You're not a toddler, nor a parent, but you still love Bluey? You are not alone – Daily Press

By CHEYANNE MUMPHREY (Associated Press)

PHOENIX (AP) A little blue dog with an Australian accent has won the hearts of people all over the world.

He is the main character from Bluey, a children's program consisting of seven-minute episodes that captivated children and adults. This week's release of its longest episode yet, clocking in at 28 minutes, has sparked an outpouring of appreciation for the series, even from those who aren't toddlers or parents .

Bluey follows an Australian blue heeler who, along with her sister (a red heeler named Bingo), navigates between home and school. It's a favorite with children for its playful humor, but it also appeals to adults who remember their childhood.

My childhood experience wasn't the greatest, so I always resonated with shows that felt good, says Miriam Neel, who lives in Colorado. Bluey's parents allow for imagination and creativity and are truly involved with their children, and I would have loved to have those experiences.

Neel is 32 years old and has chosen not to have children. She says the show has become part of her morning routine and is often a preferred choice for background noise when working from home.

I'm not going to speak for the entire generation, but millennials find comfort in cartoons. It's what many of us watched growing up, she said. And if I'm going to spend time watching something, I'd rather watch something that doesn't make me afraid of the world, like any Law & Order show.

Bluey, which now has over 150 episodes, premiered in Australia in 2018 and began streaming on Disney+ in 2020. It was also adapted into a digital series where famous fans like Bindi Irwin and Eva Mendes read some of the popular story books, and a live theater show that travels around the world.

The show has also won several awards, including the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Children's Television Series every year since 2019 and an International Emmy Kids Award.

The series offers the child's perspective on morning routines, errands and chores, while giving viewers a glimpse into what parents' lives are like through mother Chilli and father Bandit.

This week's special episode, The Sign, explores the emotions surrounding themes that resonate with children and adults moving away, marriage, infertility and relationships after divorce. In addition to these universal themes, the episode concludes the third season with Easter eggs for dedicated fans.

Lindsey Schmidt, 40, says the continuity of the shows keeps her family waiting for more.

There are so many callbacks to previous episodes, says Schmidt, who lives in Ohio with her husband and three children. The shows we watch regularly with our kids don't reflect our lives the way this show does. These anthropomorphic dogs look like us.

But there are mixed feelings about the SPOILER episode ending in which the Heeler family abandons their move. Some families who move often for work find this unrealistic. Meg Korzon, 31, is moving across the country with her four children because her husband is in the military. This is his seventh move in 10 years.

I was hoping it would be an episode that aligned with the realities of life, our lives, as a military family, she said. I was selfishly disappointed because this could have been an episode about change and growth.

But the show doesn't back down from other difficult topics, and that's part of the adult charm, too.

As a parent, you aspire to be as good to parents as Chilli and Bandit are to parents. They always have a great way of talking to the kids about problems, says Schmidt's husband John, 40, adding that the couple often refers to episodes when trying to explain things to their children.

The series touched on topics such as aging, death, and making friends as an adult. It also introduced a character who uses sign language and another with ADHD.

Jacqueline Nesi, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University, notes that Bluey promotes self-regulation and conflict resolution for children, as well as engaged parenting and patience for adults.

We see them face some of the challenges that we, as parents, might also face. And at the same time, they provide a good model for different parenting skills by asking open-ended questions to facilitate children's creativity, using natural consequences when they misbehave, actively playing with them and letting them take the lead , she says.

The show also did a lot to expose children to world of animation, displaying different styles in the episodes Escape and Dragon, providing a nearly voiceless episode in Rain, and breaking the fourth wall in Puppets, where the series briefly stops to zoom out to create only a few seconds of animated imagery.

It is also credited with attracting dogs and not because the characters are of the same species.

Research said that dogs have vision similar to red-green color blindness in humans, meaning their color spectrum is limited to blue, yellow, brown and shades of gray which happen to be the colors of the Heeler family. According to Rover, there were also more pets named Bluey, Bingo, Chilli and Bandit in the United States last year.

So it's pretty safe to say that Bluey has appeal across species, as well as across generations.

I used to tell people what do The Sopranos, The Wire and Breaking Bad have in common? They all have lower IMDb scores than Bluey. That was the case anyway. I've watched all these great shows, but I think Bluey is still one of my favorites, maybe because I have kids. But I put it up there with all of them, John Schmidt says, admitting that he and his wife watched the episodes without their children.

Schmidt says the episode made for a nice arc to end the season and would otherwise be a perfect series finale.

I'm moved by the potential of Bluey not having any more new episodes, Schmidt says. But hey, see.