Bluey blew me away when I saw it with my daughter. It's sweet, positive, emotional, well written. It's not the slightest bit cynical, handles every issue with tact, doesn't contain heavy handed messaging and has traditional values. It also has a very positive two parent dynamic. This is an absolute unicorn of a show.
Note: my usage of "traditional values" is not meant to evoke anything political or intended to be interpreted from a culture war lens. I just mean it positively portrays a family dynamic that can be universally appreciated.
I recently listened to an interview with Joe Brumm, the creator of Bluey, on the podcast "How Other Dads Dad". He said this is a common criticism, and he thinks a fair one.
The problem is his aim was never to be an educational show for parents, but to be an entertaining show. It wouldn't be as entertaining if Bandit didn't play with the kids all the time.
So yeah, although it is a great kid's show and a much better example of parenting than other shows...we should keep in mind it's ultimately entertainment, not a parenting bible.
You are right, but some kids might compare their parents with Bluey's, and it's of course an unfair comparison, they being fictional characters, but children don't care about that.
Children are capable of understanding the difference between pretense and reality.
My 4 year old loves playacting scenes and games from Bluey but he also understands that I'm not an anthropomorphic dog. Or, for that matter that our dog can't do most of the things the dogs on Bluey can.
This made me laugh, I often think of what bluey's dad would do in certain situations, especially if I'm losing my temper.
Though I do almost resent / dialike him, irrational as it is, for being too perfect as a dad.
I respectfully disagree with your second point, while it might make parents (like me) guilty about not playing so much with kids, I think kids themselves can separate reality from TV pretty well.
I don’t think the amount of play time is impossible, it’s just that I can’t focus on playing as much as they do in that show my mind an imagination give out before my body does.
My wife and I discussed this too. We just remind ourselves that the episodes are 8 minutes long (yes, the plots sometimes are for a whole day), so realistically the parents could be spending all this 'time' which is just in 8 minute increments throughout a day/week.
But yes, ignoring that kind of reasoning, it does set a very high bar.
Also, the parents do have quips/groaning about the requests of the kids from time to time which is does add to the authenticity.
> Also, the parents do have quips/groaning about the requests of the kids from time to time which is does add to the authenticity.
I love the episode where the mom is trying to leave the house with the kids, and she just runs back into the bedroom to scream for a bit before coming out to talk.
Might misremember the details, but it immediately made me love the show.
She has the breakdown in the doorway in front of the kids. But they all calm down together after the Bluey (mostly, IIRC) asks why they're going to the park.
(We haven't watched an episode in many months, but referenced it when my son was taking forever to brush his teeth and I got frustrated.)
You're right, though a "high bar" in itself is not a bad thing! Hopefully not too many people struggle with pressure to behave like cartoon dogs. On the other hand, we might all take some inspiration from them here and there.
I think you can also see a shift to "lower the bar," though, especially in the third season. Bandit also seems to take a less prominent role. This was disappointing to my family; it seemed like some of the show's "purity" was lost to social pressure or something.
Every time I hear this framed as a complaint, I feel the tiniest bit guilty—just for a moment—for personally identifying with Bandit's level of playtime effort and enthusiasm. But I can also commiserate with the few episodes where he let's on just how exhausted he actually is.
Certainly, noted that it's observation rather than a complaint on your part. But I am still rather surprised just how often I do see it framed as a complaint nonetheless.
Eh, well, I dunno. I’ve got kids and I don’t personally let them give me as much crap as Bluey and Bingo do. Like, if they’re running up to the screen at a kids movie I’m taking them home. There’s other people in the theatre to consider. Kids need boundaries along with compassion, and yes, I know that there are the odd Bluey episodes that deal with boundaries, not getting what you want, etc…
…but there’s a lot of what seems like the kids just steamrolling their parents. That’s not sustainable for me. Being a parent is like having two full time jobs. It’s hard enough as it is to just get through the day. The bar is set a little too high.
But hey, my wife and I agree with this, so y’all do you! I’m sure most of our kids will probably turn out just fine no matter how much we model ourselves after Bandit and Chili.
I think it is a wonderful show regardless.
Edit: Knowing the average age in this industry, I have the distinct feeling that quite a few people who are not parents are involving themselves in these discussions and moderations. Just wait. I'm offering a realistic viewpoint positioned against a cartoon. And I'm not being a jerk about it.
the key point is that you and your wife agree what those boundaries are. i can't comment on the specific situation, but yeah, if the kids do something that i can't tolerate, then it's game over.
- It doesn't display the dad as a bumbling idiot for a start, an unmistakably uncommon move in home set shows.
- It doesn't synthetically force women to the center stage for the sake of scoring points with left leaning audiences.
- It doesn't shoehorn in political messages that don't belong and largely harkens back to a time where childrens television didn't require scrutiny of the publisher just to see if it fit the parent's flavor of morality.
- It largely fits the actual day-to-day life experiences of individuals who are most likely to have kids young enough to watch Bluey, namely millennials.
- Parent's are main characters in a lot of the episodes: The parents in Bluey aren't some side-object only included for the sake of completeness. The parents are main characters and are developed as thoughtfully as the children. By doing this the producers were able to garner attention from both the children and the parents. It's honestly a bit of a shame that we've sidelined parents for so long for fear of offending people.
- The show unashamedly depicts an intact household with two loving, heterosexual parents. It's "stunning and brave" in the current culture.
- The show depicts two children who are absolutely uninvolved or unconcerned with their sexual identity, despite the current narrative being that they are the age at which they should be.
- The show is diverse, but not for the sake of checking a box. There is no prioritized group in the show and tension between the breeds of dogs are displayed as equitable and able to relate to one another with minimal conflict (much like in real life, despite what you may have heard).
- There is no mention of a god. There is no big G god, nor any pagan gods. There are no "spirits", no "forces", no "inner being" that is wrestled with. It's a kids show and stays a kids show.
I could go on, but at this point I feel I've overstayed the common HN user's tolerance.
> The show unashamedly depicts an intact household with two loving, heterosexual parents. It's "stunning and brave" in the current culture.
Eh? I'm trying to think of peer shows of Bluey... Peppa Pig and Daniel Tiger come to mind (Trash Truck anyone? Charming little show), heterosexual parents are by far and away the norm. The idea that it's "brave" to show them feels like a conservative talking point that's out of step with reality.
> unconcerned with their sexual identity, despite the current narrative being that they are the age at which they should be
Speaking of conservative talking points... again, I'm really struggling to think of peer shows that have six year olds discussing their sexual identity.
Never seen Daniel Tiger, but Peppa Pig makes the Dad the butt of the joke and portrays him as the overconfident idiot in pretty much every story, while all moms are always infallible.
It's not something that kids might consciously notice, but it's grating and not what I'd exactly call a positive message.
One moment it's considered brave to even feature a single, intact heterosexual couple of married pigs in a cartoon, but when challenged on this being an insane take, utterly divorced from reality, we've fallen back to "sometimes the cartoon pig dad has humourous foibles as part of his character"?
I don't really know why you thought it was an appropriate direction to take the "there are no heterosexual couples depicted in modern children's TV! / Yes there are, are you mad?" thread though. Maybe you can enlighten us?
My argument is less about the identity politics and the modern idea of "diversity" and more about how Bluey does not fall into the "stupid overconfident father / smart sassy mother" trope that is pretty much the rule in Western TV shows since maybe the Simpsons?
> Daniel tiger jams in diversity at every opportunity.
It clearly doesn't given that Daniel Tiger's family, the primary family unit of the show, is a heterosexual couple.
> interracial
I guess I'm losing track of what we're supposed to be offended about now. OP suggested that depicting a heterosexual couple was “brave”, I pointed out that it happens all the time. Are we now arguing that there should be absolutely no instances of mixed-race, orientation or disabilities in kids shows at all?
Jack has ADD
Chili's sister is infertile
Winton, Judo, and the Terriers are from single parent households
There's a deaf kid featured in Turtleboy
There's a wheelchair kid in Quiet Game
"Chocolate Milk" from Tradies is in a mixed breed relationship
In fact, the whole fact that different breeds are interacting is an allegory for racial inclusion.
So yeah, Bluey gets a little "woke" here and there.
Sorry, not sorry.
So the argument is no longer that presenting an intact heterosexual nuclear family is worthy of positive note, but that instead presenting exclusively intact monoracial nuclear families is worthy of positive note?
With the former, I would agree, except that its so common that while it may be positive its hardly noteworthy; with the latter... just no.
No, I don't. A standard was set that the problem was the absence of media depicting intact nuclear families. Daniel Tiger depicts intact nuclear families, but was argued to not be a counterexample to the complaint because it also shows other families and because one of the intact nuclear families it shows is interracial.
This clearly shows that the problem is not the absence of depictions of intact nuclear families, but the presence of other families (and interracial families, even when they are intact nuclear families.)
And you’ve reinforced that with this post, complaining that there is insufficient story justification for these deviations from your preferred norm, which, again, demonstrates that your problem is not the absence of positive depictions of intact nuclear fanilies but the presence of other families (and interracial nuclear families) without sufficient justification for the departure from your preferred exclusive norm.
Can you please stop posting flamewar comments to HN? You've done it repeatedly, not just in this thread and not just on this topic, and you've repeatedly broken HN's guidelines. (e.g. like you did with the swipe at the end of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38715161 - you went from making substantive points to a cheap putdown which was obvious flamebait.)
I'm sure you have substantive things to say, but when you toss in Molotov cocktails along the way, it becomes flamebait and you're breaking HN's rules—regardless of which position you're fighting for or against. You've been doing that repeatedly, it isn't cool, and it's also not in your interest because it makes your comments less persuasive. People will react to the provocations, lose your substantive points, and in the process the thread turns ugly. By doing this, you damage not only the thread but the community.
Is it pandering? None of those things are rare, and I'd be surprised to find out any significant portion of the population wouldn't encounter them in their own school. It's literally just a representation of the real world.
I guess preparing children for the world that exists is "woke" or something.
A kid in a wheelchair. Another with mild autism. Another whose being raised by the grandparents because her mother is a drug addict. Another with pretty severe alopecia (this being her "best friend"). One of her other friends has been very sad because her aunt was killed in Israel.
This is all "real world". And it affects us despite it not happening to our family. At least not yet.
I find it easier to learn abstract things like morals when there are also examples presented along-side them. More so when those examples are practical and applicable to my life. I find this to be a common sentiment.
Are you really trying to say that showing brown people and kids with a single parent is equivalent to showing rape and drug use?
