"This is confusing."
This article is about the character.
|
"For real life?!" ― Bluey's catchphrase[source]
Bluey Christine Heeler is the titular protagonist of Bluey. She is the older daughter of Bandit and Chilli, and the older sister of Bingo.
Bluey.tv Description
Bluey is an inexhaustible blue heeler puppy, who lives with her mum, dad and little sister Bingo. She likes to laugh and have fun but more than anything else she loves to play games with her family.
Bluey takes the everyday events of her family's life and transforms them into extraordinary adventures. This means role play, and whether it's a taxi driver, hotel manager or a mermaid, she loves to pretend she's a grown-up doing grown-up things herself.
Bluey is endlessly curious too. Even when she's nervous about trying something new, like walking to the creek or going to the movies, she always discovers something wonderful about the big wide world around her.
The most important thing in Bluey's life is her family and friends and she loves to share her new games, songs and wild adventures with them.
Janet (played by Bluey) classifies herself as a "Kind Granny". She's the biggest champion of her doddery friend Rita and the bossier of the two.
She sports a red and green shawl, and is into mahjong, motorbikes (pink ones only), sausages, and the occasional leisurely drive to the shops following her nanna nap.
Although she's a bit indecisive and forgetful, and sometimes unsteady on her feet, she's happy to take the lead in most situations – as matchmaker extraordinaire for her fellow bus passengers and Rita's partner-in-crime on bean-burgling missions
Her failing eyesight means she sometimes mistakes the TV for the toilet and can't read library books anymore, but a fabulous pair of purple spectacles help get her by.
"Bluey is a seven-year-old Blue Heeler pup who loves to play. Her parents and teacher give her lots of time to practice, which means she's become very good at inventing games, helping everyone choose their roles and deciding on the rules. Her favourite games are ones that involve lots of other kids and grown-ups (especially her dad) and she likes to pretend she's a grown-up doing grownup things herself."
Biography
Bluey is a member of the nuclear Heeler family. She is the daughter of Bandit and Chilli, and has a younger sister, Bingo. She has a best friend named Chloe, and is also close friends with Mackenzie, Rusty, Winnie, Coco, and Indy amongst other kids. Her neighbourhood friends include Lucky and Judo, and she is also friends with most students at Calypso's school. Additionally, she has a big buddy named Mia.[1]
Bluey may have been born before or after her mother, Chilli, suffered a miscarriage.[2] In either case, Chilli became greatly excited when Bluey learned to roll over early in her infancy. Chilli became anxious for Bluey to progress just as quickly through other stages leading to walking. However, she later learned-with some help-not to stress over the matter and to simply enjoy Bluey's development. This saw Bluey roll, bum shuffle, and even crawl backwards before eventually learning to walk in the Heeler Family's House kitchen. During this time, Bluey also first met three children who she would go on to be friends with: Coco, Judo, and Snickers.[3]
Approximately two years after Bluey was born, Chilli gave birth to another daughter, Bingo.[4] At one point, zebras were Bluey's favourite animal, but she later switched to cheetahs. When Bluey was still quite young, her mother and aunt Brandy became estranged; as a result, Bluey spent a number of years not remembering or knowing she had an aunt on her mother's side.[5][6] A relative she did see-albeit rarely, due to his working on an oil rig-was her father's older brother, Radley Heeler. At some point, Frisky was named her godmother. One time, Chilli accidentally booked both Radley and Frisky to babysit Bluey and Bingo while they went out.[7]
One holiday, when she was six or seven, Bluey and her family went camping with her Uncle Stripe's family. During the trip, she met and befriended a boy named Jean-Luc, who spoke French. In spite of their language barrier, the pair had a great deal of fun together, and Bluey was deeply saddened to awake one morning and find Jean-Luc had gone home. Chilli helped Bluey understand that such things often happened in life, and that it was an experience Bluey should treasure. She also expressed optimism when Bluey wondered whether she would ever see Jean-Luc again. In their teenage years, they would re-unite at the same campground.[8]
As an adult, Bluey moved out of her parents' house. She appeared with a child who is implied to be hers.[9]
Appearance
Bluey is a Blue Heeler with blue and tan fur.
Specifically, she has a rectangular shaped body, and has light blue paws, outer muzzle, eyebrows and chest, blue legs, arms, torso, head and tail stem, dark blue torso spots, tail tip, outer ears and head spots, and yellow inner ears and muzzle. She also has a black nose.
