[HN Gopher] How Australia's 'Bluey' conquered children's enterta...
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How Australia's 'Bluey' conquered children's entertainment
Author : propter_hoc
Score : 270 points
Date : 2024-01-05 03:32 UTC (19 hours ago)
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| rfarley04 wrote:
| Pay walled but I assume it's "somethingsomething parents actually
| like watching it too." Since that seems to be everyone's
| reaction, including mine.
|
| My 20 something sister with no kid watches it.
| zellyn wrote:
| Agreed. It's also just beautiful.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| I love Bluey. I was raised with Heeler dogs so that was major
| for my initial openness to the show. I may like the show more
| than my son does even!
| propter_hoc wrote:
| Here's an archive link: https://archive.is/ArnbD
|
| 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).
| meristohm wrote:
| That's been my experience; my spouse and I watched three
| seasons of Bluey, maybe 80% after our child went to bed. It's a
| visual parenting manual.
| sheepscreek wrote:
| > It's a visual parenting manual.
|
| 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!
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Bluey's dad's name is Bandit.
| hipadev23 wrote:
| Paul, haha, that's a person name!
| imp0cat wrote:
| Like the game of silence, right? That's pure gold!
|
| "Now let's see if you can stay silent until you turn 13."
| :D
| unwind wrote:
| In Sweden he is called Billy, probably because "bandit"
| means gangster/thug/criminal, kinda. Most other names of
| main characters are unchanged, I think.
|
| We really love Bluey.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| So wholesome!
| greenyoda wrote:
| https://archive.ph/ArnbD
| bennyg wrote:
| 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.
| jojobas wrote:
| Instant gratification or bust!
| alberth wrote:
| As a parent I like it.
|
| It's just enough time for my kiddo to learn the value of
| patience. But not so long, that I need to fast forward.
| hackernewds wrote:
| do we assign too much meaning and value to every child
| interaction?
| alberth wrote:
| Do you have kids yourself?
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| 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.
| bombcar wrote:
| My four year old already knows how to use the remote to skip
| commercials and credits, turn the tv on himself, and find
| what he wants.
|
| Hasn't figured out the voice controlled outlet the TV is
| plugged into yet.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Kids are not supposed to binge watch content.
| seized wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _so much complete crap out there now that Bluey is a breath
| of fresh air_
|
| Out of curiosity, as a non-parent, what makes it crap?
| Caligatio wrote:
| 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.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| 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.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| Yeah, it's fine to distract a two year old with.
| paradox460 wrote:
| My one year old and two year old both love and understand
| bluey. They gave Grandma looks of derision when she tried
| to show them Cocomelon
| feoren wrote:
| > And fine for small kids I think, who wouldn't
| understand things like Bluey
|
| You are vastly underestimating what small children can
| understand.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| 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
| BeefWellington wrote:
| 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
| throwaway87651 wrote:
| 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.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| 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.
| indymike wrote:
| > what makes it crap?
|
| 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.
| cruffle_duffle wrote:
| Watch about 5 minutes of Blippi and find out :-)
| wharvle wrote:
| 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.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| > 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,
|
| So like every JJ Abrams production.
| wharvle wrote:
| 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.
| jes5199 wrote:
| I love Bluey but my kid won't actually watch it. I wonder how
| common that is
| granshaw wrote:
| Yeah she much prefers cocomelon!
| derwiki wrote:
| Blue's Clues (Steve era) is the top preference for my toddler
| DanHulton wrote:
| 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
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a show for adults (more specifically parents, but, you know,
| parents are adults) that kids can also enjoy_
|
| I think this is what gives Disney, and every epic kids' show,
| intergenerational momentum.
| hdhfjkrkrme wrote:
| 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.
| bombcar wrote:
| Kids are not a reliable demographic; without being "trained"
| to like things they'll be perfectly happy watching baby shark
| on repeat.
| awilfox wrote:
| 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!
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Bobs burgers was originally pitched as a show about cannibals
| jboggan wrote:
| 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.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| 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.
| hdhfjkrkrme wrote:
| > Most kids shows seem like a low effort afterthought full of
| contrived vapid nonsense.
|
| Kids brain is not adult brain. You need a different kind of
| training material.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| 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.
| hdhfjkrkrme wrote:
| Are cartoon physics insulting kids intelligence?
|
| 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.
| eesmith wrote:
| > 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."
