How we built Bluey’s world
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Despite the huge media industry in SEQ, it's so rare to see it actually represented as itself (rather than dressed up as Manhattan, eg). I also remember growing up and feeling that there was never really any media I could relate to; everything "Australian" is set in Sydney, Melbourne, or some non-descript outback setting. There was always a feeling of being second best - always America in the news, not Australia; always NSW or Victoria for settings, not Queensland; always Sydney or Melbourne, not Brisbane.
The first time I watched Bluey, immediately I could see not just vague Australianisms, but actual places and sights I recognised. From small details like the bus stop signs to scenes which I can pinpoint exactly in Brisbane. Combine that with stories which I don't just identify with, but which I feel I can remember viscerally.
I'd argue Bluey is "a better Peppa": similar kind of humor (slightly more elaborate, but not by a lot) but with great artwork.
Meanwhile Bandit talks and acts like a real person would - well, at least one with top-tier parenting skills.
So yeah, don't take Bandit as the benchmark for being decent, but as something to aspire to.
I figure that in a world where good role models are lacking for men in so many ways, here's a good one.
My kids will watch it, if someone like Grandma or the neighbor put it on, but their attention wanders. Bluey? They stay locked on for the entire duration of the episode
Should I keep going?
Its weird - I know about little american towns like Boulder, Colorado. I've never been there. But I know what it looks like because its featured - or at least mentioned - in plenty of movies and shows.
But the population of Boulder is just 100k. Australia has lots of way bigger cities - like Brisbane, Queensland (population 2.8 million) or Perth, WA (2.4 million) that are never depicted on screen. Even on Australian TV, I basically never see brissie or perth shown at all. I only know what they look like because I've visited.
But maybe that's normal in the english speaking world - at least outside the US. We've gotta raise our game and make more good content.
I can't recognize Brisbane (and visiting it would feel like visiting Bluey).
Producers are SCARED of using unrecognizable areas (and/or for live-action, just film near where everyone is located).
If it makes you feel better, the USA has tons of large cities - far north of 100k, north of 1 million (especially if considering urban areas), that rarely or ever get featured in TV or movies; and if they do, it's often older ones.
Which is sad, mind you. Every city should have its own feel (too many places now feel like suburbs of Los Angeles, even in Europe or Asia), its own beer, its own food, its own media and music.
Eh, lumping the gold-coast in with Brisbane is easy enough. Tanned bodies, barrel waves, way more tourists than you expect... it's basically California except it faces east, not west.
That said, agreed with the GP - places like Boulder, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, or New Orleans are places that we know about through culture and are internationally recognised, while being much smaller than Australian cities. That's mostly a factor of a huge amount of English-speaking media being from the US.
Australia attempts to counter this through laws requiring a certain quota of Australian content in the media, but that hasn't really worked - and is one of the factors which spawned many Australian reality TV shows.
I visited Edinburgh a couple years ago and was blown away by the city and its people. God, everyone I met was so funny and interesting. But it’s almost never depicted on tv, outside of the occasional BBC crime drama or something. And those usually don’t get much air time outside of the UK. Peaky blinders has done an amazing job telling some of the history of Birmingham. I want more of that! The world is just so big and interesting. Far bigger than Hollywood will ever bother to portray.
You might have heard of Aberdeen I guess. But have you heard of Geelong in Australia?
American here. Literally the only thing I know about Stoke on Trent is that Messi would struggle there during a cold rainy night.
Please! :-)
That said, one that's burned into my brain is when they're walking along the South Bank riverside; the episode is apparently called "Ice Cream". The shot at ~0:48 in this video: https://youtu.be/cBti7aQBMk4?si=o3sWwfKJwQ-VEa8e&t=48 Is approximately from here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Y1UmtCK5si8drVaD7 - It's not exactly the same as the show, but that's more a limitation of Google Maps; I bet you could recreate the shot. There's also usually an ice cream vendor just about there. :)
The bridge in the background is Victoria Bridge, the clock on the right is the Suncorp building (I think now demolished), the weird multi-part building next to it is Brisbane Square Library (now also a Suncorp building), and the arched building to the right of that is the Treasury Building (formerly the casino).
The rest of the shots in that episode are from various other parts in the parklands if you walk along it, including the lagoon beach, fountains, and walkway. The whole area (and the ibises) are an iconic part of Brisbane, as a legacy of Expo 88.
Aside from that, I think quite a lot of the shots in the city take place in real places, whether recognisable places like Mt Coot-Tha or random shops in the suburbs.
