All the episodes of Bluey ranked (3 of 4)

(Part 1 here, part 2 here, part 4 here)

In this instalment, we have talking garbage bins, a wholesome capsicum salad, a visit from Evil Claw, and a Giant Peanut. It's basically a normal morning at home. Let's get into it! 

46. Bin Night

Bin Night really does raise deep philosophical questions, doesn’t it. ‘Hey, is it yellow bin night tonight or not?’ ‘I don’t know, I just copy what you do!’ Each week as Bingo, Bluey and Bandit take the bins out, we learn a bit more about what’s going on in Bingo’s class at school, and the problems she’s having with fellow classmate Banjo. The concept is so simple, even minimalistic, but there’s so many characters who get a part here: from the Heeler family, to Doreen across the road and her friends, ‘the ladies from Mah Jong’, to Bingo’s class, to the neighbourhood crow. Even the bins have personalities! Great fun.  

 

45. Dad Baby

Does what it says on the cover. When Bandit finds an old baby carrier, Bingo climbs in so he can be pregnant with a Dad Baby. ‘Wait until you feel the first kick,’ suggests Chilli helpfully. And so the episode moves gradually but inevitably towards the birth scene – you knew there was going to be one. No more from me on this one, you’ll have to find out for yourself. 

 

44. Swim School 

Starting off with a discussion about dobbing, this episode segues into a series of lessons from Bluey, who becomes ‘Karen’ – the kindly teacher of ‘Little Fish’ swim school – and ‘Margaret’ – a much meaner old biddy who teaches ‘Big Fish’. As Margaret, Bluey engages a time-honoured tactic of teachers and plays her students off one another, encouraging them all to dob. You won’t find an obvious moral in this. Should you dob or not? It really depends on the circumstance. Maybe the moral is more like, it doesn’t really matter so long as your family is loving and supportive. But then, this episode at least is basically The Simpsons principle in action: there’s nothing like a dysfunctional family unit to entertain us all. There’s comedy, there’s slapstick, it’s quite a tight little episode!    

43. Dance Mode

It’s hard to tell if this is a game or an elaborate form of revenge: Bingo – who is sad because dad Bandit snaffled her last chip – gets three chances at Dance Mode, where she can make her parents dance whenever and wherever she chooses. Inconvenient for some – Bandit gets sprung into Dance Mode at the front of a long queue. ‘Hey, Wiggletime, get a move on!’ Only everyone else keeps on persuading Bingo to use the Dance Mode when she doesn’t want to: her ‘outside voice’ sometimes says ‘yes’ when her ‘inside voice’ says ‘no’. Of course the dance mode is infectious and of course this episode ends with a techno beat and mega dance off. This is a classic for both Bingo, the less confident of the Heeler sisters, and for Bandit, who gets a few chances here to bust a move. 

42. BBQ 

There’s a lot of fun in this episode with Bingo, who announces ‘this is my relaxing chair. This is where I get to do my relaxing’, and then is sent on a quest to make salad for her play BBQ by her ever-hypo cousin Muffin. As is often the case, Bandit is the butt of most of the jokes, though Uncle Stripe is in for it as well. Ahhhh, nothing like sharing the pain around. 

 

41. Escape 

A bit of a stand-out, this, it contains both one of those complicated ‘plot within a plot’ tricks, and a whole new style of animation, developed for this episode and this episode only. This in spite of the fact that, basically, it’s just Bluey and Bingo in the car with their parents. How does the show do this! It all hinges on the concept; when Bandit and Chilli tell the kids that they’re going to Nannas and that they’ll get some time off in the meantime they all invent elaborate fantasies about what they’ll be doing and how one pair will escape from the other. Good fun. 

 

40. Squash 

Bluey and Bingo take the controls as they ‘play’ their Dad Bandit and their Uncle Stripe off in a game of squash. In this episode I end up a little confused as to whether Stripe really does beat his competitive brother Bandit in squash or whether Bandit is just pretending to play badly. Is it just a game or is it just a game? The computer game conceit (complete with appropriate music) is clever though it does make me feel a bit uncomfortable – I don’t really want to believe these dogs are digital blips on the screen even if they are, um, just digital blips on the screen. To steal a line from another episode: ‘Can you please pretend that they’re pretend real?’ But it’s good to see Uncle Stripe get his victory in the end. Or is it Bingo? Or Bandit and Bluey? This has all turned out to be unexpectedly complex.

 

39. Early Baby 

Bluey’s friend Indy and teacher Calypso both play significant roles in this episode – Indy wants to play one of those weirdly specific games with Bluey, where they’re about to have a baby, but it’s an early baby. Okay, Indy! But then Rusty causes trouble by barging in with a game of his own and taking the doll – sorry, early baby – out of its special crib. What the hell, Rusty! A well-crafted little episode, this, approaching a difficult subject in a tactful way. 

 

38. Daddy Dropoff

‘You just like making more work for yourself, don’t you?’ says Chilli to Bandit as they lie in bed at the start of the morning, the pups dangling off his feet. ‘At least I get to lie in bed’, says Bandit, which is when you know this episode is one of those in which Bandit is going to get run off his feet. Will he get the kids to school on time? Bluey and Bingo are more interested in playing games with him than stupid old schedules. Cleverly structured so that a new character introduced briefly at the start becomes part of an emotional high point at the end, this is altogether quite worthy of your time. 

 

37. Hospital

In this episode, Bluey becomes the worst doctor in the world to ailing patient Bandit Heeler (BANDIT: Why did you stick a needle in me before you knew what was wrong with me? BLUEY: I’m very busy.) Bingo plays the kindly nurse – ‘leave it with me, dearie’ – which Bandit needs when he finds out he’s pregnant with a cat (we’ve all been there). Plenty of comedy in this episode.

 

36. Teasing

So, we start off the show with a bit of naughtiness. (Bluey dangles Bingo’s toothbrush in front of her, chanting ‘OOooOOooOOoo!’ Honestly, I have no idea how to transcribe some of the jokes of this show.) Bandit tells her not to tease her sister, but Bluey can’t see why she shouldn’t – why, when their dad teases them all the time? ‘I never tease!’ says Bandit, which of course means the show will be a series of quickfire jokes about Bandit teasing his kids. The jokes seem unconnected at first, almost like ideas for Bluey episodes that didn’t make it, but then weird things start happening – Bandit objects that ‘As usual, you squirts only told half the story!’ And we get the other part of the teasing, where his kids tease him right back; a cascade of more jokes, riffing on the first ones, follow. So - diagram time, kids! - here we have Bluey teasing Bingo, Chilli and Bluey and Bingo teasing Bandit about his teasing Bluey and Bingo, and Bandit teasing Chilli and Bluey and Bingo about their teasing of his teasing. So sometimes teasing is…. good? Yes. Yes it is. And this episode – it’s good too! 

 

35. Takeaway

In which Bluey and Bingo cause various kinds of chaos outside the Chinese takeaway while dad Bandit waits for the spring rolls – ‘your dad and the spring rolls!’ sighs Chilli over the phone. Chaos is always fun and this show thrives on it; relieved occasionally by Bingo’s questions of Bandit – ‘if only grown-ups have babies, where did the first baby come from?’ Haha, take THAT Bandit. 

 

34. The Claw

The exaggerated disappointment of Bluey and Bingo at not winning at one of those crappy mechanical claw games you find in supermarkets causes Chilli, when they get home, to become a claw herself. Only she doesn’t play it very well at all – she keeps on giving the kids things, the game becomes much too disappointing. So Bandit, who shall henceforth be known as Evil Claw, takes over. ‘This is great’, Evil Claw says to Chilli while the kids are off making a bed to get money to play again, ‘The house is getting cleaned, and they’re learning a valuable life lesson.’ ’Neither of those things are happening.’ There’s a lot of bargaining happening in this episode, not all of Evil Claw’s doing. What’s it’s message? Capitalism is bad? Capitalism is good? Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit? I don’t know, I had a laugh at this one, and you will too. 

