In his attempt to create a show that kids and their parents can both enjoy, Joe Brumm delivered a bona fide, global juggernaut.
Stateside, where Bluey, a big-hearted animated series about a family of Australian Heeler dogs, streams on Disney+, it ranked among the top 10 most streamed programs in the U.S. last year. Back home in Australia, where the seven-minute episodes are produced, it remains the No. 1 children’s show across all age groups. It also regularly collects awards, including an Emmy, and heaps of critical praise. In fact, the Bluey universe has since expanded with a hugely lucratively collection of merchandise and, more recently, a live show.
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Brumm, who was just named to The Hollywood Reporter’s list of the 75 Most Powerful People in Kids’ Entertainment and writes every episode of the series himself, hopped on a Zoom from Australia to discuss Bluey’s origins, the kids’ TV pitfalls that he managed to avoid, and the (many) things he wasn’t able to get past the outlets airing his show.
When you set out to make Bluey, what did you see as the hole in the marketplace?
I suppose this is pretty obvious, but a good co-viewing show where the parents could genuinely watch it with the kids. There were shows like that in older demographics, but they were a bit few and far between at the preschool stage, and I thought this is probably where you need it the most because you do end up watching a lot of it.
And, frankly, hating a lot of it.
Yes, and hating a lot of it. You just realize how formulaic and similar it is. And because I’d worked in the industry, I just saw why it ended up like that. So, when it came time for me to do mine, it was quite easy to avoid all of the same pitfalls.
What were those pitfalls, exactly?
Well, the first one is this sort of thing that always gets said, which is, “Kids’ shows need to be about kids having agency and power because they don’t have any in real life.” But it’s like, have you met my kids? That’s all they’ve got is agency and power. (Laughs.) The other was, and this is terrible, but it was just not to hire kids’ TV writers. I think a lot of them are really creative people, but they’ve labored in an industry, and in a demographic, which just accepts the same homework turned in. And I just thought, “Look, that will just get you the show which I’ve already seen.” So, I just didn’t hire any writers.
You ended up writing it all yourself, no?
Yeah, and that’s probably the third component to this: Someone like me, who’s used to making short films and has more of an interest, I guess, in adult comedy, was like, “All right, well, what would I do?” And then the other was just a craft thing, which is, we really tried to get it to look beautiful and to sound beautiful. It should have its own score and its own visual style and really not just [be about] trying to knock it out for cheap.
Did I read somewhere that there was a moment, early on, where you considered making this a cartoon just for adults?
Oh yeah, that happened. It was going to be a kids’ thing, and then we weren’t getting much traction with the pilot because it was a bit hard for people to see what it would be. So, I always thought it would be kind of funny to do an R-rated Peppa Pig. (Laughs) Using Peppa Pig’s grammar but telling the story about parenthood as it really is, you know, mastitis and all that. And I wrote that script out, and it was 22 minutes, and I reread it recently, and I really like it. I’d love to make it one day. We ended up touching on it a bit in the episode “Baby Race,” in a very G-rated way, but [in the adult version] there was nothing left out. It was pretty dark, man. But on the eve of going any further with it, there was a show out here [in Australia] called The Letdown, which was live-action but hit the same territory, and I just thought, “Oh, that’s doing that really well,” and I pivoted back to preschool.
What did that initial pilot entail, and why do you think it didn’t get traction?
It was very simple. It was one minute. My girls always used to ask me to push them on the swings and they’d say, “Can you put us all the way around?” So, Bandit’s pushing them, and Bluey’s saying, “Push me all the way around,” and so he ends up pushing her all the way around. (Laughs.) And it’s just this little absurd sketch, and it got shown around, but I don’t think people knew what to do with it. They’re like, “Look, this breaks all S&P rules. Is this for kids? Is this for adults?” It needed developing, but the seed was there!
Have you found yourself bumping up against that question of what’s appropriate for the preschool demo at other points along the way?
(Laughs.)
That suggests yes, and maybe even often?
In almost every script, I would say. And some more than others. But you’ve gotta be really careful in preschool. There are two categories [of things that won’t fly]. There’s things that are going to get a kid hurt, and I rarely have an argument for that. The other one is more about taste — it’s what’s appropriate and what’s offensive. So, definitely lots of words have to get changed, and then behaviors and concepts get dulled down. And eventually I would just hit these walls, and sometimes I’d say, “Look, I can’t change this. This is too funny.” Or, “I like it too much.” And so, we’d just be like, “Well, we just won’t show that entire episode or that scene or that sequence.” Some of them, like “Dad Baby” [an episode where Bandit, Bluey’s dad, pretends to give birth] for instance, doesn’t get shown in America. But what are you going to do, not make “Dad Baby”? I love it.
Is there a file on your computer of all the things that you weren’t able to do?
Yeah. We’re doing an Art of Bluey book, and I thought it might be [fun to do] a little chapter on all of the changes and the things that couldn’t get through. So, the other day I wrote them all down and had a good laugh going through them all again.
Alright, give me one of your favorites that never made it?
Well, one that made me laugh was [supposed to be in] the episode “Shadowlands.” When I grew up, I went to a Catholic school, and so you mixed with a lot of kids who were Catholics, but also with a lot who weren’t. And the ones who weren’t just had not heard of anything to do with religion or Jesus, right? So, there’s just a little line in there where they’re pretending all the sunlight is water, and they’re going, “But you know we can’t get to the things,” and they go, “Well, maybe we can walk on water.” And they go, “No one can walk on water.” And I was going to have Snickers say, “Jesus can.” And Bluey just say, “Who’s Jesus?” And then we’d move on. It wasn’t proselytizing, it wasn’t insulting. That was the exchange, and it got quickly shot down. But that one was particularly funny to me. That’s my sense of humor. And it’s the correct decision [to not include it]. It doesn’t belong in a preschool cartoon. It’s too weird. But it still made me laugh.
