... I would like to present to you...
... a lazy day in space.
It begins, with a little change. Every year I try and shoehorn writing these posts into one of the busiest periods of the year, and more often than not end up posting them well into the New Year, so why not embrace that? Ideally I'd still like to post over Christmas, but at least for this year, welcome to the 12 Days of New Years...
Last year I started these posts off with potentially my favourite find of the year, and one of the things that had brought me the most enjoyment over the course of 2021. The webcomic, Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe featured exclusively in two of the days and was smattered all over the years posts, but that's because I was smittened. I still am, I wait diligently for Sunday morning for the latest episode to upload (which means both Christmas Day and New Years Day this year!) and I read it in bed while I drink my coffee, I pre-ordered all the books so far and love finding new pieces of fanart to add to my Instagram faves. So I can't promise it won't make an appearance this year, I'd be a liar for one, it makes me too happy to ignore it completely, but I'll refrain from gushing over it in a post of it's own... I'd have fun, but I think it may be a bit boring for you.
But I like the idea of pinpointing one thing that really did make me happy during the year. Something that lifted my spirits and made me smile. So in 2022, though it was a late addition, there was no contest really as to what to choose… Bee and PuppyCat: Lazy in Space.
An animation created by writer and animator, Natasha Allegri, Bee and PuppyCat revolves around the antics of the very recently unemployed girl named Bee, the first episode being her final day working at the cat café run by one of her neighbours (the Wizard family, consisting of Cas, Deckard, Howell, Wes, Crispen, Merlin and Tim, who are all named after wizards, and if you know who Tim is - without Googling - you win my love and admiration). As she walks home in the rain, pausing at a zebra crossing, she stumbles across PuppyCat, a strange, grumpy creature who looks like a cat, but smells like a dog, and has just fallen from the sky bouncing across the road ahead of her. Bee takes PuppyCat home with her, and seeing her in need of money, and feeling sorry for her, he teleports them both to an alternate dimension, TempSpace, where Tempbot, a giant sentient computer, assigns them jobs to earn money, temp jobs that it turns out Bee is strangely good at. And thus capers ensue.
Originally only two, eleven minute episodes were created by Allegri as the pilot, appearing on Cartoon Hangover's YouTube channel in 2013. However the series quickly gained popularity and a Kickstarter campaign funded them so that a further ten, six minute episodes could be made and published between 2014 and 2016. I still had no awareness of the animation at this point, in fact I was completely unaware of it until this year, when Netflix advertised its ‘upcoming’ status in the month of September.
Technically a reboot, episodes from the original web series were remade, reanimated and their order rearranged, alongside the commissioning of two new episode to complete the series. This was the series which would be subsequently titled, Bee and PuppyCat: Lazy in Space, and was my first introduction to the characters… it was instant love.
The animation is somewhere between Adventure Time and Steven Universe, the former being unsurprising since Allergi worked on the show and was responsible for the gender-swap characters featured in the series, Fionna & Cake. Visually the show is soft and pastel in its colour scheme, and it could so easily have been this sugary sweet and sickly, it could have just been a nice show about a girl and her space cat, but instead it's acerbic and PuppyCat is a little shit a lot of the time, and as much as he loves Bee, he'll never admit it.
This series has also produced some great illustrations and art from its fans...
At this current moment whether or not we'll be seeing a season 2 is still up in the air, Netflix has yet to announce whether they will pick it up or it will be cancelled. Though since they downsized their animation department drastically in 2022 and this will most likely reduce the number of animation we see in the near future. Also, I love this show, so inevitably, with my lucky, we'll have to content ourselves with what we have or keep up hope that it’s renewed popularity will bring more episodes in the new year.
I have watched this series probably four times already, and may again before the year it out (it’s the new year today as I edit this one last time and I didn’t unfortunately but soon). But the fact is if I was to recommend any show on streaming to watch which will make you laugh, make you smile, and make you happy, it would be Bee and PuppyCat, because whether that is the Netflix series or the originals on YouTube, every time I watch it my mood improves and I spend the rest of the day trying to whistle like a Vocaloid named Oliver (which is the "voice" of PuppyCat, created using a piece of synthesising software).
Mostly I sound like a Clanger... but who doesn't love Clangers?
Hope you all had a nice Christmas and New Year, however you did or did not celebrate, and into 2023 we go… keep your fingers crossed.
… part two coming soon…
Link || Bee & PuppyCat (2013-16) - Cartoon Hangover || IMDb || Wikipedia || Rotten Tomatoes || Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || YouTube || Behance
Link || Bee & PuppyCat: Lazy in Space (2022-) || Netflix || IMDb || Wikipedia || Rotten Tomatoes || Fandom Wiki
Link || Natasha Allergi || IMDb || Wikipedia || Rotten Tomatoes || Instagram || Twitter || YouTube || Behance || Ko-fi
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Listening: Where JellyFish Come From - Bee & PuppyCat
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