Notably, she looks very similar to her friend Rusty. However, there are subtle differences: Rusty is subtly top-heavy, with his waist being slightly slimmer than his head compared to Bluey. As such, if you disregard colour and fur patterns, she does indeed appear to share the same model as Rusty; only her tail and body-shape differentiate her model from his'.
Other designs
Pilot designs
- In the 2016 pilot, Bluey resembles her final design, but she has five spots on her back instead of three.
- Her design in the 2017 pilot is very close to her final design, but the only difference is that the markings on her face are slightly darker, and her nose is brown instead of black.
Different ages
- As a teenager ("Camping"), Bluey looks similar to her current design, but she is taller and has a tuft of visible hair on her head.
- As a baby ("Baby Race"), Bluey is shorter and wider, plus she wears a red nappy; she also has a lower lip.
- As an adult ("Surprise!"), Bluey has a fringe resembling her aunt Brandy's, an additional tuft of visible hair on her forehead, plus greying hairs and a lower lip.
Personality
Bluey is an energetic puppy who loves to play. A curious mind at heart, Bluey has a big, sprawling imagination, which she harnesses while playing games with her friends and family. She is a nice and friendly pup, and is always willing to see the good side in people who are generally mean; Bluey will always accept them into her games. Such an example is her soothing nominal bully Hercules and winning him over into her game of circus.
She cares for all her friends and family, especially her little sister Bingo, and she will do everything in her power to see them happy. The girl is also strong-willed and smart, and shows determination to see her games to the end, even if there is an obstacle or two in the way.
Despite her nice and friendly nature, Bluey is sometimes prone to making mistakes; she can be a bit too bossy when she plays games, she tends to take too long to set up a game, and can get easily distracted. However, in the end, Bluey will always learn a life lesson or two in her steps to grow as a pup.
She seems to dislike the idea that she resembles her father, Bandit[6], but does enjoy imitating him.[10] She also has picked up some of his mannerisms, such as expressing surliness or exasperation in a similar manner.[11]
Nicknames
The following is a list of nicknames used by, or referring to, Bluey throughout the series.
Nickname | Episode |
---|---|
Piano | "The Magic Xylophone" |
Ding Dongs | |
Garden Gnome | |
Doctor | "Hospital" |
Dr. Bluey | |
Janet | "Grannies" and "Bus" |
Barnicus | "Bumpy and the Wise Old Wolfhound" |
Dennis | "Teasing" |
Rhonda | "Hammerbarn" |
Marjory | "Daddy Dropoff" |
Karen | "Swim School" |
Margaret | |
Louis | "Musical Statues" |
Blue Cheese | "TV Shop" |
Trivia
In-show
- Bluey's favourite animal is a fruit bat, as seen in "Fruitbat".
- Also in the episode, she says her favourite breakfast is fruit salad.
- In "Onesies", cheetahs were established as her favourite animal, while four years previously zebras were her favourite animal.
- Also in the episode, Bluey reveals that she does not like the fact that she looks similar to Bandit.
- Bluey's favourite colour of capsicum (bell pepper) is yellow, as mentioned in the episode "BBQ".
- An older version of can be seen at the end of the episode "Camping". Inversely, she is depicted as a baby in "Baby Race".
- She may be unable to read as seen in "Takeaway" and "Bus", although in some episodes as well as in the short "Crazy Christmas Lights", she can be seen presumably reading a book. However, she might just be looking at pictures.
- She is also intrigued by the fact that her buddy Mia can write, which could mean that she is unable to either.
- In "Library", she can be seen reading aloud, which could mean that Bluey is starting to be able to read. Though again, she could just be trying to retell the story through the pictures.
- In the short "Tongue Twisters", she is depicted to be reading full sentences.
- Bluey's family is the first to have a known surname.
- Additionally, Bluey is the first character to have their middle name revealed. In "Family Meeting", it is revealed her middle name is "Christine", named after her Nana.
- The episode prior to it alludes to it by abbreviating it to a "C."
- Throughout "Bin Night", she is shown to have a white belt on an unspecified martial art (probably karate).
- Later in the episode, she can be seen advanced to the yellow belt.
- She is one of few characters in the show to have experience with martial arts. The other is her friend Rusty.
- Bluey plays the recorder, as shown in "Queens" and "Bin Night".
- In "Baby Race", Chilli confirms that Bluey is still two years older than Bingo, although she might just be approximating (either by default or excess).
