One thing I really appreciate about the show is the music - so many of the best episodes are extended musical variations on great themes from classical music, and done so skillfully that you don't realize you're listening to Mozart's "Rondo Alla Turca" or Saint-Saens' "Organ Symphony" until you're at the emotional climax of the episode when the entire piece is restated, which has been priming you for a big theme or breakthrough in the story.
This is strongest in the "Sleepytime" episode which is based on the "Jupiter" movement of Holst's "The Planets" . . . honestly I have to skip this episode when it comes up because it makes me tear up so much, and most parents I know who also watch the show have similar reactions. "Sleepytime" is really art.
> One thing I really appreciate about the show is the music [...]
The music is great but many shows have great music. What makes Bluey stand out for me is their commitment to 'avant-garde' formal constraints.
Some examples:
- In the episode 'Faceytalk' they never once break from the perspective of the iPad.
- In 'Rain' there's not a single word of audible dialog.
- In 'Turtle Boy' there's lots of sign language. Remember, characters in Bluey only have four fingers. The people making the show rose to the challenge of creating proper dialogue using only signs you can make with four fingers. I imagine that's about equivalent to writing English text without the latter 'e'. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Void)
They also break the 4th wall specifically by showing the animator's point of view in a really fun sequence at the end of Puppets, and it's just... such a treat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhvVl0CW670
I broke down in tears the first time I listened to it and paid attention to lyrics.
(Then I put it on a loop when everyone was asleep, and cried a couple times more. This episode combined with the song caused a major adjustment in my attitude to parenting pretty much overnight; it hit a nerve running that deep.)
This is a really sweet story. Thanks for sharing it. Out of curiosity, what was the adjustment you made in your parenting? Being more playful or something?
The major thing was realizing my wife and I care way too much about kids getting dirty in play. This came mostly from being overwhelmed by laundry and cleaning up (and sand, sand f-in everywhere).
The other big thing was, I grew so fixated about my own job and various adult stuff, that I actually kind of hated the playground, and often felt impatient when playing (wanting to get back to million unfinished adult things). I got stuck in a self-centered and rather sad mode of thinking, and with my wife going through her own hardships, we found it too easy to just let the kids do jigsaws or play with bricks, rather than playing with them or taking them somewhere.
The song broke me down, and broke me out of my various mental loops, long enough to realize how deeply unsatisfied I am with how I act as a parent. Not just in the usual, system-2 "I realize my performance is suboptimal, I vow to improve it" way. I actually felt the weight of everything, of how much we, how much growth and happiness I am denying our girls, and it flipped something in me permanently that night. Adult problems were still there, but I suddenly felt I really want to play more, and I absolutely want to take them to playground, which became priority more important than work, and generally made me stress a little less about everything. And so I did stay on the playground the next day, and I loved it, and things really got better and happier for everyone from that day on.
Specific things: we stopped minding the sand that much - which meant we started going to the other playground nearby, that's mostly built inside a big sandbox. Kids love it. And I started to engage with some of the more absurd imaginary stories my older daughter comes up with, to her great delight. And ever since, there was no more "can't do X/Y/Z, daddy needs to finish something for work" - I decided that, in Muffin's words, "this is unacceptable!"[0].
It's hard to put into words. It probably all sounds mundane from the outside, but inside of me, the change was as profound as it was unexpected. Switches flipped, priorities realigned, emotions purged.
This was a big thing for me. But there's a lot of smaller things I took away from Bluey, too, that I feel makes me a better parent. It's truly a special show.
Amazing write up thank you. If you haven’t already tried you may enjoy the how other dad’s dad podcast by Hamish Blake. It definitely has some things in it which may change your perspective.
This is so cool, thanks again for sharing. Did your wife have a similar epiphany or did you communicate yours to her and convinced her you both needed to change?
I only noticed the brilliance of Faceytalk when I looked over the shoulder of my daughter watching a recreation of the episode someone had done with merch dolls and put up on YouTube Kids.
The recreation sadly broke the strict rule of 'singe take / no cuts, iPad view only', but that drove home to me how great the original was.
The no-dialogue thing is an industry trick. It can allow for animation to start prior to the vocals being recorded and therefore provide some wiggle room in the production process. Simpsons did something similar with the couch gags which were detached from the plot and so could be worked on regardless of vocal progress. More recently, Bojack Horseman also had a no-dialogue episode.
That's an interesting aspect! Creativity thrives on constraints.
For the 'industry trick' part you can get most of the benefit from going 'most of the way'. Ie you get almost the same wiggle room, if 90% of your scenes are without dialogue, and 10% are voiced.
For the artistic effect, there's a big difference between 90% and 100%. (Sparse dialogue is also a perfectly valid artistic choice, but it's doesn't make much sense to analyse it as '90% of a no-dialogue' piece.)
I've mostly come to appreciate 'pantomime' in web comics. Many comics go overboard with text, be that speech bubbles, thought bubble or narration boxes. It's always interesting to me to see an author work out how use the medium to its full advantage, instead of writing a novel.
If anything, I would expect Bluey to be less available on YouTube in Australia than in some other random country, because they are more likely to have special local arrangements there with the rights holders.
YouTube is convenient, but it's not the only place where people might want to put their content.
This is what stuck out to me when I first watched it. Sleepytime is a masterpiece not only for the music but the whole episode. Everything about it is perfect. The pacing, the feelings, the moments, even the humor (Jupiter's giant spot).
It gets me every single time.
Many bluey episodes are like this. But Sleepytime especially stands out.
Agreed. My three-year-old's favorite episode, by far. Realizing how artistically ambitious and just plain good Bluey is has been an interesting lesson in how kids actually do have good taste/interesting preferences as long as you don't bombard them with the Cocomelons of the world.
My daughter likes to say "that makes me happy... and sad!" at the end of a particularly artistic episode, like Sleepytime, the wordless one where it rains, or the final episode ("The Sign" - the Citizen Kane of children's television).
When I watched The Sign for the first time, my wife said “you’re going to be crying at the end of it”
And sure enough, she was 100% right. It was like peak Pixar, entertaining for the little ones but very deep and full of incredible depth and emotion for the adults.
Yes, "Sleepytime" is one of the greatest few minutes of television the world has ever seen. It exhibits such deep empathy and understanding of what it is to be a parent of small children, what it is to be a child, a sibling, a member of a family, to dream, to tire, to need. And "The Planets", a beautiful work of art in its own right, fits so well it must be itself an inspiration for the story on the screen.
rain is my favorite episode. it so perfectly encapsulates the curiosity and innocence of childhood and the music is incredible. so much emotion for an episode with basically no dialogue.
I'm particularly fond of 'Sleepytime', but 'Rain' is probably the episode that I've thought of more often than any other. Because of that 7 minute cartoon episode, I have found myself _actively_ changing my behavior/decisions with my kiddo - letting them do something that will be a bit more work for me later on (extra laundry or whatever), but something that sparks their curiosity or gives them a new experience or similar.