 

33. Library 

‘Muffy’, Uncle Stripe says to Bluey and Bingo’s cousin Muffin in the car on the way to their house, ‘You’re the most special girl in the world.’ BIG MISTAKE, Stripe. Muffin (who is even wearing a princess tiara) toddles off to play with her cousins, but she thinks she doesn’t have to play ‘Library’ by their rules. And because she’s the guest, well… Chilli kind of lets her. It’s not just a Muffin episode, we get a glimpse of Uncle Stripe’s parenting style as well. 

 

32. Asparagus

This one’s a little mind boggler. The premise is simple; at a family dinner Bluey gets hold of a magic asparagus – of course it’s magic, Chilli tells her so! – that can turn anyone into animals – even, er, a dog family that kinda sorta represents a human family. Righto then. There’s some visual magic from the animators here, managing to make this family of dogs look not only like, well, dogs, but dogs acting like they’ve been turned into other animals AND dogs that actually have been turned into other animals (because the acting is successful) (or the magic) (we’ll get to that). And then there’s the cleverness in the scripting and the directing because, at the end there, the script kind of just leaves you hanging – was the stalk magic after all? The end joke, which is very good, depends on you actually accepting the asparagus actually was magic. ‘Don’t worry Tim’, I hear you whisper soothingly to me, ‘it’s not really real’. I know they’re not real, they’re just animated characters – I just want to know how not real they are! 

 

31. Camping

A very sweet ep, this one, that manages to capture many of the positive aspects of camping (family closeness, fun in the bush) and none of the negatives (tents are too small and are leaky when it rains). I don’t like camping much but I suspect the Bluey makers do. Anyway, while Bluey’s out in the bush with her family at a campsite, she makes a new friend, Jean-Luc, only she has to find new ways of communicating with him; he speaks French and doesn’t speak English, she speaks English and doesn’t speak French. Conveniently, there’s always an adult they can beat up on – hello, Bandit! In a recapitulation at the end, we even get to see a teen Bluey, sitting under a tree, reading a book. I can’t even understand half the dialogue here but there’s a lot packed into the episode – family, friendship, loss, growing up, and more. 

 

30. Postman 

When Bluey walks in on Chilli and Bandit having a minor disagreement – ‘I don’t like it when you squabble!’ – she decides her dad has to write a letter to her mum apologising and telling her he still loves her. Only problem is, not only does she end up playing postman, but she has to play ‘The Floor is Lava’ with Bingo at the same time. It’s a clever concept for an episode, and leads to several amusing altercations between her and Bingo – ‘No I don’t.’ ‘Yes you do.’ ‘No I don’t.’ ‘Yes you don’t.’ ‘No I…. AH! WE’RE SQUABBLING! We have to agree on everything!’ Both the sisters have to display their wits and agility in this episode to get round this two-games-at-once hoodoo. 

 

29. The Quiet Game

Annoyed by his kids being shouty, Bandit dares them to play the Quiet Game, where they compete to see who can stay silent for the longest. I suppose it’s a bit like that movie A Quiet Place, only this time it’s horrifying for real life for Bandit – he ends up having to take the kids to the shops to get a present for Muffin. He has to get the right present because Muffin will chuck a tanty if he doesn’t, and, well, only Bluey and Bingo know what the right present is. The soundtrack does some excellent work here – Joff Bush, always knowing what musical cues to take, this time goes to the old silent movie serials and vaudeville mime acts, almost becoming an extra script for the show. This great concept brings just the right amount of suspense to the show; the jokes work wonderfully well, and make the joyous shouting when it happens – you KNOW it’s going to happen – all the more joyously shouty. 

 

28. The Pool

Can any backyard pool games be sweeter than games in Backyard Pool of Relative When They’re Away on Holiday? I think not. Bandit, Bluey and Bingo all head off to Uncle Stripe’s house on a hot day to get some pool action, only they forget all the stuff they normally take along, so they can’t play any of the pool games. Bandit finds himself resorting to the oldest of conversational gambits: ‘I’m bored.’ ‘Oh, hi Bored! Nice to meet you!’ ‘Ugh.’ ‘I’m HUNGRY.’ ‘Oh, hi Hungry! Meet Bored!’ ‘Grrr!’ ‘Tough crowd!’ This one has some very funny and original jokes and some excellent dialogue, strikingly capturing the family fun on a hot summer day feeling.

 

27. Chickenrat

This unique episode actually finds the narrative moving backwards through time as the show progresses. Bingo, with Bluey in tow, is looking for her beloved toy Floppy before she goes to bed, only she can’t remember where she put her; so Chilli asks her to think back to what she was doing before she came to bed. And just why is Bandit now a Chickenrat? And what on earth is a Chickenrat? A pleasing detective story with a twist, and a clever structure to this episode makes this one satisfying little televisual unit. 

 

26. Road Trip

Something something something Necessity is the mother of invention something something but sometimes Mum is the mother of invention something something. Yep, when they’re stuck on a long road trip, without their video games, Bluey and Bingo turn to their parents to stave off boredom. So Mum keeps on coming up with suggestions – Eye Spy? (Nooooo!) Why not use your hands to play video games with the passing scenery? In the meantime, Bandit has his own battle against boredom – he keeps frantically moving the family along, so they don’t get stuck behind the Grey Nomads. (Grey Nomads? What are ‘Grey Nomads’? The kids have no idea what this means, so this little Aussie colloquialism attains semi-mythical status in their mind). So there’s a lot here! Bandit’s comic urgency, the Aussie reference to ‘Grey Nomads’, the common experience of a long road trip, the video game jokes, and more. Plus, the animation is absolutely gorgeous – even in passing, the Australian landscape is positively glowing with detail.  

25. Baby Race 

Spurred on by Bluey’s natural competitiveness – ‘Am I faster than Judo?’ ‘Yeah, but am I faster than Judo today?’ – Chilli tells her kids a story about the time when she was a new mum, and became determined to have Bluey walk before Judo. ‘It’s a baby race!’ shouts Bluey. Yeah! Ooh, there’s some good stuff in this episode, a lot of it for parents – you can wince sympathetically (Bandit changes a pooey nappy) or laugh (as baby-Bluey lies drooling on the floor, Bandit lies drooling on the floor as well, completely exhausted). Of course the moral is ‘it’s not a race’ even though the title says it is, so it kinda sorta is. 

 

24. Burger Shop 

When Bandit, whose parenting style is relaxed at the best of times, announces that he’s reading a book about relaxed parenting, and from now on he’s going to let the kids make their own decisions, Chilli is sceptical. The kids should have been in bed by now, and they’re still in the bath! But Bandit reckons he can handle it. It’s a fine little comic set up they’ve got going on here. Bluey and Bingo are playing Burger Shop, would Dad like to buy a burger? They just want to keep playing – when Bandit says ‘okay, just one’, they keep talking him up to ‘just one more’. Bandit keeps on telling the kids to get out of the bath without actually telling them to do it at all: ‘Kids, I need you to make a good decision right now….’ And Chilli keeps on coming in and threatening to pull the plug. And just whose side is Bandit on, anyway? He gets more and more desperate in his bargaining, and the game gets funnier and more fast-paced as it goes on. There are some excellent visual gags here – the cartoonists, in keeping with the typical minimalistic style of the show, turn the plastic letters stuck on the side of the bath into burgers, chips, and even, at one point, a moustache and top hat. 

 

23. Double Babysitter

They come up with the best names on this show, often puns on dog names (‘Lucky’s Dad’ is actually called ‘Pat’. ‘Pat the Dog’. Suitable for his omnipresent role as the butt of jokes). This episode we get two perfectly named characters – Uncle Rad (he’s the fun uncle on Bandit’s side of the family) and Frisky (she’s the normal babysitter). Because of a miscommunication (yeah, right) they both end up babysitting Bluey and Bingo, and they hit it off very well indeed. There’s a great sequence where they play ‘Twenty Questions’ with the kids – ‘Why don’t you have a wife?’ ‘Well… how do you know I don’t?’ ‘Well, do you have a wife?’ ‘Well…. no.’ ‘Well, why don’t you have a wife?’ ‘Uh…. her turn!’  Meanwhile, in kid world, Bluey is worried about going to sleep while the babysitter is there – it’s only after very patient discussion and some fun bedtime games that Uncle Rad and Frisky are able to find out what it’s all about. Several great comedy sequences and games are packed into this tight little seven minutes, and if you’ll skip forward to the Christmas Swim episode, you’ll find out how well the Frisky and Rad pairing went. (Well? Yes, as a matter of fact, it did.)

