Bluey is an Australian animated television series aimed at preschool children, created by Joe Brumm and produced by Ludo Studio in Queensland. It was commissioned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the British Broadcasting Corporation, with BBC Studios holding global distribution and merchandising rights. Bluey premiered on ABC Kids on 1 October 2018. It subsequently made its international debut on Disney Junior in the United States and is available for streaming on Disney+.
The show follows Bluey, an anthropomorphic six-year-old (later seven-year-old) Blue Heeler puppy who is full of energy, imagination, and curiosity about the world. She lives with her father, Bandit; mother, Chilli; and younger sister, Bingo, who regularly joins Bluey on adventures as the pair embark on imaginative play together. Other characters featured each represent a different dog breed. Overarching themes include family life, growing up, and Australian culture. Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland, inspired the show's setting.
Bluey has received consistently high viewership in Australia on both broadcast television and video-on-demand services. It has influenced the development of merchandise, a stage show featuring its characters, and a feature film, The Bluey Movie, scheduled to be released on 6 August 2027. The program has won three Logie Awards for Most Outstanding Children's Program, three AACTA Awards for Best Children's Television Series, an International Emmy Kids Award in 2019, and a Peabody Award in 2024. Critics have praised the show for its modern and positive depiction of family life, constructive parenting messages, and the role of Bandit as a positive father figure.
Premise
Bluey Heeler, the titular character, is a six-year-old (later seven-year-old) Blue Heeler puppy who is curious and energetic. She lives with her archaeologist father, Bandit (voiced by David McCormack), her mother Chilli (voiced by Melanie Zanetti), who works part-time in airport security, and her four-year-old (later five-year-old) sister, Bingo. All four members of the family engage in imaginative play together, occasionally involving their neighbours, Labrador Retriever Pat (voiced by Brad Elliot) and his sons Lucky and Chucky, and Chow Chow Wendy (voiced by Beth Durack and Emily Taheny) and her daughter Judo.
Bandit's younger brother Stripe (voiced by Dan Brumm) lives with his wife Trixie (voiced by Myf Warhurst) and their two daughters, opinionated three-year-old Muffin and her baby sister Socks, who over time learns to talk and walk on two legs. The extended Heeler family also includes Bandit and Stripe's older brother Radley (voiced by Patrick Brammall) and his love interest and later wife Frisky (voiced by Claudia O'Doherty), their mother Chris (voiced by Chris Brumm), and their father Bob (voiced by Ian McFadyen and Sam Simmons). Chilli's extended family includes her father Mort (voiced by Laurie Newman) and her sister Brandy (voiced by Rose Byrne).
Bluey's friends and classmates include Coco (a pink Poodle), Chloe (a Dalmatian), Honey (a Beagle), Indy (an Afghan Hound), Mackenzie (a Border Collie), Rusty (an Australian Kelpie), Snickers (a Dachshund), and Winton (an English Bulldog). The children explore the world around them through creative roleplay, overseen by the kind and caring Australian Shepherd teacher Calypso (voiced by Megan Washington). The child characters of Bluey are voiced by children of the program's production crew and are not credited on screen as voice actors.
Development Conception
In July 2017, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) co-commissioned Bluey as an animated series for preschool children to be developed by Queensland production company Ludo Studio. The production received funding from Screen Australia and Screen Queensland, with the setting of the series drawing upon the unique semi-tropical Queensland climate. Joe Brumm is the show's creator. He conceived the idea for the show while working on Charlie and Lola with Mark Paterson, who later created the character design for the pilot.
The series was inspired by his experience in raising two daughters. Brumm wanted to depict the importance of children participating in imaginative play, creating the title character Bluey as a cattle dog to give the series an Australian voice. Brumm had previously worked on children's programs in the United Kingdom as a freelance animator and decided to create Bluey as a replica of the program Peppa Pig for an Australian audience. He also drew inspiration from the shows Peanuts and The Simpsons. He conceived the idea in 2016, and produced a one-minute pilot through his company Studio Joho, with a small team in their spare time.
Brumm approached Ludo Studio to develop the series; co-founders Charlie Aspinwall and Daley Pearson pitched the pilot at conferences such as MIPCOM in France. Brumm stated that the first pilot contained some "dangerous" character behaviours which drew the attention of studio executives; this included Bandit pushing Bluey on a swing while playing a game on his smartphone. Pearson expressed that it was difficult to pitch the series as it was not high-concept, but rather "just a show about family and games". Brumm had considered making Bluey an adult-rated version of Peppa Pig featuring the challenges of breastfeeding, but decided to return to the original concept of a children's show after learning about The Letdown (2017–2019).