Perhaps you should pause and reflect on your own morals if you think these are equivalent.
First off, you brought up someone being killed as a real world struggle, so don't act like I pulled these real world events out of nowhere and tried to equate it to "brown people" (your words) alluding that I'm racist or something.
Second, my point was to show you that not everything in the real world needs to be depicted directly in kids shows. Not to make an equivalence of those listed things, but to test the consistency of the logic.
Learning morals you can learn how to handle those situations and ideals in the future without being introduced to inappropriate things too early in life.
Perhaps you shouldn't try to make an ad-hominem attack on my morals because you can't interpret it correctly. If you didn't understand, you could have asked for clarification.
I'd argue that encountering people that are slightly different than one's self is a normal daily reality for most people, and that using those people as characters in the protagonists' lives is just making the show relatable. I don't think it's a moral lesson any more than having parents who don't murder every episode is a moral lesson - sure it's an example of decent morals but it's not a lesson in morality.
That is to say, using same logic on "depicting brown people" and "depicting rape" is fundamentally flawed, it doesn't make sense to apply the same rules to "proximity to disabled people" and "murder" they aren't remotely in the same category. They are fundamentally different, and even if they were somehow similar enough to apply the same logic, they are not in any way similar in scope, its like claiming that showing a kid keeping a $100 bill they find on the street is somehow the same as showing a kid planning a multibillion dollar crypto heist... they involve different morals, different situations, and different consequences for every single person involved - that is they aren't the same.
Further, I never brought up someone being killed - that was a different person. You can tell because we have different usernames.
>- The show unashamedly depicts an intact household with two loving, heterosexual parents. It's "stunning and brave" in the current culture.
You seem to be implying that it's abnormal for heterosexual parents to be depicted in children's media. Is that what you meant?
>- The show depicts two children who are absolutely uninvolved or unconcerned with their sexual identity, despite the current narrative being that they are the age at which they should be.
Hm, the "current narrative"? What do you mean by that?
> It doesn't shoehorn in political messages that don't belong and largely harkens back to a time where childrens television didn't require scrutiny of the publisher just to see if it fit the parent's flavor of morality.
As a child of the Captain Planet and D&D moral panic era, when was this time you harken back to?
I'm amazed that you've written this post (presumably in good faith) and not provided a single concrete example.
The replies disagree with your assertions and are providing concrete examples. All of the replies are civil. One might call it civil discourse.
However, I suspect from the priming of your last line that you will not view it that way, and instead view it as "the average HN user" being intolerant of your ideas.
Bluey is a godsend in our household. It's not annoying and the amount of classical and original music woven into each episode is wonderful.
There's one particular episode - "Sleepytime" - which I cannot bring myself to watch anymore because I get so emotional. Every parent I talk to with young kids who has seen the episode agrees and knows what I mean. It's really that good, and despite being a fun little show there are a lot of episodes that are actually art.
I'll add that although the kids in the show sometimes get up to mischief, they never do anything that I don't mind my own toddler emulating. My child now rings her xylophone, commands the rest of the family to freeze, and we have fun playing along.
'Onesies' and 'Babyrace' are also highly emotional episodes. Onesies is, hidden for children, about the inability to conceive children, not being able to deal with your relatives' children; 'Babyrace' is about the doubt all parents have about their parenting ('You're doing great' is aimed directly at the audience)
“Camping” shows how seemingly mundane activities become fundamental family rituals, and in last 12 seconds of the episode, that time together with your kids is fleeting and almost ephemeral.
The density of emotion that is packed per minute of each episode is absurd.
A great deal of the show is directed at parents which accounts in no small part for its popularity. For instance, new parents who do not have much exposure to young children may find playing with their own kids to be frustrating, boring, etc. The parents in the show are excellent models for how to talk to, play, and have fun with young children
Yes, one of my surprising takeaways from this show is how many new different ways I learned to play with my children. It’s humbling to say this, but there are genuine interesting, quick, and free stuff that I learned watching Bluey. I sometimes finish an episode with my daughter and think “let me give this a try…”
Is that the episode when the kid has the phone and the parents are fighting in them background and the kids are oblivious to it but blueys dad is and makes them mute the sound? Then the other parents make peace and team up to get the phone back?
So many episodes that all have great messaging for both child and parent.
My wife will run in from the other room to skip “Sleepytime” because she knows she’ll be bawling by the end of it if she even thinks about it. Does me the favor because I will be too.
My endorsement of the show is that it feels like one of the great sitcoms like Cheers or Frasier, Golden Girls or Roseanne. The stories are never pandering or simple. You never quite know where they’re going to go with a plot line so when it lands, you’re often delightfully surprised or floored. Most kids shows seem like a low effort afterthought full of contrived vapid nonsense. As far as I’m concerned my kids can watch as much Bluey as they like and I’ll buy the shit out of their merch if it signals to other networks to get off their asses.
Forgot to mention the animation in the show is absolutely some of the best I’ve ever seen in a cartoon. I really appreciate the way the show models real physics as things would be in the real world. One of my biggest pet peeves of kids shows is when they show something that is physically impossible (not for comedic purpose, just lazy storytelling). It’s basically just thumbing its nose at kids’ intelligence.
That's true, but just like adults, what kid's brains "need" isn't always the same thing they're most stimulated by. I also think since adults are often around it's very very appreciated to not be obnoxious to adults.
Taking Bluey as a specific example, it's really nice to model positive family relationships. Sesame Street's original goal was to "master the addictive qualities of television and do something good with them."
We’re not talking about the same thing here. Lots of kids shows don’t even try to make sense or have a cogent story. So not only are they insulting the intelligence of their audience, they’re also refusing to enrich their critical thinking skills at all. That’s the _other_ kind of kids show out there right now.
Tom coming back 1 second after being blown up with dynamite makes sense?
Maybe these kinds of cartoons are bad according to you.
There it research that kids are more interested in stuff which is surprising (fixation period, ...) because that builds a model of how the world works, not the easily predicted stuff.
> Are cartoon physics insulting kids intelligence?
dclowd9901 already said the issue is when it's "just lazy storytelling". Pixar shows you can tell great stories with cartoon physics.
You don't eat only sugar. You don't eat only carbs. You don't eat only protein. Your body needs a mix.
Many people want their kids to have a healthy diet. Saying Nutella is a "sometimes food" is not the same as saying Nutella is "bad", or that it's a "never food."
Tom & Jerry is a sometimes food. Other shows exercise a different range of critical skills.
I was gobsmaked when I saw a clip from Mr. Rogers where Daniel Striped Tiger asks Lady Aberlin "What does assassination mean?", in a special episode created after the assassination of RFK. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQv0ZtpRdNk And Mr. Rogers could tackle racism head-on, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4recJ6qXyk in an era when blacks were prohibited or physically attacked for trying to go to "white" pools.
Bluey could take on these sorts of topics for kids, in an age appropriate way. Tom&Jerry could not.
Nor could Blippi, so it's not just cartoon physics that's the issue.
But Mr. Rogers couldn't pull off the classic "coyote paints a picture in a wall, Road Runner enters the picture and speeds off into the distance, coyote tries and crashes into the wall" gag, nor should it. I don't think it's a good idea for kids to only watch Mr. Rogers-type shows either.
> kids are more interested in stuff which is surprising
Strange then that kids' cartoons are often so formulaic.
"The Animal Mechanicals are sent to a new floating island to resolve a problem. The team comes up with a plan, and each team member gets to use their special abilities to help out. There are problems along the way, but they are resolved and everyone is happy at the end."
"Something goes wrong. The Paw Patrol are called to help. Ryder comes up with a plan, the pups use their special abilities to help out. There are problems along the way, but they are resolved and everyone is happy at the end. Except for Mayor Humdinger."
Yep, exactly. And I should mention the show _does_ take some liberties with the plot vis a vis skimming over a lot of the setup of the stories. Try to imagine the amount of time the kids and adults would have to take to set up certain activities they do that we never see. I can scarcely imagine my daughters having the patience to go through with that much setup before actually getting to play.
But it’s all in service of telling a fun, unique story, so it gets a pass.
Honestly, look. Human brains are not designed to passively absorb audiovisual dreck that's on TV. We're humans designed to interact with the natural world, plants, animals, and especially one another, in tangible ways.
Video edutainment is a futile proposition. Get your face out of the screen while you still can, and be present to your fellow man.
Not all audio-visual entertainment is dreck and the reduction of all of it to that is elitist and shitty.
Some kids don't live in a place where they can interact with the natural world, for starters, because our society is awful.
Additionally, not everything even in kids entertainment is dreck either. You have your Bluey's, and you have pregnant Elsa spiderman keyword slurry. A spectrum you'll find in basically every media, kids and otherwise, between actual art that's made by people wanting to share something, and content-mill designed-by-committee (or AI) bullshit that's designed to keep your attention.
The unfortunately true part is now more than ever so much more of the latter of this spectrum is present than the former, because everything in our society is done for profit and not to make the world better, and it's far more profitable to make by-the-numbers repetitive minimum-viable-product garbage that people will tolerate rather than truly great things that take time and care to create that people adore. But that's a curation problem, not a problem with the media itself.
By the previous commenters opinion I assume it is. The point being to have people interact with the world instead of passively accepting high levels of stimulation for doing nothing. I believe it’s healthier for all humans of any age to engage with the input->output model of the world.
Nope, it stands out among kids shows, which are typically a wasteland of formulaic stories that amount to nothing and require no introspective thinking.
One thing I think that illustrates this is that my daughter will often have questions for me after watching Bluey. Like actual meaningful questions about life or how the world works. If she’s watching TOTS, she’s just sitting there mouth agape and maybe getting bored enough to just walk out of the room.
Again I think the premise here is that this sort of engagement with the world is better done, for example, as a conversation with an adult that can lead them to the same interesting questions and observations. I did this endlessly as a kid. I'd be sitting bored in a car and look at clouds and ask my parents how clouds worked. This wouldn't have happened if I was given a smart phone.
I don’t disagree, and we get that time and those interactions too in various other contexts. But when I need a break, I’m far more comfortable putting my kids in front of a show like Bluey than other shows because it engages their minds.
Parenting is a marathon, not a race. If it takes a village, parents need to be able to rely on the village from the time to time.
We're not designed to live in buildings either. Or to do math. So I'm not sure about this line of reasoning, because it suggests we should go back to hunter gathering.
Of all the children's programming my children have watched, Bluey is by far the nicest for us (the parents) to watch or listen to, and has been the most enduring in terms of popularity with our kids.
