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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

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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 affor…

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.

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

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sleepytime uses music from Holst’s “The planets”. In particular the piece called “Jupiter”. Just Google “holst Jupiter”.

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"

Something something national geographic

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

#263
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

"gotta be done!"

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

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 behavio…

How come your kids are watching a show that you haven’t even seen a single episode of?

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.

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

#266

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 int…

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 jus…

>- 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?

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

#267

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 int…

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 jus…

> 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?

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

#268
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 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.

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

#269

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 wag…

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.

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

#270

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.

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.
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