Bee & Puppycat Full Series Review

This is probably perhaps my longest review of a series ever, and it took me quite a while to write it down, because I had so many thoughts of it that keeps coming out left and right. I also did an awful lot of editing to keep things organized, and with my very little spare time, that's quite a lot. But it's finally done and I'm laying it out there. And before I continue, this will contain spoilers, so if you want none of that, do not proceed beyond this point.

Some of you may know this already, but I have a biased negative opinion regarding Bee & Puppycat, the 5-6 minute 10-episode mini-series from Frederator Studios (now known as Wow! Unlimited) and created by Natasha Allegri. The series ran from 2013 to 2016. So that's 3 years for roughly an hour of animated content in total that costs nearly $900,000, from the same studio behind Adventure Time and The Fairly Oddparents. I don't know about you, but I find that an hour of content over 3 years is a very, very bad deal. If this were done by single animator or a really small staff, I'd get it. But this is Frederator Studios. They're not be as big as Disney's Animation Studios, for example. But they aren't exactly a really small production company, either.

Honestly, I don't give a damn on Bee & Puppycat anymore because of the incredibly long production time, of which I do not have the patience to wait that long, and move on. But after the last episodes are finally released through Kickstarter backers, and later on the VRV app, I want to put the nail in the coffin as to how much I absolutely hate this series, and be done with it for good. But before I give my all-out rant, a look back at how it came to this.

Natasha Allegri was a former storyboarder for Adventure Time in the early seasons, and is credited as the creator of the characters Fiona & Cake, the gender-bent version of Finn & Jake from Adventure Time. In fact, Fiona & Cake's first appearance in Adventure Time was the most watched episode in the show's history, before being toppled by the two-part Season 5 premiere. This is in spite of the fact that leaks of the episode came out prior to the broadcast release.

In 2012, Frederator Studios launched the Cartoon Hangover channel on Youtube to show off some of the series of shorts from their staff. One of the shorts that became a hit with the channel was Bravest Warriors by Pendelton Ward, the creator of Adventure Time. Despite its success, Bravest Warriors was met with a series of problems, but that is another story.

Later, Natasha Allegri's pilot for Bee & Puppycat was released. It's about a woman in her 20s who, after losing her job, befriends Puppycat - a creature who, as the name suggests, is a cross between a puppy and a cat. The duo then go on a series of misadventures as temp workers taking odd jobs across the universe. The pilot also had a bit of lore with Puppycat's short backstory, being once a human and an outlaw cursed to becoming Puppycat, after his fling with the Space Princess turned south.

Looking back, I would desribe the Bee & Puppycat pilot as "the Steven Universe before Steven Universe". The pilot for Steven Universe actually went online around 2 weeks after the Bee & Puppycat pilot. Bee & Puppycat was such a hit among viewers and critics that a Kickstarter campaign was formed to fund additional episodes. They managed get close to $900,000 for 8 episodes when the campaign ended on October 15, 2013. They decided to stretch it to 10 episodes, later on.

On November 6, 2014, just well a bit over a year after the Kickstarter ended, the first two episodes of the Bee & Puppycat series premiered on Cartoon Hangover, with the next two episodes coming out the following month. This is when things get pretty bad.

Now I made a first impressions review of the first 4 episodes back in 2014. The short version is everything that made the original pilot great was tossed aside and replaced with a virtually different product. Changes in character design, changes in animation, changes in the tone and writing, etc. All of this at the behest of Natasha Allegri herself, saying she really wasn't satisfied with the way the original pilot turned out, and thus made these changes. Defenders of Bee & Puppycat would probably say the changes are no different than in the case of Steven Universe when it first aired on Cartoon Network. I agree that the end product of Steven Universe differs greatly from the pilot, and in turns out for the better. We've seen these with many pilots for popular shows like Gravity Falls and Adventure Time. But in my opinion, the changes for Bee & Puppycat ended up being the opposite of its intended result. Allegri should've retained everything that made the pilot great instead of doing these changes.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it.", so the saying goes.

