If you’ve ever wondered how Craig first ventured into the creek, started exploring it and met his faithful companions, “Craig Before the Creek” answers these questions and then some. This original movie debuted on Digital last month but only recently made its TV debut on the Cartoon Network, the channel that also hosts the main Craig of the Creek series, as well as its pre-school spin-off, Jessica’s Big Little World. Written and directed by Matt Burnett and Ben Levin (creators of the original series), alongside Naija Porter, Craig Before the Creek serves as a satisfying prequel, introducing us to the main characters and setting up some of the plots for the series.
A young Craig Williams (voiced by Philip Solomon) is forced to move with his family to a new city and a new home, thus leaving his old friends behind. He’s not happy about any of this, while his siblings – older brother Bernard and younger sister Jessica – have mixed feelings, and their parents try to make the most of this situation. Moving during childhood is an experience many kids endure at least once (sometimes multiple times) in their childhoods, so it’s an excellent (and relatable) plot device for the movie.
While playing with Jessica in the playground, Craig accidentally tosses her favorite toy, Small Uncle, into the nearby creek. Trying to recover it, Craig starts exploring the area and runs across some of the other kids that live there, and their weird habits. All of these would be explored in more detail in the main series, so there’s not really anything new to be found here, but does make for a fun series of vignettes. The new characters introduced here are a crew of creek pirates, lead by Captain Serena (voiced by Vico Ortiz) who randomly attack and pillage the creek in their quest for a map leading to a “Wish Maker” devoce that is supposedly hidden in the area (in reality a paper fortune teller kids sometimes play with, which may or may not have actual magical powers!).
Craig manages to escape with help from Kelsey (voiced by Noel Wells), a young noble warrior who performs various tasks but at this point in her career, she asks to be paid with snacks for her services. She’s a bit more rugged and not as trusting or friendly as in the original series, which makes some sense, as its her friendship with Craig that changes her for the better. After Craig accidentally finds half of the map leading to the Wish Maker in his new house, he concocts a plan to find it and use it to wish himself back to his old home. Kelsey joins him on the quest, but they are soon captured by the pirates, and thus meet the third future member of their group, none other than J.P. (voiced by H. Michael Croner).
It was a pretty surprising idea to have J.P. opposing Craig and Kelsey for a while. He’s still kind of the same lovable goof viewers will come to know from the original series, though. While he’s part of the pirate crew, he doesn’t exactly fit in well with them and soon enough ends up helping and joining Craig on his quest. I liked the way these three rather different kids started bonding and built a friendship that would stand the test of time, as seen in future episodes of the show. While Craig still feels he needs his old friends back at this point in the story, the theme of change and starting new friendships still prevails.
Serena’s plot here kind of mirrors Craig’s for the most part, with her also wishing she had her old life back, but then it takes a more villainous turn as her wish being granted would also basically destroy everything in the creek. This leads to a big confrontation between the two, with some pretty surprising and creative scenes, thanks to the Wish Maker. Craig does manage to accept the changes in his life, and tries changing Serena’s mind as well. The scene is handled well and does get the message across, without it feeling like it is talking down to the audience or anything like that. Without spoiling anything, folks who have watched the main series will know things will work out for Craig and his friends.
Overall, the movie is a pretty entertaining prologue to the main series. It doesn’t exactly add anything new (other than maybe Serena) but does develop the main characters a bit more, and in hindsight adds a little more to their personalities. I also think the movie would be enjoyable for first time viewers, perhaps even getting them interested in checking out the show after seeing this. Craig of the Creek has been a pretty successful franchise for the Cartoon Network these last few years, with it being nominated for a few Emmy, GLAAD and Image Awards along the way. The show is currently in its fifth and final season, which unfortunately had its total number of episodes cut down compared to the previous seasons. There’s also a spin-off focusing on Craig’s younger sister Jessica, aimed at a much younger audience. It feels right for the franchise to have at least one feature length adventure before ending completely.
Recently, Vico Ortiz was nominated for an Annie Award in the “Best Voice Acting” category for the role of Serena, and the movie also earned another minor nomination, for “Best Storyboarding”. Craig Before the Creek is currently available for purchase on Digital from multiple sources. The movie also streams on MAX as of the time of this writing, and occasionally airs on the linear Cartoon Network channel, while a DVD release is planned for March of this year.