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| 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.
| pfranz wrote:
| 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."
| MarkMarine wrote:
| Sounds like someone hasn't had to sit through blippi
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| 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.
| hdhfjkrkrme wrote:
| 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.
| imp0cat wrote:
| That is the point, no? That Bluey is not the average "
| audiovisual dreck ".
| 93po wrote:
| 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.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| 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.
| 93po wrote:
| 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.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| 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.
| hackernewds wrote:
| can I watch this episode adhoc, or do I need to watch the rest?
| emotional entertainment really gets me
| yardstick wrote:
| You can watch it adhoc.
|
| Edit: Pretty much all the top Bluey episodes have a good
| emotional pull to them. See https://www.theguardian.com/cultu
| re/2022/mar/21/the-10-best-...
| imp0cat wrote:
| Aww, they missed Puppets, the most meta episode of them all
| about free will!
| hackitup7 wrote:
| That was a weird dream!
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| 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.
| konschubert wrote:
| I've seen the episode many times, but I don't get what's
| the blindside?
|
| Are you referring to how it references the fact that
| parents will eventually leave their kids when they die?
|
| That's only mentioned indirectly by the mom, no?
|
| Is there a deeper story that I am missing?
| kraquepype wrote:
| 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.
| munificent wrote:
| _> Having had kids, that weight being lifted as they
| finally "get it" is a unique feeling of bittersweet
| relief._
|
| Every milestone your kid reaches marks the end of their
| previous self and we grieve never getting to see that
| little person again.
| konschubert wrote:
| It's definitely an episode that stands out, that's true.
| My daughter wants to watch it every day.
| monkeydreams wrote:
| 'Sleepytime' ruins me whenever I watch it.
| a_bonobo wrote:
| '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)
| twisteriffic wrote:
| 'Chest' always hits me in the feels. Not subtle at all, but
| it works.
| konschubert wrote:
| I really like the dynamic between the parents in this
| episode. Chilly clearly doesn't think Bandits approach will
| work, but she lets him have a go.
|
| She stays around as an advocate for the other side, without
| sabotaging his attempt.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| 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.
| awilfox wrote:
| Baby Race reduces me to tears every time.
| mgd wrote:
| Every single time
|
| Bingo: "Are they happy tears, Mum?"
| birracerveza wrote:
| "maybe she saw something she wanted" was a gut punch of the
| good kind
| xattt wrote:
| "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.
| rreyes1979 wrote:
| Please provide the Season and episode number. I would like to
| find them but my UI is in Spanish so it's hard to find them
| :(
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Onesies is s03e31 and baby race is s02e50.
| V__ wrote:
| Note: Disney+ episodes are numbered differently than all
| other services.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| 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
| inerte wrote:
| 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..."
| charlangas wrote:
| It took me reading your comment to realize that Bella's
| "You're doing great" at the end is directed at us parents.
| Thanks for the unexpected tears :)
| metaltyphoon wrote:
| Just watched that and both of us couldn't contain it
| either:)
| martsa1 wrote:
| I cry my eyes out at those episodes every time I see them,
| wonderfully written episodes! (I find all the Bluey episodes
| are).
| sspiff wrote:
| 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.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| 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.
| wizerdrobe wrote:
| 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.
| organsnyder wrote:
| That's one thing that makes Bluey so special. The dad
| isn't perfect, but he's a really good father and husband.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| 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.
| Sanzig wrote:
| 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.
|
| (I currently have a Bluey-obsessed toddler).
| alephnerd wrote:
| It sounds like an Australian Arthur (which is a nice
| thing to have)
|
| So long, Spanky.
| lebski88 wrote:
| 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.
| namdnay wrote:
| > Daddy Pig is fat, useless, convinced he's an expert in
| everything but failing every time.
|
| I mean the guy is one of the world's top experts on
| concrete, that's hardly "useless"
|
| and the "dad is the wacky one and mum handles organising"
| is a pretty common trope in other shows, such as... Bluey
| :)
| cornstalks wrote:
| 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.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| If you like peppa pig, give wolfoo a chance.
|
| 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
| myspy wrote:
| 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.
| RecentlyThawed wrote:
| 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
| darrmit wrote:
| 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.
| bjacokes wrote:
| 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.
| nomdep wrote:
| 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
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| "gotta be done!"
