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Trivia tropes for Big City Greens

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  • Acting for Two: There are several points in the series in which a cast member voices someone else besides their assigned character role.
    • Colton Dunn voices Russell Remington and the Greens' neighbor Brett.
    • The voices of the other two Cyber Knights are done by Cricket and Remy's actors.
    • The short blue neighbor of the Remingtons in "Mansion Madness" is voiced by Cricket's actor.
    • Gloria's three friends in "Clubbed" are voiced by hers, Tilly's and Andromeda's voice actors.
    • In "Animal Farm", Marjorie, Melissa, Herbert and Miss Brenda are each voiced by the voice actors of the four nuclear Greens (Cricket, Tilly, Bill and Alice, in that order), with the second and fourth voicing the chickens.
    • Cricket's voice actor, show co-creator Chris Houghton, also voices Phyllis in "Park Pandemonium", Ron the security guard in "Tilly Style", and an animated caricature of himself named Topher in the animation studio Cricket and Tilly visit in "Animation Abomination".
    • Anna Akana voices both Gloria and her boss Ms. Cho.
    • Andre Robinson voices Bill and Russell's young selves in "Greens' Acres".
    • Tilly and Russel's actors voice the other two members of Nancy's former biker gang in "Trailer Trouble".
    • Benny's voice actor, Luke Lowe, has also voiced the bratty kid Bryan in "Present Tense".
  • Ascended Extra: A meta case of this. Gloria was supposed to be just one of many secondary characters, but the production team quickly saw the potential in her and she slowly began to appear more and more until she practically became a new member of the family.
  • Banned Episode: The episode "Bleeped" was never shown in Southeast Asia due to its plot heavily involving swearing.
  • The Cast Showoff:
    • Pretty much everyone in the main cast, but most notably Chris Houghton, get to do a showstopper in the Christmas Episode. A few minor musical numbers pop up from time to time for them as well, such as the "Funtopia" song in "Park Pandemonium".
    • Zeno Robinson gets to show off his rapping skills in "Okay Karaoke".
  • Channel Hop: The series was moved from Disney XD to Disney Channel before it even premiered. However, reruns would start airing on Disney XD in September 2018.
  • Children Voicing Children: Cricket's close friend Benny is voiced by child actor Luke Lowe.
  • Credits Pushback: The end credits are pushed toward the bottom for commercial ads despite having a rather catchy ending tune. The second season takes this even further by adding commercial breaks right after the theme song and removing the credits song all together and having the credits appear along the bottom in the last 30 seconds of an episode, to give more room time for commercials.
  • Dawson Casting: With a few exceptions, such as Benny who was by the then-prepubescent Luke Lowe, all the child characters are voiced by adults. Cricket himself, for example, is voiced by co-creator Chris Houghton, who was 29 when the show first premiered.
  • Descended Creator:
  • Distanced from Current Events: From May to October 2020, the episode "Cricket's Shoes" was pulled from reruns (along with its sister episode "Feud Fight") in the wake of the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, as it involved Cricket catching the flu and going outside when he shouldn't, and sneezes on Bill twice and gets his germs on him.
  • Early-Bird Release: Season 3's midseason finale "Rembo"/"Dirt Jar" was released on Disney+ three days before its official airdate.
  • Enforced Method Acting: Chris Houghton said on his Tumblr that he actually broke down during the scene in "Phoenix Rises" when Cricket is upset that Phoenix may be gone for good.
  • Executive Meddling: According to Shane Houghton, getting the executives to allow the character of Remy to exist in the show was a bit of a headache due to one of the executives at DTVA hating the character and feeling like something was missing (and yet the executive in question was completely clueless about just what it was; at one point the executive even suggested they give Remy a new pair of shoes as though that alone would fix the character). Eventually, the problem was solved by the Houghton brothers tapping Remy's now current VA, Zeno Robinson, to voice the character. Zeno's cheerful yet slightly neurotic take on the character was a smash-hit with the show's crew and execs and Zeno has been the voice of Remy ever since.
  • Fake American: Andre Robinson had to fake a truly accent-free voice when playing Young Bill in "Greens' Acres" (though he used his real African accent during his one line as Young Russell).
  • He Also Did:
  • Invisible Advertising:
    • In the promo for the final two episodes of Season 2's "middle ten", the only episode it did not use any clips from was "Chipwrecked". This was done deliberately to avoid spoiling the dark nature of the episode and especially to hide the big cliffhanger at the end.
    • Similarly, the promo for the July 2022 premieres does not feature any scenes from the episodes, instead syncing Season 1-2 clips to a remix of the theme song with samples of everyone singing the word "new" over and over.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: As of today, there are no physical home media releases of the series, with only digital platforms such as iTunes and Disney+ for distribution.
  • Make-A-Wish Contribution: In "The Delivernator", the girl riding the kiddie ride whom Cricket vaults over is a caricature of Alex, an avid BCG fan whose wish was to appear on the show and sketched her own series design, which was used in the episode.
  • Meaningful Release Date:
    • The episode "Quiet Please", which has sign language, came out on September 19, 2020. September is Deaf Awareness Month.
