As a Queenslander now living in the UK, seeing Bluey for the first time filled me with homesickness in a way that no other media has.
Despite the huge media industry in SEQ, it's so rare to see it actually represented as itself (rather than dressed up as Manhattan, eg). I also remember growing up and feeling that there was never really any media I could relate to; everything "Australian" is set in Sydney, Melbourne, or some non-descript outback setting. There was always a feeling of being second best - always America in the news, not Australia; always NSW or Victoria for settings, not Queensland; always Sydney or Melbourne, not Brisbane.
The first time I watched Bluey, immediately I could see not just vague Australianisms, but actual places and sights I recognised. From small details like the bus stop signs to scenes which I can pinpoint exactly in Brisbane. Combine that with stories which I don't just identify with, but which I feel I can remember viscerally.
> As a Queenslander now living in the UK
As a Brit now living in Queensland, thanks for swapping places with me. Appreciated. Cheers mate. Enjoy the rain and moaning.
As a Brit living in the US, I'm jealous. My comparative experience was seeing Peppa Pig for the first time. And it's crap.
Try Hey Duggee - it's not as explicitly British-coded, but there's a ton of stuff in there if you were watching Spaced in your late teens and now find yourself a parentâŚ
Seconded, Hey Duggee is a fantastic show. In a way it's the anti-Bluey - same delightful vibes, just as playfully animated, but intentionally ridiculous (and, to me, hilarious) stories.
I'd argue Peppa Pig is not crap, it's quite funny and surprisingly watchable by grownups. Not something I'd watch by myself, but I didn't get bored when I watched it with my daughter. Of course, the art style is no good, intentionally so, I suppose for budget reasons.
I'd argue Bluey is "a better Peppa": similar kind of humor (slightly more elaborate, but not by a lot) but with great artwork.
I think part of the problem is definitely that Bluey exists. It's a "Better Peppa" and when watching Peppa I can't help but compare them. Given I'm a Dad myself I find the difference in the Dad characters to be illuminating: Daddy Pig is a klutzy idiot who, more often than not, makes mistakes other have to fix. By comparison Bandit is an incredible parent (maybe too incredible at times, so says my ego)
Peppa hanging up on Suzy because she has just been able to whistle following basic instructions while Peppa has been frustrated to discover she can't do it is stuck in my head.
That might not entirely be an accident, given Joe Brumm was originally an animator that worked on Peppa Pig and decided he wanted to do an Australian version of it when he moved back home.
Peppa pig is crap. Full stop.
Peppa Pig doesn't attempt to portray a particular place afaik. Axel Scheffler's books often have visual references to Blackheath/Greenwich, with particular places often recognisable. Perhaps you think those are crap too, though.
Oh, I know. But Peppa is resoundingly British even if it's not deliberately channeled. It still makes me think of home.
There are plenty of great TV shows and movies set in London at least.
Its weird - I know about little american towns like Boulder, Colorado. I've never been there. But I know what it looks like because its featured - or at least mentioned - in plenty of movies and shows.
But the population of Boulder is just 100k. Australia has lots of way bigger cities - like Brisbane, Queensland (population 2.8 million) or Perth, WA (2.4 million) that are never depicted on screen. Even on Australian TV, I basically never see brissie or perth shown at all. I only know what they look like because I've visited.
But maybe that's normal in the english speaking world - at least outside the US. We've gotta raise our game and make more good content.
Part of the problem is selling into America - as an American, I can recognize London (smog and Sherlock Holmes!), Paris (Eiffel Tower), Sydney (Seashell Opera House), and New Zealand (Middle Earth).
I can't recognize Brisbane (and visiting it would feel like visiting Bluey).
Producers are SCARED of using unrecognizable areas (and/or for live-action, just film near where everyone is located).
If it makes you feel better, the USA has tons of large cities - far north of 100k, north of 1 million (especially if considering urban areas), that rarely or ever get featured in TV or movies; and if they do, it's often older ones.
Which is sad, mind you. Every city should have its own feel (too many places now feel like suburbs of Los Angeles, even in Europe or Asia), its own beer, its own food, its own media and music.
Boulder's metro area is around 330k - not quite "small town". That 100k is people inside one of the local government boundaries of the area. The US Census considers 5k to be the upper limit of a small town.
I'm surprised I haven't seen a "visit Brisbane" (or at least "visit Australia") tourism campaign featuring Bluey anywhere. The show makes it look like an amazing place to visit and live.