I watched the clip and within a few seconds I knew exactly where in the parklands they were. Very cool, thanks for sharing. I had a similar feeling of under representation (for lack of a better term?) most of my life and while classic shows like Kath and Kim or either of the soaps show pretty quintessentially Aussie home interiors and outdoor areas, it still feels very Sydney/Melbourne.
The other show recently I’d say gave us that Brisbane feel (and a bit of homesickness, we live in NYC atm) was Love on the Spectrum: Australia. One of the guys is a bus driver in Brisbane and we’d often pause it to try and figure out if we could recognise which route.
I’ve not watched Bluey (don't have kids of my own or niblings the right age), but am looking forward to when the time comes, so I can point out places I know.
Like many here, I grew up in Brisbane but moved elsewhere for opportunities etc. Given the cost of everything there these days I doubt I’ll make a permanent move back, but I do get nostalgic seeing the locations and the little details represented so well.
And it's 20 minutes from the CBD!
It really is an amazing place to live (although hot in the summer!), but career opportunities can be limiting in Australia and Brisbane. Catriona Drummond touches on the same in her substack [1] mentioned in the OP:
> As I mentioned, before Bluey I’d resigned myself to the fact that if I wanted to achieve something resembling my ‘full potential’ on a technical level as an artist, I would have to not only probably move to the United States [...] > Even deeper than that, was the pervasive thought that perhaps for my whole life I was just never going to be in the right place at the right time. That being from somewhere like Brisbane just meant I was doomed.
[1]: https://goodsniff.substack.com/p/creating-bluey-tales-from-t...
As a Brit now living in Queensland, thanks for swapping places with me. Appreciated. Cheers mate. Enjoy the rain and moaning.
It is like the works of Stuart McMillen (https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/), and how they depict Canberra in a way the locals can really appreciate.
I live right in Red Hill. Bluey is literally my home! This is my neighbourhood! This is the first time I've ever felt that... and its amusing to feel that as a person in my mid 30s from a childrens show.
I love Brisbane so much, and this article captures the uniqueness so well.
Peak Qld as Qld on film was very likely the moon party in He Died With A Felafel In His Hand
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gug5ViK3KSw
.. at least IMHO.
Whenever you see "America" in a tv/movie, it's actually Canada (Vancouver).
Now, 5 years after his death, he's little brother is also in love with the show and we watch an episode at least once a day.
There will never be another TV show like this one for those personal reasons and also because it's just too good.
My only complaint is that I am a grown-ass man and shouldn't be tearing up every other episode of a children's cartoon...
Bluey is the best children's cartoon _for adults_ of this generation.
Our kids are about the same age and age difference as Bluey/Bingo are portrayed, and I can't express how much relief it gives to watch it see your own life played out line for line.
Some days, as a parent you wonder how (badly) you're doing, and Bluey takes some weight off as you realise (and talk to other parents about Bluey) that some things are just universal and you're possibly doing better than you think.
Even the basic idea of "kids like games, make things games" that permeates Bluey is likely unknown to many new parents.
I'm also much older (a decade) than my parents were when they had their first child.
She's a selfless woman my wife, and goes out of her way for anyone, but she felt bad that she just couldn't get a long with this young lady to the point where she'd exchange numbers and arrange to meet up for coffee or whatever; while the young lady was also feeling alienated from her childless friends.
There were almost two decades between them and she just couldn't find anything to relate on and she felt really awkward; she still thinks about that occasionally and regrets not trying harder.
I'm the voice of (un)reason and have to reign in her selflessness sometimes for her own wellbeing and had to convince her she had herself and a new born to take care of first and foremost.
By that time my youngest sibling was already out of diapers; I had literally zero experience with newborns and had changed ONE diaper in my life before the hospital shoved one in my arms and said "good luck, don't shake her."
Larger families of yore, the eldest kids would be in their teens when the last baby was born; they would have living memory (and probably even were enlisted to help). And as others have mentioned, you don't really begin to meet the parents of your children's friends until they're old enough to have friends, which is usually daycare at the earliest; often school for many.
You have to make an effort and action to join a "mom's group" these days; before local family, church, even the neighborhood would spontaneously be a "mom's group".
Nobody teaches you anything (besides some basic courses for new parents like NCT here in the UK) and there's really no-one to ask; your own parents likely did things very differently to how you would now, so you have to weigh any advice they can/do provide.
The biggest help, I've found, on all sides, is talking to other parents; those of our children's friends, and we're quite friendly with a bunch of them having spend a lot of time talking to each other during COVID and meeting for the children's play-dates after. Many of them, like us have two children, with a similar age gap, their eldest is the same age as we met at our first children's births and they go through the same phases at roughly the same time.
