#i gush about Craig of the Creek for significantly too many words

[ideasfromanotherapocalypse]

I have a soft spot for Monster in the Garden because it does a fantastic job at making Craig’s granddparents feel like people whose pasts inform their characters. Jojo Williams is a lifelong political activist who has become a city councillor, but still clearly has problems with the way the world is. Her husband Earl is a retired engineer who is frustrated by the way that old age is starting to stop him from doing the things he loves. Unlike a lot of cool grandparents in cartoons, this pair doesn’t feel like a bunch of stereotypes stapled together. It feels like real thought went into how their past has led them to where they are now and the challenges faced by retirees.

What I find especially impressive is that neither conflict is resolved by Craig, but that this doesn’t feel cheap. The anxieties Craig’s grandparents face aren’t the kind of things a kid can or should be expected to solve, but they are the kind of things they notice. By letting Craig’s story move on from them and focus on an issue he can fix (stopping whatever’s been breaking into his granddad’s vegetable patch) it both empowers him and models a functional family by showing that kids don’t need to solve all the adults issues for them. It’s an approach I’ve not seen much in kids shows, which often seem to depict kids as doing far more damage control than they should reasonably be expected to in real life.

#craig of the creek #craig williams #jojo williams #earl williams #i gush about Craig of the Creek for significantly too many words