Same here. After watching it and then looping the "Boldly in the Pretend" (official song to "Rain" music), my attitude to parenting and many specific behaviors changed pretty much overnight.
(For one, I realized we're both too harsh about kiddos getting dirty and making a mess. The other big thing was, it made me decide to make playground after kindergarten a priority more important than work.)
Beyond parenting, that story and song connected me with my own inner child, and had me realize I might be taking this "adulting" thing way too seriously. Work, play, it's still the same game - we're still just "racing those boats down the road to the end".
Can't think of anything else in my life that managed to break me down and put back together differently so quickly.
I remember one of the bluey episodes (something to do with monkey bars?) used ode to joy a few times throughout, and in the credits simply had
"music by Ludwig". A very cute nod.
For some reason — I am musically incompetent — "The Beach" really felt like the soundtrack was very emotive in a way that fit the story.
The stately feel in "Sleepytime" may have fit the solar system motif and provided contrast to the earthy elements of the story.
I liked "Sleepytime" in part from the expression of letting go while being faithful. Bingo's letting her rabbit go did not mean a complete separation but an expansion (as a few additional rabbits came to help later) similar to a parent allowing a child to grow up and leave while affirming that the child is loved.
Bluey also has some similarity to Calvin and Hobbes in that some fantastic elements are not explained. E.g., in "Sleepytime", do Bluey and Bingo have a psychic connection such that they shared part of the dream or is there imagination/unreliable narration or some third option?
The music really is top-notch. I’m no aficionado, but I remember watching a video breakdown of Stayin Alive by The Bee Gees. If I had guessed, I would’ve said that there were maybe 3-4 instruments in that song. But actually there are like 15 things going on simultaneously. The video showed how critical each one was, and how the mixing produced that distinct sound.
Now I can hear things a bit better, and Bluey’s music makes me think of that video every time. There’s so much going on melodically and yet they blend it so well that you don’t really notice. It’s amazing.
"Sometimes, special people come into our lives, stay for a bit, and then they have to go"
As a kid who grew up poor and moved around a lot as mom tried to make ends meet, this episode fucking obliterated me. Goddamn 36 year old watching a neighbor's kids having to explain that I'm fine, don't worry, to a couple of very confused littles.
My daughter's amazement that I can translate the French bits of dialogue from Jean-Luc were a joy, too. :-) But that made me appreciate the scriptwriting more -- because almost everything Jean-Luc says, Bluey _also_ says, independently, so it works if -- like my wife and kid -- you don't know a word of French.
oh wow we watched this episode a few days ago; i missed the Holst connection, and yes I also felt tears in my eyes at the denouement. definitely hugged my kids harder after that one.
The sound designer goes over their use of this type of music in this excellent podcast. You'd really enjoy it. (Available Apple Podcasts, which is where I listened to it, but linking directly here).
The next one about the voices is excellent too, so linking both. The care they put into both the show and the people involved is almost as touching as the show itself.
Their original musical is top notch too. I am not an expert on music but I was watching the music video for Rain and it hit home how much talent and effort they put in it.
The first episode I ever sat down to watch caught my attention because it used 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' throughout. That isnt typical of kids entertainment.
What I really appreciate about Bluey is that it’s one of the few children’s shows with a really great and relatable Dad character. The Dad in most children’s shows is either barely present or a total idiot that nobody respects.
Bluey may have done more for fathers (and families) than anything in recent history. So many are dealing with fatherhood without having a role model themselves, and everything on TV being "fat dumb lovable idiot" sitcom-types.
The episode "The Sign" is an incredibly deep story from multiple angles.
I like bandit, but for a role model he spoils his children a bit too much I think. He allmost always does what the kid wants and not what he actually wanted to do. Well, he is also good at integrating it, like when he is doing exercises with the kids instead of weights.
But sometimes he is literally fleeing the kids, to not have to play with them, instead of saying no.
(But from the avaiable alternatives, he is indeed the best role model that comes to mind)
Speaking for myself, that's exactly what makes it relatable. My kid consumes all my time if I let him. And, I often have to remind myself, this age is special and very short - my hobbies and 'rest' will be available again soon. I think the hard job of being a mom is well understood, documented, portrayed in media, etc. But, as a dad, I'm expected (by my kid) to be a tireless playmate matching his energy levels, playing his games, being imaginative and creative in my play, etc. and I don't think that type of parenting is well portrayed in media. My wife and I have spoken about it several time as we've fallen into pretty traditional gender roles and she's "cool with cooking and cleaning every evening, because [she] can't play the way [I] do" and it's equally exhausting after a long day of work/life/adulting.
I hear & see a bunch of my friends who have an only child struggling with this. My sister has four kids now (which is crazy). She says that in many ways it’s easier with more kids, because they play with each other. She barely ever plays with them at all (which is a bit sad). But because they have each other, she gets to spend all her time being the adult in the room. It seems to be working out - her kids are doing great.
She said it also really helps that they’re a bit older now. A 2 and a 4 year old have a much bigger age gap than a 6 and 8 year old.
All that said, she still doesn’t get much time pursuing her hobbies. She says it’s the after school activities that do her in now.
For the record of everyone, having multiple kids (3 in my case) is a thrill, and it helps much that they can play with each other instead of having the parents as a sole source of attention. Go have kids, they’re awesome :).
Watch carefully. There are many times he says no and the kids just listen - often outright. But many times he gets his way with a distraction - the “game” the episode is named after.
It’s also somewhat told from Bandit’s perspective (understandable given the author).
The episode “Burger Shop” is a good example of him not getting his way at the same time he does, even though he ends up admitting his experiment was a failure.
Oh, I didn't mean to imply he never says no and I like his elaborate educational games, they are truly inspiring. Just that quite often I get the feeling, I would just say no and that's it. I love playing with my kids, but not always. And I also don't like to fight with them sonthey accept it, but bandit often seems to avoid the fight by saying yes.
He also normalizes farting in your kids’ faces. More seriously, Bluey is so enjoyable because the characters have dimensions and seem way more real than just about anything else on TV.. at least that you’d watch with kids.
The dad is who you want to aspire to be when you see his relationship with his kids. Definitely sighup’d my idea of parenting after watching a few episodes
Yup. Makes me think of that episode where they were racing and Bandit just blatantly cheated to win. A low point for him, but only makes him more relatable.
In the Flatpak episode, he rolls his eyes and states, "I'm not taking advice from a cartoon dog!" The episode is mostly about how Bluey takes after the parents in a game where she's raising Bingo through adulthood while they also go from fishes through dinosaurs to modern humans, er, dogs.
The writing in that episode is insane when you consider how much they managed to pack into such a short run time. The entire evolution of life and the building of society complete with religion, the story a parent raising Bingo before seeing her head off as an adult and then dying, and also two parents fighting over cheap furniture assembly and then making up. It all happens in just a few minutes and much of the story will certainly go over the heads of many young children watching the episode, but it ends up being perfectly enjoyable to everyone anyway.
