Craig Bartlett

For the New Zealand cricketer, see Craig Bartlett (cricketer).

"Party Wagon" redirects here. For the Ninja Turtles' Party Wagon, see Turtle Van.

Craig Bartlett
Bartlett performing with the Ready Jet Go! band in 2017
Born	Craig Michael Bartlett (1956-10-18) October 18, 1956 Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.
Education	Rhode Island School of Design
Occupation(s)	Animator, writer, storyboard artist, director, producer, voice actor
Years active	1985–present
Known for	Hey Arnold! (1994; 1996–2004, 2017) Dinosaur Train (with The Jim Henson Company; 2009–2020) Ready Jet Go! (2016–2019)
Spouse	Lisa Groening ​ ​ (m. 1987; sep. 2015)​
Children	2

Craig Michael Bartlett (born October 18, 1956) is an American animator. He wrote, directed, created, and produced the Nickelodeon television series Hey Arnold! and the PBS Kids television series Dinosaur Train and Ready Jet Go!.

Career

Bartlett's first job, after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island, was at Will Vinton Studios in Portland, Oregon, where he learned the art of stop-motion animation, working on movies such as The Adventures of Mark Twain. Bartlett moved to Los Angeles in 1987 to animate the "Penny" claymations for the second season of Pee-wee's Playhouse on CBS. He later made an animated ID for NBC with Klasky Csupo.

He later worked at BRC Imagination Arts, directing projects such as Postcards and Mystery Lodge for Knott's Berry Farm. He also animated the music video for "Jurassic Park" by "Weird Al" Yankovic from the 1994 album Alapalooza.

Bartlett met the Nickelodeon execs while story editing Rugrats in its first three seasons. He pitched Hey Arnold! to them in the fall of 1993 and produced a pilot the next spring. The series was greenlit in January 1995. Hey Arnold! was in production continuously from 1995 to 2001, made 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, but Nickelodeon decided to release it theatrically as Hey Arnold!: The Movie, in June 2002.

A dispute over a second planned Arnold movie resulted in Bartlett leaving Nickelodeon to write, direct and produce an animated TV movie for Cartoon Network called Party Wagon, a story originally intended as a pilot for an ongoing series. It ended up being the first Cartoon Network movie-length pilot to be broadcast, but not picked up until Underfist: Halloween Bash, which was created by Maxwell Atoms, who created The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and Evil Con Carne.

In 2002 he published the official novelization of the first Hey Arnold! movie (having written it with Maggie Groening; ISBN 978-0-6898-5136-0).

In 2005 Bartlett returned to BRC to make a multimedia simulator attraction for NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, called the Shuttle Launch Experience. In the course of the three-year project, Bartlett interviewed 26 astronauts to gather their experiences from launch to orbit. One of these was four-time shuttle flier and commander and current NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr.

After developing various pilots and feature scripts, Bartlett moved to The Jim Henson Company, where he co-wrote the computer-animated film Unstable Fables: 3 Pigs and a Baby. He stayed at Henson to work as story editor on a PBS Kids preschool show called Sid the Science Kid with PBS executive Linda Simensky, whom he had worked with at Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.

In September 2008, a show for preschoolers called Jim Henson's Dinosaur Train was picked up by PBS Kids; produced by Brian Henson, this was the first show created by Bartlett to be picked up since Hey Arnold!. The series debuted on PBS stations on September 7, 2009.

In April 2015, Ready Jet Go! (formerly Jet Propulsion) was picked up by PBS Kids. Produced by Wind Dancer Films, the series premiered on PBS stations on February 15, 2016.

In November 2015, Viacom announced that Bartlett would return to Nickelodeon to write Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie. It premiered on November 24, 2017.

Personal life

Bartlett attended and graduated from Anacortes High School in Anacortes, Washington. In 1987, Bartlett married Lisa Groening, sister of Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, Futurama and Disenchantment, after whom Lisa Simpson is named. They have two children, Matt and Katie. In August 2018, it was reported that Craig and Lisa were going through a divorce settlement and that they had been separated since 2015.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1985	The Adventures of Mark Twain	Calaveras Miner (voice)	Claymation artist, voice actor
1985	Return to Oz		Claymation artist
1986–1990	Pee-wee's Playhouse		Animator for Penny cartoons
1987	A Claymation Christmas Celebration		Claymation artist
1988	Meet the Raisins!		Writer
1988	Arnold Escapes from Church		Producer, director, writer, animator
1990	The Arnold Waltz		Producer, director, writer, animator
1991	Arnold Rides His Chair		Director
1991–1994	Rugrats		Story editor, writer, director, storyboard artist (segment "Stu-Makers' Elves")
1995	The Ren & Stimpy Show	Oldman Farmer Höek, additional voices	Director, voice actor
1994; 1996–2004	Hey Arnold!	Brainy, Abner the Pig, Ned, Miles Shortman, others (voice)	Creator, developer, executive producer, story, writer, director, voice actor
2002	Hey Arnold!: The Movie	Brainy, Murray, Grubby, Monkeyman (voice)	Producer, writer, voice actor
2004	Johnny Bravo		Writer, story editor
2004	Party Wagon	Romeo Jones, Ferryman #2, Cheyenne #1 (voice)	Creator, storyboard artist, producer, director, voice actor
2008	Unstable Fables		Co-writer
2008–2013	Sid the Science Kid		Story editor, writer
2009–2020	Dinosaur Train	Spider (voice)	Creator, writer, executive producer, director, voice actor
2013	Sky Rat		Creator, executive producer, storyboard artist, writer, director
2016–2019	Ready Jet Go!		Creator, executive producer, writer, director
2017	Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie	Miles Shortman, Brainy, Abner the Pig, Monkeyman (voice)	Executive producer, series based on, writer, voice actor and voice director
2023	Frog and Toad		Screenwriter

Internet

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2016–17	Nickelodeon Animation Podcast	Episode 12: Craig Bartlett Episode 49: Making of an Iconic Theme Song Episode 50: Hey Arnold! Deep Dive	Podcast

External links

• Interview with Victoria Mixon
• Craig Bartlett at IMDb
• Craig Bartlett's Charmed Past Life