Hey, Yesterday!

The journals of entertainment tell us:

Nickelodeon] is developing a new TV movie based on “Hey Arnold!,” the animated series that ran between 1996 and 2004 and focused on a fourth-grader with an oblong noggin who lived with his grandparents in a boarding house. The TV movie will feature a storyline that picks up where the original series ended and resolves unanswered plotlines–including the whereabouts of Arnold’s parents, long missing from the program. Executives at the network declined to offer a specific date for when the new content might be ready or air.

With the revival of “Arnold,” Nickelodeon is formalizing a quest to build part of its future by tilling its past. The network has named Chris Viscardi, co-creator of the classic Nickelodeon series, “The Adventures of Pete & Pete, as its senior vice president of content development for franchise properties – a new role. ...

In truth, ALL of our fine entertainment conglomerates mine their vaults.

Diz Co. is turning all their animated features into new live-action extravaganzas. Warner Bros. Animation has taken a cue from the latest wave of Mickey Mouse shorts and developed Wabbit, using the tried and true story development of artists in a room, pinning gags up on cork boards as fast as they can draw. (Story rom joke sessions! Imagine that!) And Disney TV Animation is producing a reboot of Duck Tales, the series from th '90s that kicked the division into high gear.

Even Jeffrey Katzenberg is asking for drawings pinned up on boards in the classic style when he's watching sequences get pitched. (Digital story boards only take you so far.)

But for Nick, the all-new, all CG approach didn't work all that well. Kids don't care if their television cartoons are hand-drawn or computer-generated, and hand-drawn is less expensive. Plus there is no reason not to re-imagine the animated half-hours that put Nick on the map. Everything old can be new again.