 

22. Copycat

Everyone likes the copycat game when they are doing it, not so much when they are the ones it’s being done to. Bandit wakes up to Bluey copying him and there’s not much he can do about it so he decides to run with it, making fun of Bluey (and Bluey managing to make fun of him as well). Then there’s a sudden change of tone when Bandit finds a sick budgie – ‘A cat must have gotten to it’ – and he and Bluey have to take it to the vet. So what we get in this episode is actually a nice subtle look at two kinds of copying – the annoying copycat kind, and the deeper sort – kids learn from their parents by copying. But what are they copying? This show sometimes has such a light touch – in the seven minutes it manages to pack in several scene changes, and a couple of the Big Questions – how do we react to death? How do kids react to it? Where does copying stop and acting normally begin? Does it? 

 

21. Handstand

I was a bit stunned when I first saw this one – somehow the producers manage to have almost the entire show run on no real script, but with action going all over the place, all at once. And it all makes sense, because they hang it around this simple central idea – it’s a party, Bingo is trying to do a handstand, and when she actually succeeds, she can’t get anyone to watch her. They’re all too distracted – playing games, making food, setting the table. She keeps on doing this for over half the episode! Then we cut to Nanna. She’s at the party too, and she just wants something to do – but everyone keeps telling her that, no, she doesn’t have to worry, sit down and rest. You can see the denouement coming, but it’s no less satisfying for all that. A satisfying episode about the problems faced by the littlest child in a family, a follow up to Duck Cake, and a successful experiment all in one, which somehow, by focusing on only one thing, manages to be about everything. 

 

20. The Doctor

Things get really weird when Bingo is the Doctor and Bluey is secretary. How does the triage process work? Honey’s bumped knee just can’t seem to compete with stuff like ‘Arrrrgh! There’s a crocodile on my nose!’ And how on earth do those egg beaters get used in the surgery? I have questions. There’s plenty of comedy here; Honey’s anxiety about not being seen by the doctor gets neatly resolved in a joke ending that almost seems too pat, though there’s another anxiety Honey is displaying – is she really creative enough to take part in the game? – that is also resolved. I can’t say anymore about this episode – I’ve probably said too much already – but do watch it, it’s one of the good ones (they’re all one of the good ones, dammit!)

 

19. Café

Bluey is mystified that Bandit doesn’t become friends immediately with another father he meets at the playground, Fido. ‘We just need to get to know each other a bit better first.’ ‘How long will it take?’ ‘It’ll take as long as it takes.’ ‘You sure do take a lot of time making new friends!’ Truth is, Bandit and Fido obviously do like one another, but their shyness from an adult perspective is understandable. They’re both the sort of jokey, blokey dads who like to get involved in their kids’ games, make fun of their kids and occasionally become the butt of their kids’ jokes. Cutting several times between Bluey’s house and the playground, this is another episode making excellent use of minimal materials to build up the comedy and dramatic… well, there’s not so much dramatic tension in this episode, but there is dramatic, well, sweetness. The music, also, is lovely, a playful riff on bird song, suitable for the two dads and their kids, in that slightly vulnerable time of making new friends. 

(Stay tuned for the final post - including the TOP TEN!) 

All the episodes of Bluey ranked (2 of 4)

(See part 1 here, part 3 here, part 4 here).

In this installment, a Dancing Work, a Muffin Cone, an unexpected use for a Viking hat, and more, more, GIVE ME MORE!

71.Army

Another Bluey episode completely without Bluey! This time new kid at school Jack – a distractable, fidgety Jack Russell – teams up with Rusty, who basically puts him to military school, and the two play army. One interesting subtext in this episode of a show that’s all about play and free expression is that, you know what, sometimes kids need that discipline and order after all – in fact, in this episode, it doesn’t come from the adults at all; it’s the kids imposing the discipline and order on themselves. Rusty is always likeable, though Jack doesn’t feature heavily in other episodes. 

 

70. Mum School 

It’s playing with balloons again, but, unlike in Keepy Uppy, the balloons get a personality, and Bluey is their mum. Actual Mum Chilli gets a clipboard and has to go around marking Bluey on her successful mumming. There’s a lot of fun here and the plot rounds out nicely. 

 

69. Calypso 

This episode is basically an introduction for the character of Calypso, Bluey’s teacher – who is doing the rounds of the classroom while the children are playing games. That’s pretty much it! Calypso spots problems the students are having, and solves them, one by one, as she continues going round the classroom. It’s a simple concept, given sweetness by the various children’s games, and heart by singer Megan Washington, who voices the titular character. (The name Calypso comes from Greek mythology – she was the nymph who held Odysseus ‘captive’ on her island for seven years, not letting him go home. Make of that what you will.)

 

68. Piggyback

This one is simplicity itself, they’re all working from the holiday house to the waterside, but Bingo doesn’t want to walk – she keeps complaining that her legs don’t work – and Bandit and Chilli keep on coming up with distractions to keep her walking. It’s another example of that genius the show writers have of structuring programs around recognisable parts of childhood that you never would have thought would have had the potential for drama or comedy. It’s also another episode in which you keep noticing the little details – the dogs having a picnic to the side while the Heeler family walk past, for instance. I can’t comment anymore on this one – you just have to see. 

 

67. Grandad 

We get to meet the ‘Grandad’ here – Chilli’s dad – who is always saying ‘hurry up and wait’ (see the reference to this in Sticky Gecko). He’s just had surgery, and Chilli is adamant that he has to stay at home and rest – but turns out he’s all hurry and no wait. As soon as Bluey and Bingo arrive with their mum, he whisks them away into the bush with Chilli in hot pursuit – ‘I will find you!’ So this episode serves as an introduction to another family member, and a tribute to not acting your age – as with so many other episodes of this kids show, it turns out it’s one for the adults, too. 

66. Bus 

Just imagine it, you spend years working with the band, driving around to gigs all over the country, playing late nights in seedy bars – and where are you now? You are the voice of a cartoon dog, sitting on a play cartoon bus, singing ‘The Wheels on the Bus’. This is the fate of David McCormack, voice of Bandit Heeler, on this episode. It sets the tone nicely for the family chaos that follows. It’s a cute little episode that works in a lot of little jokes, at one point it even seems to segue into a Speed style segment. 

 

65. Seesaw

Do we meet Pompom in other episodes? I don’t think we do; she’s certainly memorable – a small, white fluffball – ‘Pomeranians are a small breed!’ she insists when she encounters obstacles to her size. Seeing her miserable at not being able to take part in some of the games, Bandit takes matters (and the seesaw) into his own hands and sits heavily down on one end, before the appalled gaze of Bluey and Bingo. So what we get in this episode, then, is a lesson in physics, similar to the one in Pamela Allen’s ‘Who Sunk the Boat’. And, like in Allen’s book, the physics is actually kind of crazy. ‘Hey, Coco, is your hair heavy?’ (She’s a poodle, with that ridiculous poodle hair thing happening.) ‘Yes!’ No prizes in guessing who finally gets to tip the seesaw the other way, joining forces with the others. A pretty simple episode with some great lines. ‘Pomeranians are a small but hardy breed!’

