It’s neither modern nor fancy, with none of those computer-generated images we see everywhere now. It’s the old-fashioned 2D type, like Peppa Pig and Shaun the Sheep.
I’m not sure why anyone would want, as a cartoon character, a serious cattle dog — a dog bred for mustering cattle over long distances and often difficult terrain. A dog not afraid to duck in amongst angry steers and bulls to savage them on the ankle — but there you go.
But from what I can see, Bluey is not your typical blue heeler: she’s a cute seven-year-old with a younger red heeler sister named Bingo, a blue heeler father named Bandit and a red heeler mum named Chilli.
Bandit claims to be an archaeologist, on account of the fact that he likes digging up bones.That means I must be one too!
Suffice to say that they are the nicest heelers you are ever likely to meet. They get up to mischief but they are kind and considerate. They have lots of friends of other breeds, they go to the beach, invent lots of games and play a lot of cricket.
And the cricket is a huge hit. The Boss tells me when the Australian cricket team was beating India in the World Cup at The Oval in England, the game attracted a television audience of 524,000.
But it coincided with the launch of the Bluey ‘cricket’ episode, in which Bluey’s pal Rusty, a red heeler, outclasses the increasingly frustrated adult dogs with his cricket prowess. The Bluey cricket show attracted an audience of 563,000, despite the dogs playing with plastic bats and a tennis ball.
Rusty is a school mate of Bluey’s and Rusty and his siblings, Dusty and Digger, have a largely absent father who is overseas a lot with the army; his dad has told Rusty to keep an eye out for the younger Dusty. As the cricket game reaches a climax, Rusty deliberately hits a catch to Dusty.
Part of the show’s appeal to children and parents alike is its emotive storytelling, according to The Boss. ABC content office Chris Oliver-Taylor told the Financial Times that episodes like the cricket one achieve a level of poignancy alongside the humour, that elevates the show to an emotional place other cartoons struggle to reach, accounting for its popularity.
Bluey first launched in 2018, the creation of Brisbane animator Joe Brumm, who spent a decade working on children's shows in the UK, including Peppa Pig. He bases many of the stories on his own experiences with two young daughters.
So it’s good the show has succeeded for the right reasons, even though not one of Bluey’s many breeds of school friends is a noble hound of my breed, a Chessie. Not surprisingly though, it’s spawned unscrupulous breeders taking advantage of unsuspecting owners wanting to buy their kids a ‘Bluey’ — it’s not long before they end up in a shelter or at the pound.
One of my predecessors was a blue heeler and The Boss had to give it away to a drover, because it was inclined to sink its teeth into anyone outside the family.
Better the doting parents stick to some of the thousand products based on the series, from books and videos to toothpaste. There’s a travelling play as well — and coming to Brisbane shortly, a full-size immersive experience... at the new Bluey World. Woof!
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