    • "Date Night" was aired the day before Valentine's Day in 2021. Coincidentally, it plus "Valentine's Dance" two years prior are both Gabriella episodes.
    • "Ding Dongers" and "Animation Abomination" were released on the first day of Spring.
    • "The Van" and "Bat Girl" will be released on Passover 2021.
    • "Cousin Jilly" and "Gloria's Cafe" will premiere on Easter Vigil.
  • No Export for You: The NHL Big City Greens Classic was not shown in Canada, presumably due to contractual issues as the NHL's Canadian national broadcast rights are controlled by Rogers Communications while the Canadian version of the Disney Channel is operated by Corus Entertainment.
  • The Other Darrin:
    • A voice director variant. During the first season, the show's creators, Chris and Shane Houghton, were the sole voice directors initially but due to them being too busy running the show, Monica Ray joined them in season 2 until mid-season 3. Co-star Marieve Herington, and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn took over as the sole voice directors in mid-season 3 onward.
    • Monica Ray herself did the voice of Kiki for the first three and a half seasons, but starting with "Pen Pals", Stephanie Sheh took over.
    • Nikki Castillo replaces Jenna Ortega as the voice of Gabriella as of "Long Goodbye", due to Ortega being too busy with other projects at the time (namely her role as the lead character in Wednesday).
  • Out of Holiday Episode:
    • "The Gifted" is a Father's Day episode, yet it aired on July 11, 2020, less than a month after Father's Day.
    • "Big Resolution" is a New Year's Eve episode, yet aired on January 30, 2021.
  • Out of Order: The series' first trailer, which previewed "Welcome Home", should’ve aired first instead of "Space Chicken", since that's the first episode that chronologically starts the series and the characters off, while the latter was actually a pilot episode, which had a very awkward head start to introduce the characters and the series with at first since The Greens had already arrived to the city and had gotten some experience of the city already.
    • To add salt to the wound, one of the co-creators had posted a picture on Twitter that listed episodes with the production codes that Disney Channel had shuffled up all of the episodes from their original order, concluding that it had been airing out of order from the start.
    • And then following after "Phoenix Rises", any continuation about Nancy since she returned at the end of the said episode, was held off by two holiday-themed episodes.
    • Disney+ completely rearranges all Season 1 episodes, sometimes changing the segments around as well. For example, "Welcome Home" is the first episode with "Space Chicken" paired with it, and "Gramma's License" was paired with "Supermarket Scandal" and listed as the tenth. According to Chris Houghton, the Disney+ order is the official chronological order of the season; however, it is not the original production order.
    • The Disney+ version of S2 was completely out of order when it aired on TV, as it's vastly out of production order. For instance, "Chipocalypse Now" is the very first episode listed, despite not happening until Episode 21. Episode 20 before it is listed as Episode 29. This was fixed later on.
    • The Season 3 episode "Squashed" aired in October 2021, which is fitting considering it's a Halloween-themed episode. However, Word of God confirmed it wasn't actually the Season 3 premiere, with the rest of the season not airing until February 2022. Though in this case, it was justified because Season 3 wasn't finished yet at the time and the development team wanted "Squashed" to avoid being an Out of Holiday Episode.
    • Another Season 3 episode, "Virtually Christmas", shows the Greens still living in Big City despite having moved back to the country side several episodes prior. This was because the episode was originally supposed to air back in December 2021 (i.e., before Season 3) but the CGI models were not completed on time. To once again avoid being an Out of Holiday Episode, the episode was delayed an entire year.
  • Playing Against Type:
    • Paul Scheer, a comedian known for playing characters in his image, plays Chip Whistler.
    • Ed Begley Jr. is known for playing very smart yet very smug characters. Here, he plays Chip Whistler's father, Mr. Whistler, who is the total opposite of his jerkass son: A calm, friendly, and hard-working farmer who expects the best out of people.
  • Queer Character, Queer Actor: One of the gay couple, Alexander, is voiced by gay actor John Early.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: Since the breakout of COVID-19, a lot of the animated shorts mention the Greens are stuck at home, such as the Broken Karaoke songs "Stuck at Home" and "Where Are All the Monsters?", the "Shortsgiving" special, and the description for Lip Switch.
  • Recycled Script:
    • The plot of "Cricketsitter" is similar to The Simpsons episode "My Sister, My Sitter".
    • The plot of "Hurt Bike" is similar to the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "I Had an Accident".
    • The plot of "Quiet Please" is a complete G-rated parody of the film A Quiet Place.
    • The plot of "Okay Karaoke" is similar to The Loud House episode "Really Loud Music".
    • The plot of "The Room" is similar to the Gravity Falls episode "Carpet Diem".
    • The plot of "Bleeped" is similar to the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Sailor Mouth".
    • The plot of "Fast Foodie" is similar to the Beavis and Butt-Head episode "Supersize Me".
    • The plot of "Spaghetti Theory" is similar to The Simpsons episode "22 Short Films About Springfield".
  • Release Date Change: The release date was originally scheduled for 2017 before being moved to Spring 2018 on Disney XD, but ended up being moved to Summer of the same year for Disney Channel, and Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer took its former place.
