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How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

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Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#61

Post by Rebelgecko »

grendelt wrote: post #46
timeimp wrote: post #29

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!

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…

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

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#62

Post by twisteriffic »

a_bonobo wrote: post #37
jboggan wrote: post #18

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…

'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)

'Chest' always hits me in the feels. Not subtle at all, but it works.

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#63

Post by MarkMarine »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #27
seized wrote: post #12

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.

> 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?

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

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#64

Post by The_Colonel »

robby_w_g wrote: post #55
jimbob45 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> "This family has two mommies. They love each other so proudly and they all go marching in... the... big parade," sing the lyrics. Other terms featured include "trans," "non-binary" and "queer." > “Love is love is love you see, and everyone should love proudly,” Acknowledging LGBTQ people are capable of love is somehow an example of “culture war”. It’s incredible people can be so bothered by a simple, sweet message.

Bluey is targeted towards pre-school children. I'm not really bothered if my 4-year-old daughter sees stuff like this, it's just that she won't really understand things like "non-binary". It seems like a topic more appropriate for older children - maybe from age 8 or later?

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#65

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

hdhfjkrkrme wrote: post #36
dclowd9901 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

> 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.

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.

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#66

Post by [deleted] »

29athrowaway wrote: post #21

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.

[deleted]

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#67

Post by oefrha »

grendelt wrote: post #46
timeimp wrote: post #29

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!

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…

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.

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#68

Post by jph00 »

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.

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#69

Post by gambiting »

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.

Re: How Australia’s ‘Bluey’ conquered children’s entertainment

#70

Post by hdhfjkrkrme »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #65
hdhfjkrkrme wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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.
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