The Bluey gang is a transgenerational passion – if dog films work, a whole family of pooches should be mega. And this one definitely passes the Barkdel Test. Image: ABC
In around nine years, Queensland’s Ludo Studios has gone from a single quirky short to a key staff of forty, celebrating two Emmys, a string of international partnerships and the runaway success of the kids’ animation show Bluey.
The original forty episodes were led for Ludo by Charlie Aspinall, Daley Pearson, Danial Schulz, Sam Moore and Tony Nagle. They were written by Joe Brumm, with Tim Bain ad John McGeachin on one episode each, and directed by Joe Brumm.
The ABC’s collective furry head has exploded at the results. On iView it has had 75m unique plays with 55m of those in 2019 alone.
On traditional TV, the ABC happily announces that
This means that kids are watching it over and over again, but the ABC claims that it has a solid parental audience as well, in a very rare crossover which keeps both audiences engaged (until repetition does its damage).
The ABC has told the outside world that series 2 of Bluey has been commissioned, a chorus of support has come from relieved and excited parents, and the Queensland government believes it will bring $6m to the local economy. Fifty two seven minute eps will be calming our children in 2020.
Besides this totland joy, the financing is pretty impressive. These two series are co-financed by the ABC and BBC Studios, the core international piece of the BBC which has subsumed BBC Worldwide. At the moment the series has not been run outside Australia at all and the show is geoblocked to prevent it leaking out. So the BBC commissioned season two without seeing season one in a single international market.
Screen Australia and Screen Queensland are in the deals as well.
Despite the delay in screenings, the BBC has already delved into the merchandising opportunities.
This moment is a chance to dig out one of our favourite Screenhub articles from last year. Daley Pearson gave a wonderful speech at AFTRS on the idea of Australian stories. He spoke from the heart.
—
Thanks to Markus Stone for the Bechdel gag. So snap!