They definitely have been using it in tourism campaigns, especially with Bluey's World: https://teq.queensland.com/au/en/industry/what-we-do/marketi... https://readytorumble.com.au/advertising/for-real-life
It really is an amazing place to live (although hot in the summer!), but career opportunities can be limiting in Australia and Brisbane. Catriona Drummond touches on the same in her substack [1] mentioned in the OP:
> As I mentioned, before Bluey Iâd resigned myself to the fact that if I wanted to achieve something resembling my âfull potentialâ on a technical level as an artist, I would have to not only probably move to the United States [...] > Even deeper than that, was the pervasive thought that perhaps for my whole life I was just never going to be in the right place at the right time. That being from somewhere like Brisbane just meant I was doomed.
[1]: https://goodsniff.substack.com/p/creating-bluey-tales-from-t...
It is!
As a life long Melbournian, I absolutely loved how intensely Brisbane Bluey is. I know from the outside many see oz as the unified thing but the differences between cities can be drastic. Even between Hobart and Launceston in Tassie is significant.
It is like the works of Stuart McMillen (https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/), and how they depict Canberra in a way the locals can really appreciate.
When my son was in the last stages of leukemia, Bluey was on repeat all day. He was completely immersed in that world and we, his parents were there with him too.
Now, 5 years after his death, he's little brother is also in love with the show and we watch an episode at least once a day.
There will never be another TV show like this one for those personal reasons and also because it's just too good.
My wife and I watched the episode about infertility with our little niece who kept asking when she'd have a cousin. Despite its subtlety it completely broke me. It addresses the subject in the best of ways. Well here we are 7 IVF cycles later and still trying.
Can i take a moment to say I admire the strength that it takes to try 7 cycles. We gave up at 5, it became too heart breaking. Keep positive mate, I wish the best for you.
Bluey is the best children's cartoon of this generation. The art is a joy to see, being full of color and well-defined lines/objects, without being overwhelming. I sincerely appreciate the creator's resistance to engineer the show for maximum attention and, instead, focus on telling a good story with relatable characters. The show can move slowly when appropriate and isn't afraid to keep the scene mostly static. The music is great and well directed to capture meaningful emotional moments without being campy. The episode length of ~7 minutes is perfect, especially for families wanting to limit screen time, as it covers a quick breakfast/lunch (or laundry/dishes break) and provides a natural stopping point to move to the next activity. I can't praise it enough and just hope its success inspires more studios to avoid the brain-rot algorithmic-lead nonsense.
My only complaint is that I am a grown-ass man and shouldn't be tearing up every other episode of a children's cartoon...
> Bluey is the best children's cartoon of this generation
Bluey is the best children's cartoon _for adults_ of this generation.
Our kids are about the same age and age difference as Bluey/Bingo are portrayed, and I can't express how much relief it gives to watch it see your own life played out line for line.
Some days, as a parent you wonder how (badly) you're doing, and Bluey takes some weight off as you realise (and talk to other parents about Bluey) that some things are just universal and you're possibly doing better than you think.
> Bluey is the best children's cartoon _for adults_ of this generation.
One of my regular hangouts often puts Bluey on one of their TVs and I know for a fact there have been multiple occasions where no one at the bar even has children but we're all sitting there drinking beers while watching the antics of a family of cartoon dogs.
I will happily watch Bluey (as will my wife) if it happens to be on and the kids aren't around, I can't say that for any other cartoon they watch, even ones I can appreciate for the educational value they provide the children (our daughter loves Octonauts and learning and telling us all about sea creatures).
One of the things not talked (much) about is how families are much more isolated now - since the average person is from a two-child family, and has a two-child family, most of their peer group growing up and when they have kids is in the "same boat" so they don't really have insight and experience of what the youngest years brings.
Even the basic idea of "kids like games, make things games" that permeates Bluey is likely unknown to many new parents.
Absolutely, it's one of those things where you're truly thrown in at the deep end, so to speak, with no guidance or experience (you likely remember little to nothing about your time as a child in those early years) and have to work it out.
Nobody teaches you anything (besides some basic courses for new parents like NCT here in the UK) and there's really no-one to ask; your own parents likely did things very differently to how you would now, so you have to weigh any advice they can/do provide.
The biggest help, I've found, on all sides, is talking to other parents; those of our children's friends, and we're quite friendly with a bunch of them having spend a lot of time talking to each other during COVID and meeting for the children's play-dates after. Many of them, like us have two children, with a similar age gap, their eldest is the same age as we met at our first children's births and they go through the same phases at roughly the same time.
Sometimes you just need to ask, "is this normal", and they'll corroborate, and some times you just need to support them by confirming you have the same challenges.
I completely missed your point, I think. Do you mean that the current generation of young parents didn't experience enough things being games as kids themselves?
> Bluey takes some weight off as you realise (and talk to other parents about Bluey) that some things are just universal and you're possibly doing better than you think.
