[1] The show centers on fourth grader Arnold Shortman, who lives with his grandparents in an inner-city tenement in the fictional city of Hillwood.

Episodes center on his experiences navigating urban life while dealing with the zany hijinks he and his friends encounter.

Bartlett's idea for the show is based on a minor character named Arnold who he created while working on Pee-wee's Playhouse.

The executives enjoyed the character, and Bartlett completed the cast and setting by drawing inspiration from people and locations he grew up with in Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; and Brooklyn, New York.

[6] Evan Levine of the Houston Chronicle commented on the series's "backdrop of dark streets, nighttime adventures and rundown buildings, all seen from a child's point of view.

[8][9] The Pig War, as re-enacted in the episode of the same title, took place on the boundary between what is now British Columbia and the state of Washington.

features nine-year-old Arnold Shortman (voiced by Lane Toran; Phillip Van Dyke; Spencer Klein; and Alex D. Linz) and his neighborhood friends: Gerald Johanssen (voiced by Jamil Walker Smith), a street-smart character who generally serves as the leader of the group; and Helga Pataki (Francesca Marie Smith), a girl who bullies Arnold in order to hide the fact that she is in love with him.

In each episode, he helps a schoolmate or boarding house tenant in solving a personal problem or encounters a predicament of his own.

Craig Bartlett, the show's creator, was born in Seattle, Washington, which he used as inspiration for the backdrop of Hey Arnold!.

He graduated from Anacortes High School and obtained a degree in communications from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.

[13] In 1987, Bartlett relocated to Los Angeles, where he joined a team developing claymation cutaways for the television program Pee-wee's Playhouse.

[11] The ten-minute pilot episode, titled Arnold, was shown in theaters on July 10, 1996, before Nickelodeon's first feature-length film, its adaptation of Harriet the Spy.

[13] Apart from the animation style, Nick's Arnold wears a sweater, with his plaid shirt untucked (resembling a kilt).

As a result of this, many of the boy characters, including Arnold himself, were recast at least once throughout the show's run, due to the child actors reaching puberty.

[18] In an article for Vox, Caroline Framke praised Hey Arnold's depiction of adolescence and urban life, stating: "Hey Arnold wove urban legends into its empathetic narrative of how hard it can be to grow up — and how rewarding the process can be when you have some friends and a whole lot of imagination.

But it showed the reality of millions of kids who grew up in urban areas, and challenged the idea of the perfect American life".

[20] Bustle's Marie Grace Goris suggested the series as the "best Nickelodeon cartoon of all time" and gave sixteen reasons why, such as its diverse characters and its ability to "emotionally stir" viewers.

In this 2002 feature film, Arnold, Helga and Gerald set out on a quest to save their old neighborhood from a greedy developer who plans on converting it into a huge shopping mall.

This film was directed by Tuck Tucker, and featured guest voice talents of Jennifer Jason Leigh, Paul Sorvino and Christopher Lloyd.

[37] The Neighborhood project was originally made for television and home video,[37][38] but executives at Paramount Pictures decided to release it theatrically after successful test screenings.

[37] In an interview with Arun Mehta, Craig Bartlett announced that he was working with Nickelodeon on a Hey Arnold!

[39] In September 2015, Nickelodeon president Russell Hicks announced that the company was considering revivals for a number of their older shows, including Hey Arnold!.

[4] On March 6, 2016, voice actress Nika Futterman confirmed on Twitter that she and her character Olga Pataki would appear in the two-hour film.

[44] New cast-members included Mason Vale Cotton as Arnold; Benjamin "Lil' P-Nut" Flores as Gerald; Gavin Lewis as Eugene; Jet Jurgensmeyer as Stinky; Aiden Lewandowski as Sid; Laya Hayes as Nadine; Nicolas Cantu as Curly; Wally Wingert as Oskar; Stephen Stanton as Pigeon Man; and Alfred Molina as the villain Lasombra.

Though the ratings were a success with millennials, it ended up missing the mark with Generation Z, so the idea of bringing back the show on Nickelodeon was scrapped.

However, in August 2018, musical composer for the show Jim Lang revealed in a Tunes/Toons podcast that while Nick will not produce the show at the studio due to the poor ratings of The Jungle Movie, he said that: "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!.

"[46] In October 2019, Craig Bartlett revealed in an interview with The Arun Mehta Show that Hey Arnold!

The soundtrack included 45 minutes of previously unreleased music that had been remastered from the original audio files by Emmy Award-winning sound engineer Dave Marino in conjunction with show composer Jim Lang, as well as new original exclusive artwork done by Bartlett.