Craig Before the Creek

Craig Before the Creek (2023) is an animated feature you can watch online on iFILM. It's the prequel to Cartoon Network's hit series, rewinding to the days before Craig Williams ruled the Creek. Back then he was just the shy new kid in an unfamiliar town, wanting nothing more than to go home to the friends he left behind.

Then a rumor reaches him: a lost treasure is buried somewhere out by the creek, and it might be powerful enough to grant that wish. So Craig sets off after it, picking his way through backyards, gullies and overgrown suburban trails that feel like real wilderness when you're ten. Along the route he makes his first friends, sketches his first maps, and stays one step ahead of a band of kid-pirates who want the loot and wouldn't mind torching the Creek to get it. Philip Solomon, Noël Wells and Phil LaMarr lead the voice cast.

Directed by Matt Burnett and Ben Levin, the same pair behind the original show, the movie treats the Creek as a real place rather than a thin tie-in. It plays beautifully as family viewing: a treasure-map adventure for the kids, and a quietly tender story about moving away and feeling like an outsider for everyone else. Stream Craig Before the Creek (2023) online on iFILM.