And then came the waiting. If you're a Kickstarter backer, you'd have to wait until August of 2015 for episodes 5 and 6 to come out. For non-backers, 5 & 6 won't come out until November of 2016. That's a solid 1-2 years for roughly 10 minutes of animation! And there's still 4 episodes to go! Does Frederator expect the Bee & Puppycat viewers to still be excited for the remaining 4 episodes after waiting this long? Apparently, Frederator believes so, as the final four episodes of "Season 1", according to them, finally went available to Kickstarter members in November of 2016, while non-backers can watch it on Cartoon Hangover's new premium channel on the VRV app. A general release is planned sometime in 2017.

By comparison, it takes 9 months to complete an 11-minute episode of Adventure Time, according to Pendleton Ward in an inverview at the A.V. Club. However, that production time is due mainly to the Adventure Time staff making several episodes at once. Otherwise, the time it takes to make an episode would've been much shorter. 6-9 months is also the standard timeframe to produce one Anime season in Japan.

What I'm saying is it takes a lot of time and effort to produce an animated work. And I should know, as I've done a few myself with the fan-made Kunio-kun series and even with pre-made sprites and Flash, it's still time consuming. That said, proper management of time and resources, a diligent staff, and a good direction of the production overall, will result in an incredible piece of animation that is well worth the wait. It took Studio TRIGGER 2 years and around $600,000 to complete their 2nd film of Little Witch Academia, to so much praise from viewers and critics alike, that a TV series is already planned for a 2017 release. That same dedication and proper management also allowed Studio Madhouse to produce and release the One Punch Man anime series in just 7 months after its announcement to a huge acclaim.

As for Bee & Puppycat? It had none of that. Poor management, a not-so dedicated staff, and so on. And the result is a very poor product that truly deserves its criticism. If it takes 3 years for Allegri and Frederator to produce an hour of animated content, they should have just made it a film instead rather than a series of shorts, at least to mitigate the flak myself, and others like me, give Bee & Puppycat.

Instead, Frederator wanted to capitalize on Bee & Puppycat's popularity and tried to push it as hard as possible to everyone's faces. So we got the first 4 episodes brought out that wasn't very good at all. Then Frederator doubled-down by announcing Bee & Puppycat related merchandise, which I would assume it didn't do so well because I have not heard of anything from the Bee & Puppycat line that ended up being best sellers. Anyone out there can tell me how well the "Butt-Cleavage Crab" T-Shirt has sold?

As for Cartoon Hangover's channel on VRV, which costs $3 a month, aside from watching every released episode of Bee & Puppycat and Bravest Warriors, what else is there? Cartoon Hangover hasn't released any new animated content for over a year. I don't know about you guys, but I'm not going to binge-watch every "107 Facts of X", episode for my $3 subscription fee. Did I mention as well as that VRV is currently only available in the US?

I could go on all day, but I assume at this point you get it - Frederator just shot themselves in the foot with how they run things. It's why Bravest Warriors is now being co-funded and co-produced by Nelvana, now Corus Entertainment - the same company behind shows for REALLY young kids like Clifford The Big Red Dog; The Care Bears; Chuck and Friends; Handy Manny. You can tell where I am going with this.

Bee & Puppcat is already a done deal, though Cartoon Hangover refers to the 10 episodes as being Season 1. If they are seriously going to produce a 2nd Season of Bee of Puppycat, forget it! I'm not going to wait another 3 years just to watch another hour of shorts that's just as bad, if not worse than what we have right now.

Now that I'm done ranting with how the series was produced and the awful way it's managed, it's time for me to rant on the series itself. I'm going to skip the first 4 since I've talked about it before already, and instead focus on the remaining episodes.

One of the things that got many people interested in the pilot for Bee & Puppycat is the latter's backstory, and viewers are hoping to learn more of that particular part and its resolution. Aside from a reference or two here and there, unfortunately, the series has never bothered to look into Puppycat's story again and is sending a subtle, yet cold message to the viewer that we should get used to it in that Puppycat will remain in his form for life. If this is what Allegri intended after all, why bother with the backstory then? Just have Puppycat be Puppycat and make it a slice-of-life adventure, and it'll be fine.

