Green Christmas/Trivia

General[]

• Morals:
  • What's best about Christmas is spending it with those you love.
  • It's always important to be nice the entire year before Chirstmas.
  • You have no one to blame for your mistakes but yourself.
  • Sometimes the best present doesn't come from a box.
• This marks the first 22-minute special in Season 2.
• This is the fourth holiday themed episode overall.
  • The other three were "Blood Moon", "Big Deal", and “Valentine's Dance” from Season 1.
• This is the first special that is musical-themed.
• This episode first premiered in Southeast Asia; this episode is the first episode to air overseas prior to its United States air date.
• Raven Symoné from That’s So Raven and Raven's Home and Christopher Lloyd from the Back to the Future franchise are guest stars in this episode.
• Cricket “stabs” a snowman with a candy cane during "If I Can't Have Christmas" and tinsel comes out. This is a stand-in for showing blood.
  • Technically, snowmen do not have blood, as they are made of snow.
• The presents the Greens receive, in order, are:
  • Tilly: Various unknown gifts, a model rocket, an animatronic pet
  • Nancy: Unknown
  • Gramma: Unknown
  • Bill: The statue Nancy and Gramma made
  • Cricket: Various unknown gifts, a soccer ball, to have Tilly back on the nice list
• This is the first episode to not play the theme song.
• This is the fourth time Cricket wears shoes, the first time in "Photo Op", the second time in "Blood Moon", and the third time in "Mansion Madness".
• During Cricket's recollection of bad deeds, flashbacks/stock footage from "Steak Night", "Parade Day", "Rated Cricket" and "Blue Tater" are shown.
• The boots Cricket and Tilly wear with their winter clothes match the color scheme of their opposite owner.
• Throughout the episode, the falling snow is meant to reflect Cricket's mood:
  • In the beginning it is snowing, then when Cricket appears through the chimney the snow stops.
  • It is snowing again when Cricket begins the slow opening of "Good Deeds are Good Indeed", but when the music gets faster and Cricket thinks of presents, the snow stops again.
  • It starts to snow once again when Tilly is blamed for the mess, to reflect her sadness and Cricket is starting to fly off the handle.
  • The blizzard that follows represents Cricket's regret, and that he finally owns up to his mistake.
  • At the end of the episode, it is snowing once again, showing Cricket now understands the true meaning of Christmas and all is well.
• This is the first Season 2 episode to air on Disney XD.
• Unsurprisingly, Remy and Gloria have minor roles in this special. According to Chris Houghton, this was due to the episode focusing more on Cricket and Tilly and their perspectives at how they see the true meaning of Christmas and their opinions on such.^[1]
  • This is the first episode Remy and Cricket aren't seen together or interact
• This is the second episode to start with "Green" after "Green Streets".
• The real Santa's face is never actually shown, only being displayed from the mouth down.
  • However, his face is visible in the Chibi Tiny Tales short, "Christmas Crashers".
• This is the second time Cricket briefly becomes an antagonist after "Urban Legend".
• This is the first time Nancy Green appears with Maria Media.
• Unlike most of the series where the music is orchestrated digitally, the background music for this episode was recorded by a live orchestra at Capitol Records.
• This episode has a strong theme focusing on "selfish vs selfless":
  • Cricket claims the best part of Christmas is the presents, while Tilly says it's being kind to others. She even says in the opening number, "But holidays are best when folks don't think just of themselves."
  • Cricket's only reason to get on the nice list is for Santa to give him presents.
  • When a man in Hudkins struggles with loads of bags, Cricket dismisses him on behalf of the department store Santa, while Tilly helps him.
  • Cricket distracts Gloria to cut to the front of the line, and when he is called out by one of the kids he cut in front of, he just waves him off.
  • Cricket claims if he can't have presents, then no one else can; Tilly knows that's false and believes there's good in him.
• The fireplace has four stockings on it, red, yellow, purple and green, in that order. During the Christmas Day scene, the stockings are filled with gifts; while the green stocking did have them as told by the background art prior to animation, it was always covered up by someone's head or blocked off-camera. This stocking is probably Cricket's, and this trick was probably done on purpose to avoid spoiling the big surprise seconds later.
• Aside from bad deeds, Cricket has done a few good deeds in previous episodes, such as learning from Tilly to not believing everything he hears ("Blue Tater"), helping his friends stand up to the Cyber Knights ("Cyberbullies"), helping Gramma practice for her road test ("Gramma's License"), allowing Gloria to see the parade when he takes over for her ("Parade Day"), passing Snakey to Remy after learning how smart he is about snakes ("Cheap Snake"), protecting Gloria when she is threatened by skunks ("Skunked"), and convincing Remy that Itchaboi is not his friend and he'll truly be his any way ("Bad Influencer").
• This is the second appearance of Maria Media after "Breaking News".
• This is the first time Gloria has all her hair loose, not counting her fantasy sequence in "Critterball Crisis".
  • However, judging by her orientation, the way her hair falls behind her also resembles two pigtails; in addition, she was never once seen from behind, thus leaving her hairstyle ambiguous.
• Tilly has done very few naughty deeds according to her tally list; those may allude to accusing Gramma of destroying Saxon ("Axin' Saxon") and bringing all the shelter pets to the Green house and disturbing all the farm animals ("Volunteer Tilly").
• List of Cricket's good deeds:
  • Returning a gift an old lady dropped
  • Massaging Phyllis
  • Throwing away litter
  • Helping feed a dog on the sidewalk
  • Give a sweater to a freezing man
  • Re-inflate a boy's bike wheel
  • Save Benny from getting hit with an icicle
  • Wishing Tilly was back on the nice list
• List of Cricket's naughty pranks:
  • Trips a man over garland
  • Lets a man slip on an icy patch (Tilly helped him up)
  • Add hot sauce to peoples' hot cocoa and candy canes
  • Toss a wreath into a fire
  • Throw snowballs at the dodgeball emporium, one getting in a man's face and another breaking the valence, spilling snow
  • Alters a "Buy 1, Get 1 Free" sign to "Buy All Free"
  • Dents a soldier's hat with his toboggan
  • Spills chestnuts down someone's pants
  • Stabs some snowmen with tinselstring
  • Scares some children looking at the Toy Box window
  • Adds fish to peoples' stockings
  • Replace the Big City Christmas star with him mooning the city
• This is the second double-length episode where Officer Keys does not appear after "Blood Moon".
• When Cricket looks in the window of Toy Box during "No Christmas At All", his reflection is superimposed over a dragon figure. In Christianity, a dragon is a symbol of evil.