| xattt wrote:
| 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.
| jhot wrote:
| Definitely one of my favorites and gets me emotional every
| time. I can only hope my kids have the same empathy and
| awareness as Rusty.
|
| The Grandad episode also hits hard as my parents age and I
| see them only a few times a year.
| hiisukun wrote:
| 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.
| bknight1983 wrote:
| '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
| larrymyers wrote:
| Rain one of my favorite episodes. The amount of story packed
| into 8 minutes with just music and animation is so good.
| madcaptenor wrote:
| I CANNOT WATCH THAT ONE, IT MAKES ME CRY.
|
| I just wish they'd say what the music is in the credits - my
| wife and I often hear something that's familiar but can't put
| our finger on what it is.
| willismichael wrote:
| Most of the music in Sleepytime is Gustav Holst's Jupiter,
| though I'm not sure right off the top of my head whether that
| is used for the credits.
| konschubert wrote:
| Sleepytime uses music from Holst's "The planets". In
| particular the piece called "Jupiter".
|
| Just Google "holst Jupiter".
| madcaptenor wrote:
| 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"
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| Something something national geographic
| mikestew wrote:
| 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.
| konschubert wrote:
| I'm not sure if that works since at least for the classical
| music, they seem to be recording their own versions.
| madcaptenor wrote:
| It does not work. I've tried.
| mikestew wrote:
| 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.
| jboggan wrote:
| 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.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| 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.
| konschubert wrote:
| I've been trying to find out what the maker of Bluey, Joe
| Brunn, is up to now.
|
| Is there a new show coming?
|
| And does anyone know where I can buy an uncensored DVD or
| downloads collection?
| charlangas wrote:
| 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.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| 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.
| nightowl_games wrote:
| Yes! It's the romanticization of the routine of parenting. The
| music is so romantic and epic. I feel you!
| IanCal wrote:
| > 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.
| Bjartr wrote:
| > 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.
| IanCal wrote:
| > 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_.
| jboggan wrote:
| 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.
| tclancy wrote:
| I guess I better not mention there's a really nicely printed
| book version of "Sleepytime" then.
|
| https://www.bluey.tv/products/bluey-sleepytime/
| jboggan wrote:
| Which my child demands almost every night and I struggle to
| not choke up when I get to the "because I love you" part.
| krupan wrote:
| 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.
| guidedlight wrote:
| 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.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > 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.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| 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.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| You're right: we should only expose our children to content
| that makes them appreciate that they will not have to be
| Dickensian beggars or cutpurses.
| imp0cat wrote:
| That's Australia for you.
|
| 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.
| laingc wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _children's television at large has become another victim of
| the culture wars_
|
| Out of curiosity, as a non-parent, do any galling examples come
| to mind?
| awilfox wrote:
| > with heavy-handed social messages infecting what should be
| simple cartoons.
|
| I kinda giggled at this, because I just last night saw "Pass
| the Parcel", which to me was the one time they sent this up and
| they did it so well.
| robbomacrae wrote:
| 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.
| test1235 wrote:
| >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.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| There is plenty of hinting at there being an afterlife
| throughout the show, but it's aspirational, not prescriptive.
| It would be nice, wouldn't it?
| dexwiz wrote:
| Kids shows teach lessons, but Bluey has all sorts of
| compassionate parenting lessons. I would love to be as good as a
| father as Bandit.
|
| My favorite scene is him assembling flat pack furniture without
| reading the instructions, proudly declaring he won't take advice
| from a cartoon dog.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| 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."
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| 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.
| tclancy wrote:
| >I would love to be as good as a father as Bandit.
|
| Man, make sure you don't kill yourself trying! I always think
| the other parents in the neighborhood want him to dial it back
| so they don't look bad.
| timeimp wrote:
| The best part is how people are learning that the Disney+ version
| is censored.
|
| Yes, a childrens show is censored, in current year.
|
| Why? Because some jokes don't play well with adults, even though
| they go right over kids heads.
|
| Have a Google for "Bluey censored" to see what I mean!
| grendelt wrote:
| Quite a few of those drew an eye-roll from me.
|
| https://www.fatherly.com/entertainment/banned-censored-bluey...
|
| 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.
| timeimp wrote:
| 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!