Sometimes you just need to ask, "is this normal", and they'll corroborate, and some times you just need to support them by confirming you have the same challenges.
One of my regular hangouts often puts Bluey on one of their TVs and I know for a fact there have been multiple occasions where no one at the bar even has children but we're all sitting there drinking beers while watching the antics of a family of cartoon dogs.
Older-audience stuff like Avatar: The Last Airbender or Justice League Unlimited, oh yeah, for sure, but something specifically aimed at lower-grades elementary school kids? Nope, can't think of another, not even nostalgia shows from my own childhood. I'd maybe do an episode just like "oh wow, remember this?" but not a session watch.
No question, the I can't count the number of times I've sent the "Baby Race" to other parents who ask me "When did your kid start to talk?"
We watch the Bluey bike whenever the kids say "I can't do it!" or the Dad can't draw episode.
Or the curry quest, when I had to travel for work (after all the pandemic "no work travel").
Bluey's dad is an inspiration, like the puppets episode is so funny & I keep saying "Bauxite" in random times without context.
Randomly saying ‘aaaaaaand whyshouldicare?’ tickles me!
I don't know that I buy that though, I think the shows that claim they're for child development but are insufferable to adults would be better of just skipped entirely, probably those skills are better learned from real life play and interaction than tv.
Of course there's also the mad science of cocomelon and their 'distractatron' https://www.readtrung.com/p/why-i-love-bluey-and-hate-cocome... - nothing can be worse than that.
This, so, many, times :)
Oh, just some real estate things ...
Popular shows of 80-90s avoided trauma and ambiguity. Everything was simple and morally clear.
Then there was a huge counter reaction overload where we got Anti-Heroes, Moral Ambiguity, Trauma, "Realism" etc in every other show.
As viewers got tired and yearn for hope, faith, meaning, sincerity we got another wave (Ted Lasso, Reservation Dogs etc). Similar to the writing in Bluey they takes us back to Sincerity, but much smarter since they don't avoid Trauma. And show the viewer how healing and connection happens without power struggles.
Its basically a response to cynicism and fatigue. With comfort and care.
Popular western shows did; I've started watching the Gundam series, the first set started in '79 and while superficially it looks like your generic saturday morning cartoon, it starts off with trauma (many people killed) and while the villains are obviously evil - genocide, nazi ideologies ("sieg zeon"), etc - they also get more character development than what the protagonists get. The villains are the underdogs, only 1/30th the size of the "federation", and the good guys have a new set of superweapons that seems to win and kill their people on every occasion. There's two episodes where a "villain" character is introduced as a lover, ambitious military man, etc, then gets killed, his would-be wife killing herself in the next episode.
Anyway, that's just recent experience, I'm sure if you revisit some of the 80's / 90's shows you'd see more trauma / ambiguity too. I'm thinking of the X-Men series for example.
I know Gundam quality is a huge spectrum, but the 'sloppiness' of moral ambiguity in the first one is pretty great. Way too often (Z Gundam) they just do a timeskip and say "what if the good guys became bad after they won?"
Zeon is literally portrayed as eugenicist Nazis early in the show. They literally chant "Sieg Zeon!" while saluting. Literally the very first episode shows Zeon dropping a space colony on Earth, essentially nuking a major population center (and says half the civilian population dies in the war.)
It's pretty clear Zeon is evil. What's unclear initially is that it was the Zabi family that made it evil.
Originally, Zeon was an idealistic movement by an essentially leftist philosopher (Zeon Deikun) whose work was co-opted by a militant autocratic family (the Zabi family). The leftist guy gets assassinated, and a big part of the series is watching his son, Char (the primary antagonist of the show) trying to take down the Zabi's while fighting for independence from the Federation.
Also, as a dad, Bandit's character is so well written. I relate to him in every single episode that I've watched. Nearly every other dad character in children's programming is a flat, 2-dimensional, drooling idiot that nobody respects.
Avoiding the "dumb sitcom dad" has been done before a few times, and well (Bob Parr of Incredibles; Stoick the Vast of How to Train Your Dragon; King Fergus of Brave could be some examples) - but Bandit just is a dad; he's not perfect, he's not brilliant - but he's there (except when he has to leave) and he loves - his children, his wife, himself.
And even though he says "I'm not taking advice from a cartoon dog" we all end up doing so.
Strange things are afoot in the "manosphere" - influencers & podcasters can push a lot of product around the idea of masculinity.
Everyone knows the sitcom dad, and yet dads rarely strongly complain about it. Even in this thread it’s more praise for Bandit than anger at Homer’s portrayal.
