Line #14 Creator/CraigBartlett


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/02_cb_arnold_1024x1024.jpg]]
2	Craig Michael Bartlett (born October 18, 1956) is an American animator and writer best known for creating the television series ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'', ''WesternAnimation/DinosaurTrain'', and ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo''.
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4	His first job, after graduating from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, was at Will Vinton Studios in Portland, Oregon, where he learned the art of stop-motion animation, working on movies such as ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfMarkTwain''. Bartlett moved to Los Angeles in 1987 to animate the "Penny" cartoons, with assistance from Creator/NickPark, for ''Series/PeeWeesPlayhouse'' on Creator/{{CBS}}. He later made a claymation ID for Creator/{{NBC}} with Creator/KlaskyCsupo and worked at BRC Imagination Arts directing projects such as Postcards and Mystery Lodge for Knott's Berry Farm. He was also one of the animators on Music/WeirdAlYankovic's claymation AnimatedMusicVideo for "Jurassic Park".
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6	During the late 80s and early 90s, Craig created a series of claymation shorts starring a now-famous football-headed kid known as Arnold.
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8	Bartlett's first job at Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} was story editing the first 65 episodes of ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}''. He pitched ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' to the network in fall of 1993, produced a pilot in spring of 1994, and the series was greenlit in January 1995. Nick put him on the final season of ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'' while waiting for production on his show to begin.
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10	''Hey Arnold'' was in production continuously from 1995 to 2001, produced by Bartlett's own production company, Snee-Oosh, Inc, which he founded in 1986. The series culminated in a TV movie originally titled "Arnold Saves the Neighborhood", which Nickelodeon decided to release theatrically as ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnoldTheMovie'', in June 2002. Unfortunately, the second planned movie, which was meant to serve as the show's theatrical GrandFinale and tie up all loose ends, was cancelled due to the first movie not meeting expectations.
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12	Bartlett then wrote and produced a TV movie for Creator/CartoonNetwork called ''WesternAnimation/PartyWagon'' (also produced by Snee-Oosh), a story originally intended as a pilot for an ongoing series. The pilot was not picked up, however. During his time at Cartoon Network, he worked with Van Partible on the fourth and final season of ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyBravo''.
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14	In 2005 Bartlett returned to BRC to create a multimedia simulator attraction for NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, called the Shuttle Launch Experience. In the course of the 3-year project, Bartlett interviewed 26 astronauts to gather their experiences from launch to orbit. One of the astronauts he interviewed was four-time shuttle flier and commander Charles F. Bolden Jr.
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16	After developing various pilots and feature scripts, Bartlett moved to the [[Creator/JimHenson Jim Henson Company]], where he co-wrote the computer-animated straight-to-DVD film ''Unstable Fables: 3 Pigs and a Baby''. Bartlett stayed at Henson to work as story editor on a Creator/PBSKids preschool show called ''WesternAnimation/SidTheScienceKid'' with PBS executive Linda Simensky, whom he had worked with at Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.
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18	In September 2008, a show for preschoolers called ''Jim Henson's WesternAnimation/DinosaurTrain'' was picked up by PBS Kids. Produced by Brian Henson, this was the first show created by Bartlett to be picked up since ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold''. The series debuted on PBS stations on September 7, 2009. Years later, he created another PBS Kids show called ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo'', which premiered on February 15, 2016.
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20	But most importantly for 90s kids, Bartlett returned to Nick in 2016 to finally produce ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnoldTheJungleMovie'', and put to rest the story he had started 15 years prior. The movie was released on November 24, 2017, and was made possible partly due to [[SendingStuffToSaveTheShow fan demand]].
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22	Craig was the brother-in-law of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' creator Creator/MattGroening, since he was married to Lisa Groening until 2018, who served as the namesake of the character on ''Simpsons''.
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24	!!List of Works:
25	[[index]]
26	* Animation for the Nome King's minions for ''Film/ReturnToOz'' (1985) [[note]] as part of Will Vinton's animation team [[/note]]
27	* "Penny" shorts for ''Series/PeeWeesPlayhouse'' (1987-1990)
28	* ''WesternAnimation/LanguageArtsThroughImagination'': "The Case of the Missing Space" (1989) [[note]] Clay animation only [[/note]]
29	* "Jurassic Park" music video by Music/WeirdAlYankovic (1994)
30	* ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' (1996-2004)
31	** ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnoldTheMovie'' (2002)
32	** ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnoldTheJungleMovie'' (2017)
33	* ''WesternAnimation/PartyWagon'' (2004)
34	* ''WesternAnimation/DinosaurTrain'' (2009-2020)
35	** ''WesternAnimation/DinosaurTrainAdventureIsland'' (2021)
36	* ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo'' (2016-2019)
37	** ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGoSpaceCamp'' (2023)
38	[[/index]]
39
40	!!Craig Bartlett's work contains examples of the following tropes:
41	* AllCGICartoon: ''Ready Jet Go!'' and ''Dinosaur Train''.