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| 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
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Interesting.. I've always associated "ooga booga" with
| cavemen or proto-humans; didn't realize there were racial
| connotations
| defrost wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Australian_Dream_(2019_
| fil...
|
| https://thefinalquarterfilm.com.au/
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3OJ0kzSXQE
|
| There are worse insults, but none of them are good.
| oefrha wrote:
| 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.
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| 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.
| wnevets wrote:
| > scene where Bluey is playing "Penguins" in the bathroom was
| cut from the U.K. and the U.S., although it's still
| referenced in the episode.
|
| Huh? I'm pretty sure I saw this scene on Disney+.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Fun fact: one episode of Peppa Pig was censored in Australia.
|
| It was one about spiders, and basically about how spiders are
| cute, cuddly and there's no reason to be scared of them.
|
| I mean, I sympathise with the decision... Just funny.
| bombcar wrote:
| 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."
| namdnay wrote:
| 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."
| xattt wrote:
| If it goes that far, they may as well have a disclaimer to
| set realistic expectations about maximum inclines that cars
| can drive.
| mattbee wrote:
| Also, Disney+ plays the episodes too slowly. They come out
| about 30s longer compared to BBC iPlayer; you can hear it in
| the theme tune.
| lettergram wrote:
| 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.
| stephen_g wrote:
| 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!
| TavsiE9s wrote:
| Absolutely agree with that. Peppa Pig? Can't stand the
| animations.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| It's because it's cheaper.
|
| I don't think uncanny is the right word. It's just bad. The
| depth and lighting is just wrong.
| monkeydreams wrote:
| One of favourite Bluey facts is that the Dad is an archaeologist
| and the Mother works airport security.
|
| One digs up bones and the other sniffs for drugs.
| nightowl_games wrote:
| Never made that connection! Thats hilarious
| slipperlobster wrote:
| Strangely enough, there seem to be a lot of hidden references
| and callbacks in Bluey.
|
| Just one source I found: https://www.reddit.com/r/bluey/comme
| nts/ipi4ft/a_thread_for_...
| yardstick wrote:
| Anyone else for the longest time thought the opening title
| sequence[1] was just them farting their names?
|
| Turns out it's them playing stop the music, and each character is
| called out as they keep dancing. Still, the names are definitely
| coming from farts...
|
| 1. https://youtu.be/8nv1m-aTCZI?si=gXynjB7rJpPr5Ref
| neild wrote:
| 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.
| awilfox wrote:
| I think this is the real value of imaginative shows like
| _Bluey_ - it inspires kids to use their imaginations as well.
| jph00 wrote:
| 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.
| coenhyde wrote:
| 100%. Said as an Aussie who has been living in the states for a
| decade
| badcppdev wrote:
| 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.
| quink wrote:
| 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 extrapolating from things that are inevitably close, as
| listed in https://blueypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Real-
| Life_Locations
|
| 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.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| 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".
| someNameIG wrote:
| I'm Australian but never seen the show, what about it do some
| Americans find it totally unrealistic?
| gambiting wrote:
| 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.
| awilfox wrote:
| 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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > 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.
| gambiting wrote:
| 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.
|
| My opinion anyway.
| indymike wrote:
| > 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.
| gambiting wrote:
| 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.
| bglazer wrote:
| I don't think it would make terribly compelling children's
| television to just show the children misbehaving and the
| dad disciplining them.
| gambiting wrote:
| 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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| 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.
| wharvle wrote:
| 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.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| This is correct. Kids generally don't like watching shows
| for or starring "babies" (really kids their own age)
| unless they're very small.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| 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.
| wharvle wrote:
| That... very much depends on the 2-year-old. Maybe true
| on average, IDK.
| gambiting wrote:
| >> 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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| 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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > 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).
| carols10cents wrote:
| 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...
| konschubert wrote:
| Aren't there any trees or bushes that aren't privately owned?
