New 'Bluey' episodes hit Disney+ Friday. Here's what parents are saying about the show
Hit children's show "Bluey," about a family of Blue and Red Heeler dogs in Australia, will bring even more lessons in imaginative play Friday to Disney+ when 10 new episodes hit the streamer.
Tackling both lighthearted and tougher topics, parents in Columbia are celebrating the additional episodes, along with a planned longer, 28-minute episode later this year. Typical "Bluey" episode lengths are seven to nine minutes.
This includes Caroline Boyer Ferhat, who has children ages 10, 7 and 5, and Nik Hargis, with children ages 10, 7 and 3. Both are administrators of the Columbia parenting group It Takes A Village on Facebook.
"We are excited about the ones on Friday. One has already made the rounds on TikTok called 'Cricket,'" Hargis said. "All of them should be good."
Boyer Ferhat also is a professor of psychology at William Woods University in Fulton, where her interest areas are in developmental psychology, as well as cognitive and early childhood development. Hargis is a stay-at-home dad, who formerly was a Columbia Public Schools learning specialist, and is coordinating speakers for the fall 2024 Homedadcon for the National At-Home Dad Network.
The popularity of "Bluey" also is seen at Daniel Boone Regional Library. Trying to find books or other materials related to the show may be difficult, wrote Kirk Henley, collection services manager in an email to the Tribune.
Items of all formats with "Bluey" in the title had 966 circulations in 2023, he wrote. That works out to 72 individuals items with roughly 13.4 circulations per month.
"To average more than one circulation per month is really impressive since our loan periods are 3 weeks. That essentially means everything was continuously checked out," Henley wrote.
'Bluey' popularity tied to use of imaginative play
Much of what makes "Bluey" so popular is its use of imaginative play and how children take those lessons to heart. It means children are able to use toys and other things they already have and apply them to play, Boyer Ferhat said.
"It is not a lot of props. It doesn't require a lot of resources," she said, explaining the time the dad character, Bandit Heeler, pretended to be a claw machine and used his children's Bluey and Bingo Heeler toys as prizes.
Hargis' children were good with imaginative play before Bluey, but it has exploded after they have watched the show, he said, noting while "Bluey" doesn't often come up in It Takes a Village, it does in an At-Home Dad Network group of which he is a member.
"(My children) can borrow from some of the creative writing on 'Bluey,'" he said, adding those in the At-Home group "share memes of the dad, Bandit, because he is one of the few dad characters portrayed in a positive light."
It also teaches children there are different forms of play for children and adults, Hargis said. This includes an episode where a group of dads were working to remove a tree stump. While it may have looked like work, there still was an element of play.
"They were cheering each other on, and their game is removing the stump versus having a (pretend) nail salon," he said.
'Bluey' tackles tough topics
"Bluey" also takes time to look at more difficult topics, especially if they are harder to talk about with children. This has included miscarriages in the case of the mom main character, Chilli Heeler, and infertility for Chilli's sister, Brandy.
"Some of that is healing for parents. It is showing healthy ways to have those conversations, and having age-appropriate conversations with kids around this as well," Boyer Ferhat said.
For Hargis, his children picked up on the message of the "Onesies" episode that touched on Brandy's infertility and her emotional and mental health issues associated with it.
"I think it does a great job of giving these tougher lessons in a way they can understand them. That it may not be in the cards for everyone to have kids," he said, adding how he was impressed about an episode exploring ADHD.
Even though the episode talked about common problems associated with ADHD, it also celebrated its joys.
"At the end, through the storytelling, look at all that you remember when you found something you loved and wanted to focus on, how much detail you gave and how involved it was," Hargis said.
It also helps children learn their parents are fallible, that they make mistakes. It doesn't put parents on a pedestal, which is what young children can do with their parents and that pedestal even happens in other children's programming, Boyer Ferhat said.
"My 10-year-old had shows like 'Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood' and it talked a lot about emotional regulation, and it also is an awesome show, but I think the difference between that and watching my daughters watch 'Bluey' I think is the role the parents play. They are a lot more hands-on," she said. "... You see more of the humanity of the parents, whereas that is not necessarily as present in some of the other shows I have seen."
Charles Dunlap covers local government, community stories and other general subjects for the Tribune. You can reach him at cdunlap@columbiatribune.com or @CD_CDT on Twitter. Subscribe to support vital local journalism.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Parents share their thoughts on 'Bluey' ahead of new episodes
