After it emerged that the original Arnold voice actor from Hey Arnold, Lane Toran, had grown into a rugged hipster musician, we decided to find out what had happened to the rest of his 90s peers. Here’s what they all look like now, alongside the characters they used to voice. Try not to be freaked out.
Lacey Chabert played The Wild Thornberrys’ Eliza, a long-suffering kid with glasses and braces whose parents were on an endless documentary-filming tour of Africa. Chabert voiced Family Guy’s Meg Griffin before Mila Kunis, and she was Mean Girls’ “fetch”-pusher, Gretchen Wieners. She reprised the role of Eliza for Seth Green’s animated sketch show Robot Chicken.
The Magic School Bus’ class clown, Carlos, was played by Daniel De Santo. Like Lacey Chabert, he graduated from voice acting into the Mean Girls cast, playing irritating Jock Jason, who was incidentally the on-and-off onscreen boyfriend of Chabert’s character Gretchen.
Ashley Johnson, voice actor of bunch-haired Gretchen from Recess, became a staple voice actor in noughties kids’ animation Ben 10. You might also recognise her from The Killing US, where she played pregnant Amber Ahmed, or Avengers Assemble, where she played… waitress.
Sarcastic Keesha from The Magic School Bus was played by Erica Luttrell. Ever the voice actor, you’ll hear her mainly in video games now – she’s been in Dragon Age: Origins, Lego Batman 3 and new nuclear wasteland-set game Fallout 4.
Andrew Lawrence is the youngest of three actor brothers – his oldest bro Joey is the titular star of TV show Melissa & Joey, while middle bro Matthew was middle child Chris in cross-dressing comedy Mrs Doubtfire. Andrew himself voiced T.J Detweiler in Recess and has recently had roles in detective comedy Castle and criminal investigation series CSI.
Jamil Walker Smith was the voice of Arnold’s tall-haired buddy Gerald in Hey Arnold! for its entire run from 1996-2004. He’s expanded into TV sci-fi since, playing SGU Stargate Universe’s Ronald Greer from 2009-2011, as well as having roles in Medium and Supernatural.
Emma Taylor-Isherwood voiced fanged hair disaster Mona in Mona the Vampire. She’s now doing cutesy stuff, currently voicing a character in Gwen Stefani’s new animated sugar explosion, Kuukuu Harajuku. Prior to that she voiced bunny rabbit Miffy in kids’ cartoon Miffy and has live action experience in teen drama Strange Days at Blake Holsey High.
Mead’s Little Rascals costar Blake McIver Ewing – rich kid Waldo – was also the nerdy Eugene in Hey Arnold! from 2001-2003. He cropped up as a TV-watcher in the American version of Gogglebox, the awfully titled The People’s Couch, and recently released an equality anthem called ‘This Is Who We Are’.
This long-running Sailor Moon voice actor – she’s played the Japanese animation’s Sailor Venus since 1992 – is actually a bit of a Japanese animation specialist. Her animé credits include more than 80 roles – but she’s also made time for live-action stuff, including 2001’s Fast Food Nation and 2007 sci-fi horror, The Mist.
