Born in June 1986, Allegri is the daughter of a
Native Okinawan mother and a
Bolivian father of
French,
Italian and
Native Bolivian descent.[2][4] She also watched anime, read manga, and the Garfieldcomic strip.[4] As a result, she gravitated toward comics rather than cartoons, as she saw it as "less work", although she later acknowledged that it is "just as much work".[5]
While in college at the
University of Arizona in Tucson,[4] her friend, and creator of Adventure Time,
Pendleton Ward, contacted her about working on Adventure Time and she worked on the show for five seasons.[5][4] To begin working on the show, she moved to California, and dropped out of college over her father's objections.[4] While working on the show, Allegri began drawing gender-swapped web comics of the show's characters, including "
Fionna and Cake" as her gender-swapped versions of Finn and Jake. Eventually, after being showcased on
Frederator's popular Adventure Time tumblr, these characters were featured in full episodes of Adventure Time—debuting in the episode "
Fionna and Cake". Since August 6, 2013, she has also written and illustrated Fionna and Cake comics for
BOOM! Studios.[5] Allegri also posted art of "Fionna the Human" and "Cake the Cat" online during the show's earliest seasons,[3] while working as a
storyboard artist.[7][8] It was later developed into a series entitled Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake.[9]
Bee and PuppyCat
Allegri created and produced her own animated short, Bee and PuppyCat, for
Frederator Studios'
YouTube channel
Cartoon Hangover which was released on July 11, 2013.[5][1][10] The episode introduces viewers to Bee, a recently unemployed young woman, and PuppyCat, a small and mysterious creature resembling both a dog and a cat. Bee takes PuppyCat in and, in return, he helps her find strange temp work, in this case babysitting a giant fish named Wallace in Fishbowl Space. In response to the success of the short,
Frederator launched a Kickstarter on October 14, 2013, to raise funds for a full season. The Kickstarter was successful, raising Frederator $872,133 toward the production of Bee and PuppyCat, the animated series.[11][12][13] This exceeded their original goal of $600,000 and made them the 10th most crowdfunded Video and Film project to date.[11]
Crowdfunding success
Natasha Allegri's successful campaign on
Kickstarter has been seen as an example of digital-age
crowdfunding mechanisms' role on enabling creators reliant on direct
fan investment.[14][1][2] It was described by some as the "most successful Kickstarter campaign" for an animated series at the time,[10] as she was able to crowdfund nine episodes of the series.[15] Allegri later said that "a studio wouldn't have aired Bee and PuppyCat" and that it could only exist online.[16] Other stated that the crowdfunding was successful because of the "devoted...fanbase" of Adventure Time.[17]
Allegri sang the theme song for the "
Fionna and Cake" episode of Adventure Time.[20] Additionally, she served as a storyboard revisionist for the Bravest Warriors episode "Butter Lettuce" and has contributed to the miniseries Over the Garden Wall as writer and storyboard artist.[2]
She also provided the official art for the
Vocaloid soundbank Ruby, released by
PowerFX. This art was based upon a concept design by illustrator D-Artemisso.[21]
In 2017, Allegri directed "The Summoning," created by Elyse Castro, for
Frederator's
Cartoon Hangover channel.[22] It was the first short cartoon from GO! Cartoons.[23]
In 2019, Allegri was co-author of the
OpenBSD 6.5 poster and was the author of the OpenBSD 6.6 and 7.0 posters.[24][25] She was a writer for the anime series Cannon Busters the same year.[26][27]
^
abcdefghBustillos, Maria (January 4, 2015).
"What's New, PuppyCat?". The California Sunday Magazine.
Archived from the original on May 8, 2023. Retrieved May 8, 2023.
^Mihailova, Mihaela (3 October 2019). "Drawn (to) independence: female showrunners in contemporary American TV animation". Feminist Media Studies. 19 (7): 1009–1025.
doi:
10.1080/14680777.2019.1667065.
S2CID210363282.