Disney Channel is about to launch the new animated kids seriesBig City Greensfrom co-creators/brothersChris and Shane Houghton. The network is so jazzed about the new show that they’ve alreadyrenewed it for a second seasonahead of its debut this coming Monday. And it’s easy to see why. The animated series does a solid job of delivering fish-out-of-water laughs alongside some good, old-fashioned heart, making for a refreshing story that has one foot in the country and one in the city.
Big City Greensis, as the Houghtons' own show recipe goes, “Two parts funny, one part heart.The majority of everything you’re watching is fun, fun, fun, but at the core of it, there’s always this emotional center, something that is truthful or that resonates with people. That’s what we aim to do in every episode.” I chatted with the Houghtons about the inspiration for the series, the story they aim to tell, and what’s ahead for both Season 1 and Season 2.
The voice cast isChris Houghtonas Cricket Green,Artemis Pebdanias sweet Gramma Alice,Marieve Heringtonas quirky older sister Tilly Green andBob Jolesas hard-working father Bill Green. The guest voice cast includes Emmy Award-winnerJon Hammas store manager Louis; Emmy Award-nominatedRaven-Symonéas news reporter Maria Media; GRAMMY Award-nominatedBusta Rhymesas a wise fish;Danny Trejoas bodyguard Vasquez; Academy Award-winnerJim Rashas waiter Ted;Paul F. TompkinsandLauren Lapkusas city hipsters Justin and Val;Andy Dalyas Officer Keys;Scott Aukermanas a radio DJ;Griffin McElroyas a pepper merchant;Paul Scheeras supermarket manager Chip Whistler;Zeno Robinsonas Cricket’s best friend, Remy;Lorraine Toussaintas Remy’s mom, Rashida;Colton Dunnas Remy’s dad; andAnna Akanaas café barista, Gloria.
The series premieres with a week of new episodes rolling out daily, Monday, June 18th – Friday, June 22nd, as part of Disney Channel’s GO! Summer. After the debut week, new episodes will premiere throughout the summer on Monday and Wednesday mornings at 10:00 a.m. EDT / PDT. See what the Houghtons had to say about it our interview below:
How would you sum upBig Bity Greensin one sentence?
Shane Houghton:Big City Greensis about a country family that moves from the country to the big city.
Chris Houghton: That’d be the one sentence.
Shane: If we couldn’t go any further than that I’d stop right there.
Chris: It’s a telegram, I would imagine; there’s only so much space.
What particular childhood inspirations did you draw from for this show?
Chris: We grew up in a little town in Michigan. As far as influences go, we didn’t have cable TV, so we really drew a lot from newspaper comics. We loved ‘Calvin and Hobbes’, ‘FoxTrot’, ‘The Far Side’; those really shaped our sense of humor early on and what we really liked. Comics are really character-driven and I think everything Shane and I write is character-driven, so there’s a lot of influence there. Also, a lot of sitcoms likeFamily MattersandBoy Meets World.
But for the show specifically, we drew a lot of inspiration from the people we knew growing up. So Chris’ character Cricket is based on Chris; Bill, the dad, is based on Chris’ father-in-law, who’s actually named Bill; Gramma Alice is actually based on our Grandma Alice, who’s kind of a sweet-and-saucy lady; and Tilly was based on an amalgamation of 4H girls and neighbors that we knew growing up.
I get a strong ‘Beverly Hillbillies’ vibe from this as well; is that fair to say?
Shane: I’ve never seenBeverly Hillbillies.
Chris: I think it’s more of a coincidence.
Shane: We grew up in the country: Dirt roads, corn fields, we had farm animals, we had a pond that we swam in, our nearest neighbor was like a half-mile down the road [and] you couldn’t even see their house from our house. So we were very secluded and we were very envious of all the kids who lived in town.
Chris: Yeah, not even in the city, but in town. They had sidewalks! They could walk down to the gas station and buy a candy bar whenever they wanted, and that just seemed like a dream to me. Pampered life.
Shane: Eventually we both moved away from home to go to college and we both went to big cities. There was a bit of a culture shock there. It was like, “Oh my gosh! Everything’s different. Where are the farmers?” We had a moment of adjustment. Hopefully it’s a very relatable feeling but when people move, they’re looking to establish a new home and what that means. Especially in Los Angeles, where we live now, there are tons of people who’ve moved from different places, so we wanted to capture or bottle that feeling of leaving home and looking to establish roots in a new place. What does that feel like? It’s a very lonely feeling but hopefully…
Chris: It’s also exciting.
Shane: Yes, lonely but exciting. Hopefully you’ve got your family there to support you. And that’s what’s happening to the Greens.
Any reason Gramma has a grenade (and a sword) next to her teeth in the water glass?
Chris: I think you already know the answer. If you have to ask, watch out! Gramma’s just a tough lady. She doesn’t take any crap from anybody. She could be really explosive at times, but also has a sweet, gooey inside; you just have to get through the tough, spiky shell.
Will we learn more about the Green family—like the absence of their mother, what brought them to the city, etc.—over the course of the season?
Chris: Yeah, audiences will definitely learn more about the Green family as we move forward. We always like to have something within each episode where the audience is learning more about a character or the relationship between two of the family members. We wanted to show a different type of family. There are all sorts of different families. Having a single dad with two kids moving in with his mom and trying to make everything work was something very relatable and something we wanted to explore.
