June 11th, 2018 
Jackson Murphy 
The latest collaboration of brothers Chris and Shane Houghton (Harvey Beaks) is based on their own childhoods, growing-up in the small town of St. Johns, Michigan. Big City Greens follows the adventures of a mischievous and optimistic boy and his family who move to the big city. The series, with Chris and Shane as Creators/Executive Producers, debuts June 18 at 9:30amET on Disney Channel.
Jackson Murphy: Big City Greens has already been renewed for Season 2 even before the premiere of the first episode. Congratulations!
Shane Houghton: Holy cow! How did that happen? You’re breaking the news to us right now! No – We’re very excited. The studio and the network have a lot of confidence in the show, and they asked us to just keep things moving, and we’re very excited. We got a great crew and everybody’s just rolling on through making a ton more episodes.
JM: Where were you guys when you [really] got that news initially?
Chris Houghton: (dramatic voice) Luckily we were sitting down! (laugh) It was great. They let us know and it basically was what Shane said. It was “Hey – we got a good thing going. We want everyone to keep doing it, so keep it going!”
JM: You are brothers. You’re working on this show together. Has there always been a sort of sibling rivalry in your lives?
SH: There’s a lot of sibling rivalry, but only with a third brother who doesn’t work on the show. (laugh) That’s not true. We do have a third brother. He’s great. But we have a great, professional relationship. We’ve been working together for ten years now, professionally, on comics and animated shows – and even before that. We were in school together. We were in bands. We did theater plays. We made short films. We’ve always kinda just collaborated and got along really well. I think… it works well!
CH: We’re so different from each other and yet so similar to each other.
JM: Then that works! Growing up in St. John’s, Michigan, what were some of the animated series that you and your friends and family were into?
CH: Well, it’s funny because we didn’t have cable growing up. So we watched whatever cartoons were on but really shows that really influenced us were a lot of sitcoms. We watched a lot of “Boy Meets World” and “Family Matters”. And we read a lot of comic strips: “Calvin and Hobbes”, “Foxtrot” and “Far Side”. Those were the things that were more accessible to us than even a lot of the current animated shows. People will reference “Hey, Arnold”, and we know that now, but it’s different watching “Hey, Arnold” now than when you were 10. So we can see it and appreciate it and respect it, but we didn’t have it growing up. People have those episodes imprinted in their brains.
SH: We missed out, man! We missed out!
JM: And I’m sure being in the animated industry now, all these years later, you look back on animated series from… years earlier and you do get that different, maybe more mature, more interesting perspective on things.
SH: Yeah, I mean. Hey, “mature” – let’s not throw any accusations around, but… we work with Rob Renzetti. He’s one of the other executive producers on the show, and he’s just incredible – the shows he’s worked on. And we did get to watch quite a bit of “Powerpuff Girls” and “Dexter’s Lab”.
CH: Whenever we’re on vacation…
SH: We’d stay at a hotel and got, like, the Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network shows of the day. I think that era of “Dexter’s” and “Powerpuff” was so influential in a way because they were so rare and special. It was like once or twice a year we got to see a handful of episodes, and I’m sure they left a lasting impact on us.
CH: Oh yeah, for sure. And to be able to work with Rob: it’s surreal.
JM: Another perk of hotel rooms! Cricket is the main character on this show. Chris, you voice Cricket. Tell us about Cricket and how you came-up with his catchphrase, “BINGO! BANGO!”
CH: It’s been really fun. The voice kinda came out of just me pitching the show and Shane and I writing the Pilot together and trying to make these drawings come to life. And “BINGO! BANGO!” is something my board partner and I… I used to say to him all the time just to annoy him when I was on “Harvey Beaks”. He would say, “Hey does that sound good?” and I would just snap finger guns at him and say, “Bingo! Bango!”
And he just hated it. And he works on the show now. His name is Charlie Gavin. It was just like this funny, silly thing I would say. And like a lot of things, those things just seem to work themselves into the show. It’s funny that it’s kinda become his catchphrase – but it works! It’s fun to say!
JM: Yeah. Even after one episode… it is a catchphrase. I think it’s gonna stay for quite a while. Now with this storyline, Shane, about an outsider family coming into the big city, what appealed to you?
SH: Well this is something that I think a lot of people have experienced. Chris and I grew up in a small farm town in Michigan, and then eventually – after college – moved to a big city: Los Angeles. And we were hit with a bit of a culture shock. It was different, not bad, just different. The people had a different vibe about them.