Yeah that stood out to me as well. There’s a kind of reverse-bechdel test where you can ask yourself to find any portrayal of a husband that doesn’t include mockery of some kind. And you can actually go back pretty far with it - it seems like that general trend began in the 70’s. Like you have I Love Lucy, which was a bit of a sexist show in its own right of course, but the husband wasn’t portrayed as incompetent. I can’t think of a more recent example, aside from Bluey.
I think Tim Allen's character from Home Improvement was unique in that he was a father who frequently made comedic mistakes, but that they resulted from over ambition or carelessness rather than standard stupidity, and his "pig headed machismo" was often a bit of an act rather than who the character really "was" as evidenced by his ability to be thoughtful and sensitive after he learned lessons.
I believe that Happy Days started the trend in the 70s, with Mr. Cunningham being portrayed more realistically than earlier TV fathers. Allegedly (I can't find a source) an executive said "He doesn't look like a father. He looks like my father."
Hal from Malcom holds up pretty well, quirky and flawed of course, but all in all a great father and husband. though it’s admittedly been a while since I went through it.
Comedies often have some mockery built in, and comedies aimed at kids in particular like to take shots at authority, but there are a lot of examples I can think of in just the general-TV-millenial-vibe-y things I've watched over the past couple of decades. More than the "bumbling dad" type, I'd say, from things I've seen in the zeitgeist (I guess one recent super typical example is Rick and Morty, though everyone sucks there):
* Arrested Development: Michael is the most competent of the bunch. His father was also quite competent, if an asshole and eventual criminal. But, you know, that put the "sit" in sitcom...
* Luke from Gilmore Girls is pretty consistently more sane than Lorelai, turns out to be a good dad too IIRC; other fathers include a loser and a number of very successful businessmen, teachers, etc.
* King of the Hill: doing his best, often the most sane of the bunch
* Bob's Burgers: haven't watched a ton of this but from what I've seen Bob is a goofball but respectable and wholesome, kinda a Hank Hill. Not a lazy Homer
* Parks and Rec: Ben Wyatt is a pretty positive character
* Brooklyn 99: Terry is practically a superman of competence and seems to hold is own with his wife and kids. Holt is a supremely competent husband. Boyle is a goofball generally and in dating, but that does not really extend to his eventual marriage and child, where he seems to be doing quite well.
* Schitt's Creek: Johnny is the competent center of the family surrounded by comically exaggerated crazy wife + kids
Dramas seem even further away. Where do Breaking Bad or the Sopranos land?
Add Keith from Veronica Mars to the list— he’s an absolute rock for her and manages well the balance between being protective while also letting her go her own way.
I like it for that reason. It's one of the few shows that we can watch as a family with the kid laughing at the kids and me paying more attention to the parents.
I'm always impressed by TV or movies that can pull that off, usually one or the other of us finds the content uninteresting.
I remember reading somewhere that one of the motives for Bluey was to encourage Australian fathers to be more involved with their children. As a father myself, I recall many times watching the show and being like “damn that’s a good dad.”
True, even back in my day the closest thing to a father figure would have been Steve from Blues Clues. But he was always coded more as an uncle/big brother instead.
I've seen parents complain that it sets an unrealistic expectation for parents. That nobody could spend all their time entertaining their kids whims and games the way Bandit does and how you don't often see the parents really putting their foot down or even having to work. I think some of the push back is guilt/regret that it can't always be like that. It's better to see it as something to aspire to when possible than an expectation that things will be like that all the time.
The show is also careful to show the parents struggling at times too and tries to encourage parents.
The misunderstanding here shows that we need to be careful with in-jokes and references in an asynchronous medium. Even among people who have consumed the media in question. It's even worse with the general public (or even just general HN public).
No. We don’t need to make conversations so boring as to allow you and your robotic ink to completely unambiguously understand them. For every one person that didn’t get this obvious Bluey reference deep in a Bluey thread, I’m sure that 100 more DID get it.
Bluey was funded by the Australian ABC and British BBC. Both public broadcasters with a strong commitment to quality children's programming. It wasn't created to sell Hasbro toys or Disney merchandise or increase children's Youtube watch time. The merch and Disney streaming came later because the show is obviously brilliant.
Bluey isn't just good family programming. It is a snapshot of Australian culture and family values which would likely never be made in a world controlled by huge multinationals.
Came to say this - it’s good because it was made with love and respect for kids and parents rather than to just turn children into frogs and sell them plastic figurines. Rare sight.
Bluey is unusually good even for the ABC, but the floor on children’s programming is just so much lower in the US. Sure, America’s obsession with Bluey stems in part from its on-again off-again fetishisation of Australia. But, Christ, I’m Australian and recently spent a few weeks in the US, and, fuck me, American TV just sucks so much.
As a kids show bluey is adequate. However, I suspect its secret is that it's really a show for parents with young children that just happens to hold the attention of kids.
My daughters like bluey (ages 3-8). But they also enjoy many things on TV and bluey doesn't stick out that much.
On the other hand, I happened to be in the room for an episode where blueys dad is having a hard time making some sort of cake and bluey cleans up something to help him out without being prompted. I most definitely felt heard watching that episode.
It’s undoubtly a brilliant show for parents - in fact I’d describe it as a show about parenting. But it’s much more than an adequate kids show, it’s certainly top tier for my kids.
My 4 year old has been enormously influenced by Bluey, in a positive way. She’s very playful, and Bluey is all about fun and silly games. She wants to play all the Bluey games, and will riff off them too, it’s been a huge source of inspiration for lots of fun together. She loves the show, it’s definitely right up there for many kids too.
I also fully agree with the other posters saying how it’s an excellent model of top-tier fathering. It’s definitely helped me up my game, I’ve leaned much more into daddy-fun silly games, partly because Bluey gives you a bunch of games that you can copy (and your kids will understand), but also because it helps encourage spontaneity and improv. I think my best advice for dads with 3+ year olds is ‘watch Bluey’
I agree. Bluey is a great show. As a dad it can either make you feel inadequate or motivate you to to better. You just have to accept no dad can be Bandit all the time, but try to be Bandit as much as possible.
I'm fairly certain we only see the family during the slices of time mom and/or dad have the to interact with the kids. "Rug Island" alludes to the notion that when Bandit goes to work, he may as well be going to a foreign country as far as the kids know.
> She’s very playful, and Bluey is all about fun and silly games. She wants to play all the Bluey games, and will riff off them too, it’s been a huge source of inspiration for lots of fun together.
Our daughter is the same. Pizza girls and tickle crab are two of her favorite
Bluey isn’t just aware parents are watching, though. It’s not just cameos and a little sneaky grown up humor. It’s more like two stories, both compelling, are being told at the same time, depending on which character you identify most with.
Especially since having a second child start growing up, I've realized it's actualy four stories, often all compelling at once. There's Bluey's story, and there is the dad's and mom's story, but there is also Bingo's story, about being the younger child. My younger kid loves the episode called "Bingo", which is specifically about Bingo.
