Wild Side/Trivia

General[]

• Moral: Do want makes you happy, no matter what others may think
• The scene of Cricket losing control and howling like a wolf is used in the promo for Disney Channel's commercial-free Saturday mornings since January 2020.
• The scenes with Nancy and Tilly in the tent were used in a Disney Channel short called Tilly's Takes.
• It's revealed Cricket gets an urge for the wilderness on one specific day every year, which can only be tamed if he is taken out on a camping trip in the forest. If failed, he becomes a ballistic wild child.
• Irony:
  • Bill could've just taken Cricket outside Big City to the woods as tradition.
  • Bill and Gramma should've called the police to find Cricket and catch him rather than try and catch him themselves.
• How each member gets manipulated to be feral:
  • Remy gets captured and held hostage by Cricket, who does a ritual by a fire. Cricket then inducts him into becoming feral by wearing face paint and howling at the moon.
  • Bill manages to catch Cricket, only to reveal he wants to be wild as well. Cricket then insists he do what makes him happy, and he starts crashing the play as well. He was probably entranced by their antics to crashing the play and only disguised his wish to be wild as catching them.
  • Tilly and Nancy were found by the others, and they soon party around the fire.
  • Gramma was the only one not manipulated. However, she went calmly wild on her own accord.
• The scene of Cricket catching a Splish can in his teeth and shaking it while snarling foreshadows his animalistic instincts for the episode.
• When Bill and Gramma see Cricket and Remy messing up Shakespeare in the Park, Bill appears to be mildly surprised, foreshadowing he wants to join them.

Character revelations[]

• This episode reveals Cricket has a feral wild side (called "the itch") that turns him into an animal once a year if Bill doesn't take him into the wild.
  • The episode also reveals Nancy has a bit of fear of being in small spaces (a.k.a. claustrophobia)
• Gramma was the only one who did not get affected by the itch or manipulated by Cricket.
  • Although neither does Tilly, Nancy, or obviously Bill, but decided to join in without any hesitation.
• Bill says Cricket was raised in a barn, implying he was born inside a barn, presumably the country.

Continuity[]

• This was the second time Cricket becomes an antagonist, following "Green Christmas".
• Cricket's yearly wild side may be a nod to the farm animals becoming zombies during a blood moon on Halloween in "Blood Moon".

Production[]

• The red car that appears behind Cricket as he is on the lamppost worshiping the moon is modelled after Steve Lowtwait's 1984 Porsche 944, which got destroyed in a car crash 11 months before the episode aired. ^[1]
• Cricket can be seen running through Times Circle, which was previously seen in "Welcome Home" and "Harvest Dinner".

References[]