The creators of ‘Maya The Bee’ have announced they are taking legal action against the artist responsible for including a penis drawing in a scene in the animated kid’s series, ‘Maya The Bee’.
Last week, Netflix pulled the offending episode after an eagle-eyed mum spotted the phallic drawing etched onto the inside of a tree trunk in the first season’s 35th episode.
Studio 100, the production company behind the show, have now issued a statement, calling the “inappropriate image” in the episode a “very bad joke”.
The statement reads: “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. The origin of this image obviously results from a very bad joke from one of the 150 artists working on the production.
“This is indeed unacceptable to the Studio 100 Group as owner of the brand and all its partners and doesn’t reflect the quality of its work and its values.”
They continue: “Legal action has already been started. Studio 100 very much regrets this incident and would like to offer its sincere apologies to all Maya the Bee fans. At the same time the company is taking all suitable technical measures to remedy the situation.”
It’s not the only controversy the animated series has been at the centre of. The author of the original 1912 book, Waldemar Bonsels, was as an outspoken anti-Semite who called Jews “a deadly enemy”.
Watch the full pulled episode of ‘Maya The Bee’ below...