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Sit down for this one -
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_That_Owns_Itself
| feoren wrote:
| 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.
| warner25 wrote:
| I have two data points for you:
|
| 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.
| konschubert wrote:
| How come your kids are watching a show that you haven't even
| seen a single episode of?
| warner25 wrote:
| 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.
| konschubert wrote:
| I'm sorry. I think my question above was an overstep from
| me.
| warner25 wrote:
| No problem. I could see where the question came from.
| cruffle_duffle wrote:
| > 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.
| cptcobalt wrote:
| 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.
| drunner wrote:
| 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.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| 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.
| ursuscamp wrote:
| 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.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| 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.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| You are not the only one.
|
| I also think that it shows an unhealthy relationship between
| the kids and the parents, and was banned in our household
| bitwize wrote:
| 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").
| awilfox wrote:
| > It's not all happy, singsongy, bright-colored drivel
|
| "Oh man, the songs." - Bandit, "Movies".
| defrost wrote:
| > the real 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.
| jaimex2 wrote:
| 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.
| cruffle_duffle wrote:
| > 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"
| landswipe wrote:
| Bluey is female, blew my mind when I first learnt this after
| watching a few episodes.
| oska wrote:
| 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.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Brigid's_Church,_Red_Hill
| awilfox wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway87651 wrote:
| 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!
| willismichael wrote:
| > Oh, and my cat now has a nickname: Muffin. Make of that what
| you will.
|
| My daughter sent me a meme with the punchline "When you think
| your child is Bluey but really your child is Muffin". Make of
| that what you will :)
| _justinfunk wrote:
| Can you share?
| willismichael wrote:
| Here it is, I got the wording wrong in my previous message,
| but the idea is the same: https://www.reddit.com/r/bluey/co
| mments/xk4lvw/not_my_child/
|
| Edit: I have to admit that Muffin is my favorite character
| in that show. Make of that what you will.
| gadders wrote:
| Best of luck - I hope it happens for you.
| mayd wrote:
| For those who want to see quirky Australian children's television
| programming for older children may I suggest this?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_the_Twist
| lmpdev wrote:
| One underrated aspect of the show is the backgrounds being
| grounded in reality
|
| I live in the city (Brisbane) the show is set in
|
| Effectively every detailed background is recognisable but
| tastefully selected (not shoved down the viewer's throat)
|
| If you do ever visit Australia, take the kids to see Brisbane
|
| My partner manages front of house for the Live Action Bluey
| theatre show, she was the first person to put Bluey on my radar
| (we have no children)
|
| The live action show was so popular they've recently just put it
| on for a second session
|
| The kids get to watch Bluey inside the QPAC building (a common
| background in the show, next to the Eye of Brisbane)
| bknight1983 wrote:
| 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
| anotherevan wrote:
| 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?"
|
| E.g.
| https://old.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/16a8s6d/clothes_...
| bobsmith432 wrote:
| 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.
| programmertote wrote:
| 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.
| mgd wrote:
| 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
| coenhyde wrote:
| It's cool to see Australian values & parenting techniques
| propagating into American society. Our conquest will be
| complete soon :)
| paradox460 wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRN5gKC9_CU
| maztaim wrote:
| 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.
| mywacaday wrote:
| 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.
| nightowl_games wrote:
| 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.
| larrymyers wrote:
| 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.
| drunner wrote:
| 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.
| ceedan wrote:
| 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.
| navbaker wrote:
| I will be singing "if you have to go potty STOP! and go right
| away" until the day I die.
| wharvle wrote:
| 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.
| feoren wrote:
| 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.
| robbomacrae wrote:
| 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.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| 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.
| namdnay wrote:
| 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
| cruffle_duffle wrote:
| > 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.
| evan_ wrote:
| 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.
| ashton314 wrote:
| 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.)
| longwave wrote:
| 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.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| Wow. Thanks, I can't unsee this now.
|
| 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.
| ursuscamp wrote:
| 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.
| KnlnKS wrote:
| It *blue* you away?
| pylua wrote:
| It also sets the bar very high for parents.
| cfiggers wrote:
| Yes--in an encouraging way.
| williamcotton wrote:
| 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.
| quickcheque wrote:
| I tend to view parenting discussions on HN with a strong
| gell mann weight.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| My friend says she tries to model herself on the Mum from
| Bluey.
|
| I say it gives children unrealistic ideas about how much play
| time the average parent can engage in without getting a crick
| in their back.
| vinaypai wrote:
| 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.
| stiiv wrote:
| 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.
| drunner wrote:
| 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.
| pipes wrote:
| Is that a bad thing? (I'm a parent and I love it)
| no-dr-onboard wrote:
| Yeah I'll go further.
|
| - 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.
| skyyler wrote:
| >- 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?
| ben_w wrote:
| > 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?
