Bluey Lore

I’m not going to deny, I love Bluey. I love watching it with my son who loves watching it too.

The stories are great, the music is great, the animation is great, the characters are great, the humour is great. But it’s also really deep.

If there is one issue, it’s that Bandit (the dad) sets way too high expectations on not just entertaining your children, but the lifestyle with enormous (and impossible) houses with great weather.

But they also handle that, with their trademark good humour:

I’m not going to take advice from a cartoon dog!

It’s a kids TV show with a message, and is just as much for adults and kids.

It’s the only children’s TV show where after half a nights sleep, you get up at 5am, you watch a Bluey, and it makes you cry.

One thing that you appreciate as an adult, watching these episodes hundreds of times, is how things that happen at the beginning of the episode relate to things later in the episode.

My favourite example of this is the episode Explorers, in which Bluey actually has a very minor part, but the premise is that Jack and other kids in Blueys school are paddling a pretend boat, trying to find Australia. Jack’s dad is trying to pick up Jack from nursery, but his GPS fails and he gets lost. While he tries to find the nursery he truly gets to explore Australia. At the end Jack, exhausted from trying to find Australia is lying in the boat when his dad turns up. Jack says “is this Australia?” to which his dad says ‘yes’. The dual meaning here is that they have found Australia and explored Australia, with the audience understanding Australia a little better.

Fairy Tale#

One of the concerns with Bluey is how they live such a great lifestyle. Partly it’s because it’s set in the beautiful city of Brisbane, Australia, but I also believe that Bluey is set about 10–15 years ago, when owning a large house was much more achievable.

My explanation for this is the episode Fairy Tale where Bandit tells the story of his life in the 80s. At that time he was around 10. Meaning if the show was set now, he and Chilli would be in their 50s with kids under 10.

That could be it, and that’s fine, but I think it’s more likely that the show is set in the 2010s.

Nexus Episode#

One of my favourite episodes is the season 2 episode Helicopter where Bluey flies a helicopter with her different school friends.

I consider this a nexus episode, where there is interweaving of other stories by this episode.

The simplest example of this is Chloe who likes to explore the ocean, and in the very next episode Octopus, enjoys playing the Octopus game, and learns a lot about Octopus.

A more far reaching example is Winton who wants to go to his dad’s house, which has a pool.

This sets out several major plot points through this series and next.

First that Wintons dad is divorced, which leads him to dating the Terrier’s mum. Which then leads Winton’s dad to leave his house, which this episode establishes has a pool. And then at the end of season 3 episode, The Sign, the dogs that want a house with a pool, and, if you look very carefully, end up buying Winton’s dad’s house.

Favourite Episode#

There’s not much to say here, but it’s Rain. The simplicity of almost zero spoken words, the beautiful story that is told, beautiful visuals, and beautiful sound track.

It’s just perfect.