Bandit Heeler is having a midlife crisis, and ‘Bluey’ wants you to notice

Their house is much bigger than you might expect, given one of them works as an archeologist and the other is in airport security. People have been getting suspicious.

“It’s been estimated that the Heeler home is worth at least $1-$2 million, if not more,” one committed fan writes on Reddit. “...A few real estate articles say $4 million, but $1-2 million seems to be the most realistic answer. Every once in a while, the thought creeps into my mind that the reason they are such amazing parents are because they are millionaires. I do think they are fantastic people who live frugally and they don’t flaunt their money… But sometimes I have the thought that part of the reason they are such wonderfully involved parents is because they can afford to be. They live in a great neighborhood, send their kids to fantastic schools, and their jobs seem to be very flexible so they spend a lot of time home with their kids. As a parent who isn’t wealthy, it’s a little discouraging.”

Underneath, theories dive into whether inheritance might play a part in the spacious Queensland home where these parents are raising their daughters. The upper balconies and the lower decks; the large garden with its fruit trees and trampoline; the playroom, the separate living area, the kitchen with its island and its large dining table, and the three bedrooms, one of which is an en-suite — all of it adds up. The top-voted Reddit comment points out that a bit of money from Nana might’ve resulted in a smaller mortgage — “much more achievable for an academic and a customs officer”.

“Yes their property may be worth $1-2 million now, but if they bought 20 years ago it was more likely $300k, which was doable for 2 working people,” one, more sympathetic fan points out. “Property prices in Brisbane have skyrocketed over the last 20 years, all they needed to do was to get in at the right time.”

It’s impossible for us to find out exactly how these parents actually did it, however, because they’re both talking cartoon dogs.

open image in gallery

Chilli and Bandit Heeler — parents of Bluey and her little sister, Bingo — aren’t just loveable canines and occasional screentime distraction techniques for busy caregivers, however. They’re veritable icons. Viewers look up to them; parents strive to be like them. Their family trees are plotted in cyberspace and their motivations are deconstructed on message boards. It turns out that Bluey might not actually be about Bluey after all.

To rewind somewhat: Bluey, the Australian children’s show that follows the day-to-day lives of a family of blue heeler dogs, premiered in late 2018 and by 2024 was the most-streamed content across all platforms by a country mile (55.62 billion minutes were spent on Bluey, with its closest runner-up, Grey’s Anatomy, way behind at 47.85 billion). Created by Joe Brumm, who had previously worked on the popular-but-not-quite-as-stratospheric Peppa Pig, it’s fun and engaging while still being relatively low-stimulation. In a world of thinkpieces about how Cocomelon is brain rot that will turn your children into gibbering wrecks before they reach kindergarten, Bluey stepped in with some reassurance. Its seven-minute episodes are short enough to assuage parental guilt and feature plenty of natural pauses to allow the developing brain to keep up. And then there’s the dialogue: supposedly aimed at children, but really aimed at least half the time at the parents watching along.The show now has fan theories, a subreddit (r/bluey), its own Bluey Wiki, multiplepodcasts, a series of books, a Macy’s Day Parade balloon, an award-winning (yes, award-winning) Spotify album, and even a limited-edition set of coins.

Despite its positivity and its hijinks, one of the reasons Bluey hits home is because it doesn’t present parenting as an all-fun-all-the-time experience. Chilli regularly goes for walks on her own and is seen telling Bingo that she “doesn’t feel like playing right now” as she collapses onto the sofa after finishing cleaning the house; Bandit tries to sneak off to read the paper or watch TV before being interrupted by the kids. In “Fruit Bat”, Bluey sees her father playing rugby in her dream and mentions it to Chilli — and Chilli tells her he had to give up his hobby after he had children. At another point in the same episode, Chilli is seen as slumping down the stairs after putting Bluey to bed and saying to her husband, with a long-suffering sigh, “She’s asleep.” (Spoiler: She is not asleep.)

open image in gallery

In fact, sleep deprivation — probably the hardest part of early-years parenting — is never glossed over in Bluey. We see Bandit fall asleep on the living room floor while Chilli wraps Christmas presents. In “Sleepytime”, we see both parents with visible eye-bags running around after Bluey and Bingo all night, swapping beds, gathering glasses of water, and half-heartedly singing Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer while Bluey pees. In “Dad Baby” Bandit finds Bingo’s old baby carrier and cheerfully informs her: “I used to wear this and walk around the park with you instead of sleeping” (incidentally, “Dad Baby” is an episode that was censored by Disney+ when it joined the platform because it depicted such realistic-seeming scenes of childbirth using that carrier and a paddling pool.)