Similar to Peppa Pig, the scenarios are often recognizable in a family with young children, but they're generally funnier and the characters are more loveable.
The animation style is a refreshing break from the bright colourful garbage most CGI studios seem to churn out on an assembly line.
And like you said, they won't pick up bad ideas from the show.
As a dad, I used to like Peppa Pig, but now can barely stand it - as opposed to Bluey.
Daddy Pig is fat, useless, convinced he's an expert in everything but failing every time. His parenting skills hover around 0, and always needs to be rescued, usually by Mummy Pig. So much for healthy co-parenting.
Furthermore, Peppa is mean to her friends, who like her regardless, she always gets special treatment.
I'm not saying there isn't a lot of good stuff in PP, there is for sure, but the issues above feature in every episode and they really get to me now.
The other thing is that there is zero conflict in Peppa Pig - any bad thing that happens is resolved immediately. Peppa always gets what she wants. Bluey is far more realistic: the parents can't just wave a wand to make Bluey and Bingo's problems go away, and it leads to a life lesson.
For example, in the "Copycat" episode Bluey finds an injured bird and she and her dad take it to the vet. It dies anyway. But it's a valuable lesson for Bluey: she learns that some things are out of her and her parents' control and by the end of the episode she comes to accept it. They would never do an episode like that on Peppa Pig.
That’s virtually every sitcom and children’s cartoon, the father is a bumbling idiot. Talk about “toxic masculinity” …
On the other had, I wonder if that is why I gravitated towards King of the Hill in my early years. Generally a positive male role model, competent, trying to do the right thing by his family and community.
KotH is almost unique in that the dad isn't the dumbest character. It's hard to name many other shows like this. Bob's Burgers, I guess, but that's about it.
The makers of Peppa Pig made another program aimed at slightly older children called Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom that was much much better than Peppa Pig. It was much funnier and the characters were so much better and more likeable.
The difference, IMO, is that Bandit is constructively wacky. He's generally competent, unlike other shows where only the mother is competent.
It's honestly refreshing seeing the two parents in Bluey, because neither are being degraded and they have a good relationship and exhibit good teamwork.
Also the animation for bluey and peppa pig use the same software, CelAction2D. There is an ending of bluey episode which shows the animators using the software to build the scene. My little one was amazed and asked me to get the software. She has an artistic side but this pushed her into learning about animation
> there are a lot of episodes that are actually art.
Indeed, I can't emphasise enough just how much this is underplayed in:
> One storyline contrasts the adult dogs struggling to construct flat-pack furniture while the children create their own adventure
This is a short episode that's fun for kids to watch with some adventure and a bit of parents struggling to build some furniture. It also covers the evolution of life on the planet and futures beyond, growth, aging, letting your children go. It's like 5 minutes and entirely self contained, it's truly incredible.
> some adventure and a bit of parents struggling to build some furniture. It also covers the evolution of life on the planet and futures beyond, growth, aging, letting your children go. It's like 5 minutes and entirely self contained, it's truly incredible.
They crammed so much into so little time, it's truly impressive. That episode also depicts a religious creation myth with the parents as deities who provide materials that create the world and are depicted as gods in the kids' "cave paintings". It joins with the aging theme by having the raised deck where the parents are be where the kid playing the aging mother goes after her child moves on, complete with a blink and you miss it homage to Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam" followed by the Dad saying "This is heaven" to close the episode.
> They crammed so much into so little time, it's truly impressive.
It is. I'm aware I'm gushing about it a lot but it's very impressive. It doesn't even feel rushed. To reiterate a point from earlier, this is all while being a fun thing for young children to watch.
To expand - most kid shows that adults can stand to watch are written to adults in some sly way that flies over the kids' heads. Often that adult targeted humor is something that kids have no context for (subtle sexual innuendo, pop culture references) - I think the 2016 "The Jungle Book" remake is a good example of this, with extended and funny references to Apocalypse Now and other mature films. But Bluey will have some innocuous fun episode and the subtle context is actually something about death, parental legacy, being an adult with a life predating your children, the pain of miscarriage, etc. I don't know how they pull off addressing those topics but they somehow do and it's magical.
There's another episode, called rain, that you might enjoy if you haven't seen it (and some of the sibling commenters might too). There's no dialog, and it's a beautiful balance of the frustration and wonder that comes with parenting.
‘Rain’ is special to me because I would do the same thing as a kid, just trodding along and trying to build a dam to hold the water back. My daughter and I do it now when we have a big rain storm
We haven‘t watched Bluey yet but when my older kids were young we watched Sarah & Duck. We loved it because it‘s chill and relaxing and a little weird.
Sarah & Duck and Bluey are my favorite kids shows, but they're very different. S&D is more quiet and contemplative, whereas Bluey tends to be more playful and energetic. My daughter grew out of S&D and into Bluey at around age 4.
I used to be frustrated that the parents in Bluey seem to have endless energy and attention to devote to their kids – at least with S&D, I didn't feel like there was such a lofty version of parenting with which to compare myself. But I've come to realize that the playful and fun dad in Bluey is a much better role model, for me personally, than the dads who are just sort of vanilla and kind (Daniel Tiger, Doc McStuffins), not to mention the dads who are just awful (Peppa Pig). Physical comedy, imaginary play, and committing to the bit, are all great for having fun while also connecting with young kids. Sarah and Duck obviously didn't teach my any of that, so it's been a useful change of pace as my daughter has gotten older.
The unlimited energy becomes a little more realistic from season 2 onwards, but I was annoyed too, and maybe even felt guilty... prompting me to address those emotions. Totally on point for the show
Sarah and Duck is a great show. We watched it all the time when my 11 year old was 5-6 and my now 5 year old has grown to love it as well. Agreed on the description - the instrumental music is relaxing and the mix between realism and complete fantasy (like when they go underwater or inside the ball machine) is a lot of fun.
Sarah & Duck is such a nice change from the typical loud and fast action kids programming. Shaun the sheep is another good slower alternative though not always as calming
I do wish they'd mention the music and inspiration in the credits. S1E17 (Calypso) is built around Camille Saint-Saens' "Organ Symphony" 4th movement. S1E1 (The Magic Xylophone) is based on Mozart's "Rondo Alla Turca". S1E11 (Bike) is derived from Beethoven's Symphony no. 9 4th movement (a.k.a. Ode to Joy). And the original music is awesome.
Yeah, I eventually figured that one out - I was actually familiar with the Holst but couldn't place it, so for a while I was just thinking "oh, I know this from somewhere"
Though I agree that the songs should be listed in the credits, iOS has Shazam built-in now that Apple bought it, which will recognize songs ("hey Siri, what's this song?"). I'd be shocked if Android didn't have something similar.
Ah, classical; got it. I frankly have not tried it with classical, but do vaguely recall that others have reported the same. Apologies for the wild goose chase.
It shows about a kid bird and her younger sibling exploring their island. It has supportive parents. Themes in the show are exploration, family ties, friendships, problem solving, independence etc.
As someone that had a job that took me away from my daughter too much, “The Quest” does me in. Also the infertility episode hit me like a truck that I didn’t see coming because we also dealt with that for years.
The last available episode, Cricket, is even more devastating. It shows what kind of sibling relationships can be in face of family situations that might be trying for kids, and how they come through for each other. I hope for my kids to have this kind of bond.
Last I heard he said he wasn't planning to make a 4th season of Bluey. But it was worded in a way that made it sound like it wasn't ruling it out completely.
One thing I admire about the show is that all the children actors' identities are a secret. No one outside of the show's team knows who voices Bluey and Bingo (other than the fact that they're the daughters of someone who works on the show), which probably affords those girls as much of a 'normal' life as possible, something that celebrity children wouldn't ever get to experience.
That also makes me wonder if the reason we're not getting more than 3 seasons is that their voices will change. But man, I really hope he puts out more stuff, whether in the Bluey universe or elsewhere.
I read a conspiracy post about how the kids' voices were AI (clearly not) but the post also pointed out many examples of audio clips being recycled across episodes. I notice it while watching now, so I think you're on to something here.
Conversely other shows have had many different voices actors without noticeable detriment by their targets audiences, such as Peppa Pig, discussed elsewhere here.
I disagree a bit with the sibling commenter. This episode falls into about the second season of the show midway through. So putting yourself into that context: you’re watching something like 35 episodes of this show and it’s cute and wholesome and the stories are great, some with some emotional impact, but then you get to this episode and it just absolutely blindsides you.
So, I think it will _make sense_ on its own, but I think it _really_ hits hard if 1) you weren’t expecting it and 2) if you have kids.
The blindside being the unique tone of the episode, compared to what came before it. It still has silliness and is a fun watch.
Some things that I think make it hit differently:
* The house and most scenes are dimly lit
* You see the family in various stages of sleep
* The musical score has some intense crescendo
* The vulnerability it shows
It's a small glimpse of night time in a house with a child that is still transitioning to sleeping on their own. Having had kids, that weight being lifted as they finally "get it" is a unique feeling of bittersweet relief. It also shows the lengths the parents go through to make it a graceful and comforting transition.
This is how I felt about the episode before I had kids. I thought it was a fine episode but nothing special. Onesies was my favorite. Of course, we wanted kids, so that hit me where I was at the time. Now I have a two-year-old, and I "get" Sleepytime. There is nothing extra to explain except that it will just mean more to you.
Not saying you don't have kids, just my own experience with it.
I'm going to be honest here: Bluey means a lot to me, as a 32-year-old childless woman, because this show has really touched me in ways that may not be obvious at first:
I've felt more in touch with my own imagination since I started watching Bluey. I've actually been writing music and sketching in my spare time again, which is something I haven't done since before the pandemic.
It's actually helped me piece together things that I felt as a child that I never properly dealt with, or even knew how to voice back then. I've been able to find healing and peace, and articulate stuff in therapy a bit better.
In general, I just feel a bit happier and a bit better after watching an episode of Bluey. Sometimes I just want to watch something to feel positive emotions without it being overly-happy fluff. There's a realism to Bluey that makes it easier for me to "let my guard down" and feel happiness.
I do kind of live vicariously through Chilli, with my hope being that I can be a mum some day.
Oh, and my cat now has a nickname: Muffin. Make of that what you will.
I hope you get to be a mum. You sound like someone thoughtful and imaginative, which are great qualities for being a parent. Infinite patience would also help - I'm still trying to develop that myself!
