Less than a week after lighting the great and terrible ’90s nostalgia furnaces with news that it might be reviving classic cartoons like Rugrats and Hey Arnold! for the modern generation, Nickelodeon is fanning the backwards-looking firestorm by putting an “Avengers-style” NICKTOONS movie into development. According to The Tracking Board, Paramount and Nickelodeon have tapped The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out Of Water producer Mary Parent for a project that would mash together the worlds of Rugrats, Rocko’s Modern Life, Hey Arnold!, Angry Beavers, and Ren And Stimpy into one many-headed, potentially horrific clump of, “Hey, I remember that!”
And, as if the thought of deranged chihauhau Ren Höek leering over Tommy Pickle’s crib wasn’t disturbing enough, the movie is apparently being pitched as a live-action/animation hybrid, in the style of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (or Looney Tunes: Back In Action, but nobody ever remembers Looney Tunes: Back In Action until it’s far, far too late.) The film is being developed by Parent and her partner Cale Boyter, and will presumably serve as a prequel to a lot of awkward conversations between 30-something parents and their bored, Doug-agnostic kids.