Coming into a new city after moving away from home, you’re on this quest to look for your new home. And what does that mean, and who is that with, and where are you? And those are some big questions. After we moved to Los Angeles, we talked to a lot of people and so many people haven’t grown-up here, they’ve moved here. So it seemed like this very relatable experience, and we took that – along with a lot of people we knew back in the country (farmers, neighbors, family members) and kind of rolled all that together to make this show, “Big City Greens”.
JM: And now, is it true – I heard a rumor – that Grandma Alice on the show is based on your real Grandma Alice?
CH: Yes, this is true.
SH: Grandma Alice – she was a sweet and sour old lady. She would just as quickly yell and scream at you as she would slip you five dollars and say, “Here, put this in your pocket.” She was so wonderful. She lived with us for a couple years at the end of her life – moved in with our parents. So Chris, especially, had a lot of time in college: he’d go back home and she was hanging out.
CH: She was just so fun… from such a different generation and lived through so much and had a real tough life that she really fought through that was really inspiring and… we gave her this personality, like Shane said, just feisty but also so sweet and fun. Grandma Alice on the show is a lot like her, and of course has kind of developed into her own character.
JM: Grandmas are just the best. But when you watch this first episode, you’re gonna see Grandma Alice with a sword. Did the real Grandma Alice have a sword right next to her chair?
CH: Okay, listen, there’s some creatives liberties there.
SH: I’d say Grandma had something worse. She had her own bare hands. (laugh)
CH: She didn’t have a sword.
SH: But I bet she wished she did.
CH: If you had given her that idea, maybe she would’ve gone out and acquired one.
JM: The first episode is called “Space Chicken”. When you decided to get this series started – to kick things off – how did you decide on going with a space chicken plotline?
CH: That was Shane’s idea. Whenever Shane and I are working on our comic book series, Shane’s always very good at thinking of big, fun ideas that you just wanna see. And as soon as he said, “What if Cricket launched a chicken into space?”, I was like, “Yeah. Totally.” That’s not only our Pilot story, but that says a lot about Cricket and… how his brain works and where his head’s at.
SH: I think introducing all of the key members of the series in one episode – it’s a tall order. It’s an ensemble show; there’s a lot of characters. And you want to have a story that can try and highlight each character and what makes them unique and special. And this one follows Cricket and his goal. Tilly [his sister] is right alongside him as his partner in crime. We get to see Bill, his dad, being a worried, overwhelmed single father. And then they bump into Grandma, who is just this terror… until she says “Come here and give me a kiss.”
JM: No pun intended, or maybe the pun’s intended, but it is quite a launch for your series to have this episode.
(Both Chris and Shane laugh.)
JM: And the next part of the episode is called “Steak Night”. Is there a food, like a steak, that you cannot live without?
CH: Oh my gosh. Well, we talked a lot about family traditions for the episode “Steak Night”. And it seems like in every family there’s always some kind of holy grail – a meal or a certain dish that everyone can’t live without. In our family, it was always our other Grandma, on the other side of the family, would make these homemade noodles. And that was it.
SH: They’re German butter noodles.
CH: Oh my God.
SH: And that’s all it was. It was just noodles and butter – and some fried breadcrumbs. And that was the family tradition every holiday. We’d get so excited to go over to Grandma’s house and have Grandma’s noodles.
CH: For the Greens, it’s steaks.
JM: Those noodles sound good. And have you ever had any weird experiences in the subway system, because that’s what this episode is about as well: quite an adventure with rats and bomb threats.
CH: What is that a trick question? (laugh)
SH: Have you ever ridden on a subway? Honestly, so in Los Angeles… we had a period, both Chris and I, where we were taking public transportation – either the bus or the subway and…
CH: It’s an adventure, man!
SH: Every day – there’s some characters.
JM: But don’t you just love that – that the people you see everyday can inspire the characters you put into your TV shows – random people, people you’ve known forever?
SH: That’s our bread and butter.
CH: With this show, we’ve never wanted to say, “The country is better because of this” or “The city is better because of this.” There’s so many aspects of living in both areas that we love. I think the thing I love the most about living in the city is the… different characters and the fun, weirdness you get of putting a bunch of different people together in a close space. I mean, that’s what a city is as the broad strokes of it all. And we love that.
JM: And you have a lot of big guest stars this season, including Jon Hamm. Is he going to be voicing a “mad man”?
CH: He is indeed.
SH: I think that’s the best way to describe it.
CH: The only way he said Yes! No – he was great. He came in to guest star on an episode that will be coming down the pike a little later, and I think fans of the show will really like it.
SH: It’s a really funny performance. He did an amazing job. It’s gonna be a great episode.
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