As the father of two young daughters, I adore Bluey. Quite apart from how good the episodes are for adults, I really enjoy the following aspects:
1. It portrays wholesome and positive family relationships, particularly between father and daughters. The girls are also good to one another, with occasional conflict kindly and realistically resolved.
2. It tells simple stories without pushing political messages. Unfortunately, children’s television at large has become another victim of the culture wars, with heavy-handed social messages infecting what should be simple cartoons. Bluey is something I can trust.
3. I don’t have to expose my kids to American accents. They’ll have more than enough of that from regular programming when they grow up.
> "This family has two mommies. They love each other so proudly and they all go marching in... the... big parade," sing the lyrics. Other terms featured include "trans," "non-binary" and "queer."
> “Love is love is love you see, and everyone should love proudly,”
Acknowledging LGBTQ people are capable of love is somehow an example of “culture war”. It’s incredible people can be so bothered by a simple, sweet message.
yes, acceptance of others is an overly political message to those of a certain political persuasion. can’t have kids running around thinking whatever they grow into might be ok if it doesn’t comport with mommy and daddy’s worldview.
Whatever kids grow up into is not okay with most parents. I’d imagine almost everyone would agree with that statement. There are probably traits you wouldn’t want your children to have. You probably wouldn’t be okay with them being gambling or drug addicts, racist, murderers, uneducated, etc.
If parents were truly okay with their children growing up into whatever they happen to grow into, there would be no reason for the parents to impart morals, life lessons, education, proper nutrition, etc., to children. The fact that, for the entire existence of humankind (so far as I can tell), we seem to have done those things, it seems to me that all parents strongly care about what their children grow up to be like.
Why does the idea of a parent wanting to impart their vision of how the world ought to be offend you? If the shoe were on the other foot, and you wanted your children to be raised a particular way, would you appreciate being ridiculed for that?
>You probably wouldn’t be okay with them being gambling or drug addicts, racist, murderers, uneducated, etc.
Some are objective. Not much interpretation to whaty a gambler or drug addict is. But the sad thing is that "racism" and especially "educated" are highly subjective.
>Why does the idea of a parent wanting to impart their vision of how the world ought to be offend you?
Depends on the vision. Obviously as a black man I'd have an issue with people who's "vision" is that black people are dangerous, dumb, and dirty. I imagine it's the exact same for a lesbian, or a trans person, or even a not rich person.
And of course not all disagreements are equal. I may not prefer a helicopter approach but that is ultimately a choice that does not impact me nor my family. The former, not so much. Your freedom ends where mine begins.
It goes both ways. Maybe you'll teach your kids to be open and tolerant to everything but they'll grow up, convert to Catholicism, and -- gasp -- vote conservative.
Yes, i fully recognize that at least one of my children is likely to enjoy baseball and vote for a Republican at least once in their life, despite my best efforts to show them the light. I will love them anyway.
well, everything is political, but i wasn’t making it so. i just really hate baseball and have never encouraged my kids to play the sport because of that.
Perhaps you mean 'vote reactionary', as the religious tend to do? Voting conservative means the Democratic party these days - general support of institutions, the United States's standing in the world, law and order, individual freedoms, fiscal responsibility. The contemporary Republican party has rejected these things, instead focusing on some imagined idyllic past and pushing for radical change towards it. The Democratic party certainly has its things it wants to change, but they're much more incremental and not the sweeping sea change of the current Republican agenda.
Bluey is targeted towards pre-school children. I'm not really bothered if my 4-year-old daughter sees stuff like this, it's just that she won't really understand things like "non-binary". It seems like a topic more appropriate for older children - maybe from age 8 or later?
At my kids’ childcare, by far the most popular educator is non-binary. They do a great job of listening to the kids, and talking to them without talking down to them. Come to think of it, the way they interact with the kids actually reminds me a fair bit of the parents in Bluey.
Both my kids (3 and 5 but now at school) have said stuff like “Today we did x with Greg. He’s not exactly a boy and not exactly a girl.” Then they get on with their day. To them, it’s just another person that’s a bit different to them.
I live in a pretty liberal European city, yet I haven't met any non-binary person. I know exactly one trans person, and only remotely (she lives in US). I guess to me, this topic seems "advanced", perhaps "irrelevant" in a way for such a small kid. There are many other things she needs to learn about, which she will commonly experience in the real world.
80s in California... there was a sizable but not exactly large group. No one cared. We all knew "old people" were supposed to care, but it was more likely just a thing everyone had to pretend to care about on TV. None of the old people I knew cared either.
Depends on the circle. Tech industry in California, know 2 NBs, and 2 trans people (and then 2 more I knew transitioned after I left work and contact with them). I guess that does fit all the liberal stereotypes that people like to throw at my State.
I'm in London, and I've met a few non-binary people (enbys), and had at least two trans people in my school (one student, one teaching assistant; this was in the mid-2000s).
> Some people believe that whether you're a woman or a man is a thought in your head, and they also believe that these thoughts mean you can be neither, which they call 'non-binary'. It's helpful to respect these people's beliefs and act as if they are true, because they can get very angry and vindictive if you don't agree with them.
And then we ask why some kids wind up entrenched away from economic opportunity…
Like, if your only coping mechanisms for beliefs you disagree with—particularly about someone else’s private affairs—rise out of fear of retribution, you shouldn’t be in a decision-making role of any kind. It’s somewhat sad to see that baked into a kid from the get go, but maybe they’ll get over it without winding up resentful for the handicap.
The point is it's not a private affair. Retribution from people who react harmfully when others do not share their beliefs is a real thing, ask anyone who was brought up in a strict religious environment who became a non-believer. Sometimes the easiest path is minimal appeasement to avoid conflict where you'll end up worse off.
Someone's sexuality or gender identity sure is. Given languages' pronouns evolve (e.g. a universal "you" in place of the informal "thou", or the aborted deprecation of "y'all"), that's not a reasonable hang-up.
> the easiest path is minimal appeasement to avoid conflict where you'll end up worse off
Sure, and instinctive conflict avoidance is a valid life strategy. It's just bad build for a decision maker. Someone conditioned in that behaviour is going into life with opportunities cordoned off.
Perhaps you should teach children that it's good to respect people's beliefs because being nice to people is good?
I think it's ironically tragic that in an attempt to get people to respect your beliefs more, you argue that the main reason to do so it out of fear of retribution.
The one thing that could be noted on this point of seeing a toddler-focussed TV show with an LGBTQ acceptance theme, is that there are a lot of other acceptance-worthy themes out there that never make it into toddlers' TV shows. I will not make a list because obviously that would be whataboutism, virtue signalling, I don't know.
That too - the pantomime dame character is basically just men ridiculing middle-age women, while sending a message to any children watching that it's acceptable to do so. It's as offensively sexist as the drag queens.
If I'd written a comment about the racism inherent in 'blackface' performance regarding its mockery of black people, would you claim I was redefining racism?
Yes, you did. Both blackface and drag performance have particular histories you're intentionally and erroneously conflating. The former is racist in its origin. The latter is not misogynistic in either its origin or contemporaneous performance.
Drag is men dressing up as caricatures of women. They wear costumes intended to represent women and mimic female bodies, adopt a 'woman' persona under a feminised and often heavily sexualised name, and act out every demeaning, offensive stereotype of women for laughs, often leaning heavily on mocking women's bodies and the physical experiences exclusive to women: pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, menstruation, and sometimes even abortion. Then they take off those costumes and get to go about their lives as men when they aren't doing this, without having to live under those same stereotypes they helped perpetuate for fun or money. Meanwhile, women are expected to laugh, clap along and celebrate this insult. This mockery of women isn't exactly subtle.
So, please explain the reasoning behind your belief that drag is not misogynistic.
I guess you think that bodybuilders, models, and actors (film and especially Theatre) are all misandric/misogynistic as well? They fit all the items above as well.
I guess I see why the comment upstream was flagged.
Please explain your logic more clearly, I don't see the connection you're making between the occupations you mentioned and men dressing up to make an offensive mockery of women in the way they do for drag.
>They wear costumes intended to represent [Person]
>adopt a persona under Fake name
>act out every demeaning, offensive stereotype for s/laughs/entertainment, boften leaning heavily on the physical experiences.
>Then they take off those costumes and get to go about their lives, without having to live under those same stereotypes they helped perpetuate for fun or money
How is RuPaul doing anything different that America's next top model, Hollywood, or any other competition based on looks doing? It's just personal interpretations if you view it as empowering, demeaning, or even bigoted. They all get the same accusations levied at them after all.
How is this different to when Mr. Rogers shared a wading pool with his Black mailman? Or Captain Kirk kissed Uhura? Both evoked the same conservative outrage we hear about today over things like this. Introducing and celebrating people different from ourselves is how we become more comfortable with them. It eliminates the other-ness of them. As these kids grow up they're going to become aware of a vocal minority of adults who are trying to convince people to marginalize these minority groups and in some cases even call for their extermination. Yes it's a culture war, but it's not being waged by LGBT people, it's being waged against them.
To be fair, there are subtler ways of communicating acceptance. The Bluey way would seem to be having a couple at the playground that the kids maybe ask about. Or maybe they don’t! They just coëxist peacefully because it’s no more remarkable than them having a different skin tone. Different framing from a drag show, which I can see someone preferring without being homophobic.
That's because its never heavy handed.. How about the episode with grandpa struggling with the new app centric lifestyle: Phones "Are you sure we're playing this right?". Subtly provocative and brilliantly done.
> 3. I don’t have to expose my kids to American accents. They’ll have more than enough of that from regular programming when they grow up.
What’s the concern here? I understand American media dominates everything, so I’m guessing you don’t want your kids to pick up small bits of American accent when they’re still developing?
I'm not the OP, but as a child growing up in an anglophone country but with a 'low-prestige' accent (think Indian English or Singaporean English), it was ingrained to me pretty early on that the only 'proper' ways to speak were RP or General American, and one of the reasons was because all the kid shows I watched had characters who talked almost exclusively in those accents. 'Exotic' accents were used mostly for comedic value.
Having a greater variety of shows that model the diversity of the English language would probably have gone some way to dispelling that damaging self-belief? I really love the existence of shows like Derry Girls, because they make me less self-conscious of my 'exotic' accent.
That's a really interesting perspective that I hadn't considered, thank you for answering! I have what anyone would call a General American accent, so your experience isn't one I'd ever been personally exposed to growing up. I remember a lot of older sitcoms and cartoons using "exotic" accents for comedic value though, like you said, and it's obvious that can be damaging to anyone's self-esteem.
>2. It tells simple stories without pushing political messages.