 

64. Fairies 

The concept for this one feels a little fey but what are you going to do when the subject is the fey folk? Thankfully, in this episode we don’t get fairies of the prettified, Disney variety; they’re much closer to the capricious, fearsome supernatural beings of folk tales. After Bandit (who’s on the phone to someone at work) raises his voice at Bingo, the whole family has to atone to the fairies, who have apparently been deeply offended on Bingo’s behalf. You might think that there’s a reason for that, but then, things seem to escalate far too quickly for them to be orchestrated by Bingo alone. Fairy rings appear (Bluey ends up in one and can’t stop dancing) all over the place. How will Bandit ever atone for his crime? Somehow the writers even manage to work in a Riverdance and Gladiator reference, at the same time. So the concept works, though the writers do have to go to some weird stretches to make it happen. 

 

63. Mr Monkeyjocks

What do you do when you have so much stuff it seems to take over your whole life? That’s what happens with Bluey and Bingo, who have so many toys, and they don’t want to chuck out any. ‘Okay,’ announces Bandit after they clean up, ‘So in the keep bin is…. Everything. And in the chuck out bin is…. A monkey wearing jocks.’ ‘Not Mr Monkeyjocks!’ Turns out Mr Monkeyjocks is ‘special’, so special that he ends up running the house. We can all be grateful that the makers of Bluey speak in fluent hyperbole. This is a great episode. 

 

62. Backpackers

When Bandit and Chilli put on Bluey, Bingo, Muffin and Socks like backpacks, we kinda enter into a dreamtime world, at once a game and a backpacking adventure. So much of the camera – okay, there’s no camera, it’s an animation, shuddup – focus is on the faces of Bandit and Chilli, and the world from their perspective, that we seem to be experiencing a younger couple here, before they had the kids, backpacking around the world. I’ve seen this episode a few times and it only consciously registered on me that the long pans of the travels here are just shots of their backyard. Such are the strange enchantments this show casts – you get so distracted by the jokes, which are plentiful and hilarious, that you hardly notice the atmosphere being woven by the animation and the music.  

 

61. The Dump

It’s awkward as a parent when you get busted by your own kids. Even more awkward when you set yourself up for getting busted, like Bandit does here when he takes the kids on a trip to the dump. ‘Dad, do you know everything?’ ‘I do!’ Whoa, time to scale back there Bandit, but no: ‘Are you the best dad in the whole world?’ ‘I am.’ Inevitably his ego gets punctured in front of the ever-inquisitive Bluey and Bingo, but this dog is man enough to admit it. Good one, Bandit! I’m always going to be fond of a cartoon that takes its characters on a trip to that most unromantic of settings, the local dump, and this episode carries off it all with panache. 

 

60. Work

You might have thought ‘work’ was the opposite of ‘game’, but not in Bluey world, where Bluey and Bingo show up for a job interview with Bandit. ‘So, this is the dancing room’, says Bandit, showing them around. ‘No, you make drainpipes’ says Bluey. ‘Yes boss’. ‘I’m not the boss, you’re the boss.’ Master power move there from Bluey, but Bandit – who secretly loves dancing, there are jokes about it all through the show – says wistfully ‘I once dreamt of running a dancing work.’ This is a funny little episode with a good balance of Bluey-induced chaos and plot to round things off nicely. 

 

59. Hide and Seek

There’s nothing more eminently distractable than a five year old child, in this case Bluey, except when that eminently distractable child is teamed up with an eminent distraction, in this case the loudly shouty jumpy and altogether Really Annoying Toy ‘Chattermax’. I don’t know what Chattermax is really and I don’t want to know, though she appears in a number of episodes. ‘Why was Chattermax hiding under the kitchen sink?’ wonders Bluey about said Really Annoying Toy, simultaneously forgetting the game of Hide and Seek she was supposed to be involved in. As she carries the shouty little thing around the house wondering what she was doing, not noticing any of her family hiding right in front of her face, there’s that stretching of reality and credulity that happens in good farce and slapstick. Distraction is always an interesting subject and this episode has some very good distractions in it. (Watch out for ‘Carrot Horn!’) Ah, this show always delivers the goods. 

 

58. Trains 

Bandit really gets put through the paces here, as the train driver (he’s pushing a bunch of chairs around). Seems simple, but around him the whole house becomes an elaborate set up for this game of trains. Bingo is a vet, who catches the train each day to work; Chilli is her secretary, and Bluey is an irritable train passenger, and it just gets more complicated from there. Bandit finds he has to face some unusual problems (what happens if someone’s train ticket is actually a poo?) You know how it happens. 

 

57. Markets

We’re off to the market, and it’s one of those cool outdoor ones with poffertjes (those delicious Dutch pancakes), and pony rides and all that stuff. This is kind of the signature episode for Bluey’s friend Indy, whose mum has a stall at the market – she goes around with Bluey as Bluey tries to find a way to spend her $5 so she can share something with Indy. ‘Does this [poffertje] have milk, wheat, or sugar?’ she asks. ‘Because I can’t eat those.’ ‘That’s all that it contains!’ says the guy selling them to the crestfallen Indy. There’s an interesting explanation of market economics going on in this show, in the characteristic upbeat way Bluey has. 

 

56. Featherwand

Bingo’s magic feather turns everything heavy, so this episode is basically Bingo running around saying ‘heavy’ at everything. Not only do the whole family get involved in this immersive game, but that ever-reliable dramatic foil Lucky’s Dad (who seems very willing to play along with this weird stuff) turns up too. There are some convenient breaks of continuity here (Bandit gets stuck under a broom so heavy no-one can help him, but the next scene he’s running after Bingo to stop her turning Bluey and Chilli heavy?) But then again, apparently the magic is so real that Lucky’s Dad needs ‘a little help here’ after Bingo forgets to unheavy his hat. As a nice touch in the later scenes, you see the cockatoo that the magic feather came from perched on the roof. 

 

Choice quote: BLUEY: What are you doing? BANDIT: Nothing. Eat your floor breakfast. BLUEY: (Eats breakfast out of bowl on floor) This day is great!

 

55. Kids

This one has got kinda New Testament vibes. Remember ‘the first shall be last and the last shall be first’? No? Well, neither does Bandit, who, put on the spot by Bluey asking ‘Which one of us is your favourite’, answers with a statement at once diplomatic and self-contradictory, ‘You’re both my favourite!’ So Bluey and Bingo play ‘Kids’; Bluey is the parent (adults start referring to her as ‘Mrs Heeler’), and dad Bandit becomes the son. In this weird reverso world we get plenty of good jokes (Bandit even has to do a time out – ‘sit on that toilet roll chair!’) The dynamic between Bandit and his ‘mum’ and ‘little sister’ is interesting – Bluey and Bingo are (partly) learning about growing up when playing ‘Kids’; what does Bandit get out of it? Is it the opposite of growing up? But then, you can see him subtly challenging Bluey’s expectations of the world as he has fun with the game too. 

 

54. Charades

This is a great one for the supporting characters – Bluey and Bingo are sitting around at Nanna’s house with Muffin and Socks, and they all play a game of charades (using cues from a pack of cards designed for the purpose). Of course, Muffin totally and wilfully misunderstands the game – ‘She’s going to blow her top!’ whispers Nanna to Bluey at one point. Look, I’m not saying that a toddler having tantrums and behaving badly is good or entertaining, but what I am saying is that when that toddler is a cartoon dog it…. kinda is. 

53. Ice Cream 

I know that one of the Bluey things is to build each episode around a simple moral, but then again, ‘I don’t want a valuable life lesson! I just want an ice cream!’ This great little ep builds the drama around another one of those iconic childhood scenes, the Getting of the Icecream. Notable for its clever script – riffing on the immemorial chant of ‘It’s not fair’ to produce ‘It’s highly fair!’ ‘It’s fairly fair!’ ‘It’s about as fair as it gets!’ and more – and for its music, once again spot on, bringing a fun Latin dance beat to the opening stages and segueing into a waltz. 