There's another Bingo-focused episode, called "BBQ", that's absolute favorite of my little Bingo's. My younger daughter (3.5yo now) definitely sees herself in the Bingo character.
I don’t think inserting innuendo is necessary. In fact, I personally find it distasteful and nothing more than an easy way out.
I think the proper way to do it is to include themes and/or characters that adults would relate with too. Ghibli movies are one example where this is done well (most of the time).
Sesame Street is this way. Watch versions from your youth and you'll see references to pop culture everywhere. From the specific 1970s rock bands, Star Wars, Monsterpiece Theater, etc. It's so obvious when I see it now, but a lot of it went over my head at the time.
Yeah Pixar does it a lot, and Bluey, and Peppa Pig a little. But it's really uncommon in kids TV shows. 99% of them are straight up dross just for kids with no accomodation for parents.
That's why Bluey is so popular. It's the only good TV program for adults that kids will also watch. (And I agree it's only super popular for adults, kids are way more into trash like Blippi.)
Oh I disagree, my kids like Blue a lot more than Blippi. But they like better-but-still-dross like "Spidey and His Amazing Friends" about the same as they like Bluey, whereas their parents like Bluey about an order of magnitude more :)
> But they also enjoy many things on TV and bluey doesn't stick out that much.
Fwiw my kids (9 - 12) watched every episode at least 4 times already by now. Especially my youngest thinks it's 10x better than anything else on offer. In terms of categories, there's basically Bluey, and everything else. Just to say, tastes differ.
I agree it's a great show for parents too but the idea that it doesn't stick out much for the kids doesn't resonate with me. There's so many details, so many layers, so much to discover.
When they were little they loved it because there were cartoon animals laughing and playing.
When they were slightly older they loved it because the jokes were funny.
And when they got a little older still, they loved it because the silly things the parents did in the show reminded them of the silly things us parents do. So they’ll often call out “that’s what you do daddy!” during the episodes.
The show is a work of genius because it feels like a slice of real life but packaged in a way that is entertaining for kids. So I do completely agree that it has a lot of appeal for adults too, and that definitely helps.
I think that's it. They've found a balance in "family" entertainment that is sophisticated enough to please adults, much the way Pixar and 90s Disney films had. The Simpsons at outset was also sort of like this for older kids. There was moral panic at the time, but it didn't prevent the show from being an incredible phenomenon, heavily merchandised the way Bluey is now. I must have been obsessed with the Simpsons since 7-8 years old.
No way man. My kids love Bluey. You're right that they don't understand why (or that) we love Bluey way more than the other shows they also love (which mostly suck) but what's so brilliant about it is that it's top-tier for them, while simultaneously being #1 (by a lot) for us.
The voice actor for Bandit, Dave McCormack, was not previously known as an actor or voice artist, but he has been known in Australia since the early 90s as an indie rock band frontman.
The band he fronted, Custard, started getting airplay on Australia’s national youth radio station, Triple J, in about 1993, and they became a staple of the live music scene - especially uni student bars, live rock pubs and summer festivals - for all the 90s. They quit in 2000 but reformed in 2009 and are still recording albums and playing gigs.
They’re worth checking out [1] if you were into quirky 90s bands like Ween, Dino Jr, Flaming Lips, Ben Folds Five, etc. Full of grungy chords and riffs but mostly major key, happy/fun/funny compositions and lyrics. Very high energy and entertaining. Some nice slower jangly country ballads thrown in there too.
I think they’re the only band I ever stage-dived to, so I guess technically I’ve been “on stage with Bluey’s dad”.
Most music lovers in Australia now in their 40s knew of them, and I’m sure it was a factor in the casting to tap into the nostalgia of the people who are now parents of the kids Bluey is aimed at.
[1] It’s all on Spotify/Apple Music etc. Wisenheimer and Wahooti Fandango are their peak albums and Apartment, Lucky Star, Pack Yr Suitcase and Singlette are the songs that best convey their vibe.
I told my father-in-law about this, he didn't know anything about custard, but he pulled out a CD that he had of "Dave McCormack and the Polaroids"
Sure enough same guy, played at a pub down the road from us last year or so.
Very musically talented guy. It's so strange being a younger Australian and realising that we don't have to import fame/stardom from America. We got talent right here.
I’m American and I lived in Sydney for two years from 2001-2003.
> we got talent right here
You have no idea how right you are. Or maybe you do… There are writers and musicians and … every kind of talent on par with anything anyone else in any country has ever done.
It was extremely eye opening for me to listen to TripleJ or whatever station I would tune to after hearing some American pop junk, and hear music I’ve never heard, before or since, by bands I never heard before or since, play some of the best music I have ever heard, every single day I was there. And, that music was unlike a lot of other stuff on the radio, which was so refreshing. So new! So good! And so much!
My girlfriend (who was Australian and is why I moved there) pulled out her CDs and I was lost in them for weeks.
I was roommates with a guy, and worked with him, for six months before he texted me and told me to turn on the radio. Three minutes later I heard his voice followed by 45 minutes of the best DJ mixing set I have ever heard. He composed the best music I have ever heard, live, by ear, and it was something he did every damn week.
Oh yeah, Triple J's Like A Version is incredible. I don't know what they've got in the water there but so many artists put out their best ever work with those covers. Here are some I like:
- Someday (Julia Jacklin cover of The Strokes)
- Love (CHVRCHES cover of Kendrick Lamar)
- Feels Like We Only Go Backwards (Arctic Monkeys cover of Tame Impala)
- Do I Wanna Know (CHVRCHES cover of Arctic Monkeys)
- Believe (DMA's cover of Cher)
And speaking of Australian childrens TV and Like A Version covers, the Wiggles covered Tame Impala's Elephant (bet you didn't expect that one!)
I came here to say this. Dave McCormack and Custard were in a popular indie band in Oz in the 90s. A couple of years ago he performed a couple of songs with The Wiggles, and came out on stage saying "Hello everyone, it's me! I'm from the 90s!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEeEjEdTqqk
He uses his normal speaking voice for Bandit, and you can very clearly hear the same voice when he's signing most of the Custard stuff:
Wisenheimer and Wahooti Fandango are still both great albums (...and then I moved overseas and drifted out of the Custard orbit). For anyone with kids firmly in the Bluey demographic, I bet you could really confuse them by playing Custard at them.
I'm surprised they (i.e. record companies) haven't been trying to push Custard more, given there's a large fan based just waiting to be tapped. It would be fun to see Bandit do karaoke of a Custard song, or sing a few lines when he was in the shower, or just doing chores, etc.
I suspect they had him in mind right from the start and even developed the character for him.
Custard/McCormack are Brisbane-based and Bluey has been produced from a Brisbane studio since the very beginning. The writers/producers would have known and liked his music and voice, and probably someone there already knew him personally. Bluey is shown on ABC in Australia and Custard has always had lots of airplay on ABC TV and radio stations.