- While Bingo's fifth birthday happened in "Handstand", Bluey's seventh birthday is shown in "Pass the Parcel".
- The long distance between her birthdays is somewhat noted by Bandit in "Chest", being confused as to why Bluey is still six (she tells him she's almost seven)
- Her age is confirmed in "Dragon": Chilli tells her that "[Bluey's drawing]'s pretty good for a seven-year-old."
- In "Burger Shop", it is mentioned that she is in preschool, more specifically a preparatory school as stated in Calypso's bio.
General
- Bluey was initially not intended to be the main protagonist. That honour originally went to Rusty, before he was relegated to a supporting character and rewritten as one of Bluey's close friends.
- It has been noted that Rusty shares a near-identical design to Bluey (being rectangular with identical snout shapes, but with exceptions as listed in #Appearance). This is alluded to in "Wild Girls".
- At one point, Rusty's Bluey.tv description stated that Rusty was instead one of Bluey's cousins, which was corrected to one of her friends in an update to his description.
- Being the main protagonist, Bluey has appeared in almost every episode. The only exceptions are "Turtleboy" and "Slide".
- She makes a non-speaking cameo in "Army".
- She has only been absent in four shorts, namely "Pea Pod Sausages", "Green Bottles", "Mower" and "Honk".
- The first short where Bluey speaks is "Jingle Bells".
- Viewer gender confusion: Bluey has frequently been mistaken as a male by many viewers, mainly due to her looking like her father, having some boyish interests, and her being blue, a stereotypical "boy color".
- In fact, when the show first aired, nearly all initial viewers assumed Bluey and Bingo were male, as their gender had not been mentioned in the first few episodes (despite the characters using female pronouns to describe either Bluey or Bingo). A few episodes later, it was stated that Bluey and Bingo were female characters.
- Even after this, many people who have only seen small things from the show tend to think Bluey is a boy, it has even got to the point where plush toys of Bluey nearly always get put in the "boys toys" aisle of stores, and in some cases, the plush is even straight up listed as a "boy dog plush" in online listings of it.
- The confusion was further fueled in "Kids", when a cashier compliments Bluey on her "nice young boy" (referring to Bandit), as many people believed that the cashier was talking to the latter.
- Fandom nod: This is later referenced in a few episodes: for example, in "Double Babysitter" when Radley says, in reference to Bluey, that "he's blue," after which Bluey corrects him, saying that she is a girl.
- Bluey and Bingo have unlockable Emojis on the DisneyNOW app and website that can be used on the user's profile. These emojis use the art style of Disney Emoji Blitz, a match-3 puzzle game for mobile phones.
- In the ABC Kids Listen app's Story Time promo, she briefly cameos as a drawing on a smartphone.
- She shares a name with the Guinness record holder for the longest-lived dog. [12]
- To protect their privacy and for "safety reasons", the identity of Bluey's voice actor is kept a secret from the public unlike many other children's TV shows which reveal actual names of children actors and actresses. And to this day, their identity is still a mystery. The same also goes for the other voice actors for many of the other children, including Bluey's sister, Bingo.
- However, in "Surprise!", a grown-up Bluey is shown to have a voice actress: Australian actress Geraldine Hakewill. This marks the first and potentially only time she has a credited voice actress.
Cameos & Absences
Being the main character for the entire show, Bluey has appeared in all but three episodes:
Episodes
- S02E16: "Army" (Cameo; appears with Chloe on her back, suggesting either "The Adventure" happens at the same time as this episode or that they like to repeat such game recurrently).
- S03E30: "Turtleboy" (Bluey, alongside Chilli, are mentioned in this episode by name, plus are pictured in the background)
- S03E45: "Slide"
Shorts
- "Silent Night (before Christmas)" (Cameo)
- "Crazy Christmas Lights" (Cameo)
- "Jingle Bells" (Cameo)
- "Pea Pod Sausages"
- "Mower"
- "Green Bottles"
- "Archaeology"
- "Honk"
Gallery
References
- ↑ "Barky Boats"
- ↑ Oderberg, Isabelle. Hard to Bear: Investigating the science and silence of miscarriage, pp 47-48. ISBN 9781761152160
- ↑ "Baby Race"
- ↑ "Yoga Ball"
- ↑ Bluey's Big Play
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Onesies"
- ↑ "Double Babysitter"
- ↑ "Camping"
- ↑ "Surprise!"
- ↑ "Copycat"
- ↑ "Musical Statues"
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluey_(long-lived_dog)