It just got slightly harder to see a penis on Netflix. An episode of Maya the Bee, the animated preschool adaptation of a 105-year-old German book about a happy bee, has been yanked from the service after parents noticed a line drawing of an erect penis daubed on a log. And it is unmistakably a penis. It’s so explicit that the studio behind Maya the Bee is taking legal action against the artist responsible.

Which is funny or horrifying, depending on what you consider appropriate for young children. But the episode does still underline what a rollercoaster it is to watch children’s television on streaming services like Netflix. Unlike, say, CBeebies, where every frame of every show is parsed to ensure that it promotes a healthy message of educational inclusivity, the kids’ fare on streaming services is held to a much less stringent standard.

That might mean you’ll accidentally see a willy in the background of a bee cartoon, or it might mean you end up watching Grami’s Circus Show – a Netflix preschool show so steeped in scatology and violence that it’s impossible to imagine it being aired by any traditional broadcaster.

Operating to much less stringent standards? … Maya the Bee on Netflix. Photograph: Netflix

Grami’s Circus Show is a South Korean cartoon about a baby lion and his exploits in a circus. Which sounds harmless enough … until two and a half minutes into the first episode. At this point, one of Grami’s friends accidentally swallows a bomb, then tries to defecate it before it gets wedged in his sphincter, shoots him up into the air and kills him. There is also an episode where Grami tries to stop a baby bird from being eaten, only to accidentally murder it on an electrified bug zapper. There is an episode where Grami craps out three pixellated balls of faeces, and another where he urinates on a tiger’s face to avoid being burned to death. The episode entitled The Grim Reaper is particularly bleak, ending with Death itself murdering Grami and sneaking off with his corpse. The whole thing is thoroughly, unrepentantly unsuitable for children, and we only discovered it when it appeared on a “because you watched …” submenu after watching some nursery rhymes.

I have to hold my hands up here and admit that I’m slightly obsessed with Grami’s Circus Show. I boggle at the audacity of it. It is so spectacularly inappropriate that watching it is like picking a scab. Watching it with a toddler, as I’ve done by accident, is like playing chicken with object permanence; it’s fun in the moment, but the second any of it sinks in is the moment we’re all screwed.

Spectacularly inappropriate? … Grami’s Circus Show. Photograph: Netflix

The last thing I want to do is get Grami’s Circus Show banned. It’s silly and fun and culturally interesting. After all, violent slapstick is a mainstay of South Korean culture. When I lived there a decade ago, one of the biggest shows revolved around dropping a heavy metal tray on the heads of various celebrities; plus let’s not forget Dong Chim, a game where children poke each other’s anuses with their fingers at force. And, honestly, it reminds me of the out-and-out violence of the Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry cartoons I used to watch as a kid.

But times have changed and, call me coddled, but I’m a bit iffy about it being seen by very young children. My son hasn’t quite reached the “why?” stage of his development yet, but when he gets there it’s going to be incredibly hard to explain why the cartoon lion is trying to squeeze an explosive device out of his bottom.

Grami’s Circus Show isn’t the only kids’ show with questionable content to be found on streaming services. Netflix also has a show called Suckers that features a sort of dominatrix character and a panda in a gimp mask, and a deep enough delve into Amazon Prime throws up so many terrifying sub-Lynchian nightmares that you end up yearning for the tightly-curated quality control of linear broadcasters.

It’s a shame because, when they try, these services are capable of creating some of the best children’s programmes in the world. Netflix’s Ask the Storybots is easily the equal of any kids’ show you have ever seen, and Amazon’s Little Big Awesome is more dizzyingly inventive than everything else you’ve watched all year. But until you can rely on them not to shove genitals or poo or murder into your toddler’s face, they’re never going to be completely trustworthy. Netflix: please keep Grami’s Circus Show, just make it less easy for children to find.