The show delivers a lot of similar moments, intended to speak directly to the parents watching rather than the kids. Some of those moments are light-hearted, such as when Bandit is seen discussing getting neutered in “Perfect,” clearly intended as a wink-wink-nudge-nudge to dads contemplating vasectomies, or when Bluey and Bingo’s tearaway cousin Muffin is cajoled by her competitive father into doing a YouTube unboxing video that goes horribly wrong. And then there are the things you can work out for yourself and feel a little smug about — like the fact that Bandit’s probably an archaeologist because dogs like digging up bones, and Chilli’s airport security job probably means she’s a sniffer dog (props to my husband for that one.)

Then there are the other moments, the ones that register less as a joke and more as a gut-punch. In “Baby Race,” Chilli is seen with a baby Bluey at a mothers’ group, where all the other babies are hitting their milestones faster than hers (especially the infant genius Judo.) Eventually, one of the mothers comes to visit Chilli — who has been ridden with guilt about how Bluey is consistently the last one in the group to sit up, crawl and stand — at home. There, she reveals that she’s not a first-time mom at all, but currently looking after her eighth baby. “And there’s something I have to tell you,” she adds, with a gentle paw on the anxiety-ridden Chilli’s arm. “You’re doing great.” Cue tears on the other side of the screen.

The Heelers have a lot to be jealous of, from a material perspective. But they also have imperfect family lives. Chilli’s family in particular is rarely seen at family gatherings — though we do later see her dad — and it’s heavily implied that her mother died young. Her sister, Aunt Brandy, makes an appearance in “Onesies,” where the A-plot is Bluey and Bingo being driven wild by animal onesies given to them as gifts. But in the background, Chilli repeatedly tells her sister she’s upset that she hasn’t seen her in four long years.

In a scene where Bluey and her mom are hiding together in the bath, we get a little more context on why this was. “There’s something Aunt Brandy wants more than anything in the world, and there’s nothing anyone can really do about it,” Chilli tells Bluey, as the visuals cut to a scene of Aunt Brandy playing with Bingo upstairs, laughing joyfully, before Bingo rolls away and Aunt Brandy is left empty-armed and sad. Later, she tells her sister, “I wish things could be different.” But things aren’t different, and Aunt Brandy doesn’t become a regular character from then onwards. An adult understands that this speaks to the pain of infertility and the associated emotional costs. A child simply understands that there are sometimes reasons people don’t visit often, even when nobody has done anything wrong.

That’s not the end of Bluey’s commentary on fertility struggles. In “The Show,” when Bluey and Bingo are performing a play to their parents, a balloon up Bingo’s shirt representing a baby in the play pops. It causes a clear moment between Chilli and Bandit — they grab each other’s hands and their smiles fade momentarily — even if the narrative moves quickly on. In the book Hard to Bear by Isabelle Oderberg, which delves into the history and science of miscarriage, she writes to Joe Brumm to ask if the moment really does imply that Chilli miscarried at some point — and Brumm replies to say that it does (the Bluey subreddit lit up with the announcement that the miscarriage is canon, after a poster shared the pages from the book). His reply strongly suggests that Chilli and Bandit wanted a third child, but were not able to conceive one.

Adult loss and adult grief is a surprisingly popular theme in Bluey. In “Stickbird,” Bluey and Bingo collect up their bad feelings and throw them in the ocean when they’re sad — then, at the very end, once Bluey and Bingo have long forgotten their temporary woes and run off to play, Bandit takes a moment to stare out to sea and throw his own bad feelings away. It’s never entirely clear what prompted his melancholy, but it hits hard because the high-energy, perpetually optimistic dad character is seen by many as the heart and soul of the show. There are (you won’t be shocked to hear) multiple theories about the source of Bandit’s melancholy here and the reason why it’s left ambiguous — perhaps the archaeological dig he went to attend for six weeks didn’t find anything? Perhaps he wrote a book that was badly reviewed? Perhaps he felt sad that his kids were growing up? Perhaps the creators of Bluey, who during the time of the episode’s release had just gained fame and recognition, were trying to communicate their sadness at some of the harsher criticism? — but it’s a moment of character development that feels honest. Bandit is a great dad — emotionally present, creative, loving, firm but fair — but he also is a person (well, dog) with an internal life that sometimes differs from the brave face he shows his children.