Lots of airplay, apart from that time they went into the 4ZZZ studios and found a bunch of custard cds and tapes were all smashed up… leading to the song “fantastic plastic” off Wahooto, “I wish that triple zed would play us…”
Love Custard with my heart and soul. Thanks for bringing them up Tom Howard!
Well, Triple Z is an independent/community station, not ABC!
I know that song/line well and remember mentions of Custard being “banned” by Triple Z in the band’s early days, but I can’t find any details. Do you know why they banned/smashed their music?
No one knows why it happened! It was possibly one rogue triple Z volunteer on a bender, not some organised putsch.
We’ve known Paul and David from custard for a long time now. Only time we ever talked about that was waaaaay back, around 1996 when we interviewed David for Semper, the UQ newspaper.
I love to think that it’s your shared love of Custard that’s kept you and your wife together all this time!
I too wrote for my campus newspaper - Monash Caulfield. I didn’t interview Custard (I did interview Snout, Earthmen and Atticus). But in some shoebox in storage are some Kodak instant camera prints of me and my uni mates with Dave and Matt when they played at our campus in 98. Such a wonderful time to be young.
Bluey helped me out immensely at my research job. I was watching it with my daughter and in the episode, the father says, "Obstacles don't block the path. They are the path." It was a big ah-ha! moment that completely changed my attitude about the frustration I was having in my research. Then looking at my journal notes, it was all about obstacles and how to work through and around them, and that shift in perspective really accelerated my work.
> "Obstacles don't block the path. They are the path."
This is a modern translation of what Marcus Aurelius said in "Meditations", his private diary. This particular paraphrasing and interpretation is by Ryan Holiday, a modern stoic with many books on the topic to his name. You would enjoy them.
The original quote:
"In one respect man is the nearest thing to me, so far as I must do good to men and endure them. But so far as some men make themselves obstacles to my proper acts, man becomes to me one of the things which are indifferent, no less than the sun or wind or a wild beast. Now it is true that these may impede my action, but they are no impediments to my affects and disposition, which have the power of acting conditionally and changing: for the mind converts and changes every hindrance to its activity into an aid; and so that which is a hindrance is made a furtherance to an act; and that which is an obstacle on the road helps us on this road."
Different Bluey episodes resonate with different people for different reasons, but the Cricket episode from Season 3 is just about as perfect an episode of a kid's show as I've ever seen. In about 7 minutes it manages to tackle how being passionate about one of your interests or hobbies and sticking with it even when you experience setbacks pays off.
Cricket is, bar none, the best episode of children's television ever produced. (Chess is also _fantastic_.) It's so good, I've made adults watch it without a child in the room. It's a perfect short story: the backstory character development, the heartstring-pulling deployed father, the overcoming challenges and stepping into them, the letting his sister have a win, the adults recognizing that's what he's done, and then the coup de grace, the flash forward to Rusty as a professional cricket player. "_That's_ what cricket's about, kid."
It's brilliant at every level. Such a perfect piece of television, told in this flawless 7 minutes.
The way they leave it up to the viewer to infer the reason Rusty practiced cricket on so many different surfaces was because his dad was stationed in Iraq in the Australian Army and therefore wasn’t around to pick him up after school is heart-wrenching, perfect writing.
But even if you remove that element - something I think all of us can relate to is loving a sport or a hobby so much as a kid that you use every free moment you have doing it, practicing it, getting better at it. I felt a similar way about basketball as a kid; and even though I didn't play much past high school, I saw a bit of my younger self in Rusty.
Fun fact, Rusty was originally going to be the main character. And if you put Bluey next to Rusty, you'll see they're the same shape, just colored differently.
I'll echo this for anyone else in the comments -- You can watch the cricket episode with 0 knowledge of the show and 0 knowledge of cricket. If you haven't ever seen Bluey - it's a great example as to why so many speak so highly of it. If you haven't seen bluey but want to see what the fuss is (and especially if you have any interest in sports) -- it's only 7 minutes long and absolutely worth watching.
In Aus, among the most traditional and emotionally hardest of hard men includes the cricket community. It involves physical pain “suck it up!” And psychological warfare and abuse.
Bluey reduced most of them to tears in episode 47 of season 3. Directed right at them and if you’re not a cricketer it will be tough to see why it’s extraordinary. Just a huge wow of a piece of writing for those of us who grew up with the game and its associated culture.
In Bluey, it’s all great, all of it. But the writing is something beyond that.
Can we get a discussion going on where other parents are finding high quality media for kids to consume? YouTube Kids is a definite no. YT Kids feels like it's intentionally made to brainwash your child and having unsuspecting parents let their guard down with the "Kids" in the app name. From my experimentation it is far worse than regular YouTube.
YouTube, need to watch them carefully and catch the YT algorithm trying to insert bad videos.
I have been mainly relying on Epic & PBS Kids - but feel an expansion is needed.
I'd like to put a good word in for Trash Truck. We all love it. I guess it can't quite compete with Bluey in the life lessons department - they're more simple, maybe better for younger kids. But it's definitely lovely and friendly and fun.
It’s very calm, which I really appreciate about it compared to the wild energy in other shows. Sadly my toddler is more drawn to the intense colours and action of Paw Patrol.
Which is a whole other thing in this age of streaming.. when they know you could just pick something else, they will immediately complain and ask for that instead of just needing to accept what is being shown.
I set up a Plex user for my kids, and loaded it full of things that are kid appropriate. Old PBS kids shows from my childhood, bluey, a smattering of the newer kids shows my wife was familiar with from raising her siblings, etc.
We don't give the kids much TV time at all, maybe an hour a week, but it's nice knowing they can just pick something themselves, and we don't have to worry that it's decent
Some of the new shows, e.g. Bluey, do feel head and shoulders above the good shows from my childhood. I’ve abandoned using age of the content as any signal of quality.
YouTube Kids is legitimately awful. And the content filters are a joke.
We've been using the Dude Perfect app lately. It's got ads, but it only features a select few YouTubers that focus on kid friendly content. And everything is screened by a real person. So it lets our kids watch YouTube without the "endless trash" content feed.
I've heard about videos being marked as kids content automatically simply because it's animated. It not only sucks for people who expect YT Kids to be kid-friendly but it also sucks for the creators who don't want their adult-oriented content being shown to kids and who get less ad revenue due to less valuable ads being show against their video.
It would be better for everyone if Google would turn YT Kids into a manually curated service. I think that even Google would benefit from getting more people trusting YT Kids. But unfortunately having humans in the loop is not the Google way, so it will never happen.
You should try out Kidzovo. They curate huge amounts of content for kids from different creators and provide this cute little owl called Ovo, that's like the child's friend on the app and every minute or so it pops up and engages kids in these mini games that get them to do activities related to what they are watching like find & tap on something or use their voice to answer questions. They also have a huge bunch of coloring sheets & jigsaw puzzles.
Usually I've found that kids quickly get bored of some of the other apps we've tried here, but I've seen them stick to Kidzovo for much longer. Maybe worth a try. Good thing about PBS or Kidzovo is that they dont have me looking over my shoulder like Youtube or Youtube Kids does.