Shane: As the series goes along, there will be little bits of the family history that is peeled back so the audience gets to learn maybe a little bit of what the Green family already knows.
Cricket gets into a fair amount of trouble early on. How much of that is based on your childhood experiences?
Chris: First of all, I have no idea what you’re talking about. [laughs] I was a good boy and didn’t do anything bad. No, we were raised in a family of three boys and anyone who has siblings, whether you’re growing up in the country or not … but growing up in the country we had the outdoors as our giant playground and yeah, we got in all sorts of trouble. Hopefully an innocent sort of trouble but trouble nonetheless. I’m using the word “trouble” but it’s really this curiosity that we wanted Cricket and Tilly to have. They’re exploring the world, whether it’s in the country or now that they’re in the big city; it doesn’t matter where they are, their personalities, their curiosity of life in trying to figure out how things work. Cricket, I think, is trying to figure out how things break, sometimes. It’s not a malicious thing, but it does often backfire and get him in a whole heap of trouble.
Shane: I think Chris hit the nail on the head. Cricket, although he’s a mischievous kid, never has a malicious intent. I remember when we were growing up, this was in Michigan and we had very cold winters, and there was a winter where we thought it’d be really cool if we threw snowballs at the passing cars. “Wouldn’t it be great if we hit one? Oh, that’d be so funny!” It was funny until it worked, and then it was not funny.
Chris: We got in a lot of trouble and that person driving the car was not happy. [laughs]
Shane: Kids do some stupid stuff all in the pursuit of learning, and growing, and exploring their surroundings.
Since Disney Channel has already announced a Season 2 renewal, does that take some of the pressure off of you or does it add even more pressure?
Shane: I feel like no outside force can put as much pressure on us as we do ourselves. Whether announcing another season, which is awesome, or the show just coming out, we are always striving to make this thing the best it can be, the funniest it can be, and our crew is, too. Our entire crew is very hard-working and very critical of themselves, which makes everyone push themselves to beat that last episode and make it even better than the one that came before.
The most amazing this is, we’ve done so many episodes in Season 1 and we haven’t started airing yet. Every single episode that we do, the show gets a little bit better, so there’s a constant feeling of, “Oo, I wanna top our previous best episode.” That’s kind of the goal; the bar is always rising because we’ve just done so much. Thrilled and excited to be doing more episodes for Season 2, andsuper-excitedfor the show to actually be on the air and for people to start watching the thing.
How have your previous experiences on shows likeGravity FallsandHarvey Beaksimpacted your work onBig City Greens?
Chris: It was extremely helpful. I learned a lot from working with [Alex] Hirsch onGravity Fallsand both Shane and I learned an incredible amount from C.H. Greenblatt onHarvey Beaks. It definitely made it easier to have all of that experience, but that said, nothing can prepare you for running your first TV show. It’s always just jumping into the deep end of the pool. I think people who know bothHarvey BeaksandGravity Fallsreally well will probably be able to see some echoes of those shows in this show. Everything we’ve learned up until this point is due to the influences we’ve had and the work we’ve done in the past, so there’s definitely things that we’ve pulled from lessons learned from Hirsch and Greenblatt to hopefully make our show as smooth-running and easy-to-produce as possible.
IsBig City Greenssomething you’ve always wanted to do or did the idea grow out of your working experience on other series?
Chris: I think it’s always kind of been there. We did a comic book series a few years ago, so if people were to look at that or other stories we’ve written, there’s always kind of a thread of small towns or cowboys [laughs] or an old-fashioned country feel to a lot of the things we do. It fits right in with all that.
There’s a solid core cast in addition to a fantastic guest cast. I’m particularly looking forward to hearing Busta Rhymes voice a “wise fish” but what can you say about the cast?
Shane: We are so lucky to have gotten as many incredible guest stars as we did on Season 1. It’s tough to get people to come in when you’re not on the air because nobody knows what the show is, so oh my goodness. I think audiences will really be happy and surprised, and more so hear, familiar voices throughout the show. We always just try cast funny people who we think would be best for that part and I think people will be excited to see who’s in the show.
Chris: I will say, yeah, it’s been a real treat.
Chris, you voiced the main character of Cricket in the show, so how did that come about?
Chris: It was a really natural thing. The show started with just me and Shane drawing and writing in notebooks and sketchbooks. Every time I pitched Cricket, I was just naturally kind of doing a voice and I can’t even pinpoint when it really happened, it just always felt right. We stuck with it ever since.
I see that the animation is done by Rough Draft Studios, who have quite the list of productions. How did you arrive at the final look forBig City Greens?
Shane: The look was definitely all Chris, the initial look. We have an amazing team of designers and our art director, Rommie Caswell, has done a lot to really solidify the look of the city. The characters … we’ve always had influences fromThe Muppets, a fun, friendly, poppy look. Chris always says he wants the show to look like candy, which I think is great. The “no noses” kind of feels Muppet-y and there’s kind of a friendly look to the show. We always wanted it to look very warm and inviting, and we really wanted the characters to pop against a fairly realistic city background.
Big City Greens premieres Monday, June 18th – Friday, June 22nd, as part of Disney Channel’s GO! Summer.
