Ryan Gosling and Natalie Portman adore it, critics rave about it and a podcast dissects every episode: why does a series about a six-year-old dog and her family inspire so much devotion among grown-ups?
Have adults been this eager to get their hands on something meant for children since the apex years of Harry Potter? Has there been this much fan excitement for a seven-minute piece of art since the 60s, and Hey Jude? Later this summer, when a third season of the Australian cartoon Bluey appears on streaming platforms in Europe and the US, parents and carers will usher their children in front of a convenient screen – and they’ll hang around to watch an episode (or two, or 10) themselves. This is an addictive, joyous, witty, smug, obscurely wounding piece of children’s programming; a show that since its launch in 2018 has inspired devotion from viewers of all ages, as well as a hit album, a touring play, an Emmy, threads of anxious sociopolitical debate, and a podcast for grownups that dissects each episode as if Bluey were the most prestigious of prestige TV.
A quick primer, for those not familiar with the 100-plus episodes that have appeared online to date, either via the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), where the show originated, or on BBC iPlayer and Disney+, where Bluey has lived in the UK, US and much of Europe since early 2020. The title character is a six-year-old girl who is faced each episode with a developmental event. Play date? Bike lesson? First bit of money from the tooth fairy? We have been through all this and more with Bluey. We’ve learned a lot, about perseverance in the bike episode; about the pressures of late-stage capitalism in the one about the tooth.
