Bluey!

For Real Lives.

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In November 2019 I went to visit my agent in Edinburgh, and she told me about her latest client; a small blue dog who had charmed the whole of Australia.¹ She was handling the tie-in books to a cartoon, which wasn’t airing in the UK yet, but would be eventually. She showed me a short clip. The show was Bluey. The clip was of Bingo, talking to the walking leaf in the episode ‘Weekend’. Bingo waved goodbye to the little insect and said “Goodbye, Have fun… I’ll miss you”, while Bandit held Bluey upside down and said “Give me back my dollarydoos!” I watched the clip again with my daughter… we watched that clip one million times.²

I performed the search ‘When is Bluey streaming in the UK?’ as many times as I ever searched ‘Is it normal for a baby to…’ and ‘Donna Tartt new novel??’

I kept Googling Bluey, even though I’d only seen a minute of it. I just knew it was something special because I’m a genius who is always ahead of the curve of stratospheric trends. That bit isn’t true, I’m often so late to the party that everyone has gone home and the bins have been taken out. But this time, I was early. Too early. The party would not start for months and months and months… but then it did.

@DisneyJunior tweeted this. I love it.

Bluey joined Disney+ in the UK in 2020 – we watched it the day it was added, and then every day for the rest of our lives. By the time it was added to CBeebies in 2021, I could re-enact almost any episode. I can tell you what episode it is from a single quote. I can name that tune in one. I don’t know why I’m being awful about having watched Bluey before you watched Bluey, except I do, and the creators of Bluey know it too – it’s ‘Baby Race’. My kid was enlightened before yours. I can’t speak for how well Joe Brumm et al know you, but sometimes, they’ve got me and my family nailed. And sometimes… they show me who I want to be.

*Bluey Theme Tune Intro*

MUM!

I feel incredibly seen by Chilli Heeler. In ‘Sticky Gecko’, when she’s just trying to get out the door but there’s teeth-cleaning and hat-finding and suddenly-rollerskates and can-I-have-a-snackness. She loses it. “We’re not going!” - and then, a moment later – “We’re going!” Bluey doesn’t understand, but I know this feeling in my mum-bones.
In ‘Whale Watching’ Chilli is hungover, she’s got no energy to play.³ She needs snacks, bad ones. But in the end, she can drag herself off the sofa for one Herculean effort, for her daughters, she will leap through the air, even when she wants to stay beached on the couch.
In the majestic ‘Sleepytime’, Chilli speaks from beyond consciousness directly into Bingo’s dreams, as warm as the sun, as big as a star – “I’ll always be here for you, even if you can’t see me, because I love you”. Chilli ends this episode in the centre of the double bed, star-fished and smiling into a safe night where all her family are finally asleep and Holst’s Jupiter swells its most magnificent movement – I’m a husk, there are no happy tears left to give. Sometimes I want to clap, in my own home.
And, in ‘The Show’, I recognise the swell of Chilli’s heart when she’s caught off guard by a memory of her own life. Bluey and Bingo perform the story of how she met Bandit, and started their family. When it’s over she’s so moved by the beautiful situation she’s found herself in she claps and says “Again”. I think about this moment every time I find myself watching videos of my own daughter in a smaller version of herself. Sometimes Bluey is a show about time-travel. Again. I’d do it all again if I could end up here.

But my favourite Chilli-specific episode is ‘Baby Race’. Never has a finger pointed so directly at me from the TV. Chilli explains to Bluey that her neighbour Judo walked before she did. Chilli opens up about how helpless she felt as a new mother, and how her feelings sometimes got confused for competitiveness and inadequacy, when the truth was that no one had expectations of her anyway. I’ve read a lot of books about motherhood, and I’ve known many new mothers. I think ‘Baby Race’ is the most relatable depiction of this weird time that I’ve ever seen. At the end of the episode, Chilli tells Bluey how one day, she just walked across the kitchen towards her anyway. Bingo says “Maybe you just saw something you wanted” and I’m dehydrated again.

DAD!

Bandit Heeler is the best dad on TV. There’s no argument to be made, the case is closed, and it all rests on his two overriding characteristics – commitment, and chaos. Bandit is always prepared to play, and he’s going to double-down like Daniel Day-Lewis looking for his next Academy Award. He’s the Jeremy Strong of animated dogs. Romeo McFlourish is going to eat the disgusting food the kids made in ‘Fancy Restaurant’ (because it’s Romance), Bert Handsome is going to get the nit treatment in ‘Hairdressers’, Telemachus will get the operation in ‘Hospital’, Diddums will do Mum’s shopping in ‘Kids’. Dustin Hoffman could not Ragdoll like Bandit can ‘Ragdoll’.