52. Taxi 

It’s a rainy day at home, so the family are playing inside again. This time they’re not on a bus, they’re on a taxi, and Bluey is the driver. There’s a lot of great visual and musical jokes here – Chilli becomes the SatNav (her nose is the little talking box in the front window of the taxi) and a flute (or synthesiser flute sound, whatever) imitates the digital sound of a SatNav voice. Bandit plays the impatient and flustered passenger – ‘Good day to you sir!’ And so on. It’s riffing on similar lines to ‘Bus’, though maybe just a little bit more focused and successful than that one. 

 

51. The Beach

I can never get over how far Bluey walks on her own in this episode. Bluey’s walk – from one end of the beach to the other, to go from her dad to her mum – goes past a lot of sights and sounds, and we are of course seeing everything from her eyes, so it all looks huge and potentially terrifying, though her mum and dad are probably much closer than it seems to us (and her). There’s a lot of magical details here, like the sand crab army, and the sandcastle palace. Like a couple of other episodes – Piggyback, Road Trip – at least one cultural reference point seems to be video games, the sort that go on the horizontal from left to right and have the protagonist encounter various obstacles. ‘Why do you like going for walks on your own?’ ‘I don’t know. I just do.’ Bluey asks her mum the question at the start of the show, and her mum asks her the same question at the end; their answers are the same, but, of course, they so aren’t the same at all. As thoroughgoing a working out of a simple concept as any of the episodes in this show, it’s also a spot-on depiction of what independence means for a small child, and just what those first, terrifying steps out on your own might be.

 

50. Barky Boats

When Bluey and Mackenzie get paired up at school with their buddies from year six, Mia and Captain, they’re excited. Turns out, though, Mia and Captain want to spend more time with one another. Mackenzie is appalled, and Bluey is bored, so they exchange the traditional courtesy of their kind, blowing a raspberry in the other’s general direction. Many of the episodes of Bluey, while being about kids, are covertly about the adult dramas, but this one is also about teen – or maybe tween - angst. What is big school going to be like? How do you feel about leaving a friend who has been with you all through little school? And – for Bluey and Mackenzie – are we supposed to be, like, friends like those two? If there’s one thing that this show excels in it is finding the right metaphors for childhood experiences, and there are two in this episode – the stream in which Mackenzie and Bluey and their buddies play Barky Boats while contemplating the mysteries of time and growing up, and the pulsing, lyrically optimistic theme music that plays while this happens. All in all it’s a very touching episode. 

 

49. Bad Mood 

When Bingo finds herself in a Bad Mood, in capital letters, she gives Bandit a Viking hat, climbs on to his feet, and they stomp around the house causing various kinds of chaos. Chilli and Bluey have to try and get Bingo out of her Bad Mood, though there are surprising philosophical problems – ‘Oh, I know what’s happening. She wants to be in a bad mood.’ ‘Why would anyone want to be in a bad mood?’ ‘Dunno.’ It’s quite a striking visual representation of the experience of fuming through one of those day-long grumps, and I’ll probably have it in mind from now on when getting into an ill-advised internet argument. 

 

48. Yoga Ball

There’s a lot of good Bandit jokes here, starting off with the elevator game (don’t ask me to explain, you just had to be there) and his delivering two parcels (that is, Bluey and Bingo) to Mogadishu, but it’s not about his games with the kids. It’s not about the yoga ball, either. Or…. not just about those things. You only find out gradually – and it’s clever the way the show does this – that it’s really about what Bingo does when her dad plays too rough with her (but she still wants to keep playing). So maybe this show is about that one thing in the end. Or maybe it’s about all three of them. The tale is well told and it’s a good show for the character development of both Bingo and Bandit.  

 

47. Muffin Cone

Muffin, with her toddler’s propensity to ‘do her block’, to test limits, and to take joy in the simplest of games, makes a great character. So, when her mum Trixie tells her she has to stop sucking her thumb (otherwise she’ll have to wear a cone while visiting her cousins), her argument is an irrefutable ‘I want to do what I want’! Alternating between Muffin learning to play with Bluey and Bingo in her ‘cone of shame’, and Chilli and Aunt Trixie as they gossip over a bowl of chips in the dining room, this episode manages to riff successfully on a funny visual gag and deliver insights about the psychology of toddlers and adults, at once. 

All the episodes of Bluey ranked (1 of 4)

(Part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here). 

Is there a better use of my time than ranking, in order of worst to best, all of the episodes of Bluey from seasons 1 and 2? I THINK NOT. There's a lot of episodes, and I've got a few too many things to say about each one. In this instalment, there's magical underpants, a Greedy Queen and a Kindly Queen, and a cake that looks like a duck. LET'S GET INTO IT. 

104. Spy Game

Bluey and Mackenzie play spies, in order to collect potion grass, which will then make a potion, which can then be used for magic, which…. I can’t make head or tail of this game. There’s a lot of to and fro in this episode – a sideplot involving Bandit and the barbecue and the playful teasing from his friends – ‘you’re burnin’ ‘em, you’re burnin’ ‘em!’ – and Bingo playing, then not wanting to play. Many of the best Bluey episodes are based around games played successfully (or not so successfully), but this one doesn’t feel like it quite comes together. 

103. Movies

It is a marvel to me how this little seven minute show manages to have two or three plots going at once. In this episode Bandit takes Bluey and Bingo to the movies – ‘Chunky Chimp’! Bluey is a little worried she’s going to be scared by the movie but then, ‘Mackenzie’s seen it’; Bingo, two years younger than Bluey, has no such issues, mostly because she spends all of her time running around evading Bandit and ignoring the movie; and the movie itself runs at the same time – you see enough of it to get a sense of its plot, too. ‘Look, mate, it’s a movie about a talking chimp, don’t think too much about it’, Bandit reassures Bluey (yeah, right, thanks dad). The experience of going to the movies at some megaplex is evoked with impressive realism, and there’s cleverness in the way the script has Bluey and Chunky Chimp say the same thing at the same time, drawing the multiple plots together. Still, I suspect Bandit has it right in his assessment of the movie – and it does feel like a bit of a cheat, having the standard Hollywood cliches (‘just be yourself’!) be substitute for the usual subtle Bluey moral. 

102.  Bob Bilby

My feelings about this one, in which Bingo has to take a kindergarten puppet Bilby home for the weekend and create a series of photo memories with the Bilby, but keeps getting distracted by watching digital animations on the family Tablet, are complicated by the fact that I keep getting distracted by watching this digital animation on the computer. So are digital distractions bad or good? I don’t mind this episode, but it’s probably one of the ones in which the program comes closest to the twee family-friendly moralising of, say, a 1980s sitcom.   

 

101. Typewriter

An unusual quest narrative, this, consisting of a few parts that don’t always come together. First you have Calypso’s story which Bluey finds unconvincing (because, well, it is). This inspires Bluey to become a writer so she can write a better ending to the story; only to do this she needs the typewriter. Then you get Bluey’s posse – here it is interesting; like in those movie or fantasy quests, Bluey assembles a team (Winton and Snickers) with some unusual abilities. (Winton is a ‘space invader’, because he scares people off with his habit of moving into their personal space – it comes into use later in the episode). And lastly you have a challenge – that would be the Terriers, defending Scotland (‘Bwing! Bwing! Bwing!’) OK, now I’m having fun. But the moral is also a bit lacklustre; Bluey learns the power of imagination. Thankfully the show never preaches, but it seems like a message I could get from a thousand other kids’ shows anyway? So I’m not sure about this one.

 

100. Queens

While mum Chilli scrubs the lorikeet poo off the deck – (‘ew!’ says Bluey. ‘You’re mum’s not afraid of a little hard work’, replies Chilli) – Bluey and Bingo dress up and play Queens. (Or rather, they take turns playing the Queen and the royal butler). There’s a point in here about inherited privilege and their reliance on the working classes, I guess, though it’s not pushed overhard, so it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. Still, this episode doesn’t quite do it for me.  

99. Grannies

Dress up time, and we say goodbye to Bluey and Bingo as we say hello to Rita and Marge, two grannies who are mysteriously the same size as Bluey and Bingo. Bingo wants to be the flossing granny (the dance move), but Bluey insists that ‘grannies can’t floss’! So a call to Nanna is in order. It’s a pretty simple episode really. 

