Big City Greens

*(2/19/22)*

**Big City Greens** is an animated Disney Channel original series created by Chris and Shane Houghton. The series premiered on June 18, 2018, on Disney Channel and premiered on Disney XD later that same year.

New episodes air on Disney Channel, with reruns on Disney XD; the show is also available online, on Disney+ (where available, though the show is carried exclusively in the United Kingdom and Ireland), DisneyNOW (United States only) and Hulu (second season only).

## Premise

10-year-old country boy Cricket Green and his family move to the Big City to live with Gramma Alice. There, he and his older sister Tilly meet and make new friends, including new best friend Remy Remington, cafe co-worker and friend Gloria Sato and others, as well as battling the family's nemesis Chip Whistler. While getting used to his new surroundings, Cricket tries to make the most of his time in Big City, while learning new morals along the way.

After "The Move", the Greens and Remy move to the countryside, where Cricket and Tilly reacquaint with their old home while Remy is taught country grit. In Long Goodbye, the Greens except for Nancy move back to Big City, while keeping their country farm.

### Official description

*The series focuses on Cricket Green, a mischievous and optimistic country boy who moves to the Big City with his family. Cricket’s curiosity and enthusiasm leads his wildly out of place family on epic journeys, and into the hearts of his new neighbors.*

## Cast

### Main

* Chris Houghton as Cricket Green
* Marieve Herington as Tilly Green
* Bob Joles as Bill Green
* Artemis Pebdani as Alice Green
* Zeno Robinson as Remy Remington
* Anna Akana as Gloria Sato
* Wendi Mclendon-Covey as Nancy Green

### Supporting

* Lorraine Toussaint as Rashida Remington
* Colton Dunn as Russell Remington and Brett
* Luke Lowe as Benny
* Monica Ray as Kiki (listed under "Additional Voices")
* Lamar Woods as Weezie
* Paul Scheer as Chip Whistler
* Andy Daly as Officer Keys
* Danny Trejo as Vasquez
* Jenna Ortega as Gabriella Espinosa
* Nicole Byer as Andromeda

### Others

* Raven-Symoné as Maria Media
* Jorge Diaz as Carlos
* Jon Hamm as Louis ("Big Deal")
* Busta Rhymes as a wise fish ("Fill Bill")
* Jim Rash as Ted (also "Fill Bill")
* Lauren Lapkus as Val ("Homeshare Hoedown")
* Paul F. Tompkins as Justin (also "Homeshare Howdown") and Tooth Fairy ("Hurty Tooth")
* Scott Aukerman as a radio DJ ("Gridlocked")
* Griffin McElroy as pepper merchant ("Feud Fight")
* Fozzie Bear as Dr. Enamel (also "Hurty Tooth")

## Episodes

The episodes are usually split into 22 x 11-minute segments. Full-length episodes are split into 21 x 7 segments.

All of the episode titles are no more than two words long.

Both Rough Draft Korea and Sugarcube provide animation for all episodes outside of shorts, where Disney Television Animation takes over (excluding *Country Kids in the City*).

## History

The series was created by Chris and Shane Houghton, who originally worked on Nickelodeon's *Harvey Beaks*. Along with the Emmy Award-winning director Rob Renzetti (creator of *My Life as a Teenage Robot*, supervising producer for *Gravity Falls* and executive producer of the 2017 reboot of *DuckTales*) serves as executive producer and the Houghton brothers serve as co-executive producers.

### Pre-production

The series (originally titled *Country Club*) was pitched to Disney in 2012.. They had worked on *Gravity Falls* and then for Nickelodeon's *Harvey Beaks* in 2015.

Initial production of *Big City Greens* took place between 2014 and 2017.

In March 2016, Disney XD had greenlit two new original shows, *Big City Greens* and *Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer*, which would be released throughout the 2017-2018 period.

Following about a year after its announcement, on July 21, 2017, an official main title was released on Disney XD YouTube channel, with the series being renamed from *Country Club* to *Big City Greens.*

In late November, a sneak peek of the series was unveiled and shown at the CTN expo.

On April 2, Chris announced via Twitter that the series had moved from its original channel, Disney XD, to Disney Channel
 for the Summer 2018 season.

A second season was greenlit ahead of the show's premiere. there were guest voices planned for the show. This included Jon Hamm, Raven-Symoné, Busta Rhymes, Danny Trejo, Lorraine Toussaint, Jim Rash, Paul F. Tompkins, Lauren Lapkus, Andy Daly, Scott Aukerman, McElroy, Paul Scheer, Zeno Robinson, Colton Dunn and Anna Akana.

