Exploding Kittens is a 2024 adult animated series, loosely adapting the tabletop game into a Horror Comedy of biblical proportions. It shares the same creator of the tabletop game, Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal. The series premiered on Netflix on July 12th, 2024.
When the board of Heaven decides that he needs to be "rehabilitated" after his actions cause chaos, God (Tom Ellis) is sent down to Earth in the body of a cat (known as "Godcat") to live amongst humans and make up for his mistakes. There, he finds himself living with the dysfunctional Higgins family and trying to help them resolve their issues. Not long after, he discovers his arch-enemy Beelzebub (Sasheer Zamata) to have also been sent to Earth for similar reasons as "Devilcat", leading to endless conflicts between the two in the epic battle between good and evil. Hilarity ensues.
On November 21, 2025, it was announced that the series had been cancelled after only one season.
This series has examples of:
- Accidental Murder: The B-plot of "Tartar Recall" has Devilcat accidentally murdering Travis's friend Aiden, with Travis and Abbie travelling to Heck (a version of Hell that souls under 18 go to) to bring him back.
- Adult Adoptee: In the seventh episode, Marv gets adopted by his boss Herb as the latter has no children of his own and wants someone who can inherite his business when he dies. Sadly, he dies almost immediately after the adoption, leaving his new son alone with the business. Turns out Herb was faking his death and only adopted Marv so an agency that was after him would arrest Marv instead. Herb ends up being arrested and the adoption is nullified, but Herb gets to tell Marv he is as proud of him as a father would be.
- Aerith and Bob: The two angels are named Craig and Aslandius.
- Affably Evil:
- Beelzebub is rather genial for being the ruler of Hell, to the point where she's genuinely nicer and more helpful than God, which was why her board of directors sent her to Earth so she could learn how to be a proper devil.
- Herb is not a little bit insane and entirely intent on screwing over Marv, but he's genuinely a friendly and genial person who is surprisingly proud when Marv stands up to him.
- The Alleged Boss: Both God and Beelzebub are shown to be this from their subordinates's perspective which is officially why they are...ahem… tasked with being cats in the human world.
- Due to basking in his former glories as the Creator, God has fallen into a lazy, uncaring way of life that often causes problems in his domains, which his staff expresses concern about. In the pilot alone, he falls asleep while heating a DiGiorno pizza in the oven, which causes a fire that annihilates most of Heaven's stock of unicorns.
- Beelzebub, for her part, has the spirit, but can rarely conjure the actual malevolence that takes to run Hell, such as coming up with lame punishments for sinners like being forced to listen to dad jokes, which doesn't help her reputation as a "Nepo baby" who inherited daddy's company.
- Animal Facial Hair: Godcat retains his flowing white beard in cat form, and is somewhat proud of it.Abbie: *as Godcat teleports in front of her* Jesus fucking Christ!Godcat: Excuse me, does this look like a goatee?
- Badass Adorable: God and Beelzebub are forced to live on Earth in the bodies of plump and fluffy cats. Need we say more?
- Beware the Nice Ones:
- Beelzebub is genuinely one of the nicest characters in the series, with most of her 'evil' being of the Poke the Poodle variety - she's actually sent up to Earth because she's too nice, and usually, she's nothing but helpful. However, as the damned souls at SeaWorld and ultimately, the combined board of directors of Heaven and Hell find out, you do not want to find out what happens when you push her too far. It leaves Godcat in awe.
- Marv also shows that even he has his limits when it comes to being bullied when he finally snaps and beats up Herb in a blind frenzy for his mistreatment of him.
- Big Red Devil: Satan, Beelzebub's father, the former CEO of Hell.
- Born of Heaven and Hell: In the series finale Devilcat gives birth to Godcat's kittens.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: It's established that God is very good at his job when he actually bothers, as demonstrated when dealing with the damned souls at SeaWorld. The problem and central premise of the series is that he hasn't bothered to do so for centuries.
- Casting Gag: Tom Ellis voices Godcat, which is ironic considering that he plays Lucifer in the 2016 show.
- Cats Love Laser Pointers: One of the effects that being in a cat's body has on God is that laser pointers awaken his bestial instincts.
- Cliffhanger: The season finale ends on Devilcat giving birth to Godcat's children, who are implied to be the titular kittens of the series. Given that their birth causes a mini-apocalypse around Devilcat, alongside Godcat's reaction to his progeny, it's clear this will have major consequences going forward.
- Deadpan Snarker: Godcat has no shortage of snarky remarks towards humanity and the stupid things they came up with, as well as his own situation.
- Dysfunctional Family: The Higgins family, which consists of mother Abbie who is a former soldier-turned animal control specialist, her Otaku Manchild husband Marv whose interests include Dungeons & Dragons-esque board games, scientifically brilliant yet socially inept daughter Greta, and wannabe internet star Travis. Their dysfunction is the first task Godcat undergoes when Abbie ends up inadvertently praying to him for help before they fall apart completely, with him continuing to stay there after he fixes it if only because his board of directors feels that there's more work to be done (and because they want him out of the way while the merger goes through).
- Everyone Has Standards: Thanks to their respective Character Development, both Godcat and Devilcat come to appreciate humans as a whole and are opposed to the newly combined Heaven and Hell Board of Director's plan of wiping humanity out.
- Evil Is Petty: Beelzebub's idea of torture is to make people listen to cringe dad jokes, among other things.