98. Easter 

This variation on the Easter Egg hunt of childhood sees Bluey and Bingo engage in an elaborate treasure hunt, orchestrated, apparently, by their Mum and Dad. There are some clever visual puns and the final reveal of the Easter Eggs happens with all the sumptuous spectacle that we have come to expect from the animator Ludo Studios. There is an interesting backstory – ‘Will the Easter Bunny forget like he did last year?’ ‘He didn’t forget’, explains Bandit, ‘He left a letter!’ And he reads the Easter Bunny’s weird excuse on the wall. O, what a tangled web we weave when first we etc etc, but then again, there’s nobody like the Heeler family when it comes to playing make-believe with their kids. So this is okay. This episode is okay. Okay? 

 

97. Duck Cake 

When Bandit gets landed with the job of making one of those ridiculously complicated cakes-that-look-like-things for Bingo’s birthday party, you kinda know the episode is going to end up being a bit like an episode of Nailed It. Meanwhile, Bluey learns how to tidy up – it’s all a bit too wholesome for me. This isn’t one of my favourites, but it’s got significant cultural heft – duck cakes are being made for birthday parties right around the country. People are weird. 

 

96. Trampoline 

Bandit is playing on the trampoline with Bluey and Bingo but that all ends with him climbing out – ‘I’ve got to get to work’. Bluey wants none of that, and keeps on coming up with new games to get him to come up and play. The concept is simple enough, made fun by Bandit’s willing compliance and the creative way he plays the games, though it lacks a sense of urgency that would add a certain comic zest to Bandit’s repeated attempts to get to work. 

 

95. Tickle Crabs

One of the ‘just playing games at home’ episode, but it’s not without a few knotty ethical and metaphysical problems. For instance, apparently dogs put *on* clothes when they visit the beach (actually Bandit just goes to the backyard, but for the purposes of the game it’s the beach). Also, significantly for an episode in which Bandit says Chilli is his ‘true love… because she’s always there for me’, this episode contains a lot more about people running away from stuff. Actually, running away from tickle crabs. (Noooo, not the dreaded tickle crabs!) You’re not left so much with a moral as an awkward truth – sometimes, when you’re a parent, you’re so desperate for any time to yourself that you might find yourself hiding in the cupboard…  

94. Verandah Santa

The whole Heeler gang have got together on the night before Christmas. It must be, what, 9 pm and Muffin is weirdly un-hypo - try to square that with her special brand of late-night craziness in The Sleepover! But consistency is for losers, and anyway, they’re all here to learn the true meaning of Christmas, which is, being nice to one another is a very shrewd tactical method for getting presents off that fearsome bearded wraith from the far north. No, it’s actually being violent to your parents is heaps fun and when you’re a kid they let you get away with a lot of shit. Well, that’s not true either; the moral is closer to the former, so it is a bit bland – in a game of Verandah Santa, Bluey hurts her cousin Socks’ feelings and has to learn that we’re not nice to one another just to get presents. This Christmas episode certainly doesn't attain the positively symphonic exuberance of Pool Swim, and isn’t quite as iconically Australian as that episode either. But the game of Verandah Santa is fun and the jokes are plentiful and, oh heck, it’s Christmas, Mister! So on the whole this is quite a decent Christmas episode.  

93. Butterflies

Man, Judo is so annoying in this episode! I know that’s kind of the point – ‘She doesn’t have anyone to play with’, explains Bluey to Bingo as she interrupts them and insults Bingo – but that doesn’t change the fact that being annoyed by her is, well, annoying. It does make the emotional crisis she causes interesting though – what do you do with that annoying friend who maybe means well, but who causes a rift between one sister (Bluey) and another (Bingo) because she’s only really interested in playing with one (Bluey)?

92. Helicopter

Bluey, on top of an old tree stump, becomes a helicopter pilot – ‘Chop chop chop chop chop!’ But then has to adapt herself to the other pups wishes – she becomes a little more flexible with each helicopter ride. There’s a lot of cute stuff in this episode, but why do the Terriers always get the best lines? ‘Boing, boing, boing! Boing, boing, boing!’ (Reprising the cute ‘bwing bwing bwing’ of Typewriter.)

 

91. Octopus 

As a change from all the episodes with The World’s Best Dad, AKA Bandit, we get an episode with The World’s Most Adequate Dad, AKA Chloe’s Dad. He’s trying to play a game of ‘Octopus’ with Chloe, which she learned from Bluey and Bandit, but he keeps on buggering things up. He walks behind the couch when he should walk in front, he keeps on letting Chloe get the treasure too easily, and, worst of all, he doesn’t make those blooble-blooble-blooble noises that apparently according to kids in Bluey world Octopuses actually have to make. What’s that all about? ‘You’re not as fun as Bluey’s dad’ says Chloe, which must leave her poor geeky dad feeling rather crushed. Because it is based around a boring dad some bits in this episode are admittedly, well, a bit boring (there’s actually a scene where Chloe’s Dad just looks at things on the computer, which is pretty much dramatic death). But the dilemma this show is based around is interesting, the resolution is very affirming and anyway, it’s good to see some character development for Chloe and her dad. 

90. The Show

For Mother’s Day Bluey and Bingo decide to put on a show about…. how their mum and dad first met. So Bingo becomes Chilli and Bluey becomes Bandit and Bandit and Chilli become audience members, who are also themselves. It gets…. weird. There’s a bit of fun to be had here, and some of Chilli’s and Bandit’s backstory is told.

89. Christmas Swim

This is a suitably exuberant and energetic episode as the whole family get together for Christmas lunch by the pool. (I think it’s Uncle Stripe’s?) Everyone gets some action – squabbles between the brothers Stripe and Bandit, Muffin going absolutely bananas over the pool swim, Nanna itching to help with the cooking (or preferably take it over entirely), a suitably doggy game of fetch by the pool (they’re catching tennis balls – Chilli snaps it neatly in her mouth). And Bluey is showing her present (a doll she names Bartleby) around, introducing him to her family. It’s a bit of a pretext, really, for including everyone in the plot, but the theme is inclusion. They do say Christmas television is a bit of a desert, but if this came on at Christmas time I’d watch the shit out of it. 

 

88. Hotels

A cute episode about a game of hotels Bluey and Bingo play with their dad. This time Bandit is the well behaved one (sort of) and it’s the kids that are really making the chaos – there’s a crazy cleaner, and a crazy pillow. Nice. 

87. Horsey Ride

When Uncle Stripe arrives with his fam, Bandit makes them all an enticing offer: ‘Okay kids, who wants to lie down on the couch and WATCH CRICKET?’ Bluey, having none of that, gets them all to play Horsey Rides. There’s a lot of fun here – Bandit is renamed ‘Sir Galahop’ and Uncle Stripe becomes ‘Sparkles’ – but Muffin seems so weirdly uncrazy (this is an early appearance for her character, who gets more entertainingly Bonkers McGoo in later episodes, thankfully). Her little sister Socks, meanwhile, seems to be acting like an actual dog, which is weird in a show where even the adult dogs are acting like horses. Though there’s a basic theme here – Bluey’s anxious for her favourite toy, Polly Puppy, who’s been stolen by her cousin Socks – the show mostly feels like a series of unconnected gags, because Bluey doesn’t actually seem to be worried much about Polly Puppy at all. Focus, Bluey, focus! 

 

86. The Magic Xylophone

I feel kinda bad placing this one near the bottom because, like all Bluey episodes, it’s top quality. There’s a lot of good here – Bandit playing piano and guitar on Bluey and Bingo, before later taking on the role of a melodramatic villain (appropriate for the game) complete with make up. But there’s so much good in the other shows too, so….