On June 7th, the series was being promoted at the Pixar Fest, alongside the then-upcoming Pixar film, *Incredibles 2.*

In addition to a 46-second sneak peek, *ComicBook* revealed that the series premiere was made available on DisneyNOW beginning Friday, June 8, ten days ahead of its airing.

### Post-premiere

With "Space Chicken" and "Steak Night" being the first two episodes to air, the series premiered with a week of new episodes June 18–22, as part of Disney Channel's *GO!* Summer programming event. Throughout the summer season, new episodes premiered Monday and Wednesday mornings (10 a.m.), with additional shorts premiering Saturday, June 16 on Disney Channel and its YouTube channel.

In addition to this, DisneyNOW released its first multiplayer game and first game based on the series, *Big City Battle!*, where players compete against each other to earn their place as a member of the Green family.

On December 10th, the series won the CommonSense seal of approval.

The first season ended on March 9th, 2019 with "Cricket's Place" and "Volunteer Tilly".

### Season 2

On April 21st, the Houghton brothers and Marieve Herington, Tilly's voice actress, attended the Disney Channel Fan Fest 2019, and shared a storyboard animatic of an episode involving the Greens visiting the beach ("Shark Objects") and also added that Season 2 would start Fall 2019; the first episodes of the season would be "Cricket's Kapowie" and "Car Trouble". Production of season 2 began on August 1, 2019 and finished on July 8, 2020.

The first half of the season ended on February 8, 2020 with "Garage Tales" and "Animal Farm"; the rest of the season aired in 2020. The second half of the season began July 11, 2020 with "Desserted" and "The Gifted"; the season is to air up to September 19, 2020, with "Quiet Please"/"Chipwrecked" being the final episodes of the second half, which was shorter (20 episodes, 40 separate segments) than the first due to the COVID-19 pandemic which forced the crew to work from home. The third and final half began with "Chipocalypse Now" which released January 16, 2021. The season concluded April 3, 2021 with "Cousin Jilly" and "Gloria's Café"; this makes this season the longest to air, with it airing over two years (2019-2021).

### Season 3

Unlike season 2, Season 3 was not announced before season 2 premiered unlike most Disney Channel shows. On January 13, 2021, a article by *Deadline* that annouced that the show had been renewed, as well as Chris and Shane being signed to make more shows, movies, and shorts for Disney Channel and Disney+. Unlike previous seasons, Season 3 consisted of 20 episodes instead of 30, due to the Houghton Brothers working on various other upcoming related projects, one of these being the upcoming movie.

Season 3 began with the Halloween special "Squashed!"; despite that, it is not technically the "real" season premiere, given that at the time of airing, it was the only Season 3 episode to be completed. The season then "officially" premiered on February 12, 2022 with "Boss Life" and "Papaganda". After the sixth episode though, the series went into hiatus for four months and four days to let Disney Channel's other currently animated shows finish airing the final episodes for their respective seasons in the show's timeslot. The season's first half was finished on July 30, 2022 with "Rembo" and "Dirt Jar", the latter episode according to Shane Houghton changes the series so much that "[it] will never be the same again" due to the change of location from Big City to Smalton. The season continued with "The Move" on September 24, 2022.

The first half ended with "Virtually Christmas", which oddly took place back in Big City; according to Chris Houghton, this took place before the move back to the country and was to air after "Squashed!", but encountered technical problems with the 3D animation which postponed it to the next year. The season resumed on March 4, 2023, which is currently the longest it took for an episode to premiere since the year started. The season ended on March 25, 2023 with the special "Long Goodbye".

### Shorts

*Big City Greens* has been adapted into animated shorts, including *Country Kids in the City*, *Random Rings* and *Big City Greens: Road Trip*.

## Production

### Animation

The series pre-production is done by Disney Television Animation, with the outsourcing animation done by the South Korean animation studios Sugarcube and Rough Draft Korea; the former known for its work on *Star vs. the Forces of Evil* amongst other shows..

## Gallery

### Promotional

*Click **here** to view the gallery for **Big City Greens**.*

## Video

The Greens are Taking Over! Big City Greens Disney ChannelDisney Channel Cram Session Weekend Mornings Promo (ver .3)Big City Greens Theme Song Comic-Con 2017 Disney XD-2Big City Greens This Season On Comic-Con 2018 Exclusive Disney ChannelMeet the Greens Big City Greens Disney ChannelHalloween Theme Song Big City Greens Disney Channel
## Trivia

