Are You Ready For Nickelodeon's Pig Goat Banana Cricket?

There is always plenty of talk about Cartoon Network's oddball Adult Swim lineup, regardless if the shows are live action or animated...and whatever the hell "The Room" is. Avid cartooniphiles will tell you Nickelodeon still have plenty to offer in their post Nicktoons era that don't include green teens with ninja skills (though that show is consistently AMAZING). The last random Nick show I got hooked on was called "The Mighty B!", centered around a hyperactive young underdog who kicks ass at any cost. It was brilliant! Now comes the bastard child of "Ren and Stimpy" and those mind melting 1930's black and white cartoons. Prepare your body for PIG GOAT BANANA CRICKET!

Notable indie artists Dave Cooper (Futarama) and Johnny Ryan (MAD Magazine, DC Comics), who collaborated on comics for kids for Nickelodeon Magazine, serve as co-creators and co-executive producers, with Emmy and Golden Globe winner David Sacks (The Simpsons, 3rd Rock from the Sun) as executive producer. Produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studios in Burbank, Calif., the 26-episode half-hour series of absurd interwoven stories follows the eponymous characters Pig (the fool), Goat (the artist), Banana (the wise-guy) and Cricket (the brain), as four friends and roommates who live in a fantastical city where just about anything comes to life. Viewers can watch a sneak peek of Pig Goat Banana Cricket Thursday, July 16, at 9:30p.m. (ET/PT) immediately following the 2015 Kids’ Choice Sports Awards. The series will air episodes in its regular timeslot Saturdays at 10:30a.m. (ET/PT) and will roll out on Nickelodeon’s international channels beginning early 2016.

Pig Goat Banana Cricket is set in Boopelite City, a gigantic and whirring metropolis where many of the buildings look like archaic clockworks. The streets are constantly teeming with characters of intensely varied description, and the sidewalks are crammed with animals, robots, walking fruit, sea creatures, and more. The four roommates live in a treehouse, which sits in the middle of the city, surrounded by the forest, the seas and anywhere else the friends could possibly go.

PIG (Matt Jones) – Pig is very simple and naïve, yet optimistic and very trusting. Pig also loves pickles. Because he doesn’t have an official job, Pig mostly wanders around looking for fun.

GOAT (Candi Milo) – Goat is an artistic spirit and musician who has big dreams and is waiting for her big break. She is very sweet and nice in one moment, but in the next, she can be a raging maniac.

BANANA (Tom Wilson) – Banana likes pizza, tacos, video games, and in general doing nothing. He considers himself a master prankster, and although he has a lot of bluster and is big talk, is really just a big softy. Banana has a job as a Forest Ranger, but knows nothing about nature.

CRICKET (Paul Rugg) – Cricket’s thrill for experimenting trumps all, even though he doesn’t even know what will happen half the time. Sometimes Cricket uses his friends as guinea pigs…without telling them. Cricket also happens to have a secret crush on Goat.

This is how it began...



It seems some tweaking was done to the story line, the Mantis was turned into a friendlier Cricket and the designs were made more Dave Cooper-ish...and nowww...we have THIS!!!




Episode 1 is entitled “Pig Goat Banana Cricket High Five!”
Pig’s errand to go pickle shopping culminates in an unexpected friendship with a shopping cart and a wild pursuit across town by the merciless Shragger. All the while, Goat struggles to sing her catchy new song, and Banana’s job is on the line after he loses his entire troop of Junior Rangers again. Cricket’s beauty goo experiment beautifies the planet so well that a passing comet’s passionate kisses may just cause the end of the world.


Yes. It's as insane as it sounds, but not the lame kind of insanity we sometimes get from kid's cartoons where they think the key to making little ones laugh is making fart noises every three seconds. This show is genuinely funny with perfectly timed sound and sight gags, inanimate objects having their say and the characters themselves shining through. Goat and Cricket get the most laughs here as Goat's temper flares up causing her to spit forth a flurry of fake curses that had me inexplicably hysterical nearly every time and Cricket is just written and performed fantastically. I hope when this airs you get to see the closing credits (most shows these days cut them off or make them tiny while bombarding you with previews for what's next), as they are perfectly sweet and silly in equal parts. It just may be your favorite part of the show.

Episode 2 is called “Fudge-pocalypse”
Goat’s wish for a bubble made out of fudge, Cricket’s super genius inventing skills, and Pig’s desire to “help” with the science part result in an out-of-control fudge-bubble making machine that engulfs the world in gooey fudge bubbles. The four friends brave strange perils and rely on each other to survive the Fudge-pocalypse. Meanwhile, Banana gets kidnapped by pirates on the high fudgy seas.

The comedy in this episode is a little more subtle. I felt the episode on the whole was not as strong as the first, but it is still amazing the creators can take a one line premise and run with it for a half hour. At times, our title characters are together but when they separate (as seen in the pilot above), we visit each in turn for their piece of the story until they are reunited once more. This allows us to get a break from any one perspective and wonder when one set of actions will lead characters running head long into another, which I can see will provide a lot of fun for kids!

With beautiful art driving the flurry of improbable events that get weirder by the minute, starring characters heavily influenced by 1930's animation and the mind of legendary artist Dave Cooper, Pig Goat Banana Cricket is a unique masterpiece in a field of crazy cookie cutter comedy that dulls the mind and elicits groans more often than smiles. Upcoming episodes include:

“Prank Thy Neighbor”
The gang is thrilled that they are getting new neighbors, but their excitement soon sours when they meet the Hamshank family, who are rude, loud and messy. Banana sets out to put the Hamshanks in their place with a prank war. Hijinks ensue when Cricket has to find a cure after Goat gets infected by a baby Hamshank, while Pig falls in love with the youngest Hamshank daughter.
 
“The Chronicles of Cutesachusetts”
After a wild night, the tree house is a catastrophic mess so Pig, Goat, Banana and Cricket spin the chore wheel, and find that each are assigned a cleaning task that leads to a wild adventure. While scrubbing the toilet, Pig is sucked into the fantastical world of Cutesachusetts and finds himself in an epic battle. Goat has to overcome her fear of heights (and nickels) to fix the roof, Banana struggles with the simplest task ever -- putting away a jar of peanut butter, and Cricket designs the Suctronic 9000 Super Vac to get rid of a mold monster.
 
“Gauntlet of Humiliation”
Pig, Goat, Banana and Cricket each have their own adventure to replace their busted TV. Pig gets a job at Sky Burger, Goat enters a talent show, and Banana concocts a fragrance while Cricket invents a total immersion television show.
 
“Super Space Meatball”
A giant space meatball crashes on the treehouse and the gas inside transforms Pig, Goat, Banana and Cricket into superheroes. When some of Boopelite’s worst villains show up, the four friends band together as The Fart-Tastic 4 to save the city.

Tune in for the sneak peek of Pig Goat Banana Cricket Thursday, July 16, at 9:30p.m. (ET/PT)!