I did wonder if there'd be any outcry over the DIY episode which is about evolution. Certain cultures seem to have serious issues with that. It did also hint at afterlife, however.
I'm also a girl dad (ages 3 and 4) and Bluey is a total favorite in our (mountain west US) household. In utter contrast to the singsongy dreck of CocoMelon and its imitators, our kids actually take away memorable lessons they enjoy (going to bed like a big girl, like Bingo!), and my wife and I regularly comment that we'd watch the show on our own without the kids for its sheer relatability.
It's an absolute gem, folks.
If you're so inclined, we found a nice cake topper on Etsy for _my own_ birthday this year: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1481048560/inspired-bluey-caket... turns out to be easily adapted to read "Turning 40" rather than "Turning 4". Super cute & the girls adored it.
Has anyone else noticed that “Camping” is basically the Star Trek TNG episode Darmok? Bluey meets a French dog named Jean-Luc. They construct some shelter together and have to hunt a monster. (I.e. Bandit pretending to be a wild boar.) They find a way to communicate despite speaking different languages. One leaves. Shaka, when the walls fell.
In the end, Muffin, her scream echoing—Bluey and Jean-Luc, their tails wagging!
(My wife who’s not really an Trekkie pointed this out to me. Also there’s another read about Jean-Luc’s departure as death and an eventual reunion in the afterlife when we will all finally understand each other. Read it as you like it.)
I love it when kids shows do things like this. The BBC show Hey Duggee has an episode called The River Badge which is a homage to Apocalypse Now, recreating a number of similar scenes and pieces of dialogue. Other episodes have references to other movies that kids won't know but that are great fun for adults when they notice.
Chilli's wisdom definitely hits hard if you have full context. The ending of this episode (and even the book version) nearly brings me to tears every time.
It's truly a show about parenting. It covers realistic themes about parenting. It's very well written. With childrens shows, it's easy to make a show appeal to kids. Cocomelon is basically loved by every child ever, but its so annoying to parents. Bluey is great because the parents like it.
It's a great show that demonstrates how to play with your kids. Though I do appreciate the episodes where the parents are exhausted, or must do chores, instead of playing with their kids.
Showing the parents at the end of their ropes is really great to see. I love their pixar style adult only quips that get added from time to time. In the claw episode for example, Bandit (the dad) says `Magic Claw has no children. His days are free and easy` and it always cracks me up.
Bluey is great and we love it, but I do have to say that it is not as directly beneficial for very young children as something like Daniel Tiger. Daniel Tiger has episodes that directly and clearly address things that young children are going through (little siblings, using the bathroom, managing emotions, etc). Bluey has episodes that address those things but does so in ways that are less direct and comprehensible for a pre-school child. Many Bluey episodes are more for the parents, than the children. Bluey will be with us long after our last Daniel Tiger episode is watched.
Daniel Tiger is so much more difficult to watch as an adult, but I have to give it credit for its potty training episode: that was a huge help when trying to potty train our 2.5-year-old. So I definitely agree that a targeted application of Daniel Tiger can really help, and also easier to digest for a pre-schooler.
However, I do think that having complex messages that aren't easy to understand is probably important for young children. "The world is a complicated place" is a lesson I wish even more adults understood. And I've learned that children may show no comprehension of something the first few times they hear it, but it's in there, making connections, shaping the brain as it grows. I can't tell you how many times I've told my daughter something I thought went way over her head (and did, at first), but randomly came out again months later. So by all means go for the simple Daniel Tiger message when it helps them through a problem they're having. But don't underestimate their capacity for deeply integrating ideas from everything they see and hear -- and I love Bluey for being by far the best young kids' show for them to integrate into their brains.
I agree Daniel Tiger is great for targeting particular challenges with those little sing songs they do to help kids learn and also targets a slightly younger audience. When we were having our 2nd and our 1st was 2 years old we played the baby episode a few times "a baby is coming to our family...". Our son welcomed our newborn daughter perfectly and somehow even found a little red book to (almost) drop on her.
I love that this post is on HN. It's helping me frame why I like Bluey so much. I'm also going to try that Sarah and Duck mentioned elsewhere.
I know it's a little thing, Daniel Tiger's very-heavy autotune on all the singing (and there's a lot of singing) drives me nuts. I'd be shocked if Fred Rogers would have been OK with it. Young kids should hear natural singing voices in media aimed directly at them.
My daughter really likes Daniel Tiger, but there's something about it that really annoys me that I can't put my finger on. I think it's that the characters and relationships just feel too sterile, where as with Bluey it actually feels like you could be watching a real family.
Bluey is the only show my kid loved, and never wanted to binge watch. He’d watch one or two episodes and then want to turn the TV off so we could play Silly Hotel or Keepy Uppy or Grannies. Where other shows grabbed his attention longer, Bluey always inspired him to go out and play.
One thing that I appreciate about Bluey, apart from the other things people have commented on, is that the animation style is very aesthetically pleasing. So many kids shows have the exact same 3D CGI style, and some of them honestly look just uncanny-valley creepy.
Another thing that most people wouldn't experience is seeing episodes set in places I might have been in the last couple of weeks. It's obviously stylised and interpretive, but a lot of the buildings and places are very accurately represented!
There’s some really fun “blink and you’ll miss it” jokes in the show. At some point, one of the kids is acting like a dog, and I think Chili asks Bandit “what is she doing?” And he replies “I have no idea.”
My 2 faves are 1) "Whale Watching" when Bandit and Chili are clearly hungover from an NYE party. and 2) in the episode "Perfect" when Bandit and Fido are talking about getting a vasectomy but Chili wants to keep her options open. It was risque enough that they re-dubbed it for America but the subtitles are still from the original recording.
As a parent, I love watching all the episodes. My 5 year old also loves watching it. One of the few good children shows that has great entertainment with great values for all.
My favorites are always the grannies ("Oh no, my coins!"). My wife loves "Fairytale" because we both grew up in a far off place called the 80s and can relate to all of it.
The episode where the mother tries to get her father to slow down and take care of himself because she knows he won't be around forever is a hard watch since my mother passed away. Also where the kids jump on the dads groin by accident and all you see is a raised eyebrow and a very slight groan is one all dad's can appreciate. A truly wonderful show.
As a parent it's just a genuinely nice show to watch. There is so much complete crap out there now that Bluey is a breath of fresh air.
A few others are good fun as well like Grizzy and The Lemmings. But Bluey reigns supreme.
Although I wish the phone game didn't have in app purchases. At least the Bluey video game on Steam is good and without in app purchases or micro transaction nonsense.
I'm probably not qualified to answer this question but to thrown my own two cents out there: I've watched both Bluey and Paw Patrol with friends' kids. Obviously take these observations with a grain of salt.
Paw Patrol is essentially the laziest most nonsensical writing, because of course you don't have to write well if you have enough colour being vomited at the screen and you're really just trying to sell toys.
Bluey is essentially the opposite of that. There's decent stories, it seems to tackle some tough stuff sometimes, and just generally it seems well-written and much more representative of what life is like for people (them being dogs notwithstanding).
Separately, I've also seen some straight up terrible stuff on Youtube. Just random garbage which is probably these days more LLM-generated but clearly used to be created by throwing darts at a board.
For example, I opened up youtube kids, said I was a parent, and clicked Explore and this was one of the first videos that came up: https://www.youtubekids.com/watch?v=tOXszq1-rxs
The themes tend to be (ab)using well-known properties kids already know to get them to watch your video. This came up as related, and at least involves a Yoga routine but you can see the other elements are there: https://www.youtubekids.com/watch?v=QM8NjfCfOg0
I'm not the OP so I don't know what they define as "crap." However, there is a lot of programming out there that solely exists to keep children's attention while doing nothing with it. The most egregious example that comes to mind is the CoComelon channel on YouTube: literally 1-2 hour videos of nursery rhymes with mediocre animation. It's not some small channel either; one of their 2+ hour videos has 484M views.
Cocomelon is seriously the elite of YouTube. And fine for small kids I think, who wouldn't understand things like Bluey. All the messages are around "be nice", "share", "say please and thank you".
There's lots of videos of kids unpacking presents, or having tantrums to get what they want, or weird videos of adults shouting at children... Or videos showing people play computer games for hours on end.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of “kids” YouTube videos, clearly created by algorithm, that play a single song (when my kid was young it was finger family) and put bootleg cartoon characters (spider man, the smurfs, etc) dancing to it over a kaleidoscope background.
At least back when my kid was small the YouTube algo would start feeding them up after the second or third video. You’d turn around to make dinner and come back to this never ending loop of … crap.
Frankly, I was pretty impressed with the hustle and curious what the tech stack looked like.
If it exists just to advertise toys (beyblade) or is so saccharine it makes you sick (Daniel tiger) then it's crap.
There's good stuff out there though - bluey, octonauts, peg + cat, carmen sandiego.
There is some crazy kids programming on YouTube. Some dude puts a hamster through basically a fake version of a saw film. Random animation of tractors driving over poor physics, etc
There are lots of extremely-cheap kids TV shows on places like Netflix or D+[1], many of which (on Netflix) are imports from e.g. Turkey with bad dubbing, that have plots so inane it's hard to express just how inane they are. Everyone's always acting stressed out and emoting over-the-top (so they hold kids' attention) but nothing is happening, all the conflict is over nothing, anything resembling an actual problem basically just solves itself. This is a very high proportion of the lower-tier shows on those services. It's such amazingly content-free writing that it's hard to believe much of it pre-dates a time when it could have been LLM-penned. [EDIT] Example of the kind of thing I mean: in some of the cheap Disney Tinkerbell/fairy shows, you'll have several characters standing (or floating) around talking, every line delivered with this high-emotion concerned tone, and this will go on quite a while, but when you, as an adult, think about what you're hearing, you'll realize that practically no information is being exchanged, most of the sentences contain no information or are repeating the same stuff for the fourth or fifth time. It's weird filler that achieves a sense of urgency and importance purely by how the lines are delivered, there's nothing going on.
And that's before even considering factors like providing educational or positive-role-model value, just a sheer "is the script, like... a story, with characters?" level. Or the animation quality (universally garbage, of course).
[1] Not even getting into the absolute insanity of Youtube—look up some of the kid-targeted "story"-type Minecraft machinama on there to see some of the most uncanny "narrative" ever, tons of them go on and on and on with the trappings of a story but no actual story, just things happening one after another and weird nebulous goals that never seem to get any closer, like some kind of drug-fueled automatic-writing experiment, it's a friggin' fever dream. And that's before you get to the extremely weird Youtube crap aimed at kids.