* The series was originally titled *Country Club,* and had 2 unreleased episodes; "Hands-On History", and an unnamed pilot
* The series was originally going be aired in 2017, but ended up being postponed into 2018 while another show, *Billy Dilley's Super-Duper Subterranean Summer*, (which originally was assigned for 2018) ended up taking its place for the 2017 release.
* The theme song was performed by a band named "The Mowgli's".
* Although the series generally starts with the opening theme, the double-length episodes start with a cold open, similar to Disney Channel's live action shows and older Disney Channel cartoons, as well as some of *Big City Greens'* sister cartoons such as *Gravity Falls*.
* Design-wise, the show is somewhat similar to *Doug* (a show originally aired on Nickelodeon and later on Disney) and *The Simpsons*.
	+ The main characters (except Tilly) have yellow skin, while the background characters have colored (e.g. purple, red, green, yellow, blue) skins rather than normal human skin color. This contrasts with *The Simpsons* where almost all characters, including the titular family have yellow skin.
	+ The reason why the *Big City Greens* main characters are yellow is because the Houghton brothers worked together on the *Simpsons Comics*. However, *The Simpsons'* yellow is slightly darker   (Light brilliant gold) .
	+ It is unknown why the other characters have varying colors of skin tones (a'la *Doug*).
	+ Most, if not all, of the characters lack a nose; this is very similar to the *Moomins* and some characters from *Adventure Time* and *South Park*, whose characters also lack noses.
* Originally, the series was going to air on Disney XD, but moved to Disney Channel.
	+ However, syndicated reruns and marathons do air on Disney XD.
* The series was listed as #4 of 10 Animators to Watch 2018.
* Cricket and Tilly are the only characters that have appeared in every episode of the series. However, they did not appear in all the shorts.
	+ The only *Big City Greens* media Cricket does not appear in are "Tilly's Cats" (only appearing in the title card and ending segment on YouTube), "Tilly Calls a Librarian" and "Gramma Calls an Electrician".
	+ The only *Big City Greens* media Tilly does not appear in is much of the Random Rings shorts and the episode "Time Crisis" (though she appears only in Cricket's vision as an adult). The first episode where Tilly does not appear the entire time is "Date Night". She also does not technically appear in "Time Crisis", aside from her adult counterpart in Cricket's imagined future.
* To date, Cricket, Tilly and their friends have yet to be shown going to school. According to Chris Houghton, the writers joked that the series mostly takes place on weekends, afternoons and weeknights, and vacations such as summer break, as he felt school might "split up" the family and childhood is encompassed outside of school. In addition, he claims childhood mostly happens when not in school.
	+ Despite this, school has been mentioned several times in the series:
		- A school was briefly shown in "Cheap Snake" and "Volunteer Tilly".
		- In "Swimming Fool", the community pool lifeguard says he went to law school.
		- In "Remy Rescue", Remy almost got sent to a boarding school.
		- In "People Watching", in Gramma's story, Grace attended plumbing school once.
		- In "Elevator Action", Gloria sees a picture of one of her friends from high school.
		- In "Winter Greens", Cricket says Remy reads at a high school level.
		- In "Green Greens", Bill says he went to high school in 1998.
* According to Chris Houghton, the series will usually be episodic and never truly serialized, but with tentpole events and little thru-lines spliced in-between for long-time viewers. This was introduced in Season 2 following Chip Whistler's promotion to CEO.
	+ The series becomes more continuity driven since Chip Whistler's introduction, and especially throughout Season 2.
* The opening and ending credits use a handwriting done by Chris Houghton. It is given the name "Cricket Scrawl".
* So far, there are a series of instances throughout the series that occurred once per season:
	+ An appearance of Cogburn the rooster; this was broken in the Season 3 episode "Homeward Hound".
	+ An instance of Cricket spilling salt, which is considered bad luck in real life and likely foreshadows his mishaps.
	+ The Greens almost losing their farm or having to live someplace else.
	+ An appearance of the Big City Mall and Ruff Customers, both of which have not appeared in Season 3.
* On November 3, 2023, *Big City Greens* became an Emmy nominee.
* As of Season 4, each member of the Greens has had at least one major arch-nemesis:
	+ Cricket: Chip Whistler
	+ Nancy: The Stingers (Skids, Leadfoot, Lord Chrome, and Dan)
	+ Tilly: Cantaloupe Sinclair
	+ Gramma: Gertie
	+ Bill: Joshua