I don't know about YT kids, but Ms Rachel on YouTube is a really good show for babies / toddlers. On Netflix there's Kit & Sam that's a really cool series, it's apparently from the same makers as octonauts which I don't think is as good, but my daughter actually prefers (probably more age appropriate). Gigantosaur is a really cool one on Netflix as well.
We mostly use YouTube for Ms Rachel and watching music video clips (from the Sing movies and Disney movies). I don't know how it is in the US but here in the NL Netflix has licensed a whole bunch of great kids shows and we don't really use any other apps because of that.
I have since tried using only interactive apps that would encourage kids to participate actively rather than just passively watching. When I'm around, I'll do that anyways, but it helps if the content is itself interactive.
I really like Kidzovo. They curate huge amounts of content for kids from different creators and provide this cute little owl called Ovo, that's like the child's friend on the app and every minute or so it pops up and engages kids in these mini games that get them to do activities related to what they are watching like find & tap on something or use their voice to answer questions. They also have a huge bunch of coloring sheets & jigsaw puzzles.
Usually I've found that kids quickly get bored of some of the other apps mentioned here, but I've seen them stick to Kidzovo for much longer. Maybe worth a try.
My 3 year old loves YouTube kids, and I'll admit he gets a good amount of it. We make sure we're watching it with him, and we control the remote. Some channels/topics we all like:
- Aty and Ui, two pet otters in Japan. Their owner has made tons of videos showing what they eat, how they play, and the different rivers they visit. All dialogue is in Japanese and English subtitles. My kid now loves otters, I explain different things about animals or Japan to give context, and I get to practice reading Japanese.
- MIKAN, a channel with videos of "marbles" animated using a basic physics engine. There's no dialogue. There are races, factories, battles, and even a tower defense match. It helped him learn colors. Nowadays, he gets up and practically dances while cheering for his favorite colors. Indoor exercise isn't so bad. Some of the videos that aren't on YT Kids can be a little scary for toddlers (like alien abductions, not the dreaded shock schlock that pops up on YT).
- 5MadMovieMakers, a channel with marble runs and Hot Wheels tracks. No dialogue, just short clips of creative tracks with background music. My kid now loves coming up with his own marble and Hot Wheels tracks now (though he's still not good at planning out the whole thing to actually work).
I understand the concerns about using YT Kids as a babysitter. When he gets a tablet at my parents' and decides what to watch, it's things like cars driving over paint-filed balloons or the typical group of bros overreacting to a different stupid thing each week.
You should try out Kidzovo. They curate huge amounts of content for kids from different creators and provide this cute little owl called Ovo, that's like the child's friend on the app and every minute or so it pops up and engages kids in these mini games that get them to do activities related to what they are watching like find & tap on something or use their voice to answer questions. They also have a huge bunch of coloring sheets & jigsaw puzzles.
Usually I've found that kids quickly get bored of some of the other apps we've tried here, but I've seen them stick to Kidzovo for much longer. Maybe worth a try. Good thing about PBS or Kidzovo is that they dont have me looking over my shoulder like Youtube or Youtube Kids does.
You should try out Kidzovo. They curate huge amounts of content for kids from different creators and provide this cute little owl called Ovo, that's like the child's friend on the app and every minute or so it pops up and engages kids in these mini games that get them to do activities related to what they are watching like find & tap on something or use their voice to answer questions. They also have a huge bunch of coloring sheets & jigsaw puzzles.
Usually I've found that kids quickly get bored of some of the other apps we've tried here, but I've seen them stick to Kidzovo for much longer. Maybe worth a try. Good thing about PBS or Kidzovo is that they dont have me looking over my shoulder like Youtube or Youtube Kids does.
Self promotion is fine, but you've plugged the company you work for four times on this thread already. It's also appreciated when you add a disclaimer like you've done in the past [0]
Amazon kids was really good for a while but recently they started getting vlogs and garbage from YouTube. Somehow my daughter found among us let's plays and unboxing videos and I'm deeply displeased about it.
Yes! I use Brave Browser on their ipad. There's a setting to remove Youtube shorts (and avoid commercials).
I've also periodically open their ipad and p;lay educational videos to get them on their homepage. Youtube will still stick videos of 40 year old adults acting 14 and doing weird stuff. I still need to be near them whoever they use Youotube.
Am I the only one that thinks it's crazy that an extremely popular children's show, with all kinds of merch and what not. is only worth 2B. When websites are getting sold in the 10s of B range.
You may be only one. Because businesses that deal in pure software/vaporware have been priced much higher for long time compare to businesses that deal with lot of people / physical products.
I and especially my sister grew up on Sesame Street, Mister Rogers, and a near endless supply of low-key foreign animation shown through that primordial Nickelodeon show, Pinwheel. (The Magic Roundabout, Paddington Bear, that sort of thing.) The difference in quality between children's programming then and more recently was such that when my nephew was little, my sister outright banned him from watching certain "age-appropriate" shows and even entire networks like Nickelodeon.
It's refreshing to see shows like Bluey that are thoroughly modern, but produced with old-school values: respect kids' intelligence, show positive role models, be realistic about feelings and conflict, and keep everything low-key and don't amp the kids up.
Some of this comes from watching Bluey in a literal fever binge and believing I wrote a PhD dissertation on the show because it touched so many half-forgotten things from my Masters Degree's "individual studies": I think an interesting thing to Bluey is that it is not just a "show about nothing". It's not just the daily lives and family dynamics, it actually has a central point embedded in even the studio name (Ludo Studios), which is the importance of play and games (Ludo relates to the latin for play from which we also get modern fancy terms like ludology, the study of games, and ludonarrative dissonance, the difference between what a game's story is trying to tell and what its mechanics and play style is telling), not just for fun (but also for fun), but in learning good conflict resolution and safely exploring your identity and your relationships with others and things you might want to be or grow up to do and understanding complex systems by analyzing their rulesets and playstyles and more.
There's always at least one game in every episode. It hit me early in my fever dream of a binge watch: even the intro is itself a game. One of the many simple "freeze"/"simon says"/"red light/green light"/"musical chairs" variants (the show calls it "statues" in one episode), dance while the music plays and freeze when the music stops and if you move while you are supposed to be frozen you lose. (I cheered loudly at the first episode where Bluey doesn't win the intro game. It was a lovely reward for never skipping the intro.)
There's so many good lessons about games as a lifelong tool scattered across nearly every episode, as a part of what makes the family dynamics so bright and exciting.
It might just be their daily lives, but every single story has a memorable point, which is significant and distinct. “Shadowland” is a clear & more obvious example.
- Hilda on Netflix - more appropriate for 9+ year olds but my 5 year old loves it. Has some genuinely scary moments though especially the later seasons
- The Gruffalo, Stick Man, Snail and the Whale, etc - based on the books
- Avatar the Last Airbender - for older kids but has one of the best character arcs
Hilda is absolutely fantastic! I enjoy it and my daughter is enthralled by it.
