Here’s a little follow-up to
this post for Valentine’s Day.
*
‘A Toast to Cass’ is the twentieth episode of the third season of the American cartoon
Bee & Puppycat, originally airing on Cartoon Network on January 4th, 2016. The episode is notable for being the second ever episode of a children’s cartoon on a major television network to depict a gay relationship, the first being ‘Day of the Colossus; The Last Stand Part 2’, the final episode of
The Legend of Korra. However, it differed from that show in two major ways: while Korra and Asami’s relationship was only elaborated on in the comic spin-off of that series, Cass and Toast became a couple (on and off) for the entirety of
Bee & Puppycat’s run, and unlike Korra and Asami, Cass and Toast shared an on-screen kiss, the first ever occurrence of this.
Plot
Bee goes round to the Wizards’ house for Cass’s birthday, but after giving Cass her present, Toast bursts through the wall (her usual practice) and offers Bee an extra large pay check if she will babysit her son Bun. Reluctantly, Bee agrees to it, and she and Puppycat spend the episode looking after Bun, who despite only being a few months old shares his mother’s enthusiastic boxing skills.
Meanwhile, Cass and Toast go around the island partaking in numerous activities together, such as visiting an internet café where Toast shows Cass a (very amateurish and glitchy) game she made and having lunch together. For the entire day, Cass is suspicious of Toast’s unusually kind behaviour, and eventually when they come to the beach at dusk, she asks Toast why she did all this.
Toast is evasive at first, but then admits that she did it because she loves Cass and just wanted to treat her for her birthday to show that. Cass is flattered, and proposes a boxing match between them for old time’s sake. After some fighting, she pushes Toast to the ground and claims she won. When Toast points out that’s an illegal move, Cass replies, “Like you care,” and the two share a kiss.
Returning to the house, Toast quickly manages to calm down Bun (much to Puppycat’s chagrin) and pays Bee. Bee is apologetic about not getting to see Cass much on her birthday, but Cass tells her it’s alright and hugs her, leaving Bee happy but rather confused.
Reception and controversy
The episode was well-received by critics and the show’s fans, many of whom were appreciative of it providing representation to LGBTQ viewers and happy to see Cass and Toast’s relationship confirmed on screen. When asked about their labels, creator Natasha Allegri said she felt their identities were open to interpretation, but that she saw Cass as a lesbian and Toast (who has been mentioned to have an ex-wife and is a mother, though whether she got pregnant as part of a relationship with a man or not is unclear) as bisexual.
Despite this positive reception, the episode was a source of considerable controversy. Anti-LGBTQ groups in the United States advocated a boycott of the show, the episode did not air in the Middle East, Russia and several other territories where LGBTQ rights are restricted, and in other countries (such as the UK) edits were made based on accusations that Cass and Toast’s interactions were too sexualized (such as the image shown in the infobox, where the scene was zoomed to remove their lower bodies from the shot).
The episode was also met with homophobic resistance from within Cartoon Network. In a 2020 interview, after the show had ended, Allegri said, “When we did A Toast to Cass, I remember a lot of the higher-ups kept telling us we couldn’t do that, making characters gay would just piss off too many people and get us in too much trouble with countries they wanted to sell to that were opposed to gay rights. Eventually they let us do it at the cost of just not showing that episode in a lot of countries, and most of the later Cass and Toast episodes they could then say couldn’t be shown in those countries either. Sometimes I think I should’ve fought harder, but it was a really scary environment to try and push anything in.” Despite this, the episode has been credited with helping normalize LGBTQ representation in children’s media, most notably when the finale of
Adventure Time (the series Allegri started out on before creating
Bee & Puppycat) confirmed Princess Bubblegum and Marceline as being in a romantic relationship.
(I should mention the background of the image in the infobox is a background from the show, and Cass and Toast are edited from a piece of fanart by controlzee on tumblr. Also, fun little game: see if you can figure out the references to two other shows I like in the infobox.)