Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends, sometimes shortened to **Miss Spider ** or Sunny Patch, is an animated television series produced by Nelvana in association with AbsoluteDigital Pictures and Callaway Arts & Entertainment as a follow-up to the television special Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids. Created by David Kirk and developed by Nadine van der Velde, it was based on Kirk's Sunny Patch brand and the accompanying Miss Spider book series. In Canada, the show aired on Teletoon before moving over to Treehouse TV. In the United States, it aired on Nick Jr. 40 episodes were produced.

Premise

The show takes place in "Sunny Patch" (a tiny town made of common forest items), populated by anthropomorphic bugs, and primarily focuses on the Spider family. The episodes follow the children's adventures playing in Sunny Patch and learning life lessons, such as being kind to others, being imaginative, having responsibility, and being curious about the world around them.

Episodes

Characters

Main

Supporting

Recurring

Villains

Production, broadcast and release

The show was first announced on December 17, 2003, as part of a Callaway Arts & Entertainment press release. In January 2004, it was reported that Toronto-based studio Nelvana was animating the show. The show premiered on September 7, 2004 on Treehouse TV in Canada and on Nick Jr. in the US. On June 20, 2005, a second season with 25 episodes was announced. The second season premiered on March 13, 2006 in the US, with the episode "Captain Sunny Patch" airing that same day. A third season followed and Treehouse TV finished airing the show's final season on June 17, 2007. The series' final episodes did not air in the US until 2009 when many episodes which had yet to be aired in the country were aired on Noggin. The final episode of the show aired on October 26, 2008. The show aired repeats on Nick Jr from September 28, 2009, until December 12, 2014. Qubo aired repeats of the show from October 1, 2018 until it discontinued on February 28, 2021 due to Scripps' acquisition. In 2020, the show also started to re-air on ZooMoo internationally.

Merchandise

A video game based on the series, titled Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends: Harvest Time Hop and Fly was developed by Shin'en Multimedia and published by The Game Factory for the Nintendo DS in 2006. The game's plot involves Miss Spider, her husband Holley, and their gang of buggies harvesting food and preparing for the coming of winter. The review score aggregator Metacritic gave the game a score of 60 out of 100, based on 5 critic reviews. IGN gave it a 4 out of 10 rating, criticizing it for being overly simplistic. Conversely, the Detroit Free Press, giving it a 75 out of 100, stating that it gets more difficult over time.