> tons of them go on and on and on with the trappings of a story but no actual story, just things happening one after another and weird nebulous goals that never seem to get any closer,
He's not that bad, he tells actual stories, kinda, he's just the laziest plotter in the history of script writing.
"They throw Kirk off the Enterprise! And... uh... Old Spock just happens to be there! Like, right there! Because it's less work for me if he just is, for no reason! I don't want to think of a real reason and maybe have to go back and revise stuff, or remember things later, to integrate that! He just is!"
"They escape on the Millennium Falcon, and Han and Chewie show up... uh, I guess they'll need another ship for that, so now we have two. And I guess there was a homing beacon on the Falcon, that got activated, and Han just happened to be about five minutes away and already sitting in his cockpit and ready to go and not already on the way somewhere else, in hyperspace? Yeah, doesn't matter, I just need him to be there now so he is, doing something else would be hard. Oh shit I have two ships now, and I need them all on the Falcon, so, uh... monsters and pirates destroy the extra ship I just introduced! Yeah there are monsters and pirates now. Do either of those stick around or come back, or are they, like, foreshadowed? No, I just needed them to destroy this ship that I manifested for my own convenience, but no longer have any use for."
"I need these characters to go somewhere else, so, uh... someone/something shows up and chases them away! There are no other consequences or meaningful connections, they just get chased so that they leave and go to where I need them to be."
Et c.
[EDIT] To be fair, most writers do some of this, they just don't do it quite so willy-nilly and build entire plots that way.
[EDIT EDIT] This also doesn't necessarily mean his movies are bad. The plotting... I mean, that part's bad, incredibly bad, like, paragon of bad plotting, should-be-covered-in-film-schools bad, in some of them. But it's not impossible that a movie could still be entertaining, or even good, despite that. I don't mean this to dismiss his entire body of work as absolutely and entirely bad, and actually started out defending him as markedly better at everything than the kind of scripts and TV shows I was writing about, which he certainly is.
You’re probably being too generous in your EDIT EDIT. They are bad. They don’t really make sense except in the very moment, and I think that’s why I can’t remember a single part of even the ones I’ve seen several times (I usually have a movie memorized by third viewing).
It’s like that experiment with chess masters. They show them a board mid-game then ask them to re-create it (which they can do easily), but then they do the same with a random configuration of pieces, which they fail. It’s because there’s no logic to it for their brain to “chunk”. I think it’s the same reason why a movie that you didn’t think was “bad” is completely forgettable. Your brain is built for remembering narratives, but it can sniff out when it doesn’t make sense. Has nothing to do with genre. You can probably remember the main beats of a Pixar film you’ve seen once, even though it was talking toys or whatever.
Parent of five here. Crap = glorifying bad behavior, teaching bad values (this will be different for every family), depicting no consequences for poor decisions, and/or resolving conflict using only violence.
In general, things that mom and dad don’t have to either retcon or have a long discussion about why it is bad.
A couple of them I can understand (like being safe, not showing kids to slide on a wet tile floor), some I can see parents being appreciative for not having to answer questions about certain topics --- but some "edits" like cutting out farting seems a bit too over the top. My preschooler has just discovered farting and thinks it is _hilarious_ (because it is!). I'm proud as can be, but Mom just rolls her eyes. Proud dad here.
Rather ironic that the article itself is arguably censored. I shouldn’t have to click a link to another article and read five paragraphs before finding out what the “racially-insensitive term” is.
It's ironic that they pulled an episode for using a term that is offensive to indigenous Australians and "fixed" it by releasing a version where the phrase was replaced with a racial slur for Italian people
As a 60 year old Australian that's heard pretty much every insult thrown at Aboriginals I'd say that's more of a recent "some cities" kind of thing.
Aboriginal players of Aussie Rules football had to put up with a lot of abuse from some few members of the crowd making monkey noises and shouting "ape man" and stuff along those lines .. I'm guessing the "ooga booga" comes from idiots chanting that from the cheap seats.
Adam Goodes coped the worst of it for calling them out.
I find it sad that even showing kids sliding on the wet tile floor is edited for "being safe" - let them learn why its a bad thing to do in the security of home!
Yep, our son has learned he can "throw" his farts toward our noses with his hands and does it every. damn. time. It is hilarious but man that kid is stinky.
Now I’m imaging Australia requiring a disclaimer before any children’s show involving the outdoors or animals: “WARNING: This show depicts fictitious worlds where animals and the outdoors are not trying to kill you at every turn. We remind you to stay indoors and stay safe.”
If they do that let's retaliate by prefacing all episodes of Neighbours with "WARNING: This show depicts fictitious worlds where it's not raining 300 days a year. We remind you to stay indoors and stay dry.”
I live in the area where the show is set (the Morton Bay region north of Brisbane) and it’s delightful how many details we recognise in the show.
Having lived in the US for 10 years and returning couple of years ago (with my first 30 years in Australia), I feel like Bluey does a great job of showing some key cultural differences between these countries. I’ve seen some American viewers get quite cross by what they see as a totally unrealistic portrayal of life, but things really are pretty fundamentally different over here.
Moreton Bay? Nah, their home is almost definitely around Ashgrove, Red Hill, Kelvin Grove, Paddington, somewhere around those parts. Suburbs just to the north-west of the CBD, based on having been around those a pile and having seen most of Bluey.
And the buses aren't Translink livery, they're all blue, white, and yellow, so definitely somewhere within BCC, not Moreton Bay Region (although I shouldn't assume you meant the Moreton Bay council).
That said, you could be using Moreton Bay when you really mean SEQLD anywhere north of the Brisbane River, it's been known to happen.
I got quite excited once because I thought I recognised Mt Beerburrum in the background of one of the Bluey episodes. I hadn't visited that area in decades.
I'm Australian living in UK for 10 years - I haven't watched it, but a friend who's a parent talks to me about it and I've seen clips and it makes me nostalgic about things that I've completely forgotten. Like "crumbed or battered" fish, or "bush wee".
The most interesting part for me is the relationship with the parents and children.
Compared to what I was brought up with (The Simpsons etc) it's nice that children are not only taught interesting values but also what the values of parents are
There's a YouTube video essay I watched a month or so back that touched on this. It looked at parental figures throughout the history of television and used them as a reflection for generational ideals of what a parent should be
The boomers parents made shows like Father knows best, leave it to beaver, etc, where the father was an almost unimpeachable authority figure. Boomers (and gen x) made shows like the Simpsons and family guy, where the oaf father comes in, and family is mostly viewed as dysfunctional, an obligation rather than something to be enjoyed. Gen x produced shows like Bob's burgers which removes some of the physical violence of the family but maintains the Father as an aloof oafish character. And millennial fathers, as depicted by TV, are like bandit. The oaf is gone, but so is the dictatorial authority figure.
I feel like I'm the only parent on planet Earth that really doesn't like Bluey. Every time I watch it(which is often, my son likes it), it just seems to be promoting bad behaviour at the expense of the dad(like many other shows to be fair - looking at you Peppa Pig), including physical violence(one episode the kids decide the dad now has a stomach ache, so they punch him in the gut - and the dad just plays along with it, it's never commented on as a bad thing). And the mum keeps making reductive comments and making fun out of the dad, even though he literally drops everything the second his kids want anything.
I don't know, I just don't get it. When people describe it as wholesome to me it feels like the opposite - it shows an unhealthy relationship between the kids and the parents, and I don't feel like it teaches my son any valuable lessons at all.
They all make fun of each other quite often in the series in ways that can take the seriousness out of real-life parallels.
I find that in a sense the show takes the "bumbling dad" and "uptight mom" stereotypes and kind of shows them in a more realistic way that says "hey, it's alright... they care a lot about each other and they figure out how it all works together."
A kid hits dad in the groin and he doesn't try to strangle them (a la The Simpsons) he absorbs a common mistake and rolls on. The mom is a bit uptight, but doesn't helplessly groan in the background like Marge. Sometimes these qualities are shown as strengths, other times as weakness... there are entire episodes where the dad's irresponsibility gets saved by mom's uptight nature... or where mom is too stressed and dad needs to take over and be the clown for a bit.
IMO it's not a show that's meant to model ideal behavior, but it's about how families and relationships can work despite not always being ideal.
> including physical violence(one episode the kids decide the dad now has a stomach ache, so they punch him in the gut
They are pretend playing. There is no indication Bingo meant to actually harm her dad. I pretend fight and let my toddlers beat me up, but I am sure they know only to do that when pretending.
The core of pretend playing, is pretending. Bluey very clearly punches her dad square in the stomach, he lets out an audible sound of pain, and......nothing happens. I agree that maybe Bluey didn't actually mean to hurt her dad - but the way the scene plays out she clearly does and she isn't told about it, the dad just takes it. Because the dad is portrayed as a (in this episode - literal) punch bag who has to accept everything the kids do. No valuable lesson was shown or taught here.
> but the way the scene plays out she clearly does and she isn't told about it, the dad just takes it.
I did not interpret Bandit feeling any material amount of pain in the scene. More like feigning it for the kids’ entertainment. Also, it was Bingo that punched him (the 4 year old).
> Bluey very clearly punches her dad square in the stomach, he lets out an audible sound of pain, and......nothing happens.
What would you like to happen? I’m not sure I understand here. I’m completely ok with Bluey’s dad not retaliating. Being a Dad means sometimes, you have to take a punch.
No one said anything about retaliating - a simple "look you hurt dad, you need to be careful" would have been 100% sufficient, and as another comment said - it would have been a nice counter lesson to one of the previous episodes about rough play.
>>Being a Dad means sometimes, you have to take a punch.
Sure - but as a dad you are also responsible for making sure your child understands that hurting other people is not ok, and they shouldn't do it again, pretend play or not.
Bluey is firmly in the category of shows for 2-4 year olds, they have to be educational at this point, I'm sorry but that's my firm stance as a parent. There will be plenty of time for pure entertainment where bad behaviour doesn't get corrected later - at this stage a 3 year old can't tell good from wrong, and the message the show sends categorically cannot be "let's punch dad in the stomach because it's funny".
Look at Peppa pig(which has a whole host of its own issues, but whatever) - any time Peppa and her brother do something wrong they get an explanation why it was wrong, how it could have hurt or made someone else sad, they apologise and sing/dance about it - most of the time it teaches a good lesson while still being amusing for little kids.