| afavour wrote:
| > 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.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Owl doesn't have a mother. Miscellena is from an
| interracial household. Crissy has a physical disability of
| some kind and cannot walk.
|
| Daniel tiger jams in diversity at every opportunity.
|
| It's handled far better than anything Disney creates, I'll
| give you that, but it is not simply the story of a nuclear
| family.
| skyyler wrote:
| Chrissie is based on a character from the original Mr
| Rogers show.
|
| You are trying to find things to be mad about, it seems.
|
| "interracial household"? That's something you take issue
| with?
| afavour wrote:
| > 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?
| nindalf wrote:
| > Miscellena is from an interracial household
|
| I'm so sorry you and your child had to witness that. Must
| have been quite traumatic.
| sophacles wrote:
| Wow, so you're offended by:
|
| diversity (aka the acknowledgement that people of
| different ethnic/racial/religious/etc backgrounds can
| interact without conflict)
|
| single parents (in a country with an absurdly high
| divorce rate)
|
| interracial couples
|
| physical disabilities
|
| That's just kinda gross.
| theultdev wrote:
| He never said he was offended by those things.
|
| Just those things don't always need to be in all kid
| shows.
|
| You can support those ideals and not want pandering in
| your show.
|
| Crazy, I know.
| sophacles wrote:
| 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.
| theultdev wrote:
| Bluey prepares kids more for the real world more than the
| corporate HR messages the US shows have.
|
| It's not about checking diversity boxes, it's about
| handling your emotions.
|
| And yes, we're all tired of "woke" shit, that's not the
| real world, but it tries to parade as it is.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| In my 8 year old's classroom there is:
|
| 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.
| theultdev wrote:
| You teach morals to handle all situations.
|
| You don't have to directly have brokenness, sex, rape,
| drugs, and murder in kids shows even if those things
| exist in the real world.
| sophacles wrote:
| 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.
| skyyler wrote:
| Any inclusion is pandering to some people.
| theultdev wrote:
| Yes pandering is relative.
|
| So the GP was happy with a show that was relevant to his
| family.
|
| Yeah I think we're on the same page.
| skyyler wrote:
| It's almost like people just want to be upset about how
| other people are living their lives for some reason.
| theultdev wrote:
| Yup, just let people enjoy Bluey and live their own
| lives.
|
| There's plenty of "woke" stuff to enjoy if you want to
| live life that way.
| skyyler wrote:
| Oh, believe me, gay and trans furries love Bluey. It's
| pretty much our fav thing, it's so insanely popular with
| the LGBT+ crowd.
| theultdev wrote:
| Ok? My Little Pony was in the same boat. Doesn't really
| change anything.
| skyyler wrote:
| It's insanely popular and I certainly don't want to stop
| anyone from enjoying it :)
|
| Was it pandering when My Little Pony had a lesbian
| couple?
| theultdev wrote:
| Never watched it, my point was another group enjoying
| something doesn't really effect what another group gets
| out of it.
|
| For me it depends on how it's presented. The characters
| shouldn't announce what they like to fuck. That's
| jarring, pandering, and very inappropriate.
|
| No idea how it was portrayed so I can't say.
| skyyler wrote:
| >The characters shouldn't announce what they like to
| fuck.
|
| Has that happened in a kids show you've seen?
| theultdev wrote:
| No. The shows I screen never say or portray anything
| sexual.
|
| They will find out that out on their own, without the
| help of kid shows.
|
| I have no idea what the character's sexual preferences
| are and I don't want to know.
|
| Curiously, how was it presented that they were lesbian,
| and who was lesbian? One of the ponies? lol.
| skyyler wrote:
| Wait, why did you bring up characters on children's show
| announcing their sexual proclivities then?
|
| Are you just getting angry about a hypothetical? Help me
| understand where you're coming from please
| theultdev wrote:
| I'm not angry? And I didn't bring it up, you brought up
| the lesbian in MLP.
|
| How was it presented in the show?
| skyyler wrote:
| Why did you bring up whether the characters want to fuck?
| theultdev wrote:
| Because that's what your sexual preference essentially
| is.
|
| Why is it relevant in a kid's show?
| skyyler wrote:
| There's so much more to relationships and human
| connection and even romantic relationships than that.
|
| Get your mind out of the gutter.
| theultdev wrote:
| Connections can be made in kids show without referencing
| sexual preferences, that's my point.
