After many years, multiple delays, and some accidental leaks, cult-favorite cartoon Bee and PuppyCat is available on Netflix. And that includes the long-awaited season 2.
But true to Bee and PuppyCat fashion, this Netflix release isn’t just a straightforward drop of new episodes. To fully understand what’s now on Netflix, one has to understand how Bee and PuppyCat got there.
The long history of Bee and PuppyCat
Image: Frederator Studios
Bee and PuppyCat started as a short web series by former Adventure Time character designer Natasha Allegri, with a single two-part episode posted on Frederator Digital’s YouTube channel Cartoon Hangover. It became so popular, that Frederator launched a Kickstarter campaign to produce a full web series. At the time, it was the most successful animation Kickstarter in history.
The show follows the adventures of a cheerful, chronically out of work twentysomething named Bee, who finds a strange hybrid puppy-cat creature that talks in mysterious chiming noises. PuppyCat brings Bee along on temp jobs in space, while Bee introduces PuppyCat to her friends in her small town. The episodes balance exciting space adventures and mundane-but-still-challenging Earth problems. The show is notable for being an adult animated show focusing on grown up characters that doesn’t rely on crass humor or mature content; it’s still approachable to younger audiences, but gives the characters a different set of challenges.
In 2014, the first four episodes of Bee and PuppyCat aired on YouTube, with the next six originally supposed to follow suit. But they ended up on digital aggregation platform VRV two years later. Many fans didn’t even realize new episodes were made. Eventually, in 2018 they ended up on YouTube again, where they still remain to this day.
However, the second season of the show, Bee and PuppyCat: Lazy in Space, was announced in 2017 with an eye toward a 2019, but faced delays as Frederator shopped the series around for a new streaming service. The studio eventually unveiled the first episode at the Ottawa International Animation Festival — and the full season accidentally leaked on Frederator founder Fred Seibert’s Vimeo channel in early 2020. They were, naturally, quickly taken down. And in October 2020, Frederator finally announced that Lazy in Space would come to Netflix in 2022.
So which episodes of Bee and Puppycat are on Netflix?
Image: Netflix
When the first trailer for Bee and PuppyCat: Lazy in Space came out, some fans were confused. Lots of the footage in the trailer appeared to be from the first season, though with slight differences. Was Lazy in Space just a reboot?
The answer is yes… and no.
The first three episodes on Netflix appear to be a revamp of the first season of the show. It’s not a straight up shot-for-shot remake, nor is it entirely new content. There are similar beats from the original first season (Bee gets fired and during a walk home in the rain, PuppyCat falls onto her umbrella), but with some expansion (Bee actually at the job she got fired from, while a literal fire happens).
The original episodes were only about 10 minutes each, so condensing them into three half-hour episodes makes sense. This way, the setup is still there — but with more exposition and some gorgeous updated animation. (The first season is still available on YouTube, if you want the OG).
Meanwhile, episodes four through 16 are the highly anticipated, much delayed season two — hurrah!
Bee and PuppyCat is FINALLY streaming on Netflix.