Maggie and the Ferocious Beast is a Canadian animated TV series, based on the 1996 book The Ferocious Beast with the Polka-Dot Hide and its follow-ups by Michael Paraskevas and his mother Betty, who are also the creators of the PBS Kids Bookworm Bunch's Marvin the-Tap Dancing Horse The show began as a series of shorts aired on Teletoon in 1998, and premiered its first long-form episode on August 26, 2000. Maggie and the Ferocious Beast aired on the American children's channel Nick Jr. from August 26, 2000 until October 30, 2010, and has not been shown on any US station ever since.