Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Harvey Street Kids’ On Netflix, Where Three Girls Are The Guardians Of Their Neighborhood

DreamWorks Animation has been doing a great job making kids’ shows for streaming, as we saw earlier this year with the reboot of Rocky & Bullwinkle. Now they reach back to more of animation’s past with Harvey Street Kids, modern interpretations of Harvey Comics. Can these girls become as beloved as Casper the Friendly Ghost?

HARVEY STREET KIDS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A group of angry raccoons surround an ice cream truck with a flat tire on a cul-de-sac. The kids want their ice cream, but can’t get past the raccoons. Then, three girls fly in, defeat the raccoons, fix the tire, and get the kids their ice cream.

The Gist: The girls are the Harvey Street Kids — the high-strung, but athletic and determined Audrey (Stephanie Lemelin); smart and resourceful Dot (Kelly McCreary) and the large but sensitive dance fan Lotta (Lauren Lapkus) — and, while the show’s intro says they “run the block,” they’re there to protect their fellow kids and help them be kind to each other.

Case in point: The first of the two segments in the first episode involves the girls trying to get Tiny (Danny Pudi) into the treehouse of the up-to-no-good Bloogey Boys, despite the fact that they’re keeping him out because of his size. One of the issues, though, is that Audrey has a grudge she has a score to settle with Melvin (Atticus Shaffer), who called her a “butt sandwich” on the playground. So how does she get Tiny into the clubhouse without making it all about herself?

In the second episode, the girls go to The Trading Tree to trade for some fantasy action figures. The Trading Tree ecosystem has been held together by The Elder (Roger Craig Smith) — who’s one year older than everyone else — through the ethos of “No Backsies, No Living Thingsies, and No Fakesies.” They find out the Bloogeys have them and want to blow them up. Out of desperation, the girls trade a fake item and throw everything into chaos. How do they bring order back to the tree?

Our Take: Harvey Street Kids comes from DreamWorks Animation, who has been doing a great job of producing cartoons with a smart sensibility, well-defined characters, great animation, and diverse perspectives. This show, from Aliki Theofilopoulos (Phineas and Ferb) and Brendan Hay (Robot Chicken) has all of this.

The girls are all strong in their own way, without pointing out the fact that they’re girls. They’re just kids who are confident in their abilities, who have flaws, but really want to make sure all the kids on Harvey Street are nice to each other. We especially like Lapkus as Lotta, who loves to dance and is most interested in everyone being friends. She even gives the Bloogey Boys the benefit of the doubt. But most of the time, she’d rather use her soft skills than her brawn to make her point.

Like most 21st century kids’ cartoons, Harvey Street Kids have jokes and references that are aimed more at adults than kids. For instance, Audrey bemoaning Tiny’s limp, soaked body after the Bloogeys pelted him with spitballs, making a speech that’s straight out of every war move ever made. The characters themselves are designed with an homage to the Harvey Comics series that included Casper and Richie Rich, and parents (well, mostly grandparents) will recognize the characters as 21st century interpretations of ones they followed as kids.

What Age Group Is This For?: The action and themes of girl power and helping each other are suitable for all ages, as are the 11-minute segments. If your 3-year-old is watching a show like Vampirina, then Harvey Street Kids will be right up his or her alley. Will most of the jokes go over his/her heads? Sure. But every kid understands how funny a term like “butt sandwich” is.

Funniest Gag: It comes right at the end of the Trading Tree segment: Bloogey Boy Pink Eye (Smith) decides to keep the figurines the girls want, and when his gooey eye starts to drip on them, Audrey goes, “Yep, those belong to Pink right now.” At the same time, Tiny, blown away by a stiff breeze, floats around going, “I’m tallllllll!”

Our Call: Stream It. It’s funny for adults, funny for kids, and shows that you can be in charge and nice to each other at the same time.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch Harvey Street Kids on Netflix