Initially, and more-or-less consistently for the first 7-9 seasons or so before it switched format and kinda became a straight (if goofy and heightened) version of the thing they'd been satirizing, The Simpsons was a satire of the standard family sitcom format developed over the preceding decades (with roots going back to radio).
At least in those seasons, the characters should be immune from criticism of being too stereotypical (for TV) since that's exactly what it was deliberately leaning into and satirizing—it's a combination of played-straight (and amped-up, even, for Homer) sitcom tropes with subversions of other tropes, with the latter mostly revolving around introducing more-"real" (if still played for laughs and caricatured) characters to the family sitcom format, especially when it comes to authority figures—the principal, teachers, mayor, et c.
...and yet these buffoon sitcom dads almost always have a huge house in the suburbs, even when they have a stay at home spouse - who's way out of their league.
It's almost as if it's a deliberate depiction for a blank canvas of a character, similar to the plain-jane central character with no personality in YA novels who inevitably gets involved in a love triangle involving the hottest guys (one bad-boy and one nice guy). Being formulaic doesn't make it anti-${DEMOGRPHIC}.
The "men are simple-minded buffoons" media is mostly comedy, and mostly resonates because we have, indeed, all been simple-minded buffoons at some point (who among us has not failed to boil an egg at least once? It's relatable).
But I can also name off the top of my head media where men are geniuses, and smart, and kind, and wise, and brave... And some of it isn't even Star Trek.
Honestly, if you're typically seeing men as buffoons across media, you may want to change your subscription services.
Bluey is about half a show for kids and half a show for parents. It shows the kids neat things and fun ideas for play and it quietly whispers to the parents, over and over again, "You're doing fine."
I'd say Bluey is a better Peppa Pig. Now, hear me out -- it's surprising how many gags meant for grownups are there in Peppa Pig (e.g. "one must become one with the mud" is not humor for kids), but the art is... well, it's intentionally flat and boring. But Bluey has a lot of the same kind of humor, with visually appealing characters and world.
I think if I didn't have kids, I would like Bluey better. Likewise, I would be able to watch it without any discrimination.
You should try moving across the country with littles, after selling their childhood home, and then watching the finale...
Or maybe you should! Maybe we shouldn't be making people feel bad for being emotional! Maybe it's really successful art to be making so many people feel so strongly!
Cricket. Every time. .. I love it.
For any adults who have either never heard of Bluey, or never thought of watching a “kids” show, maybe try to an episode the next time you can’t figure out what to stream next. “Sleepy time” (season 2 episode 26) is one of the most renown, but they’re all pretty good! (https://www.bluey.tv/watch/season-2/sleepytime/)
They accuse mum of fussing while dad's all about fun, but soon come to realise there's good reason mum makes a fuss, and everyone starts having less of a good time when they realise they needed those things mum was fussing about.
(I'm dad).
I look forward (though not rushing for) a time when the children are old enough that I can say "grab your coats and be at the car in 2 minutes" and we can just go do something fun on a whim, carpe diem, and all that.
So far it's mainly a change of clothes (for everyone!), diapers, pacifiers, bottles, and water, but that's going to grow.
Then there is "Granny Mobile" (S3 E33) which cracks me up every time.
Even my 7 year old daughter knows this and uses Bluey to cheer me up if I am in sour mood.
Don't even get me started on Shaun the Sheep. My daughter and I have re-watched everything there is about Shaun the Sheep and laugh in anticipation before the funny things actually happen.
Edit: I absolutely love the minisodes where Bandit tells kids bedtime stories (Goldilocks and Three little pigs). I wouldn't be surprised if the voice actor just went off and made up bunch of stuff which they animated later.
And for those new to this - don’t miss the episode Cricket (3,47) which makes my wife tear up everytime.
The ability to tell a clear and focused narrative that has humor and a lesson in 8 minutes is stunning to me. I have legitimately used it with grad students learning to write a paper. Nothing is wasted, not a line not a shot.
I can attest that it is incredible; we took our kid a few weeks ago and it exceeded expectation. Probably more exciting for the parents even than the kids. Strongly recommended if you can get to Brisbane or if it comes to a city near you some day.
[1] https://www.bluey.tv/blueys-world/
[2] https://www.bbcstudios.com/news/bluey-s-world-opens-in-brisb...
And then you realize why Peppa being a bit of a brat sometimes can be an issue.
I flatly refuse Peppa pig in my house. Not on TV, not on streaming, not on anything.
That little pig is only good for cartoon bacon, ham, porkbelly...
"This episode of bluey is about the trauma of growing up and experiencing change with references to these 3 popular films"
"And in the episode Peppa goes to the beach, Peppa pig... goes to the beach"
I agree with you on Tumble Leaf as well, it's a really good show. I also recommend Puffin Rock if you have Netflix.
