Not a kid, not a father, but still love ‘Bluey’? You are not alone

PHOENIX — A little blue dog with an Australian accent has captured the hearts of people all over the world.

She is the title character of “Bluey”, a children’s program made up of seven-minute episodes that enchanted children and adults alike. This week’s release of its longest episode – at a whopping 28 minutes – generated a wave of appreciation for the show, even from those who are neither children nor parents.

“Bluey” follows an Australian blue heeler who, along with her sister (a red heeler named Bingo), navigates between home and school. It is a favorite among children for its playful humor, but it also appeals to adults who remember their childhood.

“My childhood experience wasn’t the best, so I always identified with programs where life is good,” says Miriam Neel, who lives in Colorado. “The parents in ‘Bluey’ allow for imagination and creativity and really engage with their kids, and I wish I had those experiences.”

Neel is 32 years old and has chosen not to have children. She says the show has become part of her morning routine and is often a go-to for background noise when she’s working from home.

“I won’t speak for the entire generation, but millennials find comfort in cartoons. It’s what a lot of us grew up watching,” she said. “And if I’m going to spend time watching something, I’d rather watch something that doesn’t make me afraid of the world, like any of the ‘Law & Order programs.

“Bluey,” which now has more than 150 episodes, premiered in Australia in 2018 and began streaming on Disney+ in 2020. It has also been adapted into a digital series where famous fans like Bindi Irwin and Eva Mendes read some of the popular storybooks , and a live theater show that travels the world.

The show has also won several awards, including the Australian Film Institute Award for best children’s television drama every year since 2019 and an International Emmy Kids Award.

The series offers a child’s perspective on morning routines, errands and chores, while also giving viewers a glimpse into what life is like for parents through mom Chilli and dad Bandit.

This week’s special episode, “The Sign,” explores the emotions surrounding themes that resonate with children and adults alike – moving house, marriage, infertility and relationships after divorce. In addition to these universal themes, the episode ends the third season with Easter eggs for dedicated fans.

Lindsey Schmidt, 40, says the show’s continuation keeps her family eager for more.

“There are so many callbacks to previous episodes,” says Schmidt, who lives in Ohio with her husband and three children. “The shows we watch regularly with our kids don’t reflect our lives like this show. These anthropomorphic dogs feel just like us.”

But there are mixed feelings about the end of the episode – SPOILER – in which the Heeler family gives up. Some families who move frequently for work found this unrealistic. Meg Korzon, 31, is in the process of moving across the country with her four children because her husband is in the military. It’s her seventh move in 10 years.

“I hoped it would be an episode that aligned with the reality of life, of our lives, as a military family,” she says. “I was selfishly disappointed because it could have been an episode about change and growth.”

But the program doesn’t shy away from other difficult themes — and that’s also part of its adult charm.

“As a parent, you want to be as good as a parent as Chilli and Bandit are as parents. They always have a great way of talking to the kids about problems,” says Schmidt’s husband John, 40, adding that the couple often refer to episodes when trying to explain things to their children.

The series covered themes such as aging, death and making friends in adulthood. It also introduced a character who uses sign language and another with ADHD.

Jacqueline Nesi, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University, notes that “Bluey” promotes self-regulation and conflict resolution for children and engaged parenting and patience for adults.

“We see them overcome some of the challenges that we as parents may also face. And at the same time, they offer a good model for different parenting skills – asking open-ended questions to facilitate children’s creativity, using natural consequences when they misbehave, actively playing with them and letting them take the lead,” she says.

The show also did a lot to expose kids to the world of animation, showcasing different styles in the episodes “Escape” and “Dragon,” providing a nearly voiceless episode in “Rain” and breaking the fourth wall in “Puppets,” where the show stops briefly to zoom out creating just a few seconds of animated frames.

It’s also credited with attracting dogs – and not because the characters are the same species.

The research said dogs have vision similar to red-green color blindness in humans, meaning their color spectrum is limited to blue, yellow, brown and shades of gray – which are the colors of the Heeler family. There were also more pets named Bluey, Bingo, Chilli and Bandit in the US last year, according to Rover.

So it’s pretty safe to say that “Bluey” has cross-species as well as cross-generational appeal.

“I used to tell people what do ‘The Sopranos,’ ‘The Wire’ and ‘Breaking Bad’ have in common? They all have lower IMDb scores than Bluey. It used to happen anyway. I’ve watched all these amazing shows, but I think ‘Bluey’ is still one of my favorites, maybe because I have kids. But I put it on the same level as all of them,” says John Schmidt, admitting that he and his wife watched the episodes without their children.

Schmidt says the episode provided a nice bow to end the season and would otherwise be a perfect series finale.

“I’m thrilled that Bluey won’t have any more episodes,” says Schmidt. “But we’ll see.”