{"id":353378,"date":"2026-09-22T10:14:42","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T10:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/353378\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T10:14:42","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T10:14:42","slug":"hey-brooklyn-boroughs-influence-on-hey-arnold-lives-on-30-years-later-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/353378\/","title":{"rendered":"Hey Brooklyn! Borough\u2019s influence on \u201cHey Arnold!\u201d lives on 30 years later \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thirty years after \u201cfootball head\u201d first wandered the streets of fictional Hillwood, Brooklyn is still hiding in plain sight all over \u201cHey Arnold\u201d \u2014 in its brownstones, stoops, playgrounds, schoolyards and even its jazz-heavy soundtrack.<\/p>\n

The Nickelodeon cartoon, which debuted 30 years ago, was technically set in the fictional city of \u201cHillwood,\u201d which the show\u2019s creator, Craig Bartlett, said was based on Brooklyn, Seattle and Portland. But to many viewers and fans, it was always all about Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

Justin Shenkarow, who played the show\u2019s somewhat beloved bully, Harold, remembers that connection well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took inspiration from Brooklyn, from P.S. 118 where all of us kids, the characters in the show, went to school,\u201d Shenkarow said. \u201cThe classrooms, with our principal, friendships, talking about our life, getting into trouble. Going on the playground, the baseball field we created on our own.\u201d<\/p>\n

The buildings, blocks and building blocks of this world were Brooklyn, often seen through the eyes of creatives in California who knew Kings County.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole \u2018Hey Arnold!\u2019 set \u2014 the brownstones, the buildings \u2014 they all were from Brooklyn,\u201d Shenkarow added. \u201cThe neighborhood. We have a little baseball field close to an alley. It feels reminiscent of kids in Brooklyn.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show was recorded far from Brooklyn in Burbank, but the beauty of it was, if sometimes somewhat idealized, a bit of the borough.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t technically set there, but it was inspired by Brooklyn. It\u2019s funky, creative, colorful and cool,\u201d Shenkarow, who still spends time in New York City, said. \u201cEven the soundtrack of \u2018Hey Arnold!\u2019 is jazz.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Justin Shenkarow, who voiced Harold on \u201cHey Arnold!,\u201d said the show\u2019s Brooklyn influence was apparent in everything from its buildings to its soundtrack.<\/p>\n

Although Shenkarow grew up in Redondo Beach, Los Angeles, he also went back and forth to Brooklyn and Manhattan when he grew up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was Fort Greene, Bed-Stuy, Williamsburg,\u201d he said. \u201cI had a lot of friends when we graduated from college who moved there. They lived around there.\u201d<\/p>\n

If there was ever an episode that felt like it could have been pulled straight from a Brooklyn block, it was \u201cStoop Kid,\u201d about a character who never left his stoop.<\/p>\n

Shenkarow\u2019s character Harold says, \u201cStoop Kid\u2019s afraid to leave his stoop,\u201d after which Stoop Kid yells back, \u201cI\u2019m going to roll you down the hill, fat boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople quote those lines all the time,\u201d Shenkarow said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Harold (far right), voiced by Justin Shenkarow, often played the bully but had a \u201chuge heart,\u201d according to Shenkarow.Screenshot via YouTube<\/p>\n

But the Brooklyn influence was more than brownstones and stoops. The characters themselves were part of what made the show feel like a real neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Shenkarow said \u201cHey Arnold!\u201d was done differently than most shows, creating an ensemble feel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was cool and unique about recording [was that] typically when you go in for a cartoon, you go in as one actor, read your lines and you\u2019re done,\u201d he told Brooklyn Paper. \u201cWith \u2018Hey Arnold!\u2019 they would bring in the entire cast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each cast member would read from the script at a music stand with a microphone in a big room.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would get notes from the director and be able to infuse our charisma and character into performances,\u201d he said. \u201cWe would read the script again. They would have two full tapings. They would choose the best dialogue per character.\u201d<\/p>\n

