Bee and PuppyCat: Birthday & Game

December 8, 2018 12:25 PM - Season 1, Episode 4

It's Bee's birthday, and she wants to spend it like she always does, hanging out with Dadbox, a gift left to her by her father. Puppycat, to cheer her up, wants her to go out and do birthday things, which leads them to a boarded-up arcade they used to go to. They can't pay to play the game though, and you know what that means-- TEMP WORK!

~ FOUR YEARS LATER ~

There is nothing to diminish one's interest in a series like not being able to see it. But now the rest of Season 1 of Bee & Puppycat is at last on Youtube instead of Super Obscure Nowhere Service I Can't Afford (the acronym is "SONSICA," but actually it's VTV), so I'm going to write up the rest now. And it's just as awesome as I remember it! Let's-a-go!

You can watch this episode starting here. Note, the video leads right in to the other two episodes after the end.

• Title card has Cass on it, but she doesn't figure into this episode.
• Dadbox is a really interesting concept. It seems like it's got to be inspired by Jack Kirby's Mother Boxes, little magic computers that the New Gods of both New Genesis and Apokolips have that look after them and help in various ways. Dadbox turns up again in the last episodes of the season, but in the meantime it seems like it's just a source of comfort for Bee.
• Speaking of Bee. How about having all that techno-stuff as background detail in her apartment, and apparently having a computer programmer and inventor father? The series began with Puppycat seeming like the weirdest thing in it, but from this we must ask: are there things about Bee that we don't quite know yet, either...?
• The song (written by MeFi's own brad sucks!): "Don't be sad, I'm still your dad/ I'd be there if I could./ I sure hope, that you're not broke/ and things are running good./ I'll always be in the memory/ but today, I just wanna say/ way to go at keepin' on goin'/ have a happy bir-rth day." There's some sneaky foreshadowing in that song, but we'll talk about that later....
• While the song's going, we see the other major characters we've met so far, Deckard, Cass, Cardamon (and his dog Sticky), and Puppycat being annoyed by a crow.
• The design of the Dadbox. It's got a large gem set into the top, with colored dots around it. Later on (in another episode) we see that it's hollow and has stuff inside it, but for now it's closed up with bolted panels. There's a big red ribbon attached to the back side of it. Bee's birthday candy comes out the gem at the top.
• When the candy emerges, it floats straight up. Interesting.... Bee splits it with PC.
• PC: "What else do you do on your birthday?" Bee: "I find stuff in the couch to eat, then I nap until I get a headache!" PC: "But you do that every day." Oh Bee. - Bee: "Well we had kind of a thing we did... it involves leaving the apartment, though."
• THAT CROW. He shows up again in the last episode. What a jerk.
• Bee opens up the reel-to-reel tape spool device to reveal that it's a wardrobe!
• Glitch Gorge is the name of the arcade in the picture, which is also the only image we get of Bee's dad, with Young Bee. The font, and star motif, reminds one of Steven Universe.
• "It looks different!" Yeah, it's boarded up! Which, to be frank, is understandable, video arcades aren't anywhere as common as they once were.
• Bee shatters the boards leading into the arcade with one punch!
• "My dad made some of these games!" She punches one and it dents. "Oh, sorry." She kisses it, and the power comes on! Fortuitous!
• Puppycat uses temp work summons to block vision and get an advantage in games, but there's rather a lot of them.
• "Oh, this is the best game! My dad came up with it when I got sick... it used to be in our apartment. I used to play it NON STOP! Ha ha ha... but he moved it out when I stopped going outside." Hmmm....
• Freeze frame! After PC says "No! Don't you want to play this?" the shot changes. In this shot, Bee says, "Well, yeah." In this shot, the names of two machines can be read. One is "DrawnCon," and the other is "WeLoveFine." DrawnCon is an animation convention that Channel Frederator is known to have a presence at. "WeLoveFine" is a company that sells pop culture stuff on the web, and sells some Bee & Puppycat merchandise!
• TempBot offers a video game related job. "Maybe there will be cake!" That's some assumption.
• The words that appear, "CLOUDWORLD: Too Chubby To Fly," in context appear to be a title screen. Bee and PC have halos here, maybe they're supposed to be playing angels?
• At "Choose a Character," Bee transforms into a male version of herself! Her voice (which cracks) changes too. No one remarks upon it the whole episode. Is this what her dad looked (and sounded) like? She settles on the male self for playing the game. Note, this version of Bee has a bird, not a bee, on their shirt.
• PC's already played this game. He even has a maxed-out save file.
• Character names: "I gotta fart" and "BARF." Sigh, as a sometimes game designer, that makes me sad. Bee is the reason we gotta put name checks in these things.
• Subquests! They're not that hard but allow Bee to upgrade their level. Keep an ear out for one of those sounds that cartoons and such use to signify VIDEOGAMES, the death sound from Atari 2600 Pac-Man.
• "Hahaha! Puppycat, your shoulders are so hard! Like stale bread!"
• The actual game, the one that Bee loved so much when she was younger, is a dancing game. With that, we move on to the next episode. See you soon!

Bee & Puppycat Season 2: Lazy in Space is coming to VTV soon. I'll write up the two remaining episodes of Season 1 shortly.

posted by JHarris (3 comments total)

I hadn't heard there was going to be more Bee and Puppycat, that's pretty exciting. After the general dissatisfaction over the crowdfunding campaign and the extended period of time I didn't think we'd ever see any more.

I like how the series starts out making it seem like Bee is the ordinary person and Puppycat is the one with the mysterious backstory, but then they spell out Puppycat's deal really early on and you start to realize that Bee is actually the more interesting character.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:30 PM on December 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

Grinding side quests to level up to make the core missions easier? This is the most realistic cartoon ever.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:08 PM on December 8, 2018 [4 favorites]

Wow, I had forgotten about this show.
posted by dipping_sauce at 7:00 PM on December 8, 2018