- Forced Transformation: Both God and Beelzebub are exiled to Earth and stuck in the bodies of cats, with their power being drastically limited.
- For Inconvenience, Press "1": When Godcat needs the home office’s help he starts praying… and then almost immediately argues with an unheard answering machine or receptionist.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: The management of Heaven choose a cat form for God because they think the humans will react more positively towards it.
- God in Human Form: Well, god in cat form. The reason behind this is that God is supposed to get some humanity back by living among his creations. His godly powers are also limited in cat form.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Beelzebub is eventually revealed to be the love child of Satan and a mortal woman from Earth.
- Heaven: Of the soft, cushy variety, although it's also portrayed as a Celestial Bureaucracy.
- Hell: The usual version exists in this series, with there also being a version for souls under 18 called "Heck".
- Hidden Depths: Godcat, for all his flaws, is surprisingly compassionate and capable of providing incisive advice - in fact, he's genuinely very good at his job, when he bothers to put in the effort. He also has surprisingly elevated tastes in art and entertainment, if not snack foods, utterly disdaining the Chuck-e-Cheese equivalent (except for the whack-a-mole machine).
- Humans Are Bastards: Godcat has rather condescending views towards humans, largely because he accuses them of perverting everything he created with idiotic garbage. It turns out Heaven and Hell agree with this and want to wipe them out and start over. They make this point clear just after Godcat has decided that Humans Are Flawed.
- Jerkass Gods: God starts out as outright Jerkass who neither cares for Heaven nor the humans. He gets better, though.
- Kill All Humans: The first season finale reveals that Heaven and Hell have decided that, since humans are the source of most of their problems, they'll just wipe them out and start over. Godcat refuses to do so after being allowed back into Heaven, so they try to offer Devilcat his position if she will purge mankind. She considers it, but decides that she wants to do things her way, and kills most of Heaven and Hell's leadership to keep them from ending the world.
- The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Both Godcat and Devilcat have trouble resisting typical cat interests like chasing laser pointers and pushing things off shelves.
- Minion with an F in Evil: The reason Beelzebub is sent to Earth as a cat is that her attempts to be evil aren't exactly... that evil. The management of Hell hopes she'll become more evil by spending some time on Earth. Not a very succesful plan.
- Mister Seahorse: Devilcat reveals that in hell the men give birth, so her father Satan was the one being pregnant with her.
- Nepotism: One persistent accusation thrown at Devilcat is that she got her job as CEO of Hell because she is the daughter of Satan while not even being really evil. There's shown to be some degree of justice to this accusation, as she really isn't genuinely much good at it, but thanks in part to Godcat's mentorship (as he's genuinely good at the leader-of-a-celestial-corporation thing when he tries) and Character Development on Earth, she grows a spine of her own.
- Odd Friendship: While Godcat and Devilcat are nominally arch-enemies, they quickly end up bonding over their mutual experiences at the top of a divine/demonic corporation and being celestial beings trapped in animal form. It helps that Godcat is defrosting somewhat and Devilcat is genuinely rather nice with very little inherent evil.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: A sign that Godcat, or Devilcat, is profoundly pissed off and about to wreck something.
- Reduced to Ratburgers: Not out of necessity, but Abbie kills rats bare-handed and makes them into jerky, much to Marv's surprise.
- Satan: Satan is depicted as Beelzebub's father and the former CEO of Hell.
- The Show of the Books: The series is loosely based on the card game of the same name.
- Suck E. Cheese's: Shane & Chugger's, where there's hot games, cold beer, tepid cheese, and technically edible Cajun cuisine. Godcat describes it as "if hepatitis was given its own restaurant", but somewhat comes around upon discovering the Spank-Th'-Swamp Rat machine.Godcat: Well, I will say there are a lot of things humans frigged up: murder, taxes, John Krasinski starring in action movies. I didn't do any of that. But they did get one thing right: this game! (laughs maniacally while hitting several rats)
- Take That!:
- The pilot episode has the list of God's mistakes include "leaving the tornado machine on", letting humans invent pumpkin spice-flavored deodorant, letting the Red Hot Chili Peppers record a Christmas album, war, inequality, nautically-themed bathrooms (which Godcat insists wasn't his idea as he just created the ocean and humans "ran with it"), the smell that emanates from a Subway restaurant, and people who say "in bed" after you read a fortune cookie.
- Several in "Tartar Recall":
- Someone getting sent to Hell for making his family watch movies with the subtitles on.
- Beelzebub's father having designed the Trader Joe's parking lot.
- Beelzebub's ideas of torture involve laggy internet, horseradish-flavored diet Pepsi, and watching Baby Shark. She also claims one of the other tortures there to be listening to Borat impressions.
- The two ways to get into Heck from Earth is either entering an enchanted porta-potty that's been marinating in the sun for two days, or walking through an Imagine Dragons concert. Travis and Abbie choose the former.
- The punishment on Level 1 of Heck is being forced to go clothes shopping at a TJ Maxx on a Saturday, while Level 2 is being forced to do the Presidential Fitness Challenge.
- In "Emotions are Hard" the school receives a visit from a billionaire tech mogul - Jefflon Bezmusk - who is a very blatant caricature of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. He rides in on a Segway that's on fire, his facial expressions look unnatural and Greta is the only one who doesn't find him pretentious.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: Godcat, in the first episode or two, as he settles into his role as mentor.
- Vocal Dissonance: Godcat (in his cat form) is a small, cute kitty kat with the booming, deep voice of Tom Ellis.