For roughly seven minutes at a time, I am soundly out-parented by a pair of Australian cattle dogs. This is the blessing and curse of Bluey, an utterly wonderful children’s cartoon from Australia that currently occupies 70 percent of my watch time on Disney Plus.
There are far too many positive adjectives to describe this show, which is targeted at young children but easily digested by adults. The animation is lovely, the writing direct and understandable for toddlers and the music would be stirring and epically placed for a 60-minute prestige drama, let alone a series of vignettes about an illustrated canine family.
This is all background noise to the stories within. Creator Joe Brumm’s understanding of children and families gives him the leverage to submerge viewers in an expansive world filled with recurring characters reminiscent of The Simpsons’ Springfield. Bluey is a six-year-old puppy. Bingo is her four-year-old sister. Bandit (father) and Chilli (mother) are the parents blessed with the patience of Job when it comes to guiding them through problems and, much more often, engaging in a wild world of imagination-based games.
Bluey counts on children (and parents) learning through shared experiences rather than up-front lessons. It’s a wonderful case of “show, don’t tell” schooling that creates an easy parallel for problems little kids face and solutions they’ve seen work before. It’s also, and I cannot stress this enough, very, very funny.
Season three is already airing in Australia and can be found on ABC Kids. The second half of these new episodes started up June 13. That means Disney+ can’t be too far away from unveiling another round of Bluey in North America and Great Britain this summer. Unfortunately, no release date has been announced yet.
Until then, here are 10 unforgettable episodes to set the stage for the upcoming release of the new round of shows, listed in original airing order. Please keep in mind no fewer than 10 other worthy stories were left off this list due to nothing but personal preference and how I was feeling this week. You could make a top 10 where we didn’t agree with eight of the selections and I’d completely be able to see where you’re coming from. If you’re excluding “Sleepytime,” however, I regret to inform you that you are wrong (I do not regret this).
That said, I was chagrined to leave “The Claw” off the list, if only for my personal all-time favorite Bluey quote: “Magic Claw has no children. His days are free and easy.” This show understands what kids like and what parents need. It’s a beautiful Australian oasis in an often-barren landscape of television.