Present Tense

"Present Tense" is the first segment of the forty-ninth episode of Big City Greens.
==Synopsis==
Cricket struggles to get the best birthday present for his best friend, Remy.
==Plot==
The Greens head to Remy's birthday party being held at Snuggly Pete's House of Pizza. Cricket excitedly shows off his present, a small rubber ball with a green bow on it. When Vasquez checks in the present, Cricket is shocked to see that all the other presents are larger and more extravagant than the one he brought, making him feel demoralized. Remy, Kiki, and Benny arrive and inform Cricket about the biggest prize at Snuggly Pete's. A stuffed dinosaur called Big Rex which is worth 10,000 tickets. Cricket plots to win the dinosaur for Remy. Meanwhile, Bill shows Tilly a whack-a-mole game that he was really good at in his youth, but Tilly attracted to the cuteness of the moles, much to Bill's confusion. Gramma Alice overhears a mother trying to find her son Brian in a jungle gym and she agrees to go and find him.
Cricket drags Remy around Snuggly Pete's trying to play games that spit tickets out. Cricket hurriedly goes through as many games to earn as much tickets as he can gather, but ignores Remy's pleas for him to stop as he is getting tired. Alice goes through the jungle gym and locates Brian who has grown mad with the isolation and the two get into a fight. Bill shows Tilly how to properly play whack-a-mole which frightens Tilly and the two argue with each other. Cricket notices that when the plug is pulled on the machines and replugged, they automatically spit tickets and heads to the power room to reboot the power to the building.
When the power reboots, Alice uses the opportunity to capture Brian and bring him back to his mother. Tilly gets all the tickets he collected and buys Big Rex to bring to Remy who has gathered everyone for the cake. Cricket slips and drops Big Rex into the cake, resulting in the candles setting off the sprinklers. Remy becomes saddened and reveals to Cricket that he did not care about the cake or Big Rex and just wanted to spend the day with him. Cricket apologizes as Bill and Tilly also apologize and decide to play air hockey. Cricket and Remy head to the photo booth which Remy wanted to do from the beginning.
==Cast==
*Chris Houghton as Cricket Green, Kawaii photo booth boys
*Marieve Herington as Tilly Green, Yogurt eating girl
*Bob Joles as Bill Green
*Artemis Pebdani as Gramma Alice
*Zeno Robinson as Remy Remington
*Danny Trejo as Vasquez
*Monica Ray as Kiki Kitashima
*Colton Dunn as Russell Remington
*Lorraine Toussaint as Rashida Remington, Worried mother
*Luke Lowe as Benny, Bryan
==Trivia==
*Marieve Herington, the voice of Tilly, is credited for the story of this episode.
*Snuggly Pete's House of Pizza is a reference to Chuck E. Cheese's. It previously appeared in "Wishing Well".
*The crane game has stuffed versions of characters from other Disney Television Animation shows, including Agent P from Phineas and Ferb, Rufus the Naked Mole Rat from Kim Possible, Bill Cipher from Gravity Falls, the title character from Wander Over Yonder, Star Butterfly from Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Sprig Plantar from Amphibia, and King from The Owl House. This somewhat implies that these shows exist within the series, even though Cricket was also seen as a stuffed doll in an episode of Amphibia.
**The game cabinets next to the claw machine read Baby Fight, which is a reference to the Gravity Falls show Baby Fights from "Carpet Diem".
*This episode implies that Alice is a war veteran or at least something similar.
*Remy's eye color is revealed to be purple.
*Weezie appears in this episode, but his voice actor is not credited.
*This episode, along with "Hurt Bike", are the first in the series to not feature a hidden Easter egg in any scene.
*Moral: Spending time with friends is better than what you get for them.
*Remy's birthday cake head after it gets wet looks like it's crying, as a joke filler.
*This episode possibly confirms Remy is ten years old as of this episode (his cake had ten candles on it), and is much younger than Cricket and Tilly.
*Bill Cipher, a character from the show Gravity Falls appears as a plushy seen in this episode.
*This is the last episode to be directed by Natasha Kline. She would go on to produce her own series Primos.
==International Premieres==
*October 11, 2020 (Canada)
*November 9, 2020 (Spain)
*December 8, 2020 (Latin America)
*February 19, 2021 (Southeast Asia)
*April 11, 2021 (Portugal)
*May 30, 2021 (Japan)
==Gallery==
Present Tense still 1.jpg
Present Tense still 2.jpg
Present Tense still 3.jpg
Present Tense still 4.jpg|The Claw machine has references to other Disney TV Cartoons
==External links==
*Present Tense on Big City Greens Wiki
Category:Big City Greens episodes
Category:Birthday productions