Bee and PuppyCat


Bee and PuppyCat is an American animated web and television series created and written by Natasha Allegri. The series revolves around Bee, an unemployed slacker, who encounters a mysterious creature named PuppyCat. She adopts this apparent cat-dog hybrid, and together they go on a series of temporary jobs to pay off her monthly rent. These bizarre jobs take the duo across strange worlds out in space. The original series was produced by Frederator Studios with the animation initially outsourced to South Korean studio Dong Woo Animation for episodes 1 to 6, and to Japanese studio OLM for episodes 7 to 10.
The series originated with a web pilot in 2013, followed by a Kickstarter-supported first season which was released on YouTube from 2014 to 2016.
A second series titled Bee and PuppyCat: Lazy in Space was produced and billed for a 2019 release on VRV, but it was delayed and leaked online in 2020.
Netflix later commissioned three additional episodes re-adapting the pilot and first season, and then packaged these along with the Lazy in Space episodes. The complete rebooted series was released on Netflix in 2022. KaBoom! Studios also published a comic book adaptation from 2014 to 2016.
On January 4, 2023, Genius Brands announced that they would sell a 50% stake in the series to Toho International, the US-based division of Japanese film studio Toho.

Plot

Bee is a cheerful, eccentric youth who is habitually fired from menial, low-paying jobs. On her way home from a failed job opportunity, PuppyCat, a strange, mysterious creature, falls from the sky. She takes him in and, when he sees that she is broke and unemployed, PuppyCat teleports himself and Bee to an alternate dimension where they are given a job by TempBot, a gigantic, intelligent television screen. Despite the dangers that this line of temporary jobs would pose, Bee finds that she has a talent for the work and that it pays well enough for her to disregard the dangers.
An ongoing plot element of the series is PuppyCat's past: he is revealed to be a space outlaw whose love for a space princess ended with him being cursed into his current state by a group of warlocks who constantly attempt to capture him wherever he goes. Other plot elements include Bee being revealed to be a robot, her relationship with the Wizard family and their youngest Deckard, a talented chef with a crush on her who eventually attends cooking school at her behest, and Bee's curiously young landlord Cardamon struggling with his work while caring for his comatose mother Violet. In the second-season finale, the island on which the story takes place is revealed to be Puppycat and Violet's spaceship, which is finally repaired as the group leaves Earth when the Warlocks attack their planet.

Characters

Main

  • Bee : Bee is a young woman who physically appears to be in her 20s and meets PuppyCat after being fired for sleeping on the job, becoming a temp worker who takes assignments from TempBot along with wardrobe changes for whatever planet she is assigned to. Bee has a strong dislike of water and also has known the Wizard family for years, with Cas noting her lack of aging; Bee is later revealed in "Donut" to be a robot created by her father. In the second-season finale, Bee is heavily damaged in saving Moully while sentient parts of her body use the wish crystal shards on Moully's person to become energy beings in Bee's likeness.
  • PuppyCat : The mysterious creature that is Bee's companion and roommate, named for his appearance and being an egocentric jerk. He does not speak and instead communicates with beeping sounds provided by the Vocaloid Oliver. He would later be revealed to be originally a candy hunter known as the Space Outlaw, who led a bounty hunting group called Team PuppyCat. But he ended up in his current form when he fell in love with a Space Princess who tricked him so the Warlocks can seal him away, only for their attempted sealing spell to unintentionally deform the Space Outlaw into PuppyCat.
  • TempBot: Also referred to as AssignBot, is a series of robots that each act as a temporary employment agent for PuppyCat with a shared memory bank that allows them to identify their temp workers. In the pilot episode, TempBot is voiced by Marina Sirtis, Hannah Hart for "Farmer", Roz Ryan for "Cats", Ellen McLain for "Game", Joan Koplan for "Wedding", Leah Jungwirth for "Again for the First Time", Kathy Najimy for "Who Would Want This?", Terri Hawkes for "What Do You Want to Be?", "Little Fingers", and "Why Don't You Help Me", Suzanne Berhow for "Gentle Touch", Diana Garnet for "My Favorite", Maile Flanagan for "Did You Remember", Alison Cowles for "Bird Friend", Natasha Allegri for "Two Clown Noses", and Emilia Sheldon for "Golden Eyes".
  • Deckard Wizard : Bee's friend, neighbor, and former coworker. Deckard works as a prep cook at the cat café from which Bee was fired. He harbors romantic feelings towards Bee. Deckard has a stutter and heterochromia. After the season one finale, Deckard leaves home in order to attend culinary school despite initial reluctance to leave Bee and home. He returns home in the second-season finale.
  • Cas Wizard : Deckard's sister and roommate who was a former wrestler and worked at Howell's cat café before becoming a freelance computer programmer seen working in C# and Python. She is the only one of her family who takes note of Bee's inability to age and the strangeness that occurs around their home. Like her brothers, Cas is also named after a wizard; her full name is Castaspella, which is also the name of a character from the She-Ra franchise.
  • Cardamon : Cardamon is a young boy who is Bee's landlord, business-like and mature for his age. He takes care of his comatose mother Violet, whom he regards as a "princess." He also has a dog named Sticky. The second series depicts his stress of being a landlord, having little to no adult supervision, being bullied in school, and finding ways of disposing of the blobs that have taken over his apartment. In the second-season finale, Violet places him back in stasis with her.
  • Toast : Toast is the 11th ranked wrestler from Cas' former wrestling team and holds a grudge against Cas' departure, as it leaves her to be the lowest-ranking member on the team. She intrudes into Cas' home life as a result and constantly picks fights with her, marrying Merlin and giving birth to their twin children.
  • Crispin Wizard : Cas and Deckard's third oldest brother who works in a garage as a mechanic. He has an interest in clowns since he ran away to the circus because his family accidentally forgot his 12th birthday. He incorporates clowns in his "art" which ranges from sculptures to cars. Crispin and Bee used to be in a relationship and lived together in Bee's apartment until he moved out. He still harbors some romantic feelings for Bee.