Bluey and her sister are 6 and 4 years old at the start of the show, now 7 and 5. I don’t think the show is made with 2 year olds in mind. Maybe 3.5 and up, but a lot of the concepts are for the 5+ kids in my opinion.
Good children's programming often presents characters somewhat older (in affect, if not truly in age, e.g. Big Bird) than the target audience, to act as role models. You don't want a typical 3-year-old to look to a typical 3-year-old as an example for what to aspire to, you want them to look at well-developing 4-, 5-, and 6-year olds. This works well anyway, since children often look up to older kids and are interested in what they get up to.
Sure, but the content of Bluey is not going to understandable to a 2 year old. I would guess 3 is when some basic understanding starts, but 3.5 to be safe.
In my experience, below 3.5 or so, more sing song-y and basic repetitious stuff is digestible. Bluey episodes have a plot and lots of dialogue that has to be followed.
>> I would guess 3 is when some basic understanding starts
My son is 2.5 and he absolutely understands what's happening in cartoons. He will comment on action saying clear things like "daddy he hit him in the head!" And then you have to pause it and actually explain it's not nice and you shouldn't do that. I wish shows clearly aimed at small children didn't have those moments.
That is my point. Bluey’s stories may require showing a bad action, but a too young toddler will not have the capability to understand the broader context and resolution.
I have two daughters about the same age and Bluey and Bingo (6 and 3) and we play like that. I have found Bluey has the most positive view of fatherhood of any show my kids have watched. In fact, I was so taken aback by it that it stuck out to me in a very noticeable way, in contrast to everything else.
My wife and I banned Bluey in our house a couple years ago. We use TV as "quiet time" for our kids (currently ages 3 to 9) after lunch, replacing the time when they used to nap, and Bluey seems to make them go crazy. I haven't even watched any of the episodes, so I can't object specifically to any of the content; we just observed a consistent, counterproductive effect on their behavior.
My neighbor, another dad of two toddlers, expressed something to me a few months ago that was similar to your opinion.
I'm honestly stunned by the overwhelmingly positive comments on this thread, and I'm wondering if I should actually try watching a couple of the episodes mentioned here.
> I'm wondering if I should actually try watching a couple of the episodes mentioned here.
Yes you absolutely should. One of the things I really like about the show is it promotes imaginative play. It addresses things like how to deal with being bored. Shows like paw patrol and stuff have zero imaginative anything. It's one of the things I love about Bluey.
Yeah, one of the resonant things i've seen in the show (as a non-parent) is that it emphasizes good family play, it's not a very "chill" show in that sense.
I probably won't ever have kids, but having had a bit of a tough childhood, Bluey is actually pretty stellar viewing even as an adult.
My wife is a stay-at-home mom, so she's mostly the parent with the kids in the middle of the day. I think my wife first showed Bluey at the recommendation of one our friends. When I'm working from home, I'm not in the same room as the TV, but I do hear when things turn to mayhem so I think I was the first to suggest that we stop showing Bluey.
A lot of the episodes can definitely have high energy moments (or the whole episode) where the kids are running around screaming, yelling, and playing. But, if you filter those episodes out, there are still dozens of high quality calm and thoughtful ones.
I too do not get the hype. I definitely understand why parents would enjoy it - it’s realistic and relatable and tries to inspire parents to do more.
But for young children? It seems to enforce bad habits, encourage rampant consumerism (the infinite amount of toys for every occasion), implicitly “play along” with bad behavior while ignoring dealing with punishment (at least in the episodes I watched), and depict fairly unrealistic playtime scenarios.
For younger children at least, I think PBS content does a way better job. As mentioned elsewhere, for toddlers, you can’t go wrong with Daniel Tiger. For older children, I recommend checking out Rosie’s Rules and Alma’s Way.
I wish Bluey hadn't introduced the concept of a "bush wee" to my kid, I've had to explain that no, we can't pee in someone's yard in the middle of our busy neighborhood...
This is a culture difference. The U.S. seems peculiarly against this compared to most of the rest of the world. It seems especially acceptable for kids most places. We may have to accept that we're the weird ones on this. It's just pee.
I don't see how there are unhealthy relationships. I will agree that Bingo's behaviour in Backpackers was unacceptable - I personally would have gently nudged her with a "don't play so rough", which would have been a great way to reverse the lesson from Yoga Ball.
Our kids absolutely adore this show, and so do my wife and I. It is just about the only thing we'll let them watch.
As others have said: it's because the show isn't trying to force any ridiculous cultural progressivism on my children.
But also: it doesn't seem to be made by (am I joking?) the same people who would otherwise make slot machines. While other kids shows seem like an outright attack on my children's attention, this show is just happy, wholesome short stories about a family having fun together. We absolutely adore this show in my household.
As a sidenote: it's very hopeful to me that a show like this (utterly non-political, just shows a happy family) is as popular as it is. It's culturally dominant for kids. I hope this is a lesson for Disney et al. (Disney+ does carry this show in the US, but it is not produced by them.)
Bluey is just a wholesome show focused on showing good role models. Much of the kids TV today is just trying to distract them, Bluey teaches lessons about family and is entertaining for adults too.
Reminds me of shows like Little Bear or Magic School bus. Teaching kids about topics, while entertaining them and modeling good behavior.
One other interesting note: all the home schooled families around us (from the hippy commune to survivalists, left & right) rave about Bluey. So it has a very good cross ideological / cultural appeal (given the global audience). Ultimately, I think it’s because it hits on a deep truth about supporting one another - that everyone can connect with and want to pass to the next generation.
Pretty much spot on, it has a couple funny quotes like the Bluey episode about a cricket match beating the ratings of the actual cricket match, and how the ABC (Australia's BBC) gave the international rights to the British BBC (which was a rather colossal mistake).
Haha - this is what I told someone the other day. Brandon (Bluey’s dad) is a source of inspiration for me. I’ve put his lighthearted parenting tricks to work with much success!
In Sweden he is called Billy, probably because "bandit" means gangster/thug/criminal, kinda. Most other names of main characters are unchanged, I think.
Bluey is awesome, the one disappointing thing is hearing US and UK media try and modify it.
A few episodes have been butchered because something was found offensive - like the kids playing cavemen and saying Ooga Booga or the parents sighing while weighing themselves on a scale. Come on!
Just leave it alone and serve it as is. The creators expressed a few times he's almost had enough of edits over dumb things.
They also tried to get re-dubs done to remove the Aussie accents, luckily that was pushed back on.
> They also tried to get re-dubs done to remove the Aussie accents, luckily that was pushed back on.
There seems to have been a period in television where any "hard" english accent had to have an accompanying subtitle under it. Thankfully I don't seem to see this anymore.
One of the things I liked about Peppa Pig was my kiddo would start to take a british accent and say things like "Ready, Steady, Go!" or "Mum"
Fun fact for the non-Australians, the actor who plays Bandit is part of an awesome indie-rock band named Custard formed in the late 80s. Worth checking out if you're into that sort of thing.
Couple of nice attention to local detail things in Bluey :
1. The internal walls of Bluey's house are timber using VJs (vertical joins), typical in Queenslanders (historical style of house in Brisbane & Queensland).
2. The panoramic shots of Bluey's house identifies it to locals as clearly situated somewhere in the city's hilly inner west, with St. Brigid's Church [1] in Red Hill identifiable, as well as Mount Coot-tha in the background.
Of course, there's a lot more in the drawings that shows local detail (plants, animals, etc). The above are just two that are particularly nice for Brisbane ppl to see and recognise.
I love that they even address that in one of the episodes. In Tickle Crabs:
Bluey: "You're always at work!"
Bandit: "I'm never at work!"
What a gem of a show, though yes, it does set the bar pretty high. Though on the plus side I can now burst into a room shout "It's Dad" and my 4 year old will reliably slow clap and then burst into laughter :P
You have to read between the lines and pickup the hints but they both work, ostensibly. There are plenty of episodes where the kids are at daycare/with family that imply the parents are working. Many episodes take place on weekends, and I get the impression the mom sometimes works on weekends.
I will say that Bandit definitely gives off a vibe of being flexible, but I never got the impression it's deliberate. He cares more about his kids than work. At least, that's my interpretation.
The beauty of Bluey is that, for me at least, all the games were games we played as kids (keepy uppy, shadowlands, mucking around in the stream). Now my kid wants to play these games (and not be on a screen) and I get to play again. Everyone wins
Just watched The Wiggles documentary on Netflix. They were big when my kids were young and they are from Australia. I have heard of Bluey but didn't know it was also from Australia. They know something about kid shows there, apparently.
The Australian government runs a fully funded free-to-air children's TV channel, called ABC Kids. Without knowing much about what other countries are doing, I can probably assume it one of the best children's content creators of its kind in the world.
The channel is required to make a certain percentage of Australian content, and without the need to worry about advertising, subscriber numbers and merchandising revenue, it has become a haven of local creativity.
I think Australia also struggles to find global audiences, as in some ways the world is still recovering from Australian craze global audiences had in the 90's (Crocodile Dundee, Crocodile Hunter, Mad Max, etc). So finding a new audience with children is perfect.
> Without knowing much about what other countries are doing
The US has PBS Kids. They produced plenty of shows like Bluey, such as Arthur, Dragon Tales, Clifford the Big Red Dog and Sesame Street, and a bunch of others. Idk what the lineup is like today though, my experience is from the 90s-2000s.
In Canada, CBC also had CBC Kids, but the content was garbage and not young children friendly, so most parents ended up having us watch PBS or Family Channel (what Disney Channel was called in Canada) instead.
The UK has CBeebies on BBC which had fairly decent content, and often co-produced with PBS.
There is a sizable consumer base that buys episodes specifically for their dog. It is one of the few shows my dog will lay down and watch, which I guess is attributed to their use of "dog friendly" colors.
A bit tangential but also related -- I grew up watching 'Adventures of the Gummi Bears' back in the late 80s and early 90s. Recently, I came across it on Disney+ and re-watched it. I was pleasantly surprised that some of the episodes are teaching kids good (again, subjective) morals and behaviors. The language is never crass even when the characters are upset (meaning it's a good thing to teach kids). I liked it so much that I re-watched all of the six seasons twice.
Now that I saw this article and discussion, I'll be trying Bluey next.
Bluey is entertaining, and my kids like watching it. However, we've noticed that the behavior of the kids (pups) on the show is a bit contagious...and our little one has started mimicking some of the kids' bad behavior/sayings. This is a very big change from her normal personality, so we're yanking Bluey from the rotation in favor of Daniel Tiger and other similar shows. YMMV, of course, but for us the entertainment value is outweighed by the negative impact on behavior.
