Hey Arnold!/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


This is a list for the large and varied cast of Nickelodeon's Hey Arnold!.

Students of P.S. 118

Arnold Shortman

Voiced by: J.D. Daniels (original pilot); Toran Caudell (season 1 and "What's Opera, Arnold?"); Phillip Van Dyke (seasons 2 and 3); Spencer Klein (seasons 4, 5, and The Movie); Rusty Flood ("Helga on the Couch" and "Parents Day"); Alex D. Linz ("The Journal" and "April Fool's Day")

Helga G. Pataki

Voiced by: Francesca Marie Smith; Katie Bartlett ("Helga on the Couch")

  • Abusive Parents
  • Beneath the Mask: She pretends to hate Arnold to hide her true feelings for him, and only expresses said feelings when she's alone. Or she thinks so, and Brainy teleports behind her.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: And when she did it in The Movie... she took the chance Arnold give her to deny it.
  • Cerebus Retcon: Much of her background becomes unfunny after "Helga On The Couch".
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: She often tries to ruin Arnold and Lila's time together because she wants to be the one going out with Arnold.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Deuteragonist
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Does some nasty things to Arnold, but takes major offense to her father calling Arnold an orphan within ear shot of him.
    • In "Curly's Girl", Helga calls Rhonda for dumping and embarrassing Curly after pretending to be his girlfriend.

Rhonda: May I borrow the black paint?

Helga: Perfect... it'll match the color of your heart. (She paints a ehart with black paint)

Rhonda: Excuse me!?!

Helga: You heard me Cruella.

  • Evil Laugh: Has a very impressive one. Not as impressive as Curly's (but then, who could be), but she gets points for once doing it in a theatre, with ominous music and everything.
  • Evil Plan: She explicitly refers to them as such, and she has a ton of them. They nearly always fail in ways that harm her and help those she schemes again.

Helga: "Why are none of my evil schemes working?!"

Gerald Johanssen

Voiced by: Jamil W. Smith

Best friend to Arnold.

Phoebe Heyerdahl

Voiced by: Anndi McAfee

Best friend of Helga. Half Japanese girl who was born in Kentucky but moved to the city at a very young age.

Rhonda Wellington Lloyd

Voiced by: Olivia Hack

One of the most popular kids in school and self-proclaimed "fashion queen", Rhonda is spoiled, rich, obsessed with fashion, and is a bit of a snob, but she does have a friendly side that comes out quite often. Her best friend is Nadine, but she's often seen hanging out with Arnold and the gang. It's implied that she and Harold like each other, and Curly likes her too... much to her chagrin. She's also a surprisingly good football player.

  • Alpha Bitch: Very often.
  • Break the Haughty: All the freaking time, but most notably Rhonda's Glasses and Rhonda Goes Broke.
  • Fallen Princess: This is the subject of a couple episodes (most notably "Rhonda's Glasses" and "Rhonda Goes Broke"), but she's always back on top by the end.
  • Heroic BSOD: When her family goes poor in "Rhonda Goes Broke" - specifically, when everybody finds out that she's poor - Rhonda has a major one, spending all her time in her room miserably crying. Luckily, Arnold reboots her when he talks some sense into her and asks if being rich is all she's about.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She does have a good heart under her vain, self-centered exterior.
  • Large Ham: She's pretty prone to this when she breaks into histrionics, especially in the episode "Rhonda Goes Broke".
  • Lovable Alpha Bitch: Despite often being a typical spoiled rich girl, she does have a kind side. Not only does she always do the right thing in the end, but her best friend - Nadine - is middle-class.
  • Meganekko: In "Rhonda's Glasses".
  • Rich Bitch: On her worst days.
  • Shiny Midnight Black
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Girly Girl to Nadine's Tomboy.
  • Tsundere: For Harold.
  • Unwanted Glasses Plot: Gets them in Rhonda's Glasses, but later replaces them with cooler glasses, and eventually contacts.

Nadine

Voiced by: Lauren Robinson

Nadine is Rhonda's best friend, even though they couldn't be more different. She is fascinated by bugs and arachnids.

