I'll See You Tomorrow at the Creek
1000 words on Craig of the Creek.
There is nothing better than a creek, or a ravine, or a ravine with a creek in it.
Even before I started dedicated all of my Sundays to LARPing in a public park with a creek in a ravine, I knew that. There’s a sense of place and imagination that comes from a green space that, when you’re in it, creates an illusionary barrier between you and the city, or you and real life.
It comes from the presence of water, of open, flowing water, because you have trees, and grass, and bushes other places, and you can find imagination in those places too, but the presence of that running water is rare, and special; it becomes prop and setting all at once, a demarkation line between here and there, something to be crossed, something to be waded into, or damed up.
A creek, as a facet of tangible, physical reality, becomes the facilitator of imagination, and that is where Craig of Creek lives.
Craig of the Creek is an animated series than ran for 5 seasons on Cartoon Network, one full length movie, and one spin-off show for younger viewers, and tells a range of stories from stand alone kid adventures in the creek, to family encounters, to continuous, overarching plots touching on the lore and mythology of a creek in the Maryland suburbs that kids have been playing in since the 70s.
A few weeks ago Craig of the Creek ended, a victim of David Zaslav, head of HBO-Discovery-Turner, and his post merger cuts. He’s the same guy responsible for shelving almost completed movies in favor of taking them as tax/insurance write offs, and cancelling tons of other shows, withy an emphasis on animation.
But, while the creator said the show could have gone on longer, they still had time to wrap up all the big stories, and got to end on, if not their terms initially, made the terms of their end work for them.
The ten minute finale, a victory lap of kids having fun, was a perfect ending to a wonderful, and thoughtful show, with its final moments being simple and profoundly beautiful, the recognition that tomorrow is going to come, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make today last just a little bit longer.
In every episode, most of which are 10-12 minutes long (with the occasional 20 minuter), the kids engage with something about being a kid, be it the joy of exploration, the realities of growing up, or the power of imagination, and sometimes all three at once, or other topics not listed above.
In every episode there is at least a touch of the magical realism that informs childhood, and since this is a cartoon, the magic is real, because the act of make believe is real, and the kids all adhere to it, be it “the ground is lava” or “oh no, we’re stuck in invisible handcuffs”, and this enhances the stakes and danger of what are usually safe, play activities, where even as things escalate to have higher stakes (because there are stakes in play, there are consequences in imagination and in joy) and physical conflict, the act of play is how these conflicts, well… play out, with bullying and physical violence, ones free of abstraction and outside of the scope of benign violations that define simulated violence as play, being held with proper consideration as unacceptable acts.
I bring this up, because I’m trying to sell you on watching this show with your kids (it’s all on Hulu), because I know my audience, and if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you and your kids will both love it.
You see, Craig of the Creek is pretty exclusively about weird kids, about every kind of weird kid there is. It’s a show about weird kids, kids with different families lives and backgrounds, and different weird kid special interests and identities, ranging from horse girls to paintball army kids to a kid who wants to be a troll and tell riddles on a bridge.
And when I say weird kid, I mean kids who are not depicted as playing team sports (how could they, they’d be at practice instead of at a creek) and having a nuclear family (those kids can be weird as hell too, we all know this). Asa result, it is a diverse show, one that has complex, nuanced, and honest depictions of all of those different weird kids, and any kid that gets introduced is treated as being a whole person, and if they have enough screen time, more than simply their weird kid special interest.
It is an accomplishment for a show to be both gentle and exciting, and it is no mean feat to be as ambitious as the show was, especially existing in ten minute intervals. And, like the best kids content, it is also serious and whimsical, while also being filled with pop culture references for kids, adults, and deep cuts for animation nerds.
I loved this show, and after it ended I started a limited re-watch where I’m generally skipping the family episodes and watching the kid adventures in the creek ones exclusively… but even those “boring to me” family episodes are also full of solid writing, solid jokes, and great animation.
Watch it with your kids, or if you’re an animation nerd or if you want to remember what childhood can feel like, watch it by yourself.