No question, the I can't count the number of times I've sent the "Baby Race" to other parents who ask me "When did your kid start to talk?"
We watch the Bluey bike whenever the kids say "I can't do it!" or the Dad can't draw episode.
Or the curry quest, when I had to travel for work (after all the pandemic "no work travel").
Bluey's dad is an inspiration, like the puppets episode is so funny & I keep saying "Bauxite" in random times without context.
Iâm like that with the âunicourseâ puppet he has.
Randomly saying âaaaaaaand whyshouldicare?â tickles me!
That's one criticism I've heard about it actually, but not sure how much it's actually true. Basically that people love Bluey because it appeals more to adults, but that may make it not as good as other shows for child development (which adults might find boring).
I don't know that I buy that though, I think the shows that claim they're for child development but are insufferable to adults would be better of just skipped entirely, probably those skills are better learned from real life play and interaction than tv.
Of course there's also the mad science of cocomelon and their 'distractatron' https://www.readtrung.com/p/why-i-love-bluey-and-hate-cocome... - nothing can be worse than that.
Writing and writers changing every few decade. Reacting to the output of the previous gen.
Popular shows of 80-90s avoided trauma and ambiguity. Everything was simple and morally clear.
Then there was a huge counter reaction overload where we got Anti-Heroes, Moral Ambiguity, Trauma, "Realism" etc in every other show.
As viewers got tired and yearn for hope, faith, meaning, sincerity we got another wave (Ted Lasso, Reservation Dogs etc). Similar to the writing in Bluey they takes us back to Sincerity, but much smarter since they don't avoid Trauma. And show the viewer how healing and connection happens without power struggles.
Its basically a response to cynicism and fatigue. With comfort and care.
> Popular shows of 80-90s avoided trauma and ambiguity. Everything was simple and morally clear.
Popular western shows did; I've started watching the Gundam series, the first set started in '79 and while superficially it looks like your generic saturday morning cartoon, it starts off with trauma (many people killed) and while the villains are obviously evil - genocide, nazi ideologies ("sieg zeon"), etc - they also get more character development than what the protagonists get. The villains are the underdogs, only 1/30th the size of the "federation", and the good guys have a new set of superweapons that seems to win and kill their people on every occasion. There's two episodes where a "villain" character is introduced as a lover, ambitious military man, etc, then gets killed, his would-be wife killing herself in the next episode.
Anyway, that's just recent experience, I'm sure if you revisit some of the 80's / 90's shows you'd see more trauma / ambiguity too. I'm thinking of the X-Men series for example.
That first run is pretty interesting because they clearly had the foresight to make things morally grey and the villians human. It's very clear they added some mustache twirling villiany to a few episodes as an afterthought. It's not even clear until like the last dozen episodes that Zeon is evil.
I know Gundam quality is a huge spectrum, but the 'sloppiness' of moral ambiguity in the first one is pretty great. Way too often (Z Gundam) they just do a timeskip and say "what if the good guys became bad after they won?"
I would argue it's the best children's cartoon ever.
Also, as a dad, Bandit's character is so well written. I relate to him in every single episode that I've watched. Nearly every other dad character in children's programming is a flat, 2-dimensional, drooling idiot that nobody respects.
Even if Bluey was strange Australian propaganda to make fatherhood desirable and respectable, it still wins because it actually works at it.
Avoiding the "dumb sitcom dad" has been done before a few times, and well (Bob Parr of Incredibles; Stoick the Vast of How to Train Your Dragon; King Fergus of Brave could be some examples) - but Bandit just is a dad; he's not perfect, he's not brilliant - but he's there (except when he has to leave) and he loves - his children, his wife, himself.
And even though he says "I'm not taking advice from a cartoon dog" we all end up doing so.
How could making fatherhood desirable and respectable ever be considered "strange propaganda"? We live in very weird times indeed.
Bandit singing "99 bottles of thing on the wall" in a couple episodes is just fantastically real.
A professor once said that some of the best art is really a head-fake.
Bluey is about half a show for kids and half a show for parents. It shows the kids neat things and fun ideas for play and it quietly whispers to the parents, over and over again, "You're doing fine."
> My only complaint is that I am a grown-ass man and shouldn't be tearing up every other episode of a children's cartoon...
Or maybe you should! Maybe we shouldn't be making people feel bad for being emotional! Maybe it's really successful art to be making so many people feel so strongly!
Such a lovely show! Itâs always fun to see examples of how it takes so much intention to make something that appears simple.
For any adults who have either never heard of Bluey, or never thought of watching a âkidsâ show, maybe try to an episode the next time you canât figure out what to stream next. âSleepy timeâ (season 2 episode 26) is one of the most renown, but theyâre all pretty good! (https://www.bluey.tv/watch/season-2/sleepytime/)
"Flat Pack" (S2 E24) and "Baby Race" (S2 E49) Are my most favorite and bring out tears every time.