Harold Chaim Berman

Voiced by: Justin Shenkarow

A fat kid who's been held back a few grades. Occasionally, a bully.

Sid

Voiced by: Sam Gifaldi; Taylor Gifaldi ("April Fool's Day")

A paranoid boy in a hat.

  • Cloudcuckoolander: Grandma Gertie isn’t the only one but at least she’s keeps a cool head about it… Sid… well… depends on who ever he’s with. He’s has a host of conspiracy theories.
  • Gag Nose
  • Hollywood Voodoo: Thought he once killed Principal Wartz with a voodoo doll made of soap.
  • Large Ham: Episodes centering around him bring this out, especially "Sid the Vampire Slayer" and "Sid's Revenge."
  • Nice Hat
  • Only One Name: The second most prominent example on the show, behind only Arnold himself.

Stinky Peterson

Voiced by: Christopher P. Walberg

A kid from Arkansas with a thick Southern accent.

Lila Sawyer

Voiced by: Ashley Buccille

A poor country girl who transfers to the school.

  • The Chick
  • Country Mouse
  • Foil: To Helga, big time. A great deal of Lila's appearances, and the nature of Arnold's relationship with both, play up how Lila is everything Helga isn't.
    • Not only that, but according to Craig, Lila had a repressed dark side. So, while Lila was sweet and innocent on the outside, but emotionally disturbed on the inside, Helga was mean and crazy on the outside, but kind and sophisticated on the inside.
  • Heroes Want Redheads
  • Not So Above It All: Not shown too much in the series, but in an interview Craig Bartlett said she had a hidden dark side.
  • The Pollyanna
  • Secret Keeper: Due to events in "School Play," Helga is forced to confide in her that she loves Arnold. (Naturally, before telling Lila, Helga threatened to strangle her if she ever told anyone.)
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Girly Girl to Helga's Tomboy.
  • Verbal Tic: "Ever so", "oh so", and "I'm certain that..."
  • Youthful Freckles

Thaddeus "Curly" Gammelthorpe

Voiced by: Adam Wylie; Steven Hartman ("Downtown as Fruits"); Haley Joel Osment ("Deconstructing Arnold"); Michael Welch ("Curly's Girl" and "Ghost Bride")

Psychotic kid with black hair and glasses

Eugene Horowitz

Voiced by: Christopher J. Castile (early season 1); Jarrett Lennon (later season 1); Ben Diskin (seasons 2, 3, and 4); Blake McIver Ewing (season 5 and The Movie)

An extremely unlucky kid.

Brainy

Voiced by: Craig Bartlett

An otherwise taciturn mouth-breathing nerd who seems to have a thing for Helga.

Sheena

Voiced by: Francesca Marie Smith

The Adults

Olga Pataki

Voiced by: Nika Futterman

Helga's older sister and the parental favorite, much to Helga's dismay (and Olga's too, as revealed in "Olga Comes Home"). At first glance, Olga appears perhaps too perfect: Successful, pretty, smart, and sweet and kind to everyone. But she's actually dangerously neurotic, melodramatic and out of reality, due to having to constantly live up to her parents' (well, her father's, anyway) constant attention and ridiculously high standards.

"Big" Bob Pataki

Voiced by: Maurice LaMarche

Father of Helga and Olga. Runs a local business aptly named "Big Bob's Beepers".