### Continuity

* "Welcome Home" was supposed to be the first episode, but ended up airing as the eighth, and "Space Chicken" took its place as a pilot. Said episode was also made back when the show was known as *Country Club*.
	+ On Disney+, this is honored by putting "Welcome Home" as the first episode in season 1.
* "Space Chicken" and "Cricket Versus" take place before "Bear Trapped" because he says he hates bears in the former two, and in the latter, he ends his hatred against them.
* Any episode that shows Cricket working at Big Coffee take place after "Critterball Crisis" and before "Chipwrecked".
	+ "Cricket's Shoes" takes place three months after "Critterball Crisis" because by the end of said episode, Gloria has won Employee of the Month for three months straight since Cricket joined.
	+ Episodes where Cricket and Gloria have softened up to each other take place after "Coffee Quest".
* Episodes where Cricket knows Remy's last name and goes to his mansion take place after "Remy Rescue".
	+ Episodes where Cricket knows Vasquez take place after said episode as well.
* "Homeshare Hoedown" takes place in the same month as "Cricket Versus".
* Episodes where Chip is the CEO of Wholesome Foods take place after "Reckoning Ball".
	+ Likewise, episodes where the Greens are fully aware of Chip's deception take place after "Friend Con".
* Episodes that show the vacant Big Coffee take place after "Chipocalypse Now" and before "Fast Foodie", and "Spaghetti Theory" to "Gloria's Café".
* Episodes that have Gloria living with the Greens take place after "Chipocalypse Now".
* Episodes that show the Gloria + Green Café open take place after "Gloria's Café", but "Squashed!" is an anomaly because it depicts the café open *before*hand.
* Episodes that show the Greens and Remy living in the country take place after "The Move".
	+ Gramma moves in after "Homeward Hound".
* Several episodes take place near on or near holidays and special events:
	+ "Blood Moon", "Squashed!" - Halloween (October 31).
	+ "Cricket's Shoes" - Three months after Cricket started working at Big Coffee in "Critterball Crisis" (most probably sometime in the fall; possibly after "Blood Moon" but before "Big Deal").
	+ "Big Deal" and *Big City Greens: Shortsgiving* - Thanksgiving.
	+ "Valentine's Dance" - Valentine's Day (February 14).
	+ "Green Christmas, Virtually Christmas" - Christmas (December 24-25).
	+ "The Gifted" - Father's Day.
	+ "Dolled Up" - Saxon's birthday.
	+ "Present Tense" - Remy's birthday.
	+ "Big Resolution" - New Year's Eve (December 31).

### Shared universes

* Chris Houghton claims on his Tumblr the series is set in the same universe as the following Disney Television Animation shows:
	+ *Amphibia*
		- Ironically, in the *Amphibia* episode "A Night at the Inn", a plush of Cricket is shown in Polly Plantar's room.
	+ *The Ghost and Molly McGee*
	+ *Big Hero 6: The Series*
	+ *DuckTales (2017)*
	+ *Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil*
	+ *Kim Possible*
	+ *Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero*
	+ *Pepper Ann*
	+ *Phineas and Ferb* (which also includes the other "Dwampyverse" shows *Milo Murphy's Law* and *Hamster and Gretel*)
	+ *Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja*
	+ *The Replacements*
	+ *Teacher's Pet*
	+ *Teamo Supremo*
	+ *The Weekenders*
* This is quite ironic, judging the fact that these shows use different character designs, this one in particular having no noses nor eye colors, and everyone has different colored skin, very much like *Doug*.
* In regards to the *Kim Possible* universe, Shane later stated that it's the live-action Kim Possible universe; after a user asked what Cricket looked like, he sent a picture of a real cricket, proving that is was most likely a joke.
* The concept of a Disney Television Animation multiverse is explored in the *Random Rings*, *Broken Karaoke*, *Lip Switch*, *Chibi Tiny Tales* and *Chibiverse*, in addition to Big City Greens: Shortsgiving. In all of these media, *Big City Greens* characters interact with characters from:
	+ The 2017 reboot of *DuckTales*
	+ *Phineas and Ferb* (curiously, its spinoff/sequel *Milo Murphy's Law* isn't acknowledged, and so is *Hamster and Gretel*)
	+ *Big Hero 6: The Series* (Doof Sings Deck the Halls only)
	+ *Amphibia* (Doof Sings Deck the Halls and Shortsgiving only)
	+ *The Owl House* shorts are acknowledged in Shortsgiving.
		- In addition to these, the *Random Rings* shorts starting from Tilly and Cricket Call Raven Symoné! have the characters interact with live-action Disney stars like Trevor Tordjman and Raven-Symoné and acknowledge the events of series/movies like *Z-O-M-B-I-E-S* and *Raven's Home*.
			* Funnily enough, Raven does play a character in *Big City Greens*.
* When asked if it takes place in the same universe as *Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer*, Chris thought, "Most likey".
* Chris recently claimed the show is set in the same universe as *Planet Sheen*. It is currently the only non-Disney show to share the same universe.
	+ However, the original show, *The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius*, is *not* part of the universe.