Bandit’s the king of being in the moment and some moments he chooses chaos. He can truly be ‘Born Yesterday’, a ‘Bad Mood’, ‘Daddy Robot’, ‘Unicorse’, and that’s a problem when the character wants to create havoc beyond what’s reasonably acceptable for an adult (dog) in the (dog) world. One of my favourite moments is in ‘Born Yesterday’, when Bandit steals a pie straight out of Pat’s hands. You think he won’t, because the game should be restricted to Bluey’s participation, but he just kicks down the boundaries and commits to the mayhem, dragging in anyone who happens to be in the way. Most often, to my unrelenting delight, it’s Lucky’s Dad on the receiving end of it. These are the episodes that thrill my daughter – Bandit is truly a comic genius. If you don’t believe me – watch ‘Pavlova’ and see how many times he can say “Bonjour” and it still be funny.

I’ve seen comments suggest that Bandit sets an unattainable standard in parent play. I hate to break it to you, but Bluey is eight minutes long. Bandit’s a real guy with stuff to do – building flatpack furniture! doing the laundry! making breakfast for the kids! dropping them off! He wrecked his back changing their nappies! He’s an archaeologist for dog’s sake. At the end of ‘Curry Quest’ he’s going off for six weeks on a job.
Bandit isn’t a great dad because he plays all the time, Bandit’s a great dad because he plays some of the time, but when he does, he’s all in. Games just feel like your whole world when they’re this good. Bluey bends time. Children do this, for real life.

BINGO!

When we started watching Bluey my daughter was Bingo-sized, so she seemed more knowable to me than Bluey with her big friends and big ideas. Bingo was adorable in all the ways my own Bingo was adorable (she insisted we call her Bingo for a while, too). Bingo is the sweetest little character, caring in the face of chaos, gentle and sensitive. Bingo doesn’t demand attention the way her big sister does, but she’s an incredible accomplice to have in a play situation, agreeing immediately to any scenario presented and adding dynamic flourishes wherever she can. If you’ve ever seen Bingo’s Granny character Rita, crazy pillow, Snowdrop or Merifyndor, you know she can bring the fun. Bingo is also the character with a few struggles – she can’t find her voice in ‘Hairdressers’, she can’t say what she means in ‘Dance Mode’, she can’t find anyone to watch her handstand at her own birthday party. She gets called a bobo-head at Kindy, Daddy doesn’t hear her in ‘Weekend’. It’s tough to be Bingo sometimes, she wants to be a big girl, and wake up in her own big girl bed. She’s got to work on her big girl bark when the games get too rough for her to join in. Bingo always wants to be involved, but she wants to do it on her own terms. She doesn’t want to be told to eat the Endername beans, but if she’s allowed to choose, she’ll always have a go. Bingo makes me feel nostalgic for when my own Bingo needed me a little bit more, but she also makes me proud of who she’s growing up to be. Someone, who sometimes, is still quite a lot like Bingo. See, time-travel.

*twirly bit of the music* …. BLUEY!

Wouldn’t it be cliched for me to say at this point that the weakest part of Bluey is Bluey herself? Like, there needs to be a chink in the armour, or it’s a more considered critique if it includes a downer. And it’d almost be excusable wouldn’t it, if the mum was wonderful, and the dad was hilarious and the sister was adorable, for the main event to be a sort of neutral, to bounce the other elements off. We could accept that, it wouldn’t even need forgiving, it’d be understandable. But if the team behind Bluey are going to push our expectations of what Honesty can mean in a cartoon, what Comedy can look like in a cartoon, what Energy can look like in a cartoon – they sure as hell aren’t going to fob us off with a vanilla MC. Bluey is a chef’s kiss of a character. She’s the culmination of all the other elements. As relatable as her mum, as sensitive as her sister, as chaotic as her dad. Bluey brings the drama. She’s ready to elevate almost any situation into playtime, and she’s got a head full of ideas and stories to dive into. I can’t list my favourite Bluey moments because she does something iconic in every single episode. Of course she does, it’s her show. But let’s take ‘Train’ as a great example. Bandit’s the train driver, he brings the momentum to the game as he physically shoves a line of chairs around the house between stations because sitting in a stationary train saying choo choo is just not Bandit’s way of playing. Chilli is the facilitator in that she plays both the teacher at kindy, and the assistant at the vet’s office. The vet is Bingo, kind, caring, a sweet mother to the child she leaves at kindy, before hopping back on the train so save more animals. And then, Bluey turns up. ‘Here’s my ticket’ she says to Bandit, who says it looks to be in order. ‘Why don’t you lick it?’ she suggests, ‘and then, rub it all over your face?’ Bandit complies because, Bandit. And Bluey announces the ‘ticket’ is a slug.  Bluey is George Foreman to Bandit’s Muhammad Ali, and the jungle rumbles with laughter.