Then there is "Granny Mobile" (S3 E33) which cracks me up every time.
Even my 7 year old daughter knows this and uses Bluey to cheer me up if I am in sour mood.
Don't even get me started on Shaun the Sheep. My daughter and I have re-watched everything there is about Shaun the Sheep and laugh in anticipation before the funny things actually happen.
Edit: I absolutely love the minisodes where Bandit tells kids bedtime stories (Goldilocks and Three little pigs). I wouldn't be surprised if the voice actor just went off and made up bunch of stuff which they animated later.
My wife and I cry tears of laughter everytime Sean shows up.
And for those new to this - donât miss the episode Cricket (3,47) which makes my wife tear up everytime.
The ability to tell a clear and focused narrative that has humor and a lesson in 8 minutes is stunning to me. I have legitimately used it with grad students learning to write a paper. Nothing is wasted, not a line not a shot.
Follow up recommendations: Camping (s1e43) and The Creek (s1e29). But TBH there's so many good ones it's hard to pick. Hammerbarn is hilarious too.
The Pool (s1e22).
They accuse mum of fussing while dad's all about fun, but soon come to realise there's good reason mum makes a fuss, and everyone starts having less of a good time when they realise they needed those things mum was fussing about.
(I'm dad).
That episode perfectly describes my experience as a father of a toddler. I'll decide on a whim to taking him hiking only to discover half-way through that I didn't bring enough snacks for him and forgot his water shoes at home. So now I'm out with a cranky toddler who's hungry and can't play in the river. I've learned to accept my wife's 30-minute packing phase to send us on our way with everything we need.
Thank you, such a good episode. I adore bluey writing
Facey Talk! Funniest episode of the whole series :)
There was a brief moderation error, in which I changed the capitalisation to "How we built Blueyâs World", assuming that the article was about the immersive attraction called "Blueyâs World" [1,2], which has been open in Brisbane since last November.
I can attest that it is incredible; we took our kid a few weeks ago and it exceeded expectation. Probably more exciting for the parents even than the kids. Strongly recommended if you can get to Brisbane or if it comes to a city near you some day.
[1] https://www.bluey.tv/blueys-world/
[2] https://www.bbcstudios.com/news/bluey-s-world-opens-in-brisb...
My niece would love this! As it is, we have to pay over a hundred dollars for our family to go watch bad acting in - not even costumes - but masks on sticks held up in front of faces. Seriously, that was a real, official show over here. Never again.
As someone who has lived in Brisbane, I can attest that it does a really good job of capturing the colour of the city. There is a unique golden hour shade there like no other city I have lived in.
As a companion to this, I'd recommend the podcast 20 Thousand Hertz: their two-party on the sounds of Bluey was excellent, and as a parent immersed in Bluey, really enjoyable. Seems like they put a lot of thought and care into nearly every aspect of the show.
Bluey is by far the best children's show I've ever watched. My son and I love watching it together. It's so refreshing after having to watch Peppa Pig for a year or so before we discovered Bluey. I disliked Peppa Pig and I was relieved when my son said he no longer wish to watch it after finding Bluey.
Whatâs your beef with Peppa?
My daughter started commenting on people's appearance around age 5+ because she learned it from Peppa Pig. Everyone always talks down to and about the Daddy pig constantly. They try to incorporate some 'good' behaviors in the story but certain 'it's just a joke' jokes end up leaving more impressions on the kid than the shoehorned moral of the story. It took us a while to teach her how it can hurt others if you comment on things (even if they are technically factual statements). On the other hand, she learned some simple but useful things from Bluey that we weren't successful in teaching effectively. e.g. She learned to speak up and tell when Dad(me) was overdoing 'fun' things (literally an episode with exact same concept where Bingo has to tell her dad the same thing). She learned to be compliment and acknowledge many things verbally (instead of saying 'why do I need to say it, they know it already').
Theres a video somewhere of some guy reviewing Bluey and Peppa.
"This episode of bluey is about the trauma of growing up and experiencing change with references to these 3 popular films"
"And in the episode Peppa goes to the beach, Peppa pig... goes to the beach"
It's just not as wholesome and Peppa is kind of a brat. And the whole picking on the dad thing kind of got old after a while. It just doesn't really offer any thing of any value to my child.
Non-parents don't realize just how exactly toddlers and young children will mimic what they see; they don't see Bluey and decide to play 'keepy uppy' they see Bluey and decide to act out the entire episode, word for word, scene for scene.
And then you realize why Peppa being a bit of a brat sometimes can be an issue.
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