85. Circus 

It’s election day, and of course Bluey and Bingo have no idea what that means, so their parents have to explain it all. ‘It’s when you pick someone to be the leader.’ ‘Ooh, don’t pick him, I don’t like his smile.’ Well, that’s as good a political argument as many that I’ve heard, but still, Chilli and Bandit patiently explain, it’s not quite like that. As they queue up to vote, the kids get decoyed by a game of circus – Bluey is the ringmaster. ‘I’ll be the audience, you can’t tell me what to do,’ explains Bingo. ‘Okay’ says Bluey tolerantly. Meanwhile, Winton wants to join the circus, instead of playing with the big and bossy Hercules. So we get a look at two different ways of making decisions, it’s quite clever and very fun. Just because you’re stronger, it doesn’t mean you get to make a choice, suggests the show – only, for me, it kind of ruins this moral a bit later in search of a satisfying plot conclusion.    

84. Shaun

Bluey and Bingo really want a pet, but Bandit rebuffs their pleas. ‘We don’t need a pet!’ he says. ‘We’ve got Shaun!’ And holds up his hand in the shape of an emu. Pretty dodgy exchange if you ask me, dad, but it works on Bluey and Bingo. Shaun is not only a bad imitation of an emu, it turns out, but a bad pet as well, always pecking other family members, or even hapless passersby: Lucky’s Dad cops it once again. This makes for some good jokes (good old fashioned slapstick violence) and a characteristically minimalistic Bluey plot, complete with some striking animation and direction. 

 

83. Mount Mumanddad 

This is a return to the mountaineering theme we got in Blue Mountains, though also a homage to all those trek documentaries and adventure/survival movies. It’s got an originality of its own, and there’s a lot of fun here, but mostly I can’t stop thinking about how weirdly square Bandit’s bum looks. We get to look a lot at his bum this episode, and it’s just so…. *square*. Another oddity is mum Chilli’s stirring speech at the end, another survival documentary/movie homage – it’s like one of those voiceovers you get. But she’s doing this at home, with her kids climbing up her chest. It works for the show, but I just can’t see a mum or dad doing this at home, y’know? 

 

82. Neighbours

There’s nothing quite like filching the couch cushions and making a cubby house out of them, which Bluey and Bingo do so they can play Neighbours. Along comes Chilli to join in the game, and then Bandit. Welcome to Mulberry Street, everyone! Only Bingo starts encroaching on Bluey’s territory – she needs room for her toy horses. And Bandit – well, Bandit has taken it upon himself to be the agent of chaos here on this quiet suburban pretend street. This is a sweet tribute to the natural Bluey environment, the community of the suburbs, with some good sight/sound gags. The resolution here is fun, but not entirely satisfying – it relies on Bingo acting in a way that - well, I’m not sure she would act that way.  

 

81. Hammerbarn 

Finally, an episode about one of the seven deadly sins: avarice. Or, in colloquial terms: ‘The grass is always greener on the other side.’ ‘What does that mean?’ Bluey asks her parents. But by this time both Chilli and Bandit are staring in open lust at Lucky’s Dad’s new pizza oven. So they’re off to Hammerbarn. Striking for its evocation of one of the more iconic Australian stores (gee, I wonder what popular hardware chain this one is supposed to represent), the show has some good gags though they sometimes feel a bit unconnected. 

 

80. Bumpy and the Wise Old Wolfhound

While Bingo is sick in hospital, with mum Chilli by her side, Bandit and Bluey, Uncle Stripe, Aunt Trixie, Muffin and Socks make a little home movie to cheer her up. Again we’re in ‘show within a show’ world, another one of those plot devices beloved of sitcoms. All the characters get good cameos within this show world – Muffin is pretty good (‘No! Not my good vase!’ gasps Chilli when she sees Muffin stirring something up in it.), and Myf Warhurst – voice of Aunt Trixie – finally finds her true calling as ‘the wise old wolfhound’, a kind of mystical guru like figure. (Also look out for Mackenzie and Lucky). All in all a pleasing little one off. 

 

79. Stumpfest

Bandit and his friends just want to get rid of two old stumps in the backyard; Bluey and her friends suddenly discover they want to play on the stumps. The backyard suddenly becomes split between two opposing factions, the kids taking the part of protesters – ‘Save our stump! Save our stump!’ – Bandit and his friends taking the part of loggers reluctantly entering into negotiations with the hippies. ‘Okay, you can put make up on me, but no unicorn horn’ says Lucky’s Dad, fated to get make up and a unicorn horn on his head. The parody works though feels a bit contrived and opportunistic, making this one of the less successful episodes. Some fun is had with seeing Bandit, Uncle Stripe, and Lucky’s Dad going bananas in a very blokey, very Australian way.

 

78. Wagonride

Bluey and Bingo go on a trip to the park, pulled in the wagon by Bandit. Okay, actually Bluey coerces Bandit into taking them in the wagon, and then has to struggle to be patient every time Bandit stops to talk to someone. Some nice animated details here, illustrating the streets of Brisbane.  

 

77. Zoo

Just a simple episode about Bluey and the whole family making up a zoo at home; as usual Bandit causes trouble when he’s given the job of being a baboon – at first, hardly bothering with the role at all, and then throwing himself into the role with a bit too much enthusiasm. 

76. Shadowlands

This is one of the classics, an immersive game that reveals the strengths of the kids, and Teaches Them A Valuable Life Lesson. There are a number of clever touches here, like Bluey having to run along in the shadow of a bus to avoid breaking the rules of the game. The animation, as always, is gorgeous – you can see the wind blowing through the grass of the park. And Snickers the sausage dog is always fun – ‘Snickers! Run your little sausage dog legs!’ 

 

75. The Adventure

This great little one-piece stands as a homage to the high adventure fantasy movies or, perhaps, the long-running fantasy adventures you can find on the telly. There’s a special Bluey twist, too – it’s all a complicated game being played by Bluey and Chloe. And not only do they put their costumes on and off – they will swap costumes if they come up with an idea to make the adventure better. It’s all about the complicated dealings between the Kindly Queen, the Good Princess, and the Greedy Queen (who is also a witch) – it really doesn’t need too much explaining. It’s all quite a joyful romp; it doesn’t have a complicated moral dilemma or theme, unlike the other shows, so perhaps it isn’t as emotionally deep, though it is an affirmation of the most basic Bluey theme of all – the importance of play. 

 

74. Keepy Uppy

This show spins a magical seven minutes out of the simplest of concepts – in this episode, not allowing a balloon to touch the ground. Lucky’s Dad gets a cameo, heroically helping to keep the balloon in the air until ‘Oh, me hammy!’ Nothing too complicated to comment on in this episode – just simple fun. 

 

73. Pirates

Bluey and Bingo are playing with their mum and dad and little friend Missy in the park – problems start to arise when the ‘littlest pirate’ gets scared and hides behind the ‘lighthouse’ (a piece of park equipment). A simple Bluey episode, this one, with a stand-out score, imbuing the most ordinary act of children playing in a park and learning how to face their fear with outsize, Pirates of the Caribbean-style heroism. 

 

72. Mums and Dads

We start this one with a sweet couple, Indy and Rusty, who are playing Mums and Dads. Clearly something is going right here, because they soon start fighting – just like real mums and dads. Awwwww. Anyway, they disagree over who should stay at home and mind the baby and who should go to work. Indy says it’s the mum who goes to work; Rusty thinks that’s stupid. So, they shout ‘I’m never going to play mums and dads with you again!’ and set off to find a better mum and dad. There’s some cute bits here, all right, in this follow up to Early Baby, though to my mind some of the costume-based gags rely a little too much on some of the characters acting out of character.

How to take care of yourself with a big cheering cup of non-sequitur

 We'll be in lockdown forever, but cats are nice! 

The new COVID variant that turns us all into blood sucking vampires poses a significant risk to health and safety, but daffodils are in season! 

The sudden appearance of angelic armies in the skies would seem to indicate the Day of Judgement is at hand, but I have a box of Roses Chocolates, and I saved your favourites!

The bathroom is dirty and will have to be cleaned, but here is a picture of a puppy! 

