Here’s a show that’s very popular with kids right now, but I feel deserves more attention amongst older animation fans: an Australian animated series called Bluey.
It’s about a blue heeler puppy named Bluey (hence the show’s title) living in Brisbane, Queensland with her little sister Bingo (who’s a red heeler puppy), her mother Chilli, and her father Bandit. Each episode focuses on a slice-of-life scenario, and usually involves Bluey and Bingo playing an imaginary game, with their parents and sometimes other characters joining them.
The show is clearly aimed at a very young audience (even younger than Friendship is Magic), but unlike many other shows with the same target audience, it doesn’t talk down to children. It’s actually a very smart and well-written series, and definitely has a lot of effort put into it with gorgeous animation and incredibly likable characters.
Speaking of which, Chilli and Bandit are honestly two of my favorite parent characters ever. They clearly love their children and enjoy tagging along with their imaginary games, but they’re not afraid of being tough on them when they misbehave, and even admit when they themselves screw up. They’re such good characters that real adults are actually taking advice from them and applying it to their own children. Seriously, check out these articles:
https://www.the-father-hood.com/article/bluey-how-a-cartoon-dog-became-your-ultimate-guide-to-fatherhood/
https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/what-parents-can-keep-learning-from-bluey/11870752
Another thing I’d like to mention about the show that I find very sweet is that it’s creator, Joe Brumm, claims it was made as a love letter to his own children, who he really liked playing with when they were young, and was disappointed to see his playtime with them slowly get taken away as they grew up and became too preoccupied with academic learning. He believes that self-directed and unstructured play is natural in shaping children and allowing them to develop, and has gone on record by saying “There’s no counting in Bluey, there’s no learning this or that … just show ‘em playing. It’s to show parents that the kids aren’t just mucking around. They’re learning to play, learning to share … and generally you can just put your feet up and let ‘em do it.”
Honestly, in a time with so much darkness and negativity going on, it’s nice to have such a feel-good show like Bluey to help people get though it. It’s currently my favorite show, and it really deserves more attention.
If any of you wanna check out Bluey for yourself, there’s currently 103 episodes (each of which are seven minutes long) spanning two seasons (there’s still one episode of Season 2 that hasn’t aired yet however, and a third season has been confirmed). It airs on ABC Kids in Australia and Disney Junior in the US, although if you want to take the streaming route, it can be found on ABC iView in Australia and Disney+ and DisneyNOW in the US (Disney+ has the first season, while DisneyNOW has 26 episodes of the second season; the remaining Season 2 episodes are scheduled to premiere in the US starting February 5th).