General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Croods: Family Tree

The Croods: Family Tree is an American 3D-animated children's television series produced by DreamWorks Animation Television that continues the story of the 2020 feature film The Croods: A New Age. It follows the Crood and Betterman families, former rivals who join forces to run a shared farm, described in the show's own publicity as "the most amazing farm in the history of prehistory."¹ The series premiered on September 23, 2021 on Hulu and Peacock and ran through eight seasons until its final episode aired on November 9, 2023.²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Premise	After the events of The Croods: A New Age, the Croods and Bettermans build a cave-person co-op farm, turning "a tree house divided into a tree home united"¹
Premiere	September 23, 2021, with the first season dropping on Hulu and Peacock²^•⁴
Run	Eight seasons, 2021 to 2023; final episode "Caveheart Part II" aired November 9, 2023³^•⁵
Showrunners	Mark Banker (Adventure Time, The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants) and Todd Grimes (The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants)⁶
Animation	3D CG by Mikros Animation under Technicolor Animation Productions, with DreamWorks Animation Television⁶
Rating	TV-Y7; Common Sense Media suggests age 8 and up²
IMDb score	6.8/10 from about 3,800 user ratings⁷

Spoilers

Premise and place in the franchise

The series is the second television project based on DreamWorks Animation's Croods film franchise, after Netflix's 2D-animated Dawn of the Croods, which was a prequel to the first film.⁸ Family Tree instead picks up where The Croods: A New Age left off: the primitive Crood family now lives alongside the Bettermans, a rival family who claim to be better and more evolved, and the two households must learn to share a farm and a tree house.⁶^•⁹

The show's comedy comes from the families' differences. Episode-level conflicts include game nights in which Phil needs to win and Grug hates to lose, clashes between Hope and Ugga over family values, and a feud between the parents that threatens to separate the Croods and Bettermans until the children stage a grand spectacle to keep everyone together.¹⁰^•¹¹ Recurring storylines follow Eep's friendship with Dawn Betterman, her first best friend, and her romance with Guy.¹²

Production

Mark Banker and Todd Grimes served as executive producers and showrunners, and the series was animated by Mikros Animation under Technicolor Animation Productions in partnership with DreamWorks Animation Television.⁶ Production took about two years before the premiere, and the crew built the show remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.¹²^•¹³ Unlike the 2D look of Dawn of the Croods, Family Tree uses 3D CG intended to give viewers the sensation of watching extended scenes from the film.¹² Executive producer Mark Banker has noted that the franchise's "croodaceous era" populates its world with hybrid animals combining existing species.¹⁴

The films featured celebrity voice actors, and most principal roles were recast for the series; Kelly Marie Tran reprised Dawn, and Dee Bradley Baker returned as Sandy from The Croods: A New Age.¹¹ Kiff VandenHeuvel voices Grug Crood, Amy Landecker voices Ugga, Ally Dixon voices Eep, A.J. LoCascio voices Thunk, Artemis Pebdani voices Gran, Dee Bradley Baker voices Sandy, and Darin Brooks voices Guy; the Bettermans are voiced by Matthew Waterson (Phil), Amy Rosoff (Hope), and Kelly Marie Tran (Dawn).¹⁵^•¹¹

Release and episodes

The first season premiered on September 23, 2021 on Hulu and Peacock.⁴ New seasons followed at a steady pace: season 2 premiered April 5, 2022, and season 3 on June 2, 2022.⁶ Season 4 arrived in August 2022, and season 5 in November 2022.¹⁶^•¹⁷ The series ultimately reached eight seasons. Streaming listings break the run down as 13 episodes in season 1, then 7, 6, 7, 7, 7, 6, and 7 episodes in seasons 2 through 8,⁵ while the episode guide at epguides counts 52 episodes in total and lists the end date as November 2023.¹⁵ The final episode, "Caveheart Part II" (8x07), aired November 9, 2023, with a story in which Hwam returns with news of a utopian cave community and reopens the argument between the two families.³

Beyond the United States, the series was carried internationally through distribution deals, including a Viaplay partnership that secured DreamWorks titles such as The Croods: Family Tree, Dragons: The Nine Realms, and TrollsTopia for Nordic audiences starting in spring 2022.¹⁸

Reception

Audience scores were moderate. IMDb users gave the series 6.8/10 across roughly 3,800 ratings, with individual episodes generally scoring between 7.5 and 9.2.⁷ Critics were cooler: Common Sense Media's review rated the show 2 out of 5, calling it a spin-off whose storylines rely on extended adventure scenes with limited character development, while noting that children who enjoy the franchise's prehistoric world will like its fantastical animals and colorful settings.² The same review flags slapstick fantasy violence throughout and a teenage romance between Eep and Guy as the content parents are most likely to notice.²

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026