My only problem with Bluey is actually a problem with the Disney+ app on my Vizio TV. The episodes are all fairly short, but then there’s like 5m of credits before the next episode starts and it’s kind of annoying to manually fast forward through them via remote. I often reach for stuff on Netflix just so the next episode will auto play after a few seconds instead of requiring actual manual intervention to keep the little ones out of my hair while making dinner.
Not really possible. Children are sponges, learning everything they will carry into adulthood from childhood say six through twelve. After that, good luck.
Any veteran parent can give many examples of early interactions that ended up molding their children forever.
Something else that is kind of awesome is you occasionally get posts on the /r/australia Reddit group along the lines of, "I saw this on Bluey, do you really do that in Australia?"
> achieving a level of poignancy alongside its humour
This quote about a particular episode sums up Bluey for me. It's tremendously well written - funny to both kids and adults alike, and often hits you in the feels. It's genuinely good TV.
Millenials and Gen Xers (the cohort of which are now raising young children) were raised in a cultural wasteland of sarcasm and irony poisoning, that arose as a response to the perceived "campiness" or naivety of sincere art. And we were force fed it for decades until our "guffaws" and recognition of it were habitual, instinctive, and always expected. Nothing could possibly ever be funny without being hyper self-aware and critical of everything.
The reason these new shows are connecting with us now is precisely because of their outright rejection of this. Sometimes things can just be nice, and fun, and good, and there's no smirk to the camera, or higher level joke being made. It just is.
Postmodern meta-irony is out. Radical sincerity is in.
My niece likes this show and I had never heard of it before. When I was a kid I liked cartoons that were on the air like 5-10 years before because even when I was 5 I found newer cartoons annoying. This one was pretty neat though and I agree it's refreshing after seeing the slop on the screen blasting from iPad kids.
One thing I really appreciate is that it's quiet, the characters are soft spoken, stock sounds don't play constantly, there isn't constant music, it's simple and doesn't make my head hurt.
Bluey is great. For younger ones, Tumble Leaf (sadly now discontinued) is also wonderful - clay-mation, gentle with lovely music and promoting a sense of discovery.
Love the show, all around great characters, stories, problem solving and conflict resolution… One thing I’ve found strange is what items/scenes they choose to change (“censor”) from the AU version to the US version. Could be a Disney decision and the mouse gets what it wants but still…
One thing we've been unable to figure out: is the phrase "for real life" (seemingly a portmanteau of "for real" and "in real life") a phrase that is used in Australia, or is it a Bluey-specific neologism?
‘For real’ is definitely an Australian-ism (pretty old fashioned, usually inflected up as an incredulous question ‘fa REAL?’, but I’ve not really heard ‘For real life’. Could be a kid thing.
I saw some people wondering if there will be more shows - my kids use the iView app and a VPN to watch Bluey (which has been handy to get access early to new episodes!) and they've been advertising they'll be doing a long-form 28 minute episode this year.
Bluey, I honestly believe, is a show for adults (more specifically parents, but, you know, parents are adults) that kids can also enjoy. Like, traditionally, the "best" kid's media from an adult point of view has been kids shows that are also enjoyable for adults, but Bluey is genuinely the opposite.
There are episodes where it feels like the entire point is to get the adults in the room misty-eyed and sniffling, and it all relies on contexts that younger children just absolutely wouldn't have - but they'd still have a good time! And while Bluey and Bingo (the kids on the show) frequently learn lessons, as you'd expect from educational children's media, those lessons are almost always coupled with examples from Bandit and Chilli (the parents) on how to constructively _teach_ those lessons.
(Not to mention, a bunch of episodes are just straight-up the parents learning lessons, while the kids are just being kids and having fun.)
For me, it fills the niche that Bob's Burgers used to fill - an example of a family that's quirky but genuinely loves one another, and communicates (both their love and in general) to move past situations that could become much more serious without it. (Bob's Burgers has fallen off -- to me -- because the characters feel a lot more like caricatures of their earlier selves and most modern episodes seem to rely on one or more characters carrying the "idiot ball" to make anything happen, but that's a rant for another time.)
My wife and I watch an episode every night after dinner to relax after stressful days (two episodes on the really stressful ones) and it's just... Its' very good. We always feel better by the time the credits roll. We've watched a few episodes with kids and they have a good time, but we've also watched a few episodes with other adults, and it's catharsis. It's on another level entirely. I can't imagine what it's going to be like for kids who grew up watching Bluey, to rewatch it as an adult and catch the entire other level it works on. I'm jealous. <3
Since some parents actively control what their kids watch it makes sense to create a show optimized for that niche - you increase parent appeal, but this will decrease kids appeal, so now you have an optimization problem to solve.
It would be interesting to see a chart with kids preferences - I bet kids enjoy Bluey far less than other shows since it's not optimized for them, but for parents.
When I was a kid it was a free market - I had a bunch of channels with a bunch of cartoons and I chose which ones to watch.
If you think about it, kids crack like addiction to cartoons doesn't make sense to adults (there are theories), so that raises questions if adults can pick for kids, and not for what they imagine kids would enjoy.
I don't know if I really agree. The creator has stated that the point was to appeal to kids and adults, and I think Bluey pulls that off perfectly.
This is similar to Friendship is Magic, which I'm surprised nobody else has brought up yet. A kid's show that doesn't write "down" to them, and is written by people who are creating what they wanted to see when they were that age. That's how you make truly good entertainment!
Bluey is #1 but I haven't seen Wild Kratt's mentioned anywhere yet. It's given my son a great introduction to the animal kingdom and given him a lot of ammunition for the animal guessing game.
When I was a kid one of my dogs was a Blue Heeler Australian cattle dog. Wonderfully faithful, energetic and powerful, and always inquisitive. I miss him terribly.
Jupiter is a masterpiece. Mars is fine. Honestly the rest of the Planets Suite is kind of a pass unless you're studying music. Of course Jupiter is the one they remix ("arrange"?) in Bluey.
Yeah, I think that part of my problem is I often heard people talk about Mars, so I tried to use that as my entrypoint into the suite, and to my ear Jupiter is much better.
Bluey is a fair sight better than Cocomelon or Baby Shark, I'll say that much. I haven't had much chance to see much of it, but what I did see I liked. It's not all happy, singsongy, bright-colored drivel; the characters are well-developed and have struggles and meaningful arcs.
It helps that I'm a fan of blue heelers, the real Australian shepherd (though I also love the American breed called "Australian shepherd").
Technically breed through and through to be cattle dogs.
Big difference being shepherd dogs focus outwards and protect, sheep dogs work and move herds on command using eyballs and stalking body language, whereas cattle dogs are "heelers" they get in close and literally bite the heels of massive stubborn cattle that won't budge until nipped.
Heelers are great dogs IF you can live with their needs - they seriously live for three to four hours of hard exercise a day, flat out running, herding, chasing, interacting. If you can't do that then don't get a heeler, they're smart and you'll pay for it.
If you don't have a herd of cattle at least live 10 km from a beach and make them run after you while you bike, motorcycle, or drive slowly there.
Getting a throwing stick that'll travel the lebgth of a football field and|or a tennis ball launcher is a good way to keep them moving, they'll fetch at extreme range for good few hours.
We don't let our toddler watch Bluey. You can't show characters fighting verbally or physically and then later explain. You CAN NOT EXPLAIN to kids. If they see something being done, it can be done. So no Bluey for my kid.
Because your kid is never going to see humans fighting in real life? Kids don't fight other kids until they see other people fighting first?
Play fighting is normal human behavior. In the show they can see the characters resolve their differences and make up. Not so much with the lady in the checkout line screaming, or the dude fighting the other dude outside wal-mart for the last playstation 7.
Bluey is probably the last thing in the universe that's going to screw your kid up.
My argument against that is that it's too soon for a 2.5yo kid. Play fighting is natural, agreed, but i still believe doing it with the kid yourself or with siblings (no exp with that as of now) is OK, but seeing it on TV I don't expect my kid to understand that its normal play fighting and he can do everything that he is seeing on TV. Glorifying and actually showing bad behaviour in a bad light is already a problem even for adults' TV. I can not expect kids to take the right message from their cartoons.
Again, i am only saying this not an appropriate show for a kid this age. When he grows up to age where I can sit and explain/teach him things I'll be OK with a much wider type of media consumption.
> I don't expect my kid to understand that its normal play fighting
In Cartoons, characters do all kinds of things that aren't real. They don't watch fighting and then think "oh hey I should be fighting kids", any more than they think "oh hey I should be dropping an anvil on a coyote". Their brains are more complex than that.
You are projecting your fears on the kid, but fear isn't rational. I recommend finding out for certain how cartoons have an effect on the psyche of a child. Look up some general psychology and child psychology. Confirm whether these biases and assumptions are real or not. Use knowledge and facts, not fear, to dictate your choices.
Does anyone else note the underlying racial component? All the dog families seem to be purebred. I don't remember seeing any mutts, any mixed-race dogs. And there are a few references to certain breeds of dog being better at certain things. I'm sure it is totally unintentional and probably cuts on dialoged by identifying which kids are from which parents, but it did strike me as odd.
having specific breeds and colours for each family makes it a lot easier to track what's going on. for the same reasons that peppa pig doesn't have 8 different types of big cats
I mean Bandit and Chili are different (though related) breeds and the kids each have traits from their parents... Bluey has her dad's coloration and mom's spots, and Bingo is orange like her mother but otherwise looks like Bandit.
> And there are a few references to certain breeds of dog being better at certain things.
I mean, different dog breeds have different talents. In Bluey, the Sausage Dog has his moment where he can't run very well but he can roll (at least I think that was how it went). All the different dog breeds get get to use their special talents.
I don't really think the different breeds of dogs are supposed to be taken as different human ethnicities or whatever, I think it's just a shorthand to show that kids can be different in all kinds of ways and have fun together. Athletic kids, bookworms, social butterflies, introverts, adventurous, and yes different cultures/ethnicities/religions/etc
The family lives in a mansion and their entire life is about playing and exploring all the time.
What a great way to prepare the next generation for a life where most real estate will be beyond reach for most families. And where most parents work all the time and are tired on weekends.
The series has a good soundtrack and voice acting. The mobile game is fine. The Nintendo Switch game is disappointing.
Also, isn't Bandit (Bluey's dad) pretty much the definition of "And where most parents work all the time and are tired on weekends."? Except he's tired pretty much all the time.
