PHOENIX — A small blue dog with an Australian accent has captured the hearts of people across the globe.
She’s the main character of “Bluey,” a children’s show with short episodes that have captivated both kids and adults. The recent release of its longest episode yet — at a hefty 28 minutes — sparked a wave of admiration for the show, even from those who are not parents or young children.
“Bluey” follows an Australian blue heeler who, along with her sister (a red heeler named Bingo), navigates the days between home and school. It’s a favorite among children for its playful humor, but it also resonates with adults who remember their own childhood experiences.
“My own childhood wasn’t the best so I’ve always connected with shows that portray a good life,” says Miriam Neel, who lives in Colorado. “The parents in ‘Bluey’ foster imagination and creativity and actively engage with their kids, and I wish I had those experiences.”
Neel, who is 32 and has chosen not to have children of her own, says the show has become part of her morning routine and is often a preferred background noise when she is working from home.
“I’m not going to speak for the entire generation, but millennials find solace 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’ shows.”
“Bluey,” which now has more than 150 episodes, debuted in Australia in 2018 and started 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 around the world.
The show has also received numerous 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 view of morning routines, errands, and chores, while also providing viewers a glimpse of what life is like for parents through mother Chilli and father Bandit.
This week’s special episode, “The Sign,” explores the emotions surrounding themes that relate to both children and adults — moving houses, marriage, infertility, and relationships after divorce. In addition to these universal themes, the episode wraps up the third season with surprises for dedicated fans.
Lindsey Schmidt, 40, says the show’s ongoing story keeps her family anticipating more.
“There are so many references to previous episodes,” says Schmidt, who lives in Ohio with her husband and three children. “The shows that we watch with our kids regularly don’t mirror our lives like this show does. These anthropomorphic dogs feel just like us.”
But thoughts are mixed about the conclusion of the episode — SPOILER — in which the Heeler family cancels their move. Some families who frequently move for work found it unrealistic. Meg Korzon, 31, is in the middle of a cross-country relocation with her four children because her husband is in the military. It’s her seventh move in 10 years.
She says she was hoping the episode would show the realities of military family life, but she was disappointed because it could have been about change and growth.
But the show doesn't avoid other difficult topics, which adults find charming.
Schmidt's 40-year-old husband John says they look up to Chilli and Bandit as parents and often refer back to episodes when explaining things to their children.
The series has covered aging, death, making friends as an adult, introduced a character who uses sign language, and another with ADHD.
Jacqueline Nesi, an assistant psychiatry professor at Brown University, says “Bluey” encourages self-regulation and conflict resolution for children and engaged parenting and patience for adults.
She says they work through challenges similar to those faced by parents and offer a model for different parenting skills — asking open-ended questions to encourage kids’ creativity, using natural consequences when they misbehave, actively playing with them, and letting them take the lead.
The show has also exposed children to different animation styles in episodes like “Escape” and “Dragon,” a near-voiceless episode in “Rain,” and breaking the fourth wall in “Puppets.”
The show is also popular with dogs, for reasons other than the characters being the same species.
Research has shown that dogs have limited color vision similar to red-green color blindness in humans, which aligns with the colors of the Heeler family. More pets were named Bluey, Bingo, Chilli, and Bandit across the U.S. last year, too.
So it’s safe to say “Bluey” is popular across species and generations.
John Schmidt used to compare the IMDb scores of ‘The Sopranos,’ ‘The Wire,’ and ‘Breaking Bad’ to Bluey, and thinks Bluey is still a favorite. He admits to watching the episodes without their children.
Schmidt thinks the episode was a good end to the season, and would serve as a perfect series finale otherwise.
She feels emotional about the thought of Bluey no longer having new episodes, but hopes for more in the future.
