Few shows have enjoyed the wild success of the Australian children’s cartoon “Bluey.”
The series focuses on an anthropomorphic family of dogs and the eponymous Bluey, who is the eldest daughter of the family.
Bluey’s family includes Bingo, her little sister, Chilli, her mom, and Bandit, her father, and the series generally focuses on at least one of them in a given episode.
The show, while clearly aimed at younger children, has been a hit with adults and parents as well due to the show’s humor and subject matter (one episode deftly tackles the somber topic of infertility, for example).
The show hasn’t been without some controversy (critiques have widely ranged from complaints that Bandit is too good of a father, to the mention of off-screen lesbian mothers) but has largely maintained a positive approval rating throughout its existence.
Given all of that, it should come as little surprise that when “Bluey” announced its longest episode yet — clocking in at a robust 28 minutes in length, compared to the typical eight — fans’ collective interest was piqued.
The episode dropped on April 14 to uproarious approval, but even the show’s creator, Joe Brumm, couldn’t have been expecting some of the gaudy viewership numbers that “The Sign” episode garnered.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, “The Sign” generated 10.4 million worldwide views worldwide on Disney Plus in the week following its debut.
Those 10.4 million views equate to a whopping 291.2 million minutes of viewership.
Do you have any kids or grandkids in your life who are “Bluey” fans?
Full spoilers for “Bluey” to follow: “The Sign,” while weaving multiple plotlines from the series throughout, spends a good chunk of its 28-minute runtime observing the struggles of the Heeler family as they grapple with a big move out of their home and city (the family lives in Brisbane, Australia) after Bandit gets a new job. “The Sign” is a reference to the “For Sale” sign placed in front of the Heeler home.
The episode ends on a somewhat ambiguous note, making it unclear if the Heeler family would leave Brisbane.
That cliffhanger ending sparked all manner of speculation about the future of the series, which has always been unclear because of Brumm’s refusal to discuss it.
“The BBC has asked for me never to talk about the kids’ voices or the future of Bluey,” Brumm told THR in June 2023.
Compounding matters? A week after “The Sign” came out, a surprise episode of “Bluey” came out, fittingly called “Surprise,” that felt an awful lot like a proper epilogue to the series.
“Surprise” was the standard 8-minute episode exploring some of the immediate aftermath of “The Sign,” but saved a rather big reveal for the end.
The episode ends with a flash-forward, showing a much older Heeler family (still living in the same house, of course) sans Bingo.
You do meet, however, an elderly Bandit and Chilli, an adult Bluey… and what appears to be Bluey’s young child.
If that doesn’t feel like a proper bow on the series, nothing will.
For those who grew up with cartoon families like the Simpsons, Jetsons or Flinstones, that little glimpse of the future may not mean a whole lot.
But fans of “Bluey” know that, unlike many of its cartoon family peers, the Australian show actually observes the passage of time. Yes, the show has offered glimpses into the future before, but time still moves onward in the series as a whole.
Unlike, say, Bart Simpson’s terminal residence as a fourth grader in “The Simpsons,” Bluey and her family have actually grown and acknowledged the passage of time.
While the franchise will assuredly continue in some way (it’s simply too lucrative not to), it’s not clear what that future will look like for “Bluey.”
There is currently no indication that the series will move on to a season four, causing some fans to speculate that the future of “Bluey” may be as movies or a multimedia franchise.