That's actually insane
Many people in Italy think the same of L'Albero Azzurro.
Good read so far! Chapter 3 delves more into the highs and lows of working on the show.
Despite being a cartoon specifically aimed at little kids, it's an absolute delight. I think my wife and I like Bluey more than our toddler does, actually.
The artistic mature here is also off the charts, to recognize that innate sense of what makes things amazing:
> Appeal is such an intangible element to visual art, I could try and harp on in some pseudo-scientific way about what I personally think creates that deep satisfaction when viewing something ‘visually appealing’. I think there’s a whole weird matrix of things firing off in our monkey brains to illicit it. But I’ll just leave it at: we know it when we see it. I wanted to make something that was truly delicious to look at.
I spend most episodes in financial distress wondering how to practically afford the lifestyle, and how my kiddo would ever be able to afford that lifestyle.
Even in terms of Nostalgia for the older generations, the suburbs depicted were well out of reach for a friends family. His father used to tell me he dreamed of moving into one of those suburbs but it was too expensive for their combined income, where one income was an aviation engineer.
Which I found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43816546
I had to cut off YouTube kids aggressively and my kid still wanted those idiotic movies even after a few months.
Peppa had similar effect, but my kid resigned on it's own. They show is just dumb. Teaches nothing. Unless you value things like feeding ducks with bread and cake is good, destroying countryside camping spot with heavy equipment and concrete is fine just because you dropped keys in a hole etc..
Peppa games are also really bad - not clear when you can actually engage, what can be done, instructions are unclear or wrong, plus the is no goal at all.
YouTube delivered worse and worse ones, one by one.... The fact that it "doesn't violate policy" doesn't mean it's good for anyone.
Peppa might be “empty” but I don’t worry that it’s inadvertently steering him in the wrong direction. The Peppa books are also far, far better than the Bluey books.
Interesting, I've always found Peppa unlikable and quite rude to her friends/parents!
I think the pace is because a lot of the episodes revolve around play and games - and any sort of play with children does tend to be a bit frenetic. There’s a good number of episodes that aren’t that, including the two you mentioned, but it would be a bit strange for a show about play and imagination to not be a bit frenetic.
> It also often shows a lot of bad behaviour that kids can interpret as funny (the cousin running away with the phone after being told, the old lady buying the scooter).
There’s bad behavior that is funny, sure, but almost all of those episodes demonstrate the consequences of it even if in a humorous fashion: Muffin is constantly facing consequences for her actions, for example. I think that’s an ok trade off.
On the other hand, the topics and content of Bluey is in another league to Peppa Pig, portraying family life quite accurately and in an endearing way that even for us adults can hit home.
Generally we've found that Peppa does not, and the way the parents are portrayed and the children's behaviour doesn't provide any value to impressionable young children.
Cute show, but it doesn't hold a candle to Phineas and Ferb.
You just find yourself in the corner yield "Please stop, it dead! It's been dead for years!" For example Star Wars, that francise is completely ruined, but the fans are insufferable and just keeps pouring money into something that quite frankly sucks by now.
Why must everything be milked dry to the point where we start hating it?
> ...Andor is peak Star Wars...
This is both true and false depending on how you mean it: Andor is one of the best story-telling set in the Star Wars universe, and yet, there's nothing emblematically "Star Wars" about it. The same story and characters could have been dropped into any universe, and it would have been fantastic television. It could have been a story about a partisan in WwII, or set in Babylon 5 or in any of the Mass Effect / Silo / Godfather / Fall Out / Dune / Marvel / DC universes, and it would still have worked been largely the same story. Andor gives to the Star Wars universe far more than it receives from the same, it was an expensive labor of love by people delivering their best work - I don't think we'll see anything like it again from Star Wars.
So clearly someone, somewhere is enjoying it - so they keep making them.
And it's safer from a business perspective for Blizzard to release "another WoW expansion" than try to make a new game.
(There is also the aspect that you can sell on nostalgia with the toys, etc, and that you can continue to sell the "old toys" and movies and account them as if they're part of the new, which makes you look better, etc).
Plus Polish dubbing that I use is of insane quality.
Instead I feel like the use of “fact” here is a nod to how thoroughly this has been discussed and how common knowledge it has become, at least to anyone who knows what Bluey is, thus preemptively eliminating the need to explain what Bluey is to that part of the audience that found themselves reading an article about the art process of a show that they are unaware of in the first place. To those readers, it’s a concise cue to go do your own research if you’re lacking that context before getting too far into the article.