"Big City Greens" Carries Heart and Humor Into 100th Episode
100 episodes. It’s a big deal for any show, let alone a Disney Channel animated series, which notoriously (at best) top out around three seasons if they’re lucky. Big City Greens has proven to be a fan favorite, has broken past the third season, now in its fourth with a fifth on the way. This means that Big City Greens has achieved something that only one other Disney Channel animated series (Phineas & Ferb) has done by getting to the 100 episode milestone.
But how do you do it? Do you do a basic clip show? Do you not acknowledge the milestone and just keep telling the story arcs we are currently in the middle of? It’s a fine line between fan service and storytelling, but the team at Big City Greens has done so wonderfully.
For four seasons now, fans of all ages have tuned into Disney Channel’s Emmy Award-nominated animated comedy-adventure series Big City Greens, whether on the network or on Disney+, to follow the offbeat adventures of 10-year-old Cricket Green, a mischievous and optimistic country boy who moves to the big city with his wildly out of place family, including older sister Tilly, father Bill, Gramma Alice, best friend Remy, and Gloria the cafe worker turned adopted family member. Cricket’s natural curiosity and enthusiasm lead him and his family on epic journeys and into the hearts of his new neighbors in Big City, or since season three, back in their home town of Smalton. Along with all of these episodes, the Greens have even been to outer space in a full-length motion picture that debuted last summer on Disney Channel and Disney+, Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation.
In the special milestone episode, nothing is incredibly different outside of pointing out that today is the day for their 100th family adventure so they need to make it the biggest and best yet. What better way for Cricket to celebrate than by revisiting his first adventure from the pilot episode when he met his best friend, Remy, when he attempted to launch a chicken into space.
Gramma and Tilly set out on their own outlandish adventure that introduces them to a kooky mystic, voiced by special guest star Mark Hamill. Bill, in the most Bill way, believes that an adventure will come to him naturally - and it does.
What makes the whole episode even better as a milestone episode is that there is just enough to honor the occasion, it's not overdone drilling in that it’s the 100th episode, and it stands very much on its own. That said, the episode does feature a number of callbacks and appearances from recurring favorites (lookin at you, Gregly!) which are a treat for regular viewers, but an expanse of knowledge of the last 100 episodes is not NEEDED by any means to enjoy the episode. That said, certain portions of certain adventures in the episode do hit a bit harder emotionally if you are versed in the character’s backgrounds and arcs.
Also, the episode is a full 25 minutes - compared to the normal 22-minute episodes that are split into 11-minute halves. So expect the rare full run of the time allotted for the episode, something we’ve only seen a handful of times before during Halloween or Christmas episodes. And unlike those, there are no big gimmicks like the “Virtually Christmas" episode, as good as they are. These are just fun adventures with the Greens in their usual format. Just like the rest of the series, the episode is packed with humor, visual gags, and most importantly, a big dose of heart. It’s the perfect summation of the series thus far, and leaves everything open for all the Greens fun that lies ahead, and there is a lot of it ahead. I give the special episode 4 out of 5 Kaiju fights.
You can catch the episode of Big City Greens for yourself when it arrives on Disney Channel on May 3rd at 8:00 PM or later on May 7th on Disney+.