Which Streaming Service Owns The Cute Cat Cartoon Rights?

If you're trying to track down those cartoon cat animated shorts, the quickest place I go is YouTube — a ton of indie creators and official studios upload short-form cat content there. Search the creator's channel name or the short's title, and check playlists because creators often group episodes into neat stacks. For professionally produced shorts, studios sometimes post them to their official channels or to Vimeo where the video quality and sound mixes are often cleaner. I also peek at aggregator playlists and the comments to find creator links and timestamps. Beyond free video hosts, subscription platforms sometimes have short libraries: Netflix and Disney+ occasionally acquire short collections, and platforms like Amazon Prime let you buy or rent anthology compilations. For smaller, experimental or slightly older shorts, Newgrounds and itch.io are goldmines — they host independent animators directly and let you tip or support the artist. I usually bookmark creator pages and follow them on social so I catch new drops; there’s something cozy about watching a five-minute cat short after dinner, and those rabbit-hole rabbit-ears of discovery never get old.

I'm the sort of person who falls deep into YouTube rabbit holes at 2 a.m., and from that late-night habit I’ve noticed one clear winner: 'Simon's Cat' is the most reliably viral cute-cat cartoon out there. Those short, slapstick shorts are tailor-made for sharing — they loop perfectly, the animation is charmingly simple, and the humor is universal. A friend once texted me a clip of 'Simon's Cat' while I was cooking pasta and I ended up watching half the channel before dinner burned. That says a lot. That said, virality isn't a single-track race. 'Pusheen' dominates sticker packs, GIF libraries, and cozy meme culture — if you want bite-sized, repeatable cuteness that people plaster across profiles, 'Pusheen' is king. 'Bananya' and 'Chi's Sweet Home' pop up too, especially on short-form platforms where microclips and loops are the bread and butter of shares. So if you judge by YouTube views and classic viral shorts, 'Simon's Cat' likely takes the crown; if you count stickers and social-media gif circulation, 'Pusheen' might be the true social butterfly. Personally, I keep both in my favorites folder depending on mood — slapstick versus soft and squishy — and that diversity is part of what makes the cat-cartoon scene so fun.

I get so excited whenever someone asks about tracking down an old cute cat cartoon — it’s like hunting for a tiny treasure chest of nostalgia. The first thing I do is figure out the exact title (sometimes the one I remember is slightly off), then I head to a streaming-aggregator site like JustWatch or Reelgood. Those tools are lifesavers because they show current legal streaming, renting, and buying options across your country; I once found a long-lost favorite listed as a free-to-stream on a library platform and nearly squealed. If the aggregator doesn't help, I check official channels: the studio or rights holder’s website, official YouTube channel, or the publisher’s store. For anime or Japanese shows I’ll glance at Crunchyroll, Funimation (or its catalog on Crunchyroll nowadays), and HIDIVE; for Western classics I look at Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Paramount+, and even free services like Tubi and Pluto TV. Don’t forget digital storefronts — iTunes/Apple TV, Google Play, Amazon Prime Video sell or rent older cartoons, and sometimes the remastered editions are only available there. Finally, libraries are underrated: Hoopla and Kanopy often carry TV seasons and kids’ content for free with a library card. If it’s a very niche or region-locked title, check whether there’s an official DVD or Blu-ray — owning physical media sometimes feels retro, but it’s the most reliable way to keep something I love. I usually end up with a mix of streaming and one or two physical discs for the real classics I can’t bear to lose.

There's a neat tangle when people say "the original cute cat cartoon character" because "cute cat" could mean very different things depending on era and culture. If you're thinking of the global kawaii icon that pushed cute cat merchandising into the stratosphere, most people point to 'Hello Kitty', which was created by a designer named Yuko Shimizu for the Japanese company Sanrio in 1974. I still remember seeing a 'Hello Kitty' sticker on my childhood notebook and thinking that tiny bow was the most powerful branding in the world — Sanrio turned a simple face into an entire lifestyle. That said, if you mean the earliest cartoon cat in animated media, the title usually goes to 'Felix the Cat' from the silent-film era. Otto Messmer animated him at Pat Sullivan's studio around 1919–1920 (his short 'Feline Follies' is one of the earliest appearances). And if you wander further back into print comics, George Herriman’s 'Krazy Kat' (starting 1913) is a landmark comic-strip cat that influenced generations of cartoonists. So, the creator depends on which "original" you want: kawaii merch queen 'Hello Kitty' (Yuko Shimizu/Sanrio), the cinematic trickster 'Felix the Cat' (Otto Messmer with Pat Sullivan’s studio), or the comic-art pioneer 'Krazy Kat' (George Herriman). I like imagining them all in a café together — who’d order the tea?

I still get a kick out of digging through animation history, and for the question of the first famous cute cat cartoon, my go-to name is Felix. The cat we think of as the archetypal animated kitty first showed up on screen in the silent era — the short often credited as his debut is 'Feline Follies', released around 1919. Otto Messmer did most of the drawing, and Pat Sullivan’s studio released it, and Felix’s expressive eyes and mischievous grin made him an instant hit in the era before sound, which is wild to imagine compared to today’s slick CGI. That said, the idea of famous cartoon cats didn’t spring up out of nowhere. The comic strip 'Krazy Kat' started in 1913 and was hugely influential; it inspired animated versions and showed American audiences early on that cat characters could carry a story and charm. Later, other iconic kitty figures — like Tom of 'Tom and Jerry' in 1940 and the global character 'Hello Kitty' in 1974 (who later starred in her own animated shows) — each brought different flavors of 'cute' to the table. If you want to watch a piece of animation history, tracking down a restored 'Feline Follies' is a neat little time capsule; Felix’s antics still read as surprisingly modern when you see how much personality was packed into simple black-and-white drawings.