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!
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