I personally never read any of the comics of Bee & Puppycat, so I don't know if any of Puppycat's backstory was explored in the format, or if the comics are canon to the shorts. All I know is that the comics was cancelled after 11 issues. This is according to Boom! Studios that publishes the comic series itself. 

At any rate, the remaining episodes focuses entirely on Bee to reveal that she is not what she appears to be, and that she is actually an android. Watching the first episode onwards, Bee's backstory has been planned from the beginning. However, nothing is resolved from that either as if Allegri and her staff intended that part of Bee's story to be used in the next Season. As I said before, no one is going to wait another three years for that arc to come up. She should have just lay it out on this series in full. Instead, she and the writers decided to bring additional backstories regarding the minor characters and a good portion of it is dedicated to parts that are completely non-sensical.

There's this one scene that features a story of an octopus mistaking a full flock of long hair of a princess as being another octopus and falling in love with it, that ends in a tragedy. Apparently, that whole segment is just to explain how Jellyfish was made and it lasted nearly 3 minutes. What does it have to do with the overall narrative of the series? NOTHING AT ALL! 

Another scene that came out earlier is of a character named "Toast", voiced by Terri Hawkes, the American voice of Sailor Moon from 1995 to 1998. Toast pops out of nowhere challenging Deckard's sister to a wrestling match for the title of the lowest-ranked wrestler. Again, this has nothing to do with the main narrative.

Finally we have Cardomon, the child landlord of Bee, who has his own backstory of his mother in a comatose state. We never know what happened, and I suspect again this was to be reserved for the next season. As for that guy from "The Room", that has a role in this series, he only got a cameo. All this combined with the eyecatches by Ko Takeuchi, the artist behind the Wario Ware games makes it seem like the show has gone over the budget. If true, that would explain the campaign to sell merchandise, and having the series up on VRV - meaning it had the same financial issues as Bravest Warriors and is struggling to get out of the red.

There is just so many opportunities for Allegri and her staff to put out all the lore they want and have it resolved in these final episodes. But instead, they want to introduce these lores, tease it for the next season, and have random stuff happening to fill in the rest of the runtime. It just feels like a total waste.

If Natasha Allegri and the production staff at Frederator Studios wanted this to be a slice-of-life series, then make it a slice-of-life series. If they want this to be a lore-based story, make it so. But you can't switch one with the other for its own sake! Rebecca Sugar has carefully planned out the stories for Steven Universe and was able to produce slice-of-life episodes that can be seen as is, while also providing an overarching plot. It's a style she learned in Adventure Time, and has been applied as well in Regular Show, and by extension, the Amazing World of Gumball. Allegri's approach to this is tease after tease with nothing to fill in for it other than say "Hey, look at these cute character designs! Would you love them for me, please?"

Eye Candy only applies if the animation itself is to be seen as a piece of actual art, or as a piece of entertainment value. Bee & Puppycat fails to achieve any of that. At the very least in the final episodes, they finally fixed the color and lighting, so I get to watch those episodes without having eye strain, unlike the previous ones. Unfortunately, that's the only thing I give good marks for this series.

Bee & Puppycat had a lot of potential to be among the many animated works that would've made its mark in the 2010s alongside the likes of The Amazing World of Gumball and Gravity Falls. It sadly just falls apart from production to distribution, and the final product after years of waiting ends up being a complete waste of time and money, especially the latter for Kickstarter backers. There's no justication for all of this mess. And if Natasha Allegri and Frederator are serious of a Season 2, I'm left with cringe and disgust rather than with any excitement at all.

If after all of this, you still enjoy Bee & Puppycat, I've got nothing against you for that. Do what you will. As for me, I'm done with Natasha Allegri and her staff, and I'm done with Bee & Puppycat and I refuse to invest my time and money for a Season 2. I would rather invest that on the new seasons of One Punch Man and Attack on Titan, because those works will deliver and it will be worth the wait. Bee & Puppycat isn't worth anything at all, so I give it a final rating of 1 out of 5.

