we’re definitely going to need a Gerald “33” hoodie, without a doubt no one refined their look quite as well as Phoebe. It is 2017 after all, nerds can be cool. (Right? Please, we need this.)
As for what we can expect from this movie, which Bartlett describes as the one he “always wanted to make,” Hey Arnold! fans will be happy to learn it has direct connections to the original series. Both the island Arnold dreamed about in the classic episode “Parents Day” and the mysterious map he found in his dad’s journal in the series finale, are important pieces of the story.
We’re especially thrilled to learn what that map was all about. Because while it’s only been weighing on Arnold’s mind for a year or two, we’ve been waiting since 2004 to get some answers. And we are not getting any younger.
What are you most looking forward to with this new movie? What answers do you hope to get from it? Kick back and hang with us on the stoop of our comments section and let us know.
Images: Nickelodeon