  • Renewed Before Premiere: The show was renewed for a second season before it even premiered.
  • Role-Ending Misdemeanor: In 2022, storyboard artist Charlie Gavin revealed on Twitter he was fired from the series due to struggling with alcoholism at the time, which greatly effected his work ethic and personal life.
  • Saved from Development Hell: The series was put in place before it was officially green-lit by Disney in 2012, during which Chris was currently working on Gravity Falls while Shane went on to work on other projects, just before they went to Nickelodeon to work on Harvey Beaks in 2015. There was ultimately no official news of the series until late into 2016. Although the production of the pilot episode was produced in between 2014 and 2015, while all others were roughly produced in much of 2015 onto 2017.
  • Schedule Slip: The show has recently been renewed for a second season before its premiere, but has since entered a long hiatus after the Season 1 finale with no official release for the season until November 16, a good eight months later.
  • Screwed by the Network: The series had no episodes for eight months between the Season 1 finale and the Season 2 premiere, and most recently, there were no new episodes between February and July 2020 because of the ongoing Coronavirus Pandemic slowing production. And when episodes do air, they either are released one episode per week or in a "bomb" format. It doesn't help that it eventually releases short series in-between the hiatuses. Currently, 2019 and 2020 are tied for the fewest episodes premiered with a grand total of 15 each.
  • Series Hiatus:
    • The show went on hiatus for eight months after the Season 1 finale from March to November.
    • After the last of the first ten of Season 2 ("Garage Tales"/"Animal Farm"), the show went on hiatus from February to July, with shorts released in between. This is because of Disney Channel's new binge-watching strategy as confirmed by co-creator Chris Houghton on Tumblr, where they have to finish storyboarding, recording and editing about 8-10 episodes instead of one or two, which could take about 3-5 months or longer, and have them released all at once. This is also due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic, resulting in production being temporarily halted and the crew was confined to their homes to finish the work from there, as part of attempting to slow the rate of those catching the sickness.
    • The show went into another hiatus from the mid-season finale "Chipwrecked" to "Chipocalypse Now", from September 19th, 2020 to January 16, 2021, three months and 29 days apart.
    • The gap between Seasons 2 and 3 is between April 4 - October 9, 2021, six months and five days apart. If you don't count said episode with the official Season 3 premiere on February 13, 2022, that makes the longest hiatus ever clocking in at ten months and nine days.
    • After the sixth episode of Season 3, the show entered another four month hiatus from March to July so Amphibia, The Owl House, and The Ghost and Molly McGee can finish airing their respective seasons.
    • The gap between "Virtually Christmas" and "Pen Pals" is from December 3, 2022 - March 4, 2023, three months and two days apart. 2023 also marked the first time there were no episodes in neither January nor Feburary, likely due to the premiere of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur and Kiff.
    • The show went on hiatus again for six months between March and September before the fourth season began. It went hiatus again after the fifth episode, once again for six months between October and April. This was likely due to production being paused to focus on Big City Greens The Movie Spacecation.
  • Short Run in Peru: As shown here, the Christmas special, "Green Christmas", airs in Asia on December 6, 2019, with its US debut on December 7.
  • Time-Shifted Actor: In "Green's Acres", Bill, Nancy and Keys' younger selves are voiced by Andre Robinson, Candace Kozak and Jason Maybaum respectively, instead of their regular voices.
  • Troubled Production: As with many Disney series being produced at the time, the COVID-19 Pandemic resulted in production being slowed a bit and impacted greatly, leaving the crew to continue from their homes.
  • Voices in One Room: Though the voice actors typically record their lines separately (and since the coronavirus pandemic they're confined to recording in their bedroom closets), there are moments when they come to record together.
  • Word of Gay: Chris Houghton confirmed in a Tumblr post that background characters Alexander and Terry are indeed a couple.
  • Word of God:
    • Multiple source releases (and the iTunes description) confirm Cricket is 10 years old.
    • Chris Houghton confirmed on his Tumblr account that Gloria's surname is "Sato".
    • The reason why Cricket, Tilly and Remy have yet to be shown attending school? The writers imply the series is set mostly on weeknights, weekends and school holidays such as summer vacation, as they felt childhood is encompassed outside of school.
    • Chris Houghton confirmed on his Tumblr that the two-guy duo Alexander and Terry are indeed a couple.
    • Most recently, Chris Houghton has answered various FAQ's over the show taking place in the same universe as various other cartoons:
  • Write What You Know: Much of the series' settings and characters were heavily based off of Shane and Chris’s experience of their early life. They both grew up in rural Michigan and moved to Los Angeles after graduating college, and the change from urban to rural life altered their lives profoundly. Chris wore Cricket's hairstyle as a child and the his name and character were derived from their experiences. Bill was loosely based off the creators' father-in-law while Gramma Alice was based off of their real life grandmother, who had the same name. Of the Green family pets, Phoenix was similar to dog that the creators had, and the cat resembled their grandmother's cat. Tilly was an amalgamation of a number of neighbors they knew.
  • Written by Cast Member:

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