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.
