Frederator Studio’s Kickstarter campaign for its popular online animated series Bee & Puppycat is an official hit. The animation studio announced recently that it has secured over $872,133 (from 18,209 supporters) through its crowd-funding campaign for the Natasha Allegri’s hot toon. The show ranks as Kickstarter’s fourth most successful video and film campaigns to date, a list that includes the Veronica Mars movie, projects from Spike Lee and Zach Braff, and ahead of the digital sensation Video Game High School 2.
Bee & PuppyCat, originally debuted on Cartoon Hangover in July as a 2-part, 10-minute short and became an immediate hit, amassing more than four million views and driving both male and female viewership.
The Kickstarter campaign was launched in October with the goal to raise about $600,000—enough funding to create six new episodes of the breakout hit. The success of the crowdsourcing campaign, which has amassed more than 18,000 backers, has now enabled Frederator to up its production to eight episodes. The new content is expected to be premiere in Summer 2014.
“Bee & PuppyCat struck a note with fans all over the globe and we have them to thank for making this project happen,” said Fred Seibert, head of Frederator Studios. “The support we have received from our Kickstarter campaign has been astounding and now we can give fans exactly what they want – more amazing Bee & PuppyCat.”
Bee & PuppyCat, follows Bee, an out-of-work twenty-something, who has a life-changing collision with a mysterious creature that she refers to as PuppyCat, because she is not sure if it is a dog, cat, or both. Between space and time, Bee and PuppyCat take intergalactic babysitting gigs to pay another month’s rent, and embark on adventures that include betrayal, intrigue, and magical transformations.
Show creator and Adventure Time animator Natasha Allegri noted, “I’m super excited to be working on Bee & PuppyCat and it’s only made possible because all these people have pulled together and donated to fund this cartoon. It’s really humbling and it makes me want to do the best I can so that everyone who has been so generous to us feels good about donating. I don’t want them to be disappointed.”
The newly funded Bee & PuppyCat series will join Frederator Studios’ Cartoon Hangover YouTube Channel, which already features the breakout hit series Bravest Warriors. Conceived and developed by Fred Seibert, exec producer of hits such as Adventure Time, The Fairly OddParents, The Powerpuff Girls and Dexter’s Laboratory, Cartoon Hangover ranks as one of the fastest growing channels from YouTube’s 2012 funded channel initiative. Since its launch in November 2012, the channel has generated more than 4 million unique viewers, over 66 million views of its programming, more than 193 million minutes watched of its shows, and almost 900 thousand subscribers.
The Bee & PuppyCat Kickstarter campaign will provide backers with an intimate inside look at the creation of the episodes as well. Digital downloads of storyboards, exclusive DVD’s, exclusive Squishable brand PuppyCat plush, a comic book series from BOOM! Studios, an exclusive t-shirt from Welovefine.com, and first looks at new episodes are among the ways Frederator Studios and Allegri plan to give back to their supporters.
You can check out a sample episode here!