## External Links

* Big City Greens - Disney Wiki
* Big City Greens on Wikipedia
* Big City Greens on IMDb

## References

1. ↑ April 19, 2018 Disney Channel GO Summer Disney23, Retrieved 19 April 2018
2. ↑ Big City Greens fact info DisneyABCPress, Retrieved On 31, May 2018
3. ↑ Bryn Elise Sandberg (March 04, 2016) "Disney XD Orders Pair of Original Animated Series (Exclusive) **The Hollywood Reporter** Retrieved on 20 April 2017
4. ↑ 'Big City Greens': Watch an Exclusive Clip From Disney's Newest Animated Series
5. ↑  March 6, 2016 "Big City Greens Disney XD **Disney ABC Press** Retrieved on 6 March 2016, Archived
6. ↑ Danielle Clifford (August 22, 2017)"Big City Greens is Coming to Disney XD" **The Game of Nerds** Retrieved on 22 August 2017
7. ↑ https://twitter.com/chrischoughton/status/993953697204920320?s=21
8. ↑ https://twitter.com/search?f=images&vertical=default&q=country%20club%20disney&src=typd
9. ↑ https://twitter.com/chrischoughton/status/799474773394718720
10. ↑ https://twitter.com/disneychanneljp/status/1043096501281378304
11. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0r-7RPh0Wg
12. ↑ Mekeisha Madden Toby (December 27, 2017) Country boy moves downtown in coming ‘Big City Greens’ "Detroit News" Retrieved on 27 December 2017
13. ↑ https://twitter.com/DisneyTVA/status/932015248164491269
14. ↑ https://twitter.com/chrischoughton/status/931202388437868544
15. ↑ Ellen Wolff and Ramin Zahed (March 30, 2018) Animation Magazine’s Rising Stars of 2018 "Animation Magazine" Retrieved on 30 March 2018
16. ↑ Houghton, Chris (April 2, 2018) Y'ALL LISTEN UP! Big City Greens will debut on DisneyChannel this summer! "Twitter" Retrieved on 2 April 2018
17. ↑ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/disney-channel-renews-animated-series-big-city-greens-premiere-1112765
18. ↑ https://www.whatutalkingboutwillis.com/incredibles2-pixarfest-bigcitygreens-events/
19. ↑ "Big City Greens": Watch an Exclusive Clip From Disney's Newest Animated Series ComicBook, Retrieved 6 June 2018
20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 CommonSense 9th December, 2018 [1] Retrieved 16 December 2018 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; name "sc" defined multiple times with different content
21. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/CCZYAKkJLY7/
22. ↑ "10 Animators to Watch 10" Variety, Retrieved 8 May 2018
23. ↑ https://chrishoughton.tumblr.com/post/189610849762/will-cricket-tilly-and-remy-ever-go-to-school
24. ↑ Tumblr School Post. Chris Houghton (February 23, 2020).
25. ↑ https://chrishoughton.tumblr.com/post/618033088163971072/whyd-you-decide-to-end-reckoning-ball-on-a-huge
26. ↑ https://chrishoughton.tumblr.com/post/631960733556555776/whats-the-type-of-font-you-use-for-the-opening
27. ↑ https://chrishoughton.tumblr.com/post/649928235129389056/does-amphibia-take-place-in-the-same-universe-as
28. ↑ https://chrishoughton.tumblr.com/post/649905769393815552/does-the-ghost-and-molly-mcgee-take-place-in-the
29. ↑ https://chrishoughton.tumblr.com/post/644019484337782785/does-big-hero-6-the-series-take-place-in-the-same
30. ↑ https://chrishoughton.tumblr.com/post/686434994657378304/i-am-a-huge-fan-and-am-begging-to-know-is-big
31. ↑ https://chrishoughton.tumblr.com/post/643950856971108352/does-pepper-ann-the-replacements-kick-buttowski
32. ↑ https://chrishoughton.tumblr.com/post/639043757947469824/does-kim-possible-take-place-in-the-same-universe
33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 33.2 33.3 https://chrishoughton.tumblr.com/post/643950856971108352/does-pepper-ann-the-replacements-kick-buttowski
34. ↑ https://chrishoughton.tumblr.com/post/643497198010728448/hi-chris-i-have-a-question-that-left-me-confused
35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 https://chrishoughton.tumblr.com/post/643582483823230976/does-the-weekenders-teachers-pet-and-teamo
36. ↑ https://chrishoughton.tumblr.com/post/644019053694976000/does-billy-dilleys-super-duper-subterranean
37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 https://chrishoughton.tumblr.com/post/644019074816458752/does-planet-sheen-take-place-in-the-same-universe