Prior to Big City Greens, he had gotten his start working on as a storyboard revisionist on the Nickelodeon series Fanboy and Chum Chum as a storyboard revisionist and later as a storyboard revisionist, storyboard artist, and character designer on Disney series Gravity Falls, Wander over Yonder, and Mickey Mouse (2013). He briefly returned to Nickelodeon become a writer for Harvey Beaks before going back to Disney to co-create his own show.
In addition to his work in animation, he has done voicework on Big City Greens as Cricket, Harvey Beaks as TV Dad and TV announcer, and The Owl House as Bill. He and Shane have also worked in the comics industry, creating the Image Comics series Reed Gunther and writing stories and illustrating art for comics based on The Simpsons, Adventure Time, and Peanuts.
Tropes associated with Chris Hougthon's works:
- Creator Couple: With Kassandra Heller who serves as art director and background painter for Big City Greens
- Dawson Casting: Was in his late 20s/early 30s when voicing the 10-year old Cricket Green.
- Descended Creator: Voices Cricket and various other voices on Big City Greens
- What Could Have Been: He and Chris had pitched
a pilot to Disney TVA called Welcome to Simpleton about a small town in the woods inhabited by a bunch of simple Muppet-esque characters, but was rejected. - Word of God:
- Chris Houghton has answered various FAQ's over Big City Greens taking place in the same universe as various other cartoons:
- The series takes place in the same universe as Kim Possible. Which is odd, given the differing art styles of both shows.
- The show is also confirmed to take place in the same universe as Phineas and Ferb, which was hinted at in the Random Rings shorts. This also conforms it apparently takes place in the same universe as Dan and Swampy's other shows which share said show's universe, Milo Murphy's Law and Hamster & Gretel.
- Chris also confirmed the show is set in the same universe as Big Hero 6: The Series, DuckTales (2017), and Amphibia as well as various older DC cartoons, such as Pepper Ann, The Weekenders, Teacher's Pet, Teamo Supremo and The Replacements.
- Same goes for various Disney XD shows such as Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero, Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja and Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil. When asked if it took place in the same universe as Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer, Chris only thought "most likely."
- Ditto for the upcoming shows at the time like The Ghost and Molly McGee
- Chris apparently confirmed BCG takes place in the same universe as Planet Sheen, which is a Nickelodeon show. However, it is not in the same universe as The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius.
- Chris Houghton has answered various FAQ's over Big City Greens taking place in the same universe as various other cartoons:
- Write What You Know: Much of Big City Greens was heavily based off of his and Shane's experience of their early life, who both grew up from a rural Michigan area, and had moved to city like Los Angeles after graduating college, as what they claimed to be much of life changing difference between learning about the urban life from rural life, for example, they mentioned about the hairstyle that Cricket has, is what Chris wore as a child as well as the name that also came upon as well as the character, while Bill was loosely based off their father-in-law while Gramma Alice was based off of their real life grandmother, who also had the same name as the character, and had lastly mentioned about the Greens Family pets, Phoenix, a dog similar to the creator's dog that they had, while the cat was similarly compared to the their grandmother's cat, while Tilly was lastly mentioned of being amalgamation, who they remembered her being similar to a numerous of neighbors they knew of.
