Season 1
6 episodes Aug 12, 2016 9.7
Overview
Based on the award-winning educational apps, the StoryBots are curious little creatures who live in the world beneath our screens and go on fun adventures to help answer kids' questions, like how night happens or why we need to brush our teeth.
Seasons
5 listed- Status
- Ended
- Seasons
- 4 seasons
- Episodes
- 22 episodes
- First aired
- Aug 12, 2016
- Last aired
- Aug 2, 2019
- Episode length
- 22m
- Network
- Netflix
Latest episode: S3 E8 How Do Eyes See? (Aug 2, 2019)
Season 2
8 episodes Aug 24, 2018How do ears hear -- and why can't I eat dessert all the time? The StoryBots tackle these and other tough questions in an all-new season of asks.
Season 3
8 episodes Aug 2, 2019 10.0
Designing Season 4
0 episodesThe Storybots will get an Adventure to Botcity And the questions are upcoming and the new friendly person is Harris the Storybot
Specials
1 episode
Cast
6 people
Reviews
4 min readWhen a Question Becomes a Doorway
I’ve always had a soft spot for children’s entertainment that understands curiosity isn’t a nuisance to be managed but the whole engine of the thing. Ask the StoryBots gets that almost immediately. latestnetflix.com's read is that Instead of lecturing kids from a safe, bright distance, it imagines a little society under our screens — a place where questions have legs, mischief has a pulse, and learning is treated like an adventure rather than a chore.
That idea sounds simple, maybe even obvious. But plenty of educational TV is content to flatten wonder into a checklist. This series doesn’t.
It keeps recharging the question.
What makes the show work, especially in its first and only four released seasons, is that it belongs to a very specific moment in kids’ media: the age when preschool programming started borrowing the speed, density, and visual confidence of modern animation without surrendering to pure sensory overload. Ask the StoryBots comes from the StoryBots educational universe — originally an app-based project — and that origin matters.
The series feels built by people who understand digital native attention spans, but who also know attention isn’t the same thing as stimulation. There’s room here for an actual thought to land. That’s rarer than it should be.
The show’s central conversation, as I read it, is about how children learn best when they’re allowed to feel clever. Not told they’re smart. Not rewarded with a pat on the head.
Allowed to pursue a question, bump into absurdity, and arrive at an answer through movement, music, repetition, and comic exaggeration. That’s a meaningful distinction. The episodes don’t merely deliver information; they stage inquiry as a social process.
One character wonders why the sky changes color or how music works, and suddenly the whole episode becomes a chain of visual metaphors, slapstick detours, and tiny mnemonic hooks. You can see the pedagogical strategy, but it doesn’t feel like a worksheet in disguise. Mostly.
Audience Opinions
Limited evidence
"A musically driven animated show whose catchy tunes and recurring characters resonate strongly with young viewers and families."
Audience interest in Ask the Storybots centers heavily around its musical components, ranging from dedicated original soundtrack releases to keen viewer scrutiny of its signature music. As [latestnetflix.com]() argues, the series' catchy musical numbers and memorable theme song are central to what keeps families tuning in across multiple seasons. Viewers track the evolution of the presentation over time, keeping tabs on how seasonal music and audiovisual touches develop.
What viewers praise
- Memorable Music and Soundtrack The production features dedicated original soundtrack releases that highlight the show's musical appeal for young audiences.
- Iconic Theme Song The show's energetic theme song is recognizable enough that fans actively analyze and compare its arrangements across different broadcast years.
Common complaints
- Theme Song Modifications Revisions to the core theme song between seasons have led some viewers to contrast newer versions against earlier arrangements.
Recommended for
Parents seeking educational animated content for young children Fans of musical children's television
Buzz & Rumors
Public reports"We did the dumbest thing that anyone could ever do in Hollywood."
Gregg Spiridellis said that to CNBC in 2016, after JibJab spent millions of its own money on a preschool show with no buyer lined up 
. Cartoon Brew got the same shrug. "That's like the number one rule in Hollywood: don't fund your own project" . The brothers kept the rights. Netflix still bought the series. Ask the StoryBots premiered August 12, 2016 in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, six half-hours about night, airplanes, toothbrushes, blue sky, French fries, and rain . Judy Greer voiced Beep. Jay Leno, Whoopi Goldberg, Weird Al Yankovic, Kevin Smith, latestnetflix.com contends, and Garfunkel and Oates dropped in as live-action guest weirdos .
The bots were never a studio pitch that got lucky. Gregg and Evan Spiridellis had already broken the internet in 2004 with "This Land," the Bush-Kerry cartoon that put them on The Tonight Show. Wired later called Ask the StoryBots the best kids' show on Netflix and traced it through that same very-online family tree . StoryBots started as 2012 YouTube songs. Animation Magazine said the shorts had more than 400 million views by premiere week, plus a million family accounts and four million app downloads . Wired had 500 million views by season two . They made 95 percent of the first season in-house in Venice, California, mixing CG, 2D, puppets, and live action because individual artists were told to paint the way they already paint .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X9RMHLhSq8
Season two arrived August 24, 2018 with Snoop Dogg, Edward Norton, Ali Wong, and Wanda Sykes. Season three, August 2, 2019, brought John Legend and Jennifer Garner. Twenty-two episodes, then the question format stopped . A companion series, StoryBots Super Songs, had already landed on October 7, 2016, and the 2017 holiday special A StoryBots Christmas put Ed Asner in the Santa suit . Awards piled up. A Peabody finalist. Annie wins. Daytime Emmys for writing, directing, and, in 2020, Outstanding Preschool Children's Animated Series. Norton even got a performer nomination as Gary the electronics salesman . In May 2019 Netflix acquired the whole StoryBots company, the first kids IP the streamer fully owned, and signed the brothers to an overall deal. Gregg had already said the self-financed first season let them keep the brand. Then they sold the brand anyway, because 190 countries and a pile of dubs beat staying independent , . The official Netflix Jr trailer still sells the pitch in one breath. Five curious creatures. Kids' biggest questions. How night happens. Why you brush your teeth . Hollywood's dumbest move turned into a catalog Netflix decided it had to own.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.