Cricket finds rare valuables after you sit through the nature documentary you never knew you wanted in this week’s episode of Big City Greens on Disney Channel.
Concrete Jungle
In easily one of my favorite episodes of the series, we take a different look at Big City and its inhabitants – in the style of a nature documentary focused on the “Concrete Jungle.”
Obviously, the “animal” family the documentary is focused on is The Greens, complete with Matriarch (Gramma), Adult (Bill), Cubs (Cricket and Tilly), and Bottom Dweller (Gloria).
Each family member gets a moment of the doc, starting with Gramma. She sees construction workers encroaching on her territory and begins to get dominant and protective, despite her old age. Though the workers are unphased at first, it’s after some gorilla-tactics that they get confused (and maybe a little threatened) and leave.
Then we focus on Cricket, who ventures into the jungle to meet a playmate (Remy) and after fun socialization, grow hungry and need to feed. Fortunately, food is provided thanks to a local food truck, which has caused a line of the other animals to line up. While the youth are pushed to the back, they eventually get their turn. But, growing adolescents swoop in and get the last scraps of food – turning Cricket and Remy into hunters. A chase begins, played out brilliantly, and the two boys are able to escape, with their lunch too.
Over at the watering hole (The Gloria + Green Cafe) the bottom dweller, Gloria, is doing what bottom dwellers do and cleaning up waste. However, she has some tricks up her sleeve as she dumpster dives looking for goods. It’s there that she makes a great find while she serves as a scavenger – a nice new pair of shoes. However, relishing her discovery in the dumpster puts her in a precarious position as the dumpster is picked up and lifted into the compacting truck.
Our brilliant documentary narrator shares that she must now decide between screaming for help, which will cause everyone to see her in the trash and lead to an untimely social death – or meet her literal end as she gets dumped into the machinery. Reluctantly, she chooses the former.
Tilly meanwhile has the easiest task at hand, trying to get across the street in the city, to a point where she has to use mimicry skills to turn into something that will distract the drivers and get them to stop. Fortunately, a nearby inflatable man prop provides the perfect inspiration that leads to success.
And finally, Bill has quite the journey ahead. He was treated at the farmer’s market to a nice crop of fresh eggs that he could use as a gift to surprise his family with a nice dinner. Eggs are dangerously fragile. Fortunately, he has the Kludge to get them home safely— oh wait it won’t start. Bill must now trek underground…to the subway.
It’s aboard the bumpy train that the eggs are put in a dangerous situation, coming close to falling out of his hands and breaking. However, there is another threat aboard the train. A nearby gym-goer who has run out of his shake and desperately needs some protein – which eggs are great supply of.
Sensing the eggs are nearby, the gym guy challenges Bill, who protects the eggs from him as best he can before the are destroyed or stolen. How does he do this? He tucks the eggs into his soft belly, and rolls around like a ball on the subway to evade the predator.
The documentary leaves us asking why – why do people live in this kind of chaos in the concrete jungle? Well according to the doc, to return and spend time with their loving family, of course!
Starter Pack
Cricket is chilling with Remy when Remy needs help getting down a special binder that Vasquez moved to the top shelf while cleaning. He can’t get it down now – he’s on his five minute break – so Cricket climbs up and discovers Remy’s fascination with Galaxu, a Japanese collector’s card game.
Cricket has never heard of this before, and in turn gets a lesson from his friend – who takes him down into his secret Galaxu vault hidden under his bed. Remember, Remy is very rich, and as such, this vault is very very real.
Remy shows off a nearly complete collection, save for a card featuring “Starmadillo,” the rarest of Galaxu cards. But today is the day that Vasquez takes him to the local gaming store where he can get his hands on more packs.
Cricket joins the fun, and goes along and buys his first starter pack, while Remy cleans out every other starter and booster pack in the store. After years of searching, Remy still has not found the Starmadillo, but someone else has in his very first pack. Cricket.
At the store, a small crowd has gathered as Cricket plays with the card like a literal toy, fighting it with other cards leading to the gasping and horror of the other collectors.
Remy knows he must protect the card, and even sees the character coming to life and telling him that the card belongs with him.
They leave and head back to the Greens home where Remy is trying to figure out how to get the card from Cricket without ruining the friendship. It’s when they’re watching the Galaxu cartoon that he comes up with the perfect plan because a strikingly similar situation was playing out on screen. He needs to duplicate the card and switch it out with Cricket’s card.
Fortunately, Remy knows an artist and she just happens to be right downstairs – so he goes to recruit Gloria to duplicate the card with her artistic skills. Whippin’ up the copy real quick, Remy rushes back upstairs and replaces the card he took on the couch next to Cricket. Immediately, Cricket notices that it’s a fake. How? The soft brush strokes and defined lines are Gloria’s artistic style. Nearby, Gloria is flattered but Remy now has to explain himself. Why did he steal the card? Especially because he already has the original in a protective case in his back pocket.
Remy comes clean and anger ensues from both parties. Now, Remy is taking the card through force, which means Vasquez will get it from him. Cricket however, plays his Gramma card and cries for help that people are stealing things from him.
It’s a pocket monster-style duel now between Gramma and Vasquez as they tear through the house. With special moves and skills that Remy and Cricket are reminding them of or powering them up with, the house is nearly destroyed when Cricket’s macaroni-framed copy of his and Remy’s first fishing trip together comes crashing down. Remy picks it up and remembers (via flashback) when they went fishing, Remy caught a bigger fish on his first try than Cricket has caught in his entire life.
Noticing the similarity between the two situations, Remy rushes to stop Vasquez and apologizes to Cricket while encouraging him to keep the card, with Cricket realizing that maybe he should at least put it in the protective case.
Gloria, riding her ego boost from earlier, paints a portrait of Remy and Cricket alongside a beaten and tattered Vasquez and Gramma, which now occupies the space reserved for the Starmadillo card in Remy’s vault.
You can catch this episode of Big City Greens on Disney Channel and the DisneyNOW app. You can also catch up with earlier episodes and prior seasons streaming now on Disney+.