Bee & Puppycat Final Episodes Screenshots (UPDATE)

So apparently the final episodes of Bee & Puppycat came out on Kickstarter after 2 years in limbo. But not long after, they were taken down. The staff explained "it was a mistake". So all we got out of them are these screenshot and gif images.

 

I for one, have been awfully critical of Bee & Puppycat because of the incredibly long wait to have these produced when they are not even 11 minutes long per episode, and the final product was anything but what was featured in the original pilot. The same goes for Bravest Warriors, though in the latter's case, the showrunners admit that the series wasn't profitable, which is why Frederator Studios has teamed up with VRV in hopes of getting more funding to produce the show. They finally got it after it was being picked up by Nelvana.

So as you can see with the pictures, creator Natasha Allegri and the staff are trying to add something in the show that would drive the audience to support it, and probably give more money to fund another season. I will never give a penny to this after waiting virtually more than 3 years to finish one season that's only an hour or so long.

EDIT: The episodes are now back up on Kickstarter, with a general release planned sometime in 2017.

EDIT 2: More Screenshots

Also a new character named "Toast"

The following is a copypasta of what happened in the final episodes. These are from /co/, so take these with a grain of salt, but they are spoilers nonetheless.

>rent is due in Bee and Deckard's apartment building
>Bee sets off to give Cardamon her rent check, Cass sends Deckard to pay their apartment's rent while she stays to work on a coding job
>Cass tells Deckard to also mail his culinary school acceptance form, which she filled out for him
>suddenly some wrestler woman named Toast bursts through Cass's bedroom wall
>Toast reveals that Cass used to belong to a women's wrestling cult and was ranked last
>Toast is upset Cass left because now she is ranked last instead of second to last
>Toast attempts to wrestle Cass
>a random lap dog witnesses the violence and is inspired to begin a reign of terror. he runs off
>Deckard slinks off with the mail
>meanwhile, Bee and Puppycat are just leaving their house
>Deckard runs into them and tells them to run from the dog
>Bee retardedly greets the dog, which tries to eat her hair
>a random crow also tries to eat Bee's hair
>the crow and dog make friends and run off together
>meanwhile, at Cardomon's house, Cardomon's dog is being cute
>Cardomon goes into his mother's room
>his mother is really pretty, like a princess, but she's in a coma, hooked up to a heart monitor
>Cardomon is sad
>we switch to a fairytale about an octopus that falls in love with a princess
>this eventually becomes a creationary story about where jellyfish come from
>back to the main story, Bee, Puppycat, and Deckard arrive at Cardomon's house and give him their rent
>Cardomon has a cold
>Bee and Deckard want to make him feel better
>Cardomon asks to borrow Puppycat, we see Cardomon's line of thinking is that he wants to breed Puppycat with his own dog, Sticky
>Puppycat refuses at first, but enters Cardomon's house when he hears the Pretty Patrick show is playing on Cardomon's tv
>Cardomon tries to convince the animals to have sex

>meanwhile, Deckard tells Bee he wants to show her something
>on the way, Deckard tries to throw away his cooking school form, but misses the dumpster
>Bee picks up the form and sees what it is
>back at Cardomon's house, Puppycat does not want to fuck the dog
>Puppycat runs into a room that turns out to be Cardomon's mom's room
>Cardomon comes in and tells Puppycat that his mother is asleep
>Cardomon asks Puppycat if he's ever been in love
>we have a brief visual recalling the audience to the space outlaw story from the pilot
>Deckard shows Bee his herb garden
>by the way, it's been snowing this whole episode
>Bee shoves some leaves in her mouth and starts crying a little
>she asks Deckard why he tried to throw away the form
>Deckard says he likes where he's living now and doesn't want to leave
>Suddenly, they see Puppycat trying to escape Cardomon's house through a window
>but he's stuck
>Bee has to stand on Deckard's shoulders to reach Puppycat to try to pull him out
>Puppycat sees that Bee has been crying and says he will kill whoever is responsible
>Bee decides it would be easier to transport Puppycat and herself to a temp job than to dislodge him from the window
>Bee accidentally transports herself and Deckard and leaves Puppycat
>Deckard is alarmed at first, but eventually calms down
>Temp bot sends Bee and Deckard to a baking assignment
>Cardomon takes Puppycat back into the house