Steven Universe is a similar and fantastic show. Maybe a little more mature, particularly in later seasons, but I'm more than happy to let my young kids watch it. I didn't particularly enjoy the follow up Steven University Future however.
For Younger kids, Puffin Rock is unbeatable in my book.
Seconding Puffin Rock. It's like the opposite of all the other kids shows - where they tend to stimulate kids to larger or smaller degree, Puffin Rock is so calming that just listening to it in the background makes me relaxed.
Same here, it's been so difficult to find good shows after Bluey and Avatar. The gap between those two shows and everything else is almost breathtaking.
Or, maybe it's the best show for the parents. I'm literally watching it by myself after my kid goes to bed.
I really appreciate that the show doesn't hesitate to include some ordinary parenting interactions like Muffin took Stripe's phone and he chased her through the whole house, and Bandit making shenanigans.
I think "FaceyTime" might be one of the best examples of where they COULD have gone standard and instead, went gold.
It COULD have ended with a timeout and then Muffin being sulky and then cheering up, but it didn't.
It COULD have ended with "Mom's right, Dad's wrong," but it didn't.
It ended with gold.
(The use of the cousins to display other child activities is also brilliant, they can have "bratty Muffin" without forcing Bingo or Bluey to be "overly bratty".)
Yeah there was really a lot of thoughts going into that episode.
They don't have to show the ukulele but showing it confirms Muffin's characteristics.
They don't have to show Bandit stretching himself at the beginning of the episode, either.
Also the multi window camera is a bit unique but fun. I'm surprised how they managed to pull that out without making a whole mess when Muffin starts running.
I'd also like to nominate the Mickey Mouse shorts by Paul Rudish.
They flew under a lot of people's radar, but was quietly one of the most brilliant set of modern animations. They are well made, packed with jokes, weird, are a love letter to Chuck Jones era cartoons, and managed to bring back personalities to all of these corporate characters.
For a road trip we put on the Ramona Quimby audiobooks and I was shocked at how much better they were than I remembered, and how similar of a feeling they gave me to Bluey.
It comes from the minutiae and details of childhood psychology. To a small child, a pair of new red boots is so much more than a pair of red boots.
It's not only relatable to kids, but the magic is that it reminds me what it's like to be a kid, and helps me relate to them.
Beverly Cleary was a staple of my early reading, heavily pushed on me as a grade schooler because she lived in Los Alamos, where I grew up. I still remember Ralph the motorcycle riding mouse, as well as more mature books like tiger blood.
I've got a few copies stashed away for when my kids are a bit older, and I'm glad I do, as the kids sections of the local b&n is dire
I found this thread really interesting because of the variety of peoples' favorite episodes and particularly which episodes evoked an emotional response. Some episodes named don't resonate with me at all, which just goes to show how we all have such different life experiences.
"Rain" is my favorite. The shots, the story, the music, the lack of dialog. "The Sign" was my biggest tearjerker.
One of the things he talks about is something other commenters have mentioned - It's just as much a show for the parents, and in some cases, directly addresses the parents, but not in a fourth-wall-breaking way. They're not really talking to the parent, but it's one character talking to another, but it's drawn so that the character is looking at the viewer.
That this show came from Australia is telling, to me. TV execs in the US would never greenlight a show like this for production, and if they did, they would not be as hands-off as this show appears to be. This show is created 100% by creative people, and they are doing a bang-up job.
Zero entertainment executives in the USA would ever allow a show to be made without their own shitty changes stapled on.
We are big fans of bluey. Also interesting to note that, it’s my understanding that it was a conscious choice to keep the identities of Bluey and Bingo secret in an effort to shield them from any ill effects of fame at such a young age. You don’t hear that very commonly for other shows.
Interestingly, the 'episodes that made me want to cry' link (second paragraph) seems to be missing a src attribute, so it behaves like a link but when clicked doesn't go anywhere. I hadn't encountered that before:
For parents, most definitely. I have a hard time sitting through a Caillou episode. Bluey is also way more authentic, in that interactions could really happen exactly like that in real life. Compared directly, Caillou seems synthetic.
... in which Nana can't actively help with the party, and nobody will take the time to watch Bingo's handstand, is an intentional homage to an (at the time) award-winning Ariston TV advert from 1970s.
Its video-game themed music, and ground-breaking video editing, looping a clip while adding more and more characters and action each repetition, was mind-blowing ~40 years ago.
My family loves Bluey, but considering we're at the stage where an entertainment publication is describing it as a "$2B juggernaut", I'm afraid American capitalism is well on its way to ruining another good thing.
I think Joe Brumm stepping down is a signal that the magic is gone and the suits at Disney have taken over. Oh well, at least a handful of people got to become really really rich.
Pete the Cat is also great, however the 7 minute Bluey episodes (and ~3 minute "minisodes") is very nice. Pete the Cat runs 23 minutes.
All that said, I have been known to adjust the playback speed on YouTube to get the total play length of Bluey to a convenient length for a given situation.
+1. I think Bluey is great for parents, but I can think of many shows that are better for children. Better in the sense that they teach children how to deal with challenges at their age and how to navigate the world around them.
Numberblocks goes hard in the later seasons, but sadly Netflix no longer has those.
I really enjoyed the adaptation of El Deafo on AppleTV. Its brilliant use of audio effects to explain the evolving technology of the little girl’s hearing aids had me in tears.
Colourblocks is another great one from the BBC. The two things I really like about CB and NB is that
1. they are designed to be part of a curriculum and so they build across episodes.
2. Every so often the songwriters decide to remind you that they are capable and not just ripping off old songs like other shows do.
I do like the Stillwater show, but I am still disappointed that they replaced the Zen and eastern stories from the books with more generic western tales.
We have two young kids, and have friends and family who are enamored with Bluey. Every time we're over they put it on because they need us to like it too. I've seen so many episodes because everyone puts it on when we're over and I just... don't... get it. My children's attention isn't captured by it, and neither my wife nor I enjoy it.
The kids in the show are just kind of annoying, needy and of out of control. Things I don't want my kids to emulate. The parents feed into it and treat the behavior like it's ok. I also don't feel like the stories have particularly great takeaways for kids most of the time.
It's a minor gripe but I really find the staccato melodica theme song full of awkward pauses to be quite grating.
Everyone is free to like what they like. You are free to love Bluey. I just wish people would stop trying to make us like it, and stop making us watch it.
either you've seen the wrong episodes over and over, or you're just not approaching it with any sort of an open mind. even in the opening song you don't like the "staccato melodica" theme song, its just a small snippet of a longer song their musical director composed that the creator decided to snip down and turn into a game of musical statues...its just supposed to be fun!
and there are episodes like Cricket where it is nothing but kids behaving ideally and overcoming real challenges
So I pulled up Cricket just now and watched through it, as I'd seen it mentioned a few times in here. I can see why someone would enjoy that particular episode. It's lighthearted and sappy.