The studio developed a five-minute animation sample that was pitched at the Asian Animation Summit in Brisbane in 2016, and was thereby noticed by ABC and BBC executives. Michael Carrington of the ABC viewed the presentation and secured $20,000 of funding for the studio to produce a refined, seven-minute pilot. The new pilot was presented at the Asian Animation Summit in late 2017 and later reworked as "The Weekend" (Series 1 Episode 6). The two networks ordered 52 seven-minute episodes of Bluey, with the BBC investing 30 percent of the funding and acquiring the global rights for distribution and merchandising. The series was largely produced in Australia by a local team, many of whom were first-time animators from Brisbane, while animator Mark Paterson worked remotely from Auckland, New Zealand. The program was announced to premiere in Australia on ABC Kids, followed by CBeebies.
Production Writing
The stories featured in Bluey depict Bluey and Bingo engaging in imaginative play. Brumm wanted to show that self-directed and unstructured play is natural in shaping children and allowing them to develop. He consulted research based on socio-dramatic play, reading the works of Sara Smilansky and Vivian Paley, who both had backgrounds in early childhood education. The episodes show the parents as guides for their children, who allow them to explore their immediate surroundings independently, giving them opportunities to practise adult roles.
Brumm drew inspiration for scripts from his own experiences in watching his daughters play, which he described was "as natural to them as breathing". The program's scripts show how children can use gameplay to learn lessons and integrate the world of adults into their own; Brumm noticed how his children would recreate interactions such as visits to the doctor, through roleplay. Pearson stated that gameplay represents children's first experiences of collaboration, cooperation, responsibility and emotions such as jealousy.
Brumm discovered the importance of play-based learning after his daughter struggled with formal education, which led him to exclude elements of literacy and numeracy in Bluey and focus on the depiction of life skills. Brumm stated that he wanted the series to depict his experience as a parent rather than aim for children to be explicitly taught something. His creative aims were to make children laugh, and show parents what children can learn while engaged in play.
The characters of Bluey each represent a particular dog breed, some of which are drawn from Brumm's personal life. Brumm had a Blue Heeler named Bluey throughout his childhood, in addition to a Dalmatian named Chloe and an Australian Red Kelpie named Rusty, who was the title character of the series in its early development. Bandit is based on a Blue Heeler belonging to his father's friend. Bandit's career as an archaeologist was inspired by Brumm's older sibling Adam.
Brumm writes the majority of episode scripts, with Aspinwall labelling the series as an "observational" show, depicting Brumm's family life, and producer Sam Moor describing it as "[Brumm's] life on screen"; when producing the pilot, Brumm's daughters were aged between four and six, like Bluey and Bingo. Brumm's process for writing sometimes begins with making notes about his family's experiences; including games his children play and the conflict that arises between them. For this reason, Brumm has described the process as a challenge for other writers on the series. Moor stated that there are few writers besides Brumm, mostly animators already working on the series.
The program was designed to be a co-viewing experience for parents and their children to enjoy together. Brumm described the process of writing each episode as "a chance to make a short film". The conflict and humour in the episodes stems from Bandit's relationship with his daughters. Bluey has been described as "rough and tumble" by Pearson, with both her and Bingo being seen to subvert the stereotypes of female characters, but rather have the characteristics of real puppies. This has led to uninformed viewers questioning if the characters are boys or girls. Pearson has credited the decision of Bluey and Bingo being girls to resemble the real families of Brumm, Aspinwall and McCormack. In relation to the humour of the series, Brumm has stated there is a lot of physical activity and "craziness".
Storyboarding and animation Bluey is animated in-house at Ludo Studio in Brisbane, in Fortitude Valley, where approximately 50 people work on the program. Costa Kassab serves as one of the art directors of the series, who has been credited with drawing the locations of the series which are based on real places in Brisbane, including parks and shopping centres. Locations featured in the series have included Queen Street Mall and South Bank, as well as landmarks such as The Big Pelican on the Noosa River. Brumm determines the specific locations which are to be included. Post-production of the series takes place externally in South Brisbane.
Approximately fifteen episodes of the series are developed by the studio at any one time across a range of production stages. After story ideas are conceived, the script-writing process takes place for up to two months. The episodes are then storyboarded by artists, who produce 500 to 800 drawings over three weeks while consulting the writer's script. After the storyboard is finished, a black and white animatic is produced, to which the dialogue recorded independently by voice artists is added. The episodes are then worked on for four weeks by animators, background artists, designers, and layout teams. The entire production team views a near-completed episode of Bluey on a Friday. Pearson stated that over time, the viewings developed into test screenings where members of production would bring their family, friends, and children to watch the episode. The complete production process for an episode takes three to four months. Moor described the program's colour palette as "a vibrant pastel". Bluey is animated using CelAction2D.