That undercurrent resurfaces in “The Sign,” the much-discussed bumper episode of Bluey, coming in at 28 minutes long. When the Heelers nearly sell their house and move, Bandit is the one who seems most invested in change — until the very last moment. When he pauses outside the new house, it’s clear the weight of uncertainty is upon him. Was he hoping a fresh start would fix something unspoken? Was he wrestling with the classic midlife impulse to do something big? He clearly isn’t sure. Ultimately, he decides to stay, but the fact that he even considered uprooting everything suggests that beneath his goofy exterior, Bandit is still figuring out what he wants.

“The Sign” is a particularly interesting example because it’s like the anti-“Inside Out.” A lot of kids’ shows and movies, understandably, take the opposite approach to “The Sign,” choosing to hammer home the message that there’s a lot of stuff we can’t change in life — house moves, divorce — and it’s important to build up resilience to such change and learn to go along with it. But “The Sign” plays out a childhood fantasy: that the house move might not go through, that the seemingly inevitable change might not happen. It hands Bluey and Bingo a win, and the lesson seems reserved for the grownups: Being the chief decision-maker is hard. You can walk back something you’ve realized isn’t right, even if your pride is wounded. In other words: Maybe Bandit is having a midlife crisis and acting rashly because of it. And maybe that’s OK.

Then there’s Bob. Bandit’s dad appears in the background during a scene from Bandit’s memory, grumpy as hell and unwilling to engage with his three children (Bandit and his brothers, Uncle Rad and Uncle Stripe). Bandit jokes that that’s just how dads were in those days, but there’s clearly something more to his relationship with his father. Bob is perhaps a bit of a misanthrope — he isn’t seen at the family Christmas at Bluey’s house — or perhaps he’s ill. In one mini episode, he’s seen helping Nana rebuild some blocks that Bluey and Bingo built, and agreeing to watch the TV around the structure, but he doesn’t actively engage with his grandchildren when they’re there and he isn’t acknowledged by Chilli when she picks them up and thanks Nana, either. It could be that Bandit has an emotionally unavailable or physically frail father, or that Bob simply isn’t as interested in parenting and grandparenting as Nana or Bandit himself. There’s enough left open to interpretation that parents with specific circumstances can take some comfort: Bandit’s got a complex background, too, despite the nice house and the good job and the warm and helpful mother figure, and he’s managed to parent effectively despite it.

The true father of Bluey, however, is Joe Brumm — and he made a heartrending admission of his own recently. After “The Sign” aired in April 2024, he took some time to think. And then he wrote a script for a full-length Bluey movie! Yay! But, then. Then. He realized he’d come to the end of the road. He wasn’t tapping into the parental headspace of having a four- and six-year-old as well as he could now his own two kids are older. He wasn’t sure where to go from here.

“I always said I wouldn’t keep making the show if I thought I couldn’t make any new season as good as the last,” he wrote, in an open letter on the Bluey website. “This would have been the case for me with a potential season four, so I’ve decided to take a break from my involvement in the TV series. In the event I can’t wrap my head around doing more seasons myself, ‘The Sign’ will mark my TV finale for Bluey and I wrote it as such… To be clear, this is not an announcement about the end of the show, but an acknowledgement that my main focus will be on the film.” Season three came out in 2022, but the timeline for season four — despite much speculation — remains unclear (the feature-length movie has an estimated release date of early 2027.)

open image in gallery

“What separates Bluey from most other kids’ shows is that it is a passion project for a single creator. If Joe Brumm feels that his passion is no longer with the show and he trusts his team to keep working on the show without him, I trust his instincts,” one user wrote in response on Reddit. As others rushed to speculate about the logistics, the voice actors (“I predict the girls’ voice actors will be let go. Just think about it. There’s no way they won’t be credited in the movie. They’re 15 to 18 years old when the movie gets released, because the show piloted in 2016”), the possible replacement showrunners (Ludo Studio co-founder Daley Pearson or director and voice of Mackenzie’s dad Richard Jeffrey?), and whether the series will see the same perceived declines in quality as The Simpsons or Community when they lost their Joe Brumms, one lone voice said the quiet part out loud: “I know we mainly have adult Bluey fans here, but sometimes you need to remember who this show is primarily aimed at. Young children are not going to care too much if the showrunner changes. They won’t even mind if we have to get new voice actors to keep the kids sounding young… So yes, things might change. You, as an adult, may notice these changes and you may decide you don’t like them. But the core target audience will still be there. I’ve seen people comparing Bluey to The Simpsons, but they all seem to forget that the Simpsons isn’t aimed at five-year-old kids. It’s made for adults but can be enjoyed by kids. Bluey is the opposite to this — it’s made for kids but can be enjoyed by adults.”

Is that canon? It’s trifficult to know.