Nick hands Viscardi content role, Hey Arnold! movie

Nickelodeon has handed veteran producer Chris Viscardi a senior content role, with a first task overseeing a new telemovie based on the classic Hey Arnold! toon series.

Viscardi (pictured) has been named senior VP, content development, Nickelodeon franchise properties, reporting to Nick’s, president, content development and production, Russell Hicks.

Based at Nick’s Burbank, California base, Viscardi will look after creative strategies for series such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer, and explore Nick’s back catalogue to create new original series.

He will work closely with other companies in the Viacom stable such as Paramount Pictures on partnership opportunities.

He will work on the new Hey Arnold! telemovie, which has original creator Craig Bartlett returning as writer and executive producer.

The show will feature a storyline that follows on from the TV series, which ended in 2004. It will “resolve unanswered questions and plotlines”, according to Nick.

Having begun his career at the Viacom kids channel, Viscardi created surrealist Nick comedy the Adventures of Pete and Pete, which aired for three seasons in the mid-1990s as a half-hour series after debuting as interstitials and continuing as five telemovies.

He also created animated series Kablam!, and write for shows such as Ed, Necessary Roughness and Brutally Normal, co-wrote feature films Alvin and The Chipmunks and The Tale of Despereaux, and Nick/Paramount films Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging and Snow Day.

More recently, he has been executive producing current Nick series Sanjay and Craig, mentoring its fledgling creators Jim Dirschberger and Jay Howell.

“Chris is a creator who innately understands the Nickelodeon DNA and our audience because of his long history with us,” said Nick chief Hicks.

“As someone who has worked on two generations of Nickelodeon hit shows, Chris is the perfect person to manage our most important franchises and reimagine stories and characters from our library for today’s kids and for the millennial generation who grew up on them.”