The process, he said, was a great way to create relationships between characters, as well as actors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to look at each other while we performed and see the behavior,\u201d Shenkarow said. \u201cWe\u2019re moving our hands, gestures with our faces. It was really helpful to enhance our performances, being in the room with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cast developed relationships, getting to know each other off-screen in ways that may have benefited their on-screen performances.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe became great friends,\u201d he said. \u201cWe recorded once a week together. I think that friendship showed up in the show as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"P.S. 118, the fictional school attended by Arnold and his classmates in \u201cHey Arnold!,\u201d appears alongside an elevated roadway reminiscent of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.Screenshot via YouTube<\/p>\n

That chemistry helped make the characters feel less like cartoon archetypes and more like kids growing up together.<\/p>\n

Shenkarow believes the people and plots became part of viewers\u2019 world, providing the fuel to keep the show fresh.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe characters were rich and layered, not one-dimensional,\u201d he said. \u201cHarold was a bully from the outside. When you got to discover him, you realized he was a sensitive kid with a huge heart. He wanted to be in the friend group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shenkarow said although Harold was a bully on the playground, he learned a lot of lessons and still had a soft side.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe would get into trouble and have to work at Mr. Green\u2019s butcher shop and learn how to be a butcher. He enjoyed that,\u201d he said, also remembering the episode where Harold had a Bar Mitzvah. \u201cArnold told me, \u2018This is important. I respect what you\u2019re doing. You\u2019re becoming a man.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Elliott Gould played the rabbi in that episode, as Shenkarow called his character possibly the \u201cnumber one Jewish animated character in the history of cartoons,\u201d ahead of others such as Tommy Pickles in \u201cRugrats.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The \u201cHey Arnold!\u201d cast developed a close friendship while recording the show together, with Justin Shenkarow recalling the ensemble as feeling like a group of real-life friends.\u00a9 Nickelodeon<\/p>\n

Shenkarow worked on the show from age 12 in 1994 through age 37, including the 2002 film \u201cHey Arnold!: The Movie\u201d and the 2017 \u201cHey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie.\u201d He has continued working in animation and television, including roles on \u201cSpidey and His Amazing Friends\u201d and \u201cRecess,\u201d but \u201cHey Arnold!\u201d remains the role that continues to connect him with fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cNineties nostalgia is massive now,\u201d Shenkarow said. \u201cIt\u2019s the number one Nickelodeon cartoon from the 90s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three decades later, Arnold and his friends haven\u2019t exactly disappeared. The show continues to attract millions of fans on social media and through streaming on Paramount Plus, as well as on demand through Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV and other services.<\/p>\n

Some cast members recently reunited at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles to attend the MultiCon fan pop culture convention.<\/p>\n

Rumors of a cast reunion surfaced before being swatted away, but the gathering was another reminder that \u201cHey Arnold!\u201d hasn\u2019t lost its hold on viewers more than two decades after its five-season run, which aired from Oct. 7, 1996, to June 8, 2004.<\/p>\n

As for a possible reboot, Shenkarow isn\u2019t sure whether it will happen, though he likes the idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. That\u2019s above my pay-grade in terms of what studios decide,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Shenkarow\u2019s take, however, is clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fans want it back. I want it back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thirty years after \u201cfootball head\u201d first wandered the streets of fictional Hillwood, Brooklyn is still hiding in plain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[5278,9902,2571,98,100,6766,99,13300,96665,131775,131776,131777,131778,9,24,12,370,35545,5406,63,131779,131780,2556,1869],"class_list":["post-353378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-1990s","tag-animation","tag-arts-and-entertainment","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-history","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-brownstones","tag-cartoons","tag-craig-bartlett","tag-harold","tag-hey-arnold","tag-justin-shenkarow","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-nickelodeon","tag-nostalgia","tag-nyc","tag-stoop-kid","tag-stoops","tag-television","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}