Look, honestly, I feel about Bluey the same way I feel about Succession. I want to be in the room where it happens. I want to invade the world where it’s made and be a part of it somehow. I feel jealous that it isn’t mine, that I didn’t make it. If I had to say what The Best TV Show Of All Time is, it really could be Bluey.⁴

But you already know it’s exceptional TV – it’s a normal statement to make now. Everyone knows Bluey has raised the bar on what cartoons for children can do. I’m not going to celebrate Bluey because it appeals to adults – everyone’s so quick to congratulate a children’s cartoon that can also impress a high and mighty adult, like that’s so hard, like that’s the ultimate prize, as if prioritising that doesn’t do a great disservice to the impossible task of entertaining children. People who eulogise about Bluey often miss the point entirely, Bluey isn’t incredible because it makes adults laugh, or handles issues sensitively, is representational and diverse, is sincere; Bluey is incredible because it does those all those things while still making the child audience its MVP. It is concerned with the time-line of a child. All the other bits of life blur into the background, only fun is at the front. Bluey wants to make your child howl with laughter. Sometimes my daughter is nearly sick on the sofa, she’s laughing so much. Sometimes I have to quickly leave the room because I’m sobbing, again.

Bluey makes adults cry. I won’t say it doesn’t mean to, because it absolutely knows what it is doing to the parental viewers. But it isn’t contrived. It isn’t ever for the sake of it. The heart moments (they’re not heart-breaking moments, they’re heart-expanding moments) come from a place of absolute honesty. The latest batch of episodes to join Disney+ here in the UK last week includes a significant family backstory – Chilli’s sister Brandy comes to visit. She hasn’t seen the girls for four years. It had been too hard to be around them. She wanted something she couldn’t have. Adult viewers know exactly what this conversation is about, but this episode of Bluey is called Onesies, and is about Bingo and Bluey, dressed up as a zebra and cheetah. Bingo goes wild in her skin, attacks everyone, is cuddled into submission by someone who didn’t know if she could bring herself to touch her. It ends with dancing.

Bluey isn’t just a masterclass in sensitive writing, it’s a masterclass of depth perception, of structure and composition, of foregrounding. Adults are always dealing with shades of life and sometimes that changes the way the world looks for a child. An absent aunt. An over-protective parent, or a pushy one. Parents have to learn things too. I’ve learned a lot about parenting from Bluey. About playing. But I want to mention the impact of Bluey on me as a writer, too (sorry).

I write for children and I’ve always been focussed on the domestic, you know, stories For Real Life. I can’t really imagine magic, unless it’s surreal. I’m always trying to capture the wonder of just being a person, and in particular, being a child. But for a long time, I was writing for children as an adult. Too wry or too cautious. I was still being Chilli, worried about the other parents, or getting out of the door.  As much as I’d like to imagine I can be Bluey, or Bingo, when I write, seeing the world from their vantage (bum-level to anyone who’s seen ‘Family Meeting’) I know that I’m still a little restricted by those mum-bones. But, maybe, on the page – because I would not steal a pasty from Pat in real life – I can be Bandit when I write. I can lean, all in, to the fun we might have. I can commit entirely to mayhem, and when the world makes me think I should rein it in… I could push it a little further. Bandit is everything I want to be as a children’s writer – dynamic, energetic, mischievous. When I write for children now, I think ‘What Would Bandit Do?’. Bluey has given me the confidence to stay true to the landscapes I’m interested in writing about; home, the garden, the playground, but Bandit gives me the courage to really commit to the game when I’m there.

Bluey is about noticing the fun that’s all around you at any moment because any moment can be amazing, You just have to be ready for it. You just have to be able to see it. The real life magic of play in all its potential, and how it can alter time. A few magical minutes can become the day that… asparagus made us into animals, dad’s hand was an emu, the fairies stole the phones, the rug became an island. If we’re lucky, time bends around our best moments. Bluey is its own space-time continuum.

If Bluey teachers me to pay attention to the magic going on in my own house it is not better summed up than in ‘Grandad’, when Chili’s Dad talks about young Chili, playing. “That was a long time ago” she tells him. “No,” he replies. “It was yesterday.”

1. That’s right… I share a literary agent with Bluey.

2. Counting is trifficult!

3. Me on a normal day, tbh.

4. Can I state for the record that the amount of episodes I haven’t been able to name-check here is already stressing me out and I’d like to write future posts entirely dedicated to my favourite characters; Muffin and Lucky’s Dad. I would have loved to write a snappy listicle type piece of top episodes but that’s just not in my nature. Sorrynotsorry.