The Greens' photo booth picture (left) appears on their tree (right)

• When Bill hangs pictures of the family on the tree, the fifth picture (lower right) is the picture the family took in the photo booth in "Photo Op".
• This episode might take place after "Phoenix Rises" and "Uncaged" and before "Valentine's Dance", given that Bill mentions Nancy is back which happened recently.
• Cricket's struggles with his selfishness and wanting presents are aligned with the five stages of grief.
• Kiki's voice actress, Monica Ray, directed this episode.
• During "No Christmas At All", right when Cricket starts to sing "A Christmas without presents..." the hidden Easter egg of the episode can be seen under the toy train track in the window.
• It is unknown if Bill, Nancy or Gramma ever found out about the Hudkins disaster the night before.
  • Cricket lets it slip in the final song, which Bill overhears, but Cricket quickly covers it up.
• During the scene where the tree falls, it actually was Tilly's fault for knocking it over because she pulled the star off before Cricket, spun around the tree which caused its bolts to come loose, and land on its backside, making its weight heavy enough to tip over.
• Whenever this episode airs around Christmastime, the songs "The Best Part of Christmas" and the reprise, and "Good Deeds are Good Indeed" are played during commercial breaks.
• This episode aired on the same day as the Big Hero 6: The Series Christmas episode "The Present".
• This is Remy, Vasquez, & Nancy's final appearance in 2019.

Episode Continuity[]

• When Cricket looks at his list of bad deeds, flashbacks from "Steak Night", "Parade Day", "Rated Cricket" and "Blue Tater" are shown.
• Crickets Face in the Sun saying "Merry Christmas!" is similar in "Blood Moon" when Cricket Face in the Moon saying "Happy Halloween".
• The stand before the sign Cricket changes to "Buy All Free" is selling "Merry Cuda", a variation of Barry Cuda from the episode of the same name.
• The toy store Toy Box from "Uncaged" reappears during "No Christmas At All".
• Saxon is shown in his repaired state since Nancy repaired him after getting destroyed in "Axin' Saxon".
• The woman whose knees Tilly massages is Phyllis, the old woman she used to replace Gramma in "Park Pandemonium".
• The mailwoman Tilly scares is the same one Bill tried to invite to the Greens' barbecue in "Urban Legend".
• Gloria's crush Kevin is once again mentioned since "Blood Moon".
• This episode takes place a year before "Big Resolution" because of Big Coffee's existence, and it got shut down following "Chipwrecked" and "Chipocalypse Now".

Production Notes[]

Cricket's original Krampus look (left), which was removed in the final version (right).

• "If I Can't Have Christmas" was originally going to end with Cricket in a Krampus-styled costume. This costume change was taken out by the Houghtons due to it being too frightening for younger viewers.
  • Episode storyboardist Caldwell Tanner said on Twitter that it was a "very wise" decision.
• There was originally going to be a scene where Cricket pops out of a snowman and scares Benny, but the scene was cut, probably due to it being frightening for babies and toddlers.^[2]
• During exterior shots of the Green house, there is a freeze-frame that shows a time Cricket sled off the roof. This was playfully added in by Steve Lowtwait.^[3]
  • The same freeze-frame was seen in "Winter Greens".
• The last kid Cricket cuts in front of is a caricature of Caldwell Tanner.

References[]