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You must be living under a rock if you haven't heard that Season 4 of the DreamWorks animated series The Croods: Family Tree is releasing this week. Catch up with DreamWorks' favorite prehistoric family as they continue their wild adventure through the "Croodaceous Period". After the success of the previous three seasons, two movies, and one 2D series, Season 4 of The Croods: Family Tree is sure to rock viewers back to the Stone Age with thrills, laughs, and fun. Here's everything we know about the new season.
Watch The Croods: Family Tree Season 4 Trailer
The trailer for The Croods: Family Tree Season 4 was released in August 2022, just in time for the season premiere. Check it out in the player above.
When Is The Croods: Family Tree Season 4 Releasing?
The release date of The Croods: Family Tree comes as a pleasant surprise for many fans. Although Season 3 premiered fairly recently on June 2, 2022, showrunners were apparently ready for a quick turnaround. Season 4 of The Croods: Family Tree will be released on Hulu and Peacock streaming services on August 31, 2022. Fans of the series can use the time between now and the release of Season 4 to stream the films, watch the prequel series The Croods: Dawn of the Croods, and catch up on the first three seasons of The Croods: Family Tree before Season 4 drops. The new season will consist of seven episodes, just like the first three seasons, with all episodes releasing on the same day.
Who Is in the Cast of The Croods: Family Tree Season 4?
The Croods: Family Tree offers a unique cast of voice actors to the series. Although some like A.J. Locascio as Thunk and Kelly Marie Tran as Dawn Betterman are familiar, others are newcomers to their roles. The rest of the cast list for the season includes Kiff VandenHeuvel as Grug Crood; Ally Dixon as Eep Crood; Darin Brooks as Guy; Amy Landecker as Ugga Crood; Artemis Pebdani as Gran Crood; Dee Bradley Baker as Sandy, Belt, and Sash; Matthew Waterson as Phil Betterman; and Amy Rosoff as Hope Betterman.
What Is the Background of The Croods: Family Tree?
The Croods: Family Tree has seen quick success and is part of a longer lineage of both television and film entries. The franchise started off in 2013 with the theatrical release of the children's animated film The Croods. The film was set in a fictional prehistoric era known as “The Croodaceous Period.” It is much like prehistoric eras that we are familiar with but contains several fictional creatures, as well as many reimaginings or fictional portmanteaus of creatures that we are familiar with. At this juncture of time live the Croods. They consist of patriarch and “Leader of the Hunt” Grug (Nicolas Cage), his mate Ugga (Catherine Keener), teenage daughter Eep (Emma Stone), son Thunk (Clark Duke), and the feisty Gran (Cloris Leachman). They are content with their lifestyle, gathering food in a classic hunter-gatherer system and spending nights huddled together in a cave. Their lifestyle and worldview are interrupted with the arrival of Guy (Ryan Reynolds). Guy brings with him a more evolved way of operating, is quick to introduce new inventions, and challenges the status quo of how things are done. More importantly, he brings with him a warning about impending doom and destruction, which causes the family to embark on a wild adventure in search of a new home.
The sequel to the original film, The Croods: A New Age, debuted in 2020. This film brought back much of the original cast while adding new ones including Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones), Leslie Mann (This is 40), and Kelly Marie Tran (Raya and the Last Dragon). The sequel saw the Croods family encountering a more advanced tribe, the Bettermans. After several ideological clashes occur between the Croods and the more technologically advanced Bettermans, the two tribes must band together to defeat the pestering “Punch Monkeys'' who have been tormenting them. Eventually, the film concludes with the Croods and the Bettermans finding peace and coexisting with the Punch Monkeys as neighbors.
The first of two television series, Dawn of the Croods premiered in December 2015. Unlike its film counterpart, Dawn of the Croods was a 2D-animated television series. The series was a prequel series to the 2013 film and takes place before the film's events. Released on Netflix, it ran for 52 episodes until its fourth and final season in 2017. It featured a voice cast of Dan Milano (Glitch Techs) as Grug, Cree Summer (Rugrats) as Ugga, Stephanie Lemelin (Young Justice) as Eep, A. J. Locascio (Voltron: Legendary Defender) as Thunk, Grey Griffin (Rugrats) as Sandy, and Laraine Newman (Saturday Night Live!) as Gran. The show generally expanded the world of the original film, exploring some creatures of the Croodaceous period and the Croods’ interactions with their world before their cinematic adventure.
Finally, The Croods: Family Tree is the second television series based in The Croods universe. It is a 3D-animated series that takes place after the events of the 2020 film, The Croods: A New Age. The series was released on September 23, 2021, with a second season premiering on April 5, 2022, and a third season premiering on June 2, 2022. The Croods: Family Tree follows the branching cast of characters comprised of Croods and Bettermans. Mark Banker (Adventure Time) and Todd Grimes (The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants) serve as executive producers and showrunners for the series. Mikros Animation animate the series under Technicolor Animation Productions with DreamWorks Animation Television programs.
What Is the Plot of The Croods: Family Tree Season 4?
Although we don’t have concrete information about Season 4 of The Croods: Family Tree, we do know about some events of Season 3 that might inform the action of the upcoming season. Season 3 started with the men of the farm embarking on initiation rituals in their attempt to join the highly exclusive tribe of women, the Thunder Sisters. The final episode saw Eep and Dawn happening upon a mysterious egg of unknown origin. When they decided to keep it they soon found that this wasn't just any egg, and raced to find a way to return it from whence it came before it started to become a bigger problem. If Season 4 is similar to its predecessor, we can expect to see the Croods and the Bettermans continue to occupy the same space as they learn to live together as one.
Here are the episode titles and synopses:
Season 4 Episode 1: "The Big Shine"
When Grug overhears Thunk accidentally calling Phil "Dad," he tries to reconnect with Thunk by taking him to the natural spectacle known as "Big Shine."
Season 4 Episode 2: "Ball-In-Cup"
When Phil invents a new game called ball-in-cup, everyone except Hope can't stop playing; just as Hope thinks she's rid the farm of the game, she finds herself addicted.
Season 4 Episode 3: "Growing Paints"
When Grug thinks his forehead looks too big in Ugga's family portrait, she strives to make the painting disappear.
Season 4 Episode 4: "Cave New World"
When the adults exclude the kids from their adult-only cave, the kids make their own much cooler cave, making the adults want to switch.
Season 4 Episode 5: "Thunk Tank"
When a freak lightning strike turns Thunk into a genius, Phil is thrilled to have someone like-minded on the farm -- until the residents start asking Thunk for help with problems instead of him.
Season 4 Episode 6: "Home Punch Home"
Tired of the farm's feud with the neighbouring punch monkeys, Ugga arranges a peacemaking summit where the Bettermans and Croods will stay in the punch monkey village to learn how to get along.
Season 4 Episode 7: "Goodbye Crood World"
When Phil detects a meteor hurtling towards the farm, the Bettermans and Croods must decide how to spend their last day on Earth.