I’m curious who shoots something like that down? Or more generally, who’s giving notes or feedback on this show?
The people who give feedback on Bluey are the ABC [Australia Broadcasting Corp.], the BBC and sort of Disney through the BBC.
The success of Bluey has yielded a live show plus books and toys and a whole lot of merch. As somebody who has been so intimately involved in crafting every episode of the series, how easy or hard has it been to cede control of the extensions?
I would say it was very difficult in the beginning. When all of the big decisions had to get made, like what was the tone and what would the leap from 2D to 3D look like in figurines and stuff like that, I just wanted to make sure — because the show and the stories are not disposable — that the products had some of that to them, too. That they had a level of quality and care and were a bit surprising and were kind of cool as well. But I don’t have much to do with it anymore, really, almost nothing. I do poke around in the books from time to time, but the BBC tends to handle that, and they’re doing a good job.
When it comes to the show itself, do you have a favorite episode?
Yeah, but it hasn’t gone to air yet. Of the ones that have gone to air, I really do love the season two episode called “Flat Pack.” [The episode includes Bandit and Chilli struggling to put together their new flat-pack patio swing seat, as Bluey and her sister Bingo use the cardboard and bubble wrap to effectively construct their own mini-civilization.] It’s got, like, my old short film background behind it, and, to me, it just does a lot of things. It doesn’t exclude the kids, it tells a funny little thing, but it’s also a very meaningful story for me, who’s trying to figure out my life and all that.
I’m often impressed at how much you’re able to pack into seven minutes. Does it ever feel limiting to you?
I spent most of my early career making short films pretty much by myself, and they’d tap out around two or three minutes, so seven minutes was like a feature film when you’re animating it yourself. I also like having that limitation because it does force you to really just cut out a lot of extraneous stuff, and sometimes it’s jokes that you want, but it forces you to be quite disciplined with the storytelling. And listen, sometimes we just can’t do it, and we have to go to seven minutes and 30 seconds or eight minutes, and once or twice I’ve found myself at five minutes just going, “Holy shit, what am I going to do now?” So, yeah, seven minutes is perfect for me, but there was no science behind it. It was that I didn’t want to go as long as Charlie & Lola, and I didn’t want to go as short as Peppa Pig.
As the show began being licensed around the world, were there conversations about changing the accents and making the show feel less distinctively Australian?
It was definitely something that I was always going to hold my ground on. At the time that I was making season one, we were training 50 people and I was writing and directing, so a lot of this stuff was happening on my periphery. But I remember hearing that Disney had had a conversation about changing the accents for the American audience; and then someone else told me, “No, no, that was never gonna happen.” So, I never really knew. But then very, very recently, I heard from someone at Disney, who happens to be Australian, that it was absolutely going to happen and this person just fought and said, “No, you’ll lose so much,” and she managed to convince them to stick with the Aussie accents, which I can categorically say saved the show internationally.
And how about the decision to have actual kids voice the kid roles?
No. I think your first question was, like, “What were some of the barriers you put in place to make sure this wouldn’t end up like other kids’ shows,” and that was the main one: to not use adults for the kids’ voices, even though it’s easier and convenient. I think if you just looked at a show like Charlie & Lola, which I cut my teeth on as an animator, you saw how well it worked. So, that was how it was from the beginning, and people fell in love with the voices and realized that was part of the charm. Look, it certainly makes things more difficult, but an adult pretending to be a kid just never feels real to anyone watching it.
Are you writing more Bluey now?
Uh, the BBC has asked for me never to talk about the kids’ voices or the future of Bluey. (Laughs.)
Understood. With Bluey’s runaway success, I’m curious what doors have opened that were previously closed to you, and what you want to do with this success?
I like my job, so I want to keep writing stories and putting vision and music and sound onto them. I also like the idea of telling something sequential and a bit longer. I love the idea of making features. I’ve learned so much in doing Bluey — from a writing and directing standpoint, it’s like doing a doctorate — so I’m really interested to see what I can do in other age groups and in other formats when the time is right.
Your daughters are now almost 11 and 12, which presents a new set of experiences and challenges. Is that life stage appealing, narratively, and are the girls eager for you to make a show for them to watch?
It’s more me wanting to do something for them, and me wanting to do something for myself when I was their age. I mean, Bluey was me wanting to do something for them then, and so yeah, I think you still want that as your kids get older. But look, I just really love telling stories and having a successful show like this and getting to work with brilliant people, it’s been the highlight of my career.
Before you go, I have to ask how you think you compare to Bandit as a father? I always marvel at what fabulous parents they are, particularly Bandit, and I know I’m not alone.
Well, look, I definitely have my moments. (Laughs.) But I think what anyone can relate to with Bandit and Chilli is that, despite the ups and down, they really love those kids and they just want what’s best for them. And we might all have different ways of doing that, but I think that’s what parents are responding to in Bandit and Chilli, and that’s why the show has been successful. It’s funny for the kids — like, kids love it because it’s silly and it reminds them of themselves — whereas I think it makes parents get emotional because having kids is emotional and it’s just a mirror to you. You’re not crying because of Bandit’s love for his kid, you’re crying because of how much you love your kid and he just reminds you of that.
A version of this story first appeared in the June 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
