Trivia / Maya the Bee

• Acting for Two:
  • In the Poland TV dub of the CGI series, Ewa Złotowska voiced Maya and The Queen who are even seen interacting with each other in some episodes.
  • Season 1 of the CGI series only had 9 voice actors, so this happened a lot. Max, Barry and Miss Cassandra, for example, were all voiced by Kira Tozer.
  • Starting with season 2, Lara and Ben are voiced by Hali Beth Muller in the English version.
• Channel Hop: The original (1975) anime was coproduced by Asahi Broadcasting Corporation in Osaka and aired on the NET (now TV Asahi) network. When the second (1979) anime finally made it to air in Japan in 1982, it was on TV Tokyo.
  • Both English dubs were aired in Canada, the first (Maja the Bee) on CBC and the second on YTV.
• Children Voicing Children: In Germany, Maya is voiced by an actual female child in every incarnation of the franchise.
  • The human children are also voiced by young children in both English dubs.
  • The South African Dub had some of the younger bees voiced by unknown child actors. Such as a young bee who tells her mother that "Willy stole the honey".
  • The 2014 movie is the first time Maya has been voiced by a child in English, being voiced by Coco Jack Gillies, who was 9 years old at the time of production.
  • Starting in season 2 of the English version of the CGI series, Maya is now voiced by a child.
  • Willy is voiced by a child in the Dutch dub of the CGI series.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Willy is voiced by a female in the Japanese version and Spanish dub of the anime. He's also voiced by females in most versions of the CGI series (not including the German, Italian and Polish dubs), but in the 2014 movie he was mostly voiced by males.
  • Alexander and Puck were also voiced by females in the Japanese version.
  • Thekla is voiced by a male in the South African dub of the anime.
  • Max and Barry were voiced by Kira Tozer in the English version of the CGI series during season 1. Starting with season 2 however, Max is now voiced by a man, but Barry is still voiced by a girl.
• Dueling Dubs: There are two English dubs of the anime. One (notable for having the lead character's name spelled Maja) was made in South Africa for the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) (often mistaken for British due to the voice actors employing British accents), and aired in Canada in the early 1980s on CBC. The second was commissioned by Saban Entertainment, made in Montreal, and aired on Nick Jr. in the U.S. and YTV in Canada.
• Edited for Syndication: The original Japanese version of the anime had more scenes such as Maya hearing the news that Miss Cassandra is badly hurt and the queen showing up in the first four episodes. These scenes can still be found in their original form in the Arabic version complete with the Japanese soundtrack. Both versions of the anime were much longer compared to other versions released in different countries.
  • The original Japanese version of the episode 53, where Maya gets worried about Flip's injury contained a flashback sequence where Flip is making silly faces at an infant Maya. Also in the original, it takes a few seconds longer for the fence Willy is sleeping in to break, and there's a shot of Willy reacting to the commotion before falling back to sleep, compared to other versions where it breaks right away. These scenes are also removed in international versions, but are kept in the Arabic dub.
  • There were actually some scenes that were added to the German dub that weren't present in the original. Flip's song, and a scene of Willy taking over the class after Miss Cassandra leaves to attend to some commotion were not in the original Japanese version. The original version of episode 1 can be seen here
  • Since episodes of the CGI series are usually 11 to 12 minutes long, Tiny Pop, the British broadcaster of the show, cut out some scenes to shorten them to 10 minutes. Most notably is "The Big Eat" where in the Tiny Pop version, Ben shows up when Maya is still talking to Shelby, while the original version, he shows up while Maya is coughing after eating a mushroom.
• He Also Did: In the Saban English dub, Willy is voiced by Richard M. Dumont, who later became better known for the role of Sardo on Are You Afraid of the Dark?.
• Irony as She Is Cast:
  • One episode of the CGI series shows that Willy is a terrible singer. His voice actress, Rebecca Shoichet, is actually a professional singer
  • The same applies to Lara. She's a terrible singer, but Diana Kaarina, her season 1 voice actress, is professional.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Overlaps with No Export for You - Maya never had a complete release on VHS or DVD in North America. At least one VHS tape of the Canadian Saban dub was released, with a handful of the "ant"-themed episodes.
  • As of 2015, the English dub has been released online and can be purchased on Amazon.com. It has also been officially uploaded to YouTube through the copyright owners, although this is the South African English dub.
  • Unfortunately, good luck finding the American dub by Saban Entertainment that aired on Nick Jr. in the early 90s—as per usual for a Saban series, Disney owns the rights (a side effect of their buyout of the assets of Fox Family and Fox Kids). There are only a scarce amount of full episodes on YouTube, and a few of the episodes haven't been uploaded to Internet Archive.
• Live on Stage!: A musical based on the 2011 series called "Maya En De Pollenbollen" was created in the Fall of 2016 which was only shown in Flemish regions of Belgium.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": Studio 100 characters Piet Piraat and Samson En Gert (known as Fred et Samson in Walloon regions of Belgium) make a cameo during the 2014 movie's opening as clouds. Both "Piet Piraat" and "Samson En Gert" are from the same studio and are very popular in Belgium and The Netherlands. In fact, Piet Piraat, Samson en Gert, and Kabouter Plop are Studio 100's flagship shows. However, both are unknown to other countries leaving some non-Belgians confused with these characters.