>Deckard and Bee arrive on a giant donut baking planet with a strange black orb in the middle
>the boss explains that he's going to the next planet over to go pee, and he needs them to watch his giant donut maker and make sure he's doing his job
>the worker seems like a nice guy. he lets Deckard make a giant donut
>the worker puts his magic donuts into the orb, which he says is a black hole, and explains that sometimes he pulls out thankyou gifts in their place
>Bee doesn't want to make a donut- she says she's no good at baking
>the donut maker asks her what she is good at. Bee doesn't know
>the donut maker hurts his finger with a donut crystal
>Bee pulls the crystal out and bandages his hand
>Deckard wants to put his donut into the black hole
>Bee pockets some donut dough
>Deckard puts his donut in the black hole, but suddenly the hole grows a bunch of scary black arms
>they begin to destroy the bakery planet
>the arms pull giant donut making guy into the black hole
>Bee tries to hold onto him, but her arms are sucked into the hole with him
>there's a cracking noise while Bee's arms are submerged, and Bee's eyes turn pink. She pulls one arm out, and it's broken, revealing that the arm is full of pastel colored machinery and ribbons
>Deckard recovers his senses after having been knocked off someplace. The back of his head has a little cut and is bleeding a little (regular blood)
>Bee saves Deckard from being crushed by rubble. She apparently has super strength. She appears to be in a trance
>She throws Deckard back to temp bot and sends him home
>in her weird robotic state, Bee defeats the black hole by throwing a giant fryolater into it
>Bee then wakes up to her normal state with regular eyes. The boss has returned and is lamenting the destruction of his business

>we switch to Cass's room. it's nighttime now. Toast is asleep in Cass's bed, Cass is still working on her code
>Deckard is home. He bandages the back of his head
>Deckard tells Cass that he has turned in his application form
>he has his bags packed and is ready to leave
>Cass tells Deckard to say goodbye to "everyone" (it's implied she is referring to Bee) before he leaves
>Deckard's other siblings storm the room at Cass's call and dogpile him to say goodbye
>Deckard sneaks away in the commotion
>At Cardomon's house, Cardomon hears a knock at his door
>on the doorstop he finds a magic donut and a note from Bee
>the note says the donut can grant Cardomon a wish
>Puppycat finally secretly escapes Cardomon's house
>next to where the donut and note were, Puppycat finds some pastel gadget bits
>Puppycat takes them and starts running home

>at the train station, Deckard gives Cass a note and tells her to give it to Bee
>Cardomon feeds a piece of donut to Sticky. Sticky's limbs change color, to Cardomon's surprise
>Cardomon runs up to his mother's bed and shoves the donut in her mouth, assisting her to swallow it by rubbing her throat
>nothing happens. the heart monitor continues to beat steadily. Cardomon starts crying
>Puppycat arrives home and follows a trail of gadget bits
>Bee is sitting in her apartment and she has her arm in a strange glowing box
>inside the box are tiny robot arms that are repairing the gadgetry in Bee's arm
>Bee notices Puppycat and says "I guess there's a lot of stuff we don't know about eachother"
>Puppycat asks Bee what is her favorite color
>as we hear Bee's voice over name colors, we see Cardomon's mom, as Cardomon sleeps next to her
>tears with tiny jellyfish in them leak from her closed eyes
>in the voiceover, Puppycat continues to ask Bee what is her favorite animal, he favorite food. We see Deckard on the train as it departs
>Bee says her favorite food is "everything." Puppycat asks Bee what she wants to be when she grows up. She says "I dunno. Everything?"
>we see a closeup of the glowing box as it shuts off
>the end