Fig 1: a cat being nice

WTFF News (Deutsche Auflage) - Australischer Ampelmann will cool sein, wie deutscher Ampelmann

 Er spricht, und er spricht Deutsch - und er ist ganz wütend. Wir haben den australischen Ampelmann in einer kleinen Bar getroffen, und er hat sich so viel über seinen deutschen Kollege beschworen. Er hat für sich selbst nur einem kleinen Wünsch - zu cool sein, wie der deutscher Ampelmann. 

"Für so lange Jahre habe ich diese Stadt reichlich bedient, and welcher Preis habe ich erworben? Nichts und nirgends!" sagt er. "Niemand denkt das ich so cool wie der deutsche Ampelmann sein. Und wofür? Weil er einen hübschen Hut trägt? Oh, das ist was zu klatschen! He, manchmal habe ich Grün für einen Kanguru oder Koala geworden. Aber wahrscheinlich das ist nicht so wichtig, ha? Pfui!"

Er nimmt einen riesigen Schluck seinem Bier, und stimmt bitterlich an: "Die einzelne Zeit, die einfach einzelne Zeit, dass Leute mir Acht geben haben, war wenn sie die Straße übergehen wollen. Oh, plötzlich bin ich ihr wichtig, he? Sie wollen nicht umgefahren sein? Arschlocher!"

"Doch", erklärt er, "ich möchte nicht berühmt sein, wie der andere Ampelmann. Das ist mir ganz egal. Aber was  beneidet mir am meisten, was frisst mir die Eingeweide aus, ist das die Leute ihm krass finden. Er ist chic! Ein totaler Supermodel! Das finde ich blödsinnig!"

"Es ist mir ganz geheimnisvoll, was es mit ihm ist, dass ihr anzieht", beendet er. "Ihr seid alle sehr rätselhaft. Ich weiß nicht. Ich gebe es auf."

 Er... danke, australischer Ampelmann! 

THIRD QUARTER IN THE COVID CUP

BIFF: We're coming back to you now, in the third quarter of the COVID Cup, and Rugger, I know Victoria are the crowd favourites here, but I just don't think they can come back to win the cup. 

RUGGER: I think you're right, Biff, but then, COVID is a game of ups and downs, and you just don't know what's next around the corner, if you get my drift. 

BIFF: Let's look at the stats for these two teams, Rugger. 

RUGGER: Pulling up the table now.... as you can see, Biff, Victoria's performance on the spreadsheet last year was just off the charts, they notched up a whopping total of lockdown runs on the scoreboard, and no other team was able to knock them off their perch. 

BIFF: No, although NSW did try to close the gap, including that memorable late northern beaches lockdown in December. But... 

(Siren blares)

RUGGER: It's on, Biff!

BIFF: It's on!

RUGGER: It's going orrrrrff! 

BIFF: You can just hear the Victorian crowd, they're practically raising the roof, they haven't lost their enthusiasm at all! 

RUGGER: That's their man, Big Dan Andrews, they love that boy! 

BIFF: He just keeps on lockin' 'em down, Rugger - before the break, he scored them a precious Fifth Lockdown, keeping their hopes up. 

RUGGER: One hundred and ten per cent, Biff. 

BIFF: It kept the Victorian crowd happy, but it's just not going to be enough... that NSW lockdown score is just too much. 

RUGGER: One hundred and ten per cent, Biff, they're behind their man one hundred and ten per cent! They're getting on the Dan train and reaching for the sky! 

BIFF: He's lining up for another lockdown, Rugger! 

RUGGER: He's got them to this place, Biff, they just need to position themselves in the right spot so they can get just that little bit further, and.... 

BIFF: OOOOOOOH! Their SIXTH lockdown! That's four so far this year! 

RUGGER: Victoria is still in the running, Biff! 

(Crowd cheering)

RUGGER: They're still in the running.... they're not letting go of the bat for one minute! 

BIFF: Rugger! 

RUGGER: It's checkmate, Biff, but that's not the end of the story! 

BIFF: Absolutely, Rugger, absolutely! 

On not being in denial

Apparently, society is 'in denial of death'. We get told this so often, and with such frequency - that we are in 'denial of death', and that we never talk about dying, and that why aren't we talking about dying in morbid detail right now, or if not now, two seconds ago - that one starts to suspect the motives, and indeed the veracity of the speaker. Are we really 'in denial of death'? Or are the people telling us that we are 'in denial of death' themselves in denial of our not being in denial of death? 

Then there are the people who do more than this, who not only say that 'we are in denial of death', but who will open their conversational gambit, in the manner of a flatmate drawing attention to one's cleaning roster, by saying 'we need to talk about death'. (And if there's one thing I'm in denial about, it's the cleaning roster - any cleaning roster, really.) Really? We need to talk about? Right here over the dinner table? Just when I was about to bring out the steamed sheep's brains?*

Perhaps all these professional gloom-mongers and harshers of the collective societal mellow are themselves afflicted by a want, or perhaps more a wistfulness - a wistfulness for a world in which you can announce 'society is in denial of death' and be instantly feted with applause and veneration for their profound insight - rather than the actual world, where all such an announcement does is cause another social death, the death of any wish of people to be around you whatsoever. For it's quite one thing to talk about death and dying - in fact, a topic of some conversational fascination (you can barely open a book or watch a film without some character dying of some extremely hideous and therefore extremely interesting cause). But it's quite another to talk, seemingly endlessly, about how we don't talk about death and dying, and thus never get around to talking about the actual thing. 

It is, I suppose, a victory of the theoretical over the practical. Why talk about the real thing when you haven't actually done it yourself? And once you do, you can't actually talk about it, either. Bit of a problem. 

It's probably what Sartre meant: Hell is other people.... going around, talking about how we are in denial of death and dying, for eternity. 

*My wife's a vegetarian. I wouldn't really do that.**

**Unless you start saying 'our society is in denial about....'

Excuse me, there's something in my panopticon.... *sniff*

Look the camera in the eye, 

Smile and wave a friendly HI - 

Somewhere a contact tracing guy

Will you see waving, passing by

And wave right back to you. 

The sayings of the vegans

(I have almost decoded their strange language.) 

I ain't got no Veef with him.
He really thinks he's the big Sheese, but I ain't got no Veef with him. 
After all, someone's got to bring home the fakon in this family,
And I know which side my bread is I Can't Believe It's Not Buttered on, 
And I may be Quorn to be wild, 
But I can't just quit cold Tofurkey like that, can I? 
So 
I ain't got no Veef with him. 

Suburban visions and bus wisdom

 Saw two or three things today that made me doubt objective reality, in a modest boring suburban middle aged kind of way. 

The first happened a few blocks down from our house; on a plot of land that used to contain a nice old yellow weatherboard house with a back garden. Over the past few years the Baron and I had seen, with dismay, how this house was knocked down, the land razed, and a flimsy looking structure of boards and glass and what have you erected in its stead. Two or three months ago, these massive doors were finally installed in the front of the houses, and they were installed so badly that the handles on the left-hand side of the doors did not match with the handles on the right-hand side of doors. It really was - is - the most unconvincing piece of architecture I've ever seen. House? Art? Economic investment? I'm not sure it knows itself what it wants to be. 

Well, this morning, as I walked with Elspeth to the train station, I noticed - scowling into the sunlight (which has no business being so bright this time of year) a young heavily pregnant woman in grey singlet and suburban-mum tracky-dacks, and a toddler. 

Odd sort of vision to be having before lunch, I thought, and went on my way.

The second happened later that morning, at the market, where I happened upon a potato vendor looking rather potatoid himself. Brown coat, and a gnarled, knobbly face, as if he'd only recently been drawn up from out of the earth. Is it possible for potatoes to be able to walk and talk like that? 

Not sure what any of this means, really, but I thought I'd impart it all to you. I'll leave you with the two messages imparted to me this afternoon, by the digital screen on the bus. 

The first message reads: 

PLEASE REMEMBER TO VALID 

Not to be outdone, the second follows: 

ER TO VALIDATE YOUR MYKI. 

I think we can all get something from those two pieces of wisdom.