• Missing Episode: Episode 35 of the CGI series was pulled from Netflix due to someone drawing a penis in the background of one scene.
• Milestone Celebration: In honor of the anime's 40th Anniversary in Japan, Nippon Animation created two new illustrations◊ of Maya and Willy◊, special Maya the Bee theme food◊ was also created that year. Europe also celebrated it's 40th anniversary by creating the first feature film in 2015, which later gained two sequels.
• No Export for You: The sad fate of the 42 unaired episodes in North America.^note Although, with the South African dub now available on Amazon Instant Video, some of those episodes can now be seen. However, as of this writing, there are still some missing episodes.
  • The 1999 Game Boy Color video game, Maya the Bee and Her Friends, was released only in Europe, and not in North America or Japan. It was a redevelopment of, of all things, an aborted South Park game, and was redeveloped yet again as a Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen title for U.S. release.
  • With the exception of the CGI films, Japan never dubbed the CGI series for unknown reasons.
  • The anime was not aired in the United Kingdom, despite airing in Ireland.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Michiko Nomura, the original voice of Maya in the 1975 anime, was replaced by Runa Akiyama when the second (1979) series was dubbed into Japanese in 1982. Many of the other characters also had voice actor replacements, including Flip (originally voiced by Ichirō Nagai but replaced in the second series by Ritsuo Sawa). One notable exception was Masako Nozawa, who voiced Willy in both series.
  • In season 2 of the CGI series, the entire cast of the English version have been replaced, so Andrea Libman no longer voices Maya.
  • Willy was voiced by Kodi Smit-Mc Phee in the 1st movie. However, in The Honey Games, Benson Jack Anthony now voices him.
  • The Queen was voiced by Miriam Margolyes in the 2014 movie, but was voiced by Justine Clarke (who voiced Miss Cassandra in the 1st movie) in The Honey Games. And since Justine was busy voicing the Queen in The Golden Orb, Tess Meyer took the role as Miss Cassandra instead.
  • In the South African dub Alexander had two voice actors. The first actor voiced him from episode 53 to episode 78, the second took over starting with episode 79 to episode 91. After that, the first voice actor returned to voice him for the remaining episodes 92 to 104.
  • Studio 100 created a web series called "De Liedjestuin" ("Le Jardin des Refrains" in Walloon) where Maya is played by a live-action actress. While the Flanders version, has Maya played by her Flemish voice actress. ^note  she also performs as Maya in the 2016 musical, and live performances in the Flemish regions of Belgium. In the Walloon version, Maya is played by a different actress ^note  she also performs as Maya in live stages shows in Belgium. However, the musical was never brought over to that region. instead of her voice actress for the Walloon version.
  • The Hungarian dub of the anime replaced Maya's voice actress after episode 53, and some random side characters also had multiple voices depending on the episode. The CGI films and series received an entirely new cast of voices, despite many of the original dubbers still being available.
  • In Poland CGI part of franchise is suffering from a severe case of this. TV dub of the series was nearly fully recasted after season 1. There is DVD dub of the series with a new cast of voices. And both movies have some secondary characters recasted to get Celebrity Voice Actor for promotional purposes.
• Out of Order: Saban's English dub aired its episodes in a different order from the Japanese or German versions. The first episode of Saban's dub, "Maya and the Ants," was episode 22 in the Japanese broadcast and episode 4 in the German. The Saban dub includes none of the episodes forming the overall narrative arc of either the 1975 or 1979 series, making it a full series of one-shot stories that could be watched in any order.
• Recycled Script: The episode "Willy Loses His Memory" from the CGI series is the same as episode 8 of the anime, "Willy With the Ants"^note Episode 13 in the Japanese release and Episode 10, "The Ant Hill", in Saban's dub. In both episodes, Willy forgets who he is and is taken in by ants who convince him he is also an ant.
• Role Reprise:
  • Masako Nozawa (the original Japanese voice of Willy) reprised her role as Willy for the Japanese dub of the movies.
  • Since October 2016, Maya's voice actress for the Flanders region of Belgium performs as the character for live shows (such as De Grote Sinterklaas), and "De Liedjestuin".
  • Since the original anime, Ewa Złotowska still provides the voice of Maya on numerous tie-in material (such as a brief speaking role during the theme song's remix by Amadeo, Maya the Bee themed songs and albums, and a PC game). She managed to reprise her role as the titular character once the CGI series and movies arrived in Poland.
• Uncredited Role:
  • The voice actor's names for the South African English dub are unknown as they were never listed in the credits.
  • In the Saban dub to an extent, only the voice actors for Maya, Willy, Flip, Grimelda and Miss Cassandra were listed in the end credits, and this is a show with many supporting characters. Nevertheless, it is one of the few Saban dubs to specifically credit roles for any of the voice actors.
• What Could Have Been: Before the teaser for the first movie, Studio 100 released a 1-2 minute long animation test featuring Maya and Willy. In the CGI test animation, Willy's personality and attitude was going to harken back to his original depiction from the anime. His English voice was also based off his original German voice actor from the anime series. When the film series begun, Willy's personality remained similar to the CGI series but less prone to laziness.