42	* AuthorAppeal:
43	** He is very fond of making pop culture references to ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'', ''Franchise/StarTrek'', ''Franchise/{{Peanuts}}'', Music/TheBeatles, Music/ElvisPresley, Music/FrankSinatra, Music/DavidBowie, and ''Franchise/StarWars'' in his shows.
44	** He's also fond of the GilliganCut.
45	** His love of dinosaurs and space is why he created ''Dinosaur Train'' and ''Ready Jet Go!'' in the first place.
46	** Jazz music, as jazz musician Jim Lang has scored all of his shows.
47	** For some reason, he enjoys putting his show logos at the start of their theme songs, while the end of the intro shows the "created by" credit. Many other western cartoons put the show logos at the end of their intros. However, anime and some '60s cartoons also put their logo at the start.
48	** Each of his works have a character named Stella in them. Stella is the name of Arnold's mom, ''Dinosaur Train'' has a starfish named Stella, and ''Space Camp'' has a major character named Stella Singularity.
49	* AuthorAvatar: Arnold Shortman, Buddy the T. Rex, and Jet Propulsion are all based on him.
50	* CreatorBacklash: He ''really'' detests the infamous ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' episode "Arnold Betrays Iggy", which created a tidal wave of fan backlash. It was rumored that as a result of it, he made the staff issue a public apology for making it. Though he debunked that rumor in an interview, the character Iggy was indeed shelved, not appearing in a speaking role again until the final season, and the episode itself would see infrequent airings (allegedly being barred from airing on television until it was seen again on Creator/NickRewind).
51	* CreatorProvincialism: ''Arnold'' and ''Jet'' are both set in Washington state, where he lived.
52	* CreatorThumbprint: His shows all tend to have four main kid characters (''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' - Arnold, Gerald, Phoebe, and Helga; ''WesternAnimation/DinosaurTrain'' - Buddy, Tiny, Shiny, and Don; ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo'' - Jet, Sean, Sydney, and Mindy) who go on wacky adventures together, sometimes without adult supervision. Arnold, Buddy, and Jet are also [[AllLovingHero All-Loving Heroes]] who are optimistic and friends to all. Each show has similar production teams, especially Jim Lang, who composed for each show, giving them their own distinct sound. These shows also share irreverent humor that kids and adults alike can enjoy (they all seem to be fond of the GilliganCut), pop-culture references galore, and occasional mature themes.
53	* InspirationForTheWork:
54	** Many of the stories seen in ''Hey Arnold!'' were based on experiences Craig Bartlett and his crew had as children. Plus, several characters are inspired by real people Bartlett grew up with.
55	** ''Dinosaur Train'' was inspired by Bartlett seeing his son play with both a dinosaur toy and a ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' toy.
56	** ''Ready Jet Go!'' was inspired by when he worked on a project for NASA called the Shuttle Launch Experience
57	* ProductionPosse: His shows all have the same teams: most notably writers Joe Purdy, Rachel Lipman, Christie Insley, and Michelle Lamoreaux, and composer Jim Lang. ''Dinosaur Train'' and ''Ready Jet Go!'' also have the same voice actors from the Vancouver, British Columbia area.
58	* RousseauWasRight: His works are fond of this trope:
59	** ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' generally tends to support that people are good by default and only made bad by certain circumstances. This is shown with Helga's abusive, competitive upbringing turning her into a bully, when she was a sweet kid prior to that.
60	** ''WesternAnimation/DinosaurTrain'' has Buddy, an AllLovingHero who is nice to everyone, no matter who they are. Even to Keenan Chirostenotes and Remy Ramphorhynchus, who were jerks and bullies.
61	** ''WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo'': Jet is an AllLovingHero to makes it a point to treat every living thing with kindness, even those who are mean to him, because he loves them so much. We later learn that the resident douchebag of the cul-de-sac, Mitchell Peterson, has a heart of gold deep down, and his rude behavior stems from deep-seated emotional issues.
62	* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: His works lean more on the idealistic side, due to their optimistic, positive messages.
63	* TrollingCreator:
64	** ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnoldTheJungleMovie'' has a scene near the end where [[spoiler: Arnold wakes up, and thinks that everything that happened, including finding his parents and [[RelationshipUpgrade sealing his relationship with Helga]], were AllJustADream, seemingly undermining everything that's been built up over the series. He then sees his parents downstairs for real, [[ItWasntADream meaning that the whole movie really did happen]].]] Bartlett has a pretty dark sense of humor about this.
65	** He stated that [[WesternAnimation/ReadyJetGo Mitchell and Mindy]] would just be friends on Reddit. Didn't stop them from having a lot of ShipTease in season 2, which the Reddit AMA was made to promote.
66	* WriteWhoYouKnow: Many characters from ''Arnold'' are based on people he knew. Tiny and Shiny from ''Train'' are both based on his sisters.

Context Creator / CraigBartlett