    Recurring

  • Howell Wizard : Howell is the manager of the cat café and the middle child of the Wizard siblings.
  • Wesley Wizard : The second oldest of Cas and Deckard's siblings who's an avid fisherman.
  • Merlin Wizard : The oldest of Cas and Deckard's siblings who accidentally gets Toast pregnant, becoming her "unwed" husband as a result. He is also a doctor.
  • Tim Wizard : The fifth oldest of Cas and Deckard's siblings. He is quiet and has a journal of everyone's secrets.
  • Bird : Bee's scientist father who mysteriously disappeared.
  • Warlocks : The series antagonists who are tasked to hunt down Puppycat, placing their arms through a portal into space which turns them into enlarged limbs that fumble around for their quarry.
  • Moully : A giant cat who befriends Bee, able to teleport to anyone's location if he possesses an item of theirs. A former maker of magical wish-granting donuts. Though he escapes the Warlocks' grip after they grabbed him during their attack on the Donut Planet, he ends up being controlled by them before Bee snaps him out of it at great cost to her body.
  • Doublemouth : A monster who used to be the Space Outlaw's strict teacher, serving as the first enemy Bee and PuppyCat encounter during their first temp job together.
  • Pretty Patrick : The host of Bee and Puppycat's favorite show, who also happens to be the mayor of the island.
  • Narb : A convenience store worker.

    Guest

  • Violet : Cardamon's comatose mother who is revealed to be PuppyCat's partner when he was the Space Outlaw, the two being childhood friends. In the second series, after Cardamon gave his mom half of a wish donut in an attempt to revive her, Violet begins shedding tears with the wish-altering properties of a wish crystal that gradually fill up their apartment. Violet briefly reawakens in the second-season finale, revealing to actually be in stasis before returning to it with Cardamon until Bee's father has been found.
  • Ms. Coffee : Cardamon's Teacher.
  • Mr. Assam : Ms. Coffee's boyfriend.
  • Boss: Moully's overbearing boss on the Donut Planet who lost his livelihood. He was voiced by Tommy Wiseau in "Donut", and Eric Bauza for "Golden Eyes" and the season 1 remake.
  • Mister Cup
  • Ross
  • Sugar Cube
  • Claire
  • Dinosaur Kid
  • John Hammerbottom
  • Heart Head
  • Cathead
  • Harlequin Turtlebottom
  • Fish Girl
  • Cooking Prince
  • Wiggly Worm #1
  • Wiggly Worm #2
  • Fuzzy #1
  • Fuzzy #2
  • Worker #1
  • Worker #2
  • Worker #3
  • Snail #1
  • Snail #2
  • Grasshopper
  • Classmate #1
  • Classmate #2
  • Temp Worker
  • Wallace
  • Ladybug
  • Farmer
  • Crab
  • Cat #1
  • Cat #2
  • Elder Bird
  • Bird Citizen
  • Video Game Girl