Weirder than a blue dog: this is 'Bluey', the Australian cartoon series that breaks records on Disney+

If the world audiences on Disney+ are consulted, some of the series that appear are very recognizable titles:

,

, which is the most watched in Spain, and the inexhaustible Simpsons.

The only title that may sound foreign to all those who do not have small children around is

, an Australian series that has not been out of the top 10 most watched programs on the platform for at least two years.

In November, it was the sixth most watched series on Disney+ worldwide and became the most popular in countries such as Albania, Bulgaria or Croatia.

How to define

for those who don't know her?

is a bunch of seven-minute episodes,

is an aspirational bible of modern parenting,

magazine

, "the best kids'

of our time."

is also, incidentally, the eldest daughter, about six human years old, of a family of blue dogs living in Brisbane.

She has a good-humored and inexhaustibly patient father, Bandit, a cheerful and resilient mother, Chilli, and a little sister, Bingo, a specialist in doing little sister things.

Like other cartoons that marked the era,

can be considered an author's series.

Just as

responds to Stephen Hillenburg's vision, the canine family is incomprehensible without Joe Brumm's story.

The entertainer grew up in Queensland, Australia and, like so many people in his country, he tried his luck in London after graduating.

There he worked on children's series like

, based on the children's stories of the same title and in which there was already something of

, in the sense that two little brothers set up a universe of games from which adults are excluded, who never appear on the screen.

After a decade in the UK, Brumm returned to Australia and founded his own production company, which made animation for both children and adults.

So, he had two daughters pretty close together.

And, he was subjected to many more hours of children's programming than he would have liked.

"It drove me crazy," he admitted in an interview with the

“It's always the same story over and over again.

Someone breaks Dad's favorite thing.

Everyone thinks: 'oh my god, what are we going to do.

And they spend the whole afternoon doing a crappy version.

And in the end the lesson is: you just needed to ask for forgiveness.

In reality, my daughters break things all the time and they don't give a damn, they don't try to fix it."

His idea was to reflect how young children actually act, with an alternate logic.

“I realized that a lot of games end up looking like Monty Python,” she says in the same interview.

From 'Peppa Pig' to 'Sesame Street'

The most obvious and recent reference to a family of anthropomorphic animals was clear, the British blockbuster

, which launched in 2004 and is now, as part of Hasbro, a franchise that includes theme parks, thousands of

licenses (also a lot of

). pirate) and fewer chapters than it seems: only seven seasons between 2004 and 2022. What are pigs there, in

are Australian cattle dogs, a breed that occurs in the antipodes and is also known as "blueys" ( azulitos) by the color of their hair, or “heelers”, heelers.

In the series, Heeler is the family name.

Just like in

, the configuration of the family, two-parent and headed by a hetero couple of middle or upper-middle class (the Heelers live in a single-family house close to nature, with a large garden that includes trampolines and an Ikea swing that the parents put together in one of the episodes) is not particularly groundbreaking.

There is no intention of social inclusiveness here like the one that has always guided

, thought to be the wise and free nanny for interurban children without resources.

But there are fundamental differences with

For starters, a functional adult can enjoy

, even if he's seen that episode 15 or 16 times, while

it is transferred worse to those older than five years.

Much has been written about the role of Papa Pig, Peppa's father, often the butt of family jokes about his big belly and portrayed as a well-meaning but ultimately incompetent father, especially when compared to the female characters in the series. series, capable of multitasking.

Next to him, Bandit, Bluey's father, appears to be three evolutions up on the parental scale.

He is a millennial father, who has read manuals on neuroeducation and knows, for sure, more than three influential pediatricians on social networks.

Bandit is capable, for example, of turning a trip to the supermarket—a complex task when executed with young children—into a fun and educational experience.

She lets the girls play grown-ups and load all kinds of knick-knacks and useless things into the cart until she manages to turn things around and buy the broccoli, which, of course, is eaten at the Heelers' house.

The series is steeped in the philosophy of so-called positive parenting or respectful parenting, a theoretical amalgamation that is defined by opposition to tax parenting, and it is no coincidence.

Brumm read a lot in bull about the importance of play in child development and considers it one of the lessons in a series where few lessons are given, unlike many other children's shows.

“If I am proud of something in regards to

The series is steeped in the philosophy of so-called positive parenting or respectful parenting, a theoretical amalgamation that is defined by opposition to tax parenting, and it is no coincidence.

Brumm read a lot in bull about the importance of play in child development and considers it one of the lessons in a series where few lessons are given, unlike many other children's shows.

“If I am proud of something in regards to

The series is steeped in the philosophy of so-called positive parenting or respectful parenting, a theoretical amalgamation that is defined by opposition to tax parenting, and it is no coincidence.

Brumm read a lot in bull about the importance of play in child development and considers it one of the lessons in a series where few lessons are given, unlike many other children's shows.

“If I am proud of something in regards to

is that I think it will teach adults something about how effective the game is in children's lives," said the entertainer in an interview with

More information

Ludacris, from making songs for the neighborhood to making series for his daughters

For adults, watching the series can have a mixed effect: aspirational and slightly paralyzing. Don't

's parents work ? How do they pay the mortgage on that adorable chalet? Too busy to play restaurant games or entertain yourself by refreshing Instagram?

Still, the fact that it doesn't have a formulaic structure—there are a lot of so-called “bottle episodes,” like fan favorite

, which

valued as one of the best episodes of television, children and adults, of 2020, or the episode in which Bingo learns to do a handstand but there is no one to see it because all the adults are too busy preparing the birthday party of the Bingo herself, doing emotional labor and dry labor—has earned her many fans, some of them famous.

Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes, parents of two girls ages eight and six, declare themselves fans, as do Natalie Portman and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

They both have voice cameos in season three, and to pull it off they didn't even have to force the Australian accent, the same one American kids are apparently adopting from following these animated dogs so much.

You can follow EL PAÍS TELEVISIÓN on