Other than the two major reunion scenes, this is probably my favorite moment of Arnold with Miles and Stella from Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie. I say this because Miles and Stella’s lines in this scene are my favorite in the film.
Why are they my favorite lines, you may ask? Well, it’s not just because I have been longing to see Arnold reunite with his parents, even standing between both of them while they tell him how proud they are of him, but because I believe that there is a subtle, yet very deep, meaning behind these very lines.
I think these lines are truly a subtle reference to Hey Arnold! creator Craig Bartlett thanking us, the fans of the show, for making this movie happen at last. After Hey Arnold!: The Movie was a critical and commercial failure in theaters in 2002 and the series itself was cancelled in 2004, Nickelodeon decided to cancel the second-planned film, The Jungle Movie. Over the subsequent years, Craig shared many details, characters and plot points about the movie, but he did not reveal any significant spoilers in the event that the movie might still be made one day. Around 2009, fans, many of whom first watched the show when they were children, started letter-writing campaigns and online petitions in an attempt to bring The Jungle Movie to fruition. At this same time, Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of social media were beginning to emerge into existence, and fans used these sites to help them in their campaigns to get the attention of Nickelodeon to have the film made. For example, Facebook began a group called Hey Arnold! Save The Jungle Movie and attempted to get up to 100,000 members.
In 2011, reruns of Hey Arnold! in the TeenNick block increased public attention in the series and its cancelled movie. In October 2012, Craig revealed that he was back at Nickelodeon and having meetings with them. In September 2015, during an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Nickelodeon officially announced that they were considering rebooting many of their old properties, with a Hey Arnold! revival being one of them. On November 23, 2015, Nickelodeon reported that they were working on a Hey Arnold! TV movie that would pick up after the cliffhanger ending of the series and resolve unanswered plotlines. Although this movie wasn’t directly stated to be The Jungle Movie, the details provided in the announcement were accurately similar to those of the film’s original plot. On March 1st, 2016, it was announced that the new Hey Arnold! movie would be a two-hour TV film, set to be released in 2017. Shortly afterwards, Craig confirmed that this upcoming TV movie was indeed the long-awaited film. The Jungle Movie.
Since that announcement over 18 months ago, fans of Hey Arnold! that worked to bring this movie back were excited that all their hard work was going to be paid off at last. In July 2016, Craig and some of his team appeared at the San Diego Comic Con to reveal character art and background designs for the upcoming film. At the same con this very summer, a four-minute scene from the film was released to the public. The film’s official trailer was released on October 6, 2017. An additional trailer was released on the NickSplat YouTube channel on November 7, 2017. Then at long last, The Jungle Movie finally premiered on Nickelodeon on November 24, 2017, the day after Thanksgiving.
So long story short (yeah, I know, it’s too late for that 😝), I think the real meaning of Stella and Miles’s respective lines in the scene above are a reference to we fans finishing what Craig had started with the episode “The Journal” and what he intended to finish, and now has, with The Jungle Movie. Because of our growing interest in the film following the past interviews, and the subsequently petition-signings and letter-writings, we have finally put the film back on track. I’m sure Craig feels that he could not have done it without our help, and so he is proud of us for all of our efforts in helping him achieve his goal.
As a final note, he is a picture of the concrete proof that Craig is grateful to us for helping him finally bring this film to fruition: