Busy Bee

Around January 2018, a user on Reddit's Let's Not Meet board made a post about a weird childrens cartoon. He called himself Lloyd and claims to have worked on this cartoon. He talks about his job with Goodchild Films, an obscure company that shut down in late 2002. At the time he figured it was just an entrance level job in the animation field at one of those cheap bootleg companies that make the kind of movies your kid watches once and then never again. The kind like Dingo Pictures or Regal Films. His job was to create characters for a show that would become Busy Bee.

After designing several characters, he was let go on the spot and while he was given pay, he was never given an answer to why they didn't need him anymore. Each episode of Busy Bee was done through a story book setting and had this childish, yet maticulate art style.

Busy Bee is always seen in a postal uniform and each episode has him delivering mail around the neighborhood.It had a narrator that narrated everything along with several children who voiced the characters. The other characters were anthropomorphic with most being in the background and only moving along the scenery. The others besides Busy Bee were two side characters and the shows main antagonist.

The side characters were only named after their species. Hawk was a hawk, and Monkey was a monkey. They were both somewhat chubby kids who were described as mischievous and yet playful. The last character was Mr. Slob, an over grown elephant and the main villain. He was also the only one without any clothing.

Hawk and Monkey would always tempt Busy Bee to stop working and join them for the night and while they weren't antagonistic, they would always find ways to distract the protagonist from finishing his deliveries. This would irritate Busy Bee, as would when they called him BB instead of his full name. When asked about these characters, Lloyd mentions how he felt sorry for them because they were considered by staff to have been lonely and were only looking for new friends to play with, but not being very good at making friends.

The duo have their plans backfire each time and at the end of each episode, they're shown having fun at places such as a theme park, the arcade, or at their house playing a video game, usually without Busy Bee. However, Mr. Slob would always find Hawk and Monkey at the end of each episode and he would devour them.

He's intentionally designed to be scary with his only characteristic being to eat those he deems lazy. This was because the people being productive were skinny and weren't worth going after, according to Mr. Slob himself. Hawk and Monkey would always sob as they're about to be eaten, begging for mercy before being picked up by his trunk and being eaten alive. Mr. Slob is sometimes in the background in most episodes, implying that he's observing everyone at all times.

The purpose of Busy Bee was that it was a PSA only to be shown at daycares and only to preschoolers to explain the "dangers of laziness." These places had stickers of Mr. Slob, plastered on the walls to scare children into thinking they were being watched all the time. Because Busy Bee was being shown at such a young age, most children don't remember it's existence. The effects of viewing it stayed with them however.

As these children got older, they started distancing themselves and only focused on being productive members of society. They would never hang out or play with other children their age and become early adults. Most of them would exhaust themselves whenever no one was around, overworking to the point of collapsing, being taken to a hospital, and being pronounced dead on arrival.

Lloyd talks about being frightened, not realizing what he helped create. He admits to running away and never alerting the authorities as he had a feeling he would only be laughed at. Who would believe that some children's cartoon caused people to overwork themselves? From what he knows, there were only five episodes of Busy Bee produced. He doesn't know if its still around or if children are still being exposed to the program. It's more then likely that the cartoon was lost, but regardless, Lloyd ends his post by warning his readers to be careful and to do research on what daycare you sign your children up for.

You may never know what your kids are watching behind closed doors.