|
| I just fail to see why you need to make a pony a lesbian
| in a kids show.
|
| Why bring that up at all?
| skyyler wrote:
| Why bring up couples at all?
|
| Are the heterosexual couples going to tell the kids about
| the sex they're having?
| theultdev wrote:
| That's why I said it's how it depends how it's presented,
| and you never explained so I don't know if it was
| appropriate or not.
|
| Many kids shows I enjoyed never had _any_ couples or
| parents in them, which avoids that altogether.
| eterpstra wrote:
| 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.
| fredoliveira wrote:
| > Owl doesn't have a mother. Miscellena is from an
| interracial household. Crissy has a physical disability
| of some kind and cannot walk.
|
| Oh man, god forbid a child being exposed to the vile,
| vile ideas of single parenthood, interracial love, or
| physical disability! How dare they, I say!
|
| Sigh.
| evan_ wrote:
| > Miscellena is from an interracial household
|
| it's "Miss Elaina", you racist dipshit
| netchkin wrote:
| This reminds me I never cracked how society works in Bing,
| as well as how kids are born.
| rglullis wrote:
| 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.
| mywacaday wrote:
| My wife and I don't like Peppa for that very reason. One
| of its main catchphrases is "silly daddy".
| 174ac09182ad3fd wrote:
| 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.
|
| Instead, may I suggest engaging with the replies?
| johnnythunder wrote:
| Also interesting is the strangeness of the theme song time
| signature and game that goes along with it!
| https://www.businessinsider.in/entertainment/news/people-are...
| https://eightify.app/summary/music-and-performance/decoding-...
| ramesh31 wrote:
| 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.
| Arubis wrote:
| 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.
| natpalmer1776 wrote:
| I love the cake topper idea! Saving this for my next birthday
| :)
| eggy wrote:
| Love this show!
|
| Although the Dad never seems to work, plays all day, and sets the
| bar pretty high for me especially on the last 2 of my 5 children.
| I'm out of steam.
|
| I too succumb to the emotional episodes, and I am grateful for
| every tear I share with my kids!
|
| I grew up watching Bugs Bunny, Davy and Goliath, Gumby, and All
| in the Family as a young kid for a contrast!
| xuther wrote:
| 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
| drunner wrote:
| Mine is 'Whats up party people' which he also uses in
| multiple episodes.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| 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.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| There's a whole episode about dad having to working and the
| kids bothering him while he does!
| aetherson wrote:
| Here's a somewhat embarrassing admission: I never appreciated
| Holst's "The Planets" until I saw it used (particularly
| "Jupiter") in a Bluey episode.
| feoren wrote:
| 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.
| aetherson wrote:
| 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.
| contemporary343 wrote:
| 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.
| larrymyers wrote:
| I had almost forgotten about Tumbleleaf. Such a gem of a show.
| The submarine episodes really stand out.
| jnsie wrote:
| > 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.
| smusamashah wrote:
| 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.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| 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.
| jslaby wrote:
| 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.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| tl;dr it's actually a really good show
| thepasswordis wrote:
| 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.)
| QuercusMax wrote:
| Even though it's not political, the right-wingers feel the need
| to make their own version with "traditional family values".
| It's called Chip Chilla:
| https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/oct/17/is-new-kids-...
|
| Seems ridiculous to me; they show "traditional" gender roles in
| the ripoff show to avoid "indoctrination".
| calmworm wrote:
| 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...
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| The stuff which makes it out of Australia in terms of media,
| food, and software (hello Sublime Text) is some of the best.
|
| What confuses me is why are their politics so messed up when it
| comes to tech.
| dccoolgai wrote:
| "Lucky's Dad" is low-key the best character in the show.
| bgmeister wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custard_(band)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v03j7my0V6c (relatively recent
| single)
| gnicholas wrote:
| 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.
| gnicholas wrote:
| 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?
|
| Hopefully some HNers down under can enlighten us!
| axolttl88 wrote:
| '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.
| benr wrote:
| Here's a podcast with the creator of Bluey about how he 'Dads' in
| real life that I suspect a few of you might enjoy.
|
| https://howotherdadsdad.com/episode/how-joe-brumm-dads
| robbomacrae wrote:
| 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.
| ssss11 wrote:
| Bluey is an absolute master piece.
| mech4bg wrote:
| 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.
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