The Belgium-based producer of Netflix’s children’s cartoon Maya the Bee apologized Friday for a drawing of a penis that appeared in an episode of the animated series. The episode was scrubbed from the streaming service earlier this week after an alert mom noticed the image, clearly visible in a scene from Season 1, and posted it on social media.
“An absolutely inappropriate image has been discovered in a four-second fly-by scene in one episode of the total of 78 episodes of the series,” producer Studio 100 said in a statement released to media this morning. “The origin of this image obviously results from a very bad joke from one of the 150 artists working on the production.”
According to Variety, Studio 100 is looking for the culprit among the artists in France and Asia who worked on the series, and that the image was added during the compositing or layout stages. A new version of the scene was made, and the company is working to get a new master to outlets. For now, Netflix is showing 38 of the 39 episodes of Season 1.
Maya the Bee is based on a 1912 German children’s book by Waldemar Bonsels and centers on a bee and her adventures.
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