However, a sizable portion of the episodes short runtime is Rusty smashing a cricket ball against the side of his parents house, visibly damaging the siding, with zero on-screen repercussions. That's exactly the sort of thing I don't want my child emulating, and the show makes it seem like it's an ok behavior.
Children copy things they see. If you're going to show a child doing something they shouldn't it needs to be at the very least shown in a negative light.
All the show needed to do was have the final couple seconds of the episode be his mom standing next to the damage yelling "Rusty!", it would have made for a good comedic closer and shown kids that it's a problem.
What should Rusty be doing instead? The point is that he needed that siding because he didn't have a partner to hit the ball back, and his parents know this, and they support his dream. Rusty's mom isn't yelling at him for whacking the ball off the siding because he's allowed.
Houses are meant to be lived in. Sometimes we spend from them to achieve other goals.
> The kids in the show are just kind of annoying, needy and of out of control. Things I don't want my kids to emulate. The parents feed into it and treat the behavior like it's ok. I also don't feel like the stories have particularly great takeaways for kids most of the time.
...
> Everyone is free to like what they like. You are free to love Bluey. I just wish people would stop trying to make us like it, and stop making us watch it.
Based on these comments, is it possible your friends are trying to give you a subtle hint about your own parenting?
> “When a naked Hannah dribbled hot sauce all over herself in front of the doctor, shit in every corner of the office, cried, became angry with the doctor, had sex with the doctor, finished her burrito, had sex with the doctor again, shit herself again, and then realized who she was really angry at and sexually attracted to was Adam, I just closed my eyes and said, ‘Thank you.’ These are real girls with real bodies doing things that real girls do.”
>“The parents were so relatable and mirrored the parent I wanted to be,”
Ooof fiction teaching Idealism. From Nietzsche to Plato, its agreed, fiction corrupts. One day the floury idealism will be seen not to work, and the damage will have already been done.
I've seen Bluey, it was funny, it taught some general concepts... but if my kids are going to watch TV, why not Bill Nye the Science Guy or similar?
Remember that these children's characters are corporate mascots, not friends.
"I'm not going to take advice from a cartoon dog" - is exactly one of the lines in the show.
There are shows geared to teach science in appropriate ways to kids in this same demographic. But that's not the point of Bluey -- it's modeling an ideal family, in a way that's understandable to young children, while being relatable for their parents to watch and appreciate along side with them. They represent a loving, functional family, that likes to have fun, and sometimes has hard issues to deal with, that children get to see. For some families it's an unattainable ideal, and for others it's a mirror of a modern 20-30yo parents raising young kids, complete with modern situations.
It's hard to stress out just how perfectly they nail a show that both kids + parents can watch, that they both find enjoyable, in this demographic, without pandering, or being annoying about it, because it's such a rare find.
The praise this franchise receives is extremely well deserved.
Sir, it's a show for toddlers that adults can watch and relate to. Watch the repetitiveness of Daniel Tiger or the brain destroying Cocomelon (which should be banned) then get back to me.
I was rewatching Max Headroom recently and my favorite episode stood out to me. It's about an addictive game show called "Whacketts" which is so mind-numbingly insipid that even the punk operator of the pirate TV station that runs the show wonders why it's so popular. Turns out that the Whacketts broadcast is interlaced with a signal that looks like rapidly changing hexadecimal numbers and functions as a "drug" that induces euphoria in anyone who is visually exposed to it.
When I was a kid I thought this was somewhat dodgy science fiction. As an adult in the age of Cocomelon and Skibidi Toilet, I'm not so sure.
Yeah, we imagined brainwashing would involve rapidly flashing hidden messages. In reality, it involves a head sticking out of a toilet.
Hearing some of the things my elder daughter hears from other kids in the kindergarten, I sometimes wonder if we haven't jumped into some bizarro alternate universe.
Having actually sat down to watch Skibidi Toilet, it's fine. It's basically a series of over-the-top action sequences done with Garry's Mod assets. It's watching someone mashing action figures together that they kit-bashed out of other action figures.
I'm looking forward to hearing the story of the animator that got inspired to go into the field by watching Skibidi Toilet. It's going to happen.
That's a tale as old as time, though. In the 1980s, I got in trouble for using "this sucks" or "this blows" around grade one or two. It's now common slang, but it was still too close to its sexual origins at the time (which of course was over my head, but I of course wanted to emulate the older graders).
There's an episode where the father is trying to teach Bluey to play chess. It is implied by the mother that he's only doing that because "all smart kids play chess, therefore she should learn chess."
The teaching fails, not because she doesn't understand but because she and Bingo end up making up the fantasy of the game. (To the point that sacrificing a piece is a shock and abhorrent).
It ends up with the mother intervening, beating the dad at the game and saying "Work on the heads later, for now, just hearts."
So to you, I say: Bill Nye, yes. Bluey, yes too. Each in their own time... If the kids feel like it.
Fiction gives us a channel to explore problems we wouldn't otherwise regularly see in our day-to-day lives, and learn about the right ways to answer them, so that when we are confronted with them for real, we have a better framework for dealing with them than our basic instincts provide.
Real-world ethical problems tend to be much more complex than those presented in fiction, but that's exactly why we need fiction to provide us with the building blocks via easier-to-understand case studies.
Because Bluey is for 3-6 year olds or around that range and the most important thing for them to learn at this age is social skills. There is plenty of time after for Bill Nye.
I have a morbid fascination with trying to predict the most down-voted comment theme for any given HN thread. I was quite excited to find out how someone would inevitably manage to enrage people in a Bluey thread, but someone managed!
And do they only watch science shows teaching STEM subjects? Or do they get to watch shows that have some emotional lessons as well? If so, what shows?
I think people are reacting because Bill Nye is not even remotely in the same category. It has a different kind of value, and frankly it’s not as important as the kind of value kids get from Bluey.
It’s very nice if kids learn science. Great even. But the most important things kid can get from TV shows (if anything, it’s okay to watch things for fun as well) is to learn social skills. Bluey has a lot of that, and it does it without being annoying about it like Daniel Tiger. It’s a good balance
Nietzsche and Plato were some of the best fiction writers ever produced.
Storytelling, allegory, dramatic dialogue, compelling narratives, and 'myth making' can have different goals - sometimes it's to teach the glory of science. Other times it's about social relationships and how to be a functional human.
Bluey works so well because the combination of kids' entertainment with adult themes and storylines portraying positive role models feels unforced - some folks may not enjoy it, that's fine.
Right? Plato criticizing fiction has to be one of the funniest things I've read.
"We must stop making up stories. Now, have you heard about how we're all sitting in a cave watching a shadow-play of the actual reality happening outside the cave?"
This is strongest in the "Sleepytime" episode which is based on the "Jupiter" movement of Holst's "The Planets" . . . honestly I have to skip this episode when it comes up because it makes me tear up so much, and most parents I know who also watch the show have similar reactions. "Sleepytime" is really art.