  • Abusive Parents: Emotionally to both daughters, but in completely different ways.
  • Gasshole: He belches and breaks wind on occasion.
  • Humiliation Conga: Helga was so disturbed by the "Orphan boy" line (see below) that during a gladiator-style event, she told Phil what Big Bob's weakspot was. Basically, she told him to go for the ankles, which sent Big Bob into a tub of gelatin - costing him the event and the overall win.
    • Basically any episode that accentuates his Jerkass qualities ends with him getting a solid block of hilarious karma dropped on his head. "Roughin' It" is another good example, where he ends up alone in his RV stuck with sunburn, swamped with bugs, and itching from poison ivy (not to mention having been electrocuted by his own faulty products earlier) while everyone else enjoys camping the old fashioned way.
  • Jerkass: Most of the time, he's this.
    • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he rarely shows it, he does love and care about Helga, and in some instances can help out other characters when needed.
  • Kick the Dog: His "orphan boy" line (referring to Arnold) in "Parent's Day". It's so mean it would be a Moral Event Horizon if he'd said it directly to Arnold (as it stands, he was talking to Helga and was just characteristically loud and uncaring about anyone else overhearing.)
  • My Name Is Not Durwood: Consistently calls Helga by her sister's name, and almost always gets Arnold's name wrong.
  • Parental Favoritism: To Olga.
  • Wouldn't Hurt a Child: While he would go for verbal attacks, Bob has his limits on bodily harming children, especially his daughter, Helga.

Miriam Pataki

Voiced by: Kath Soucie

Mother of Helga and Olga, Miriam is a depressed, constantly sleepy, seemingly ditzy housewife with an addiction to "smoothies". It's not uncommon to find her sleeping in strange places. However, she can be very competent and intelligent, but unfortunately it seems that being married to Big Bob has really brought her down.

  • Alcoholic Parent: While they couldn't state it outright, Miriam is obviously a heavy drinker, with the show using smoothies as a metaphor for booze.
  • Hidden Depths: She was once a world-class swimmer, won a bull-riding competition as a girl and can run the family business better than Bob can if she wanted to.

"Steely Phil" Shortman

Voiced by: Dan Castellaneta

Arnold's grandfather.

Grandma Gertie (aka Pookie)

Voiced by: Tress MacNeille

Arnold's grandmother.

Mr. Simmons

Voiced by: Dan Butler

Fourth grade teacher at P.S. 118 starting in the second season, replacing the original Living Prop, Miss Slovak. Thinks of everyone and everything as "special".

  • Ambiguously Gay: Played by an openly gay actor, loves the theatre, and has a very delicate, effete personality. In fact, a character who may or may not be his partner even appears in the Thanksgiving episode.
  • Ink Suit Actor: A very glaring example on a show with otherwise very outlandish character designs; Simmons strongly resembles his voice actor, Dan Butler.
  • Nice Guy: One of the nicest adults in the series.
  • Only One Name: It is strongly implied, but never explicitly stated, that his first name is Robert (in the Thanksgiving episode, he wrote a play that was based on his own life; we meet every character from the play in person later on except for him).

Alphonse Perrier du von Scheck

Voiced by: Paul Sorvino

The CEO of Future Tech Industries, Scheck is a greedy and heartless businessman who wants to tear down Arnold's neighborhood to build a gigantic, immaculate shopping mall. Only appears in The Movie, where he is the Big Bad.

  • Affably Evil: Appears to be this at first, but it fades over the course of the movie.
  • Big No: After he sees that Arnold, Helga and Gerald have escaped - with the videotape that exposes him burning the document.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Not only is he not above burning a document declaring the neighborhood a national landmark, the whole reason he wants to build the mall in the first place is to get revenge after his family name was sullied over the "Tomato Incident" that happened in front of Sunset Arms.
  • Evil Overlooker: On the poster and DVD cover of The Movie.
  • Green Eyes
  • Man of Wealth and Taste: A small running gag has Gerald voice admiration for Scheck's suit.
  • Slasher Smile: Most notably when he's burning the document declaring the neighborhood a national landmark.
  • Smug Snake
  • Soft-Spoken Sadist: His voice is pretty unassuming and even somewhat soothing for a villain, but he tends to lose this when he gets mad.
  • Villainous Breakdown: He starts out appearing as an affable but very weaselly businessman, but ends up as a raving madman who is perfectly willing to run over several people, including children, with his car.
  • The Von Trope Family

Bridget

Voiced by: Jennifer Jason Leigh

Only appearing in The Movie, Bridget is a sort of spy girl/superheroine who helps Arnold and Gerald save the neighborhood by supplying them with equipment and providing them a VCR to play the security tape exposing Scheck.

Oskar Kokoshka

Voiced By: Steve Viksten

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