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bluey-fan · 5 years

Video

I made a short video showcasing the preview footage from 2017 for Bluey’s episode “The Weekend” along with the final footage that was actually aired.

I’d like to go over all the differences between pre-release Bluey and the final release I noticed! Check out the differences by clicking the read-more link if you’re curious, and if you spotted anything I didn’t, let me know, I’ll edit my post.

Backgrounds are VERY different, and every character except for Bluey looks different than their final design. There are some minor differences, but for the most part I’m only going to be talking about things that I feel were intentional rather than accidental, i.e. in one shot Bingo is missing shadows on her legs. Let’s talk about the intro first.

Intro

The intro is completely different from the final. It shows early Mackenzie, Rusty, and Bluey dancing. They appear pretty close to their final versions design-wise, just with darker colors! They also use older models than compared to the preview itself. The older models appear more rectangular, especially on the muzzle, and the ears are different. Also, the WAFF WAFF at the end sounds like Bingo’s WAFF WAFF in The Claw, it could be different though. Also, the title card doesn’t have a character saying “This episode of Bluey is called... [episode title]”.

Characters

A few overall differences apply to most or all of the characters:

Characters don’t have any eyelids in the preview

(perhaps a coincidence, the final airing of this episode also doesn’t have it either during this segment) Character eyes don’t do the squash-and-stretch effect when moving fast

Bluey

Bluey didn’t get any changes from what I can see! Good for her.

Bingo

Bingo got some changes! Her entire model is a little bit different now, probably to emphasize the fact that she’s younger than Bluey.

Bingo also has 4 spots on her back instead of one and a lack of darker orange on the back of her head.

Also, funny enough, she is missing a spot on her tail in the preview and also in the final The Weekend episode itself, all scenes. She does have the singular dark orange spot on her back now, though, so this was probably an oversight. She has a spot on her tail in all other episodes (I checked!) This means The Weekend was probably the first episode made, with all the others following. Good to know! It does explain some scenes where the models seem a little different.

Bandit

Bandit’s got the most obvious difference out of everyone: half of his head is blue instead of the black. Makes him look so much younger! He’s also missing the yellow on his belly, and the stubble on his mouth (or the video quality is too low and I couldn’t notice the stubble). I’m surprised he ever didn’t have the black “mask” considering his name is Bandit! It’s unlikely the characters ever had different names, considering how long ago this dialogue was recorded.

Chilli

Chilli is missing half of the brown on her face, but other than that, I don’t notice anything different. She definitely looks younger like this. Her model’s also flipped; in the final, when she’s facing right, three of her back spots are visible, and when she’s facing left, two are visible. Here in the preview it’s the other way around.

Backgrounds

Now that we’ve gone over characters, let’s check out all the different backgrounds! They’re ALL different. I won’t go through describing all the changes, but overall, all the changes seem to be for the better. The backgrounds in the final are much more appealing and detailed, in my opinion.

One thing: the cricket player appears to be a recolored Bandit. In the final release, they still use the same model. He lacks the eyelids and everything. Kinda interesting!

Music and Sound

Bluey is known for its great music, which the preview just happens to be completely missing, other than the intro and the very first bit of the preview. It feels weirdly empty. Music accompanies tons of stuff in Bluey, lots of musical cues for the simplest actions, and really sets the mood and tone of the show. I’m not sure if the show was ever meant to not have music, but I’m sure glad it does now! It’s one of my favorite parts of Bluey. Also, the sound effects appear to the same.

Dialogue

First of all, Chilli has a completely different line than what she said in the final episode. I can’t quite make out what she says though, feel free to let me know if you can tell what she says. I wonder if that’s part of why they changed it?

The dialogue from the TV is also completely different.

Another thing is that the dialogue in the preview is put closer together. In the final, there’s clear pauses between a lot of lines of dialogue, while in the preview they’re played sometimes even on top of eachother.

Conclusion

And that’s everything I could find. Lots of interesting stuff. I wonder if The Weekend was the first episode produced? That would make the production order I’ve seen floating around inaccurate. Hopefully one day we’ll find out! Thanks for reading.

#bluey #the weekend #cartoon #s1e06 #preview #comparison #preview bandit #preview chilli #preview bluey #preview bingo

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bluey-fan · 5 years

Text

Bluey Discussion: Respect in Yoga Ball (S1E16)

[Image description: A title card from Bluey. A green yoga ball is covered in pretty pink stickers and is wearing a pink-purple dress hat with pink-purple flowers on it appears in the center, with the title of the episode below it, “Yoga Ball”.]

For the first post on this blog, I wanted to talk about my favorite episode of Bluey: Yoga Ball, season 1, episode 16. It perfectly captures what is great about Bluey’s writing and the lessons it has for parents and children. Read below for my full reading of the episode.

(Also, please note that while images are included, I won’t be doing fully detailed descriptions for them as they are only fluff and are not really related to the text. Sorry!)

Now, I highly recommend you watch the episode before reading, but here’s a summary of the episode for those who haven’t, from Wikipedia: “When Dad is spending the day working from home, Bluey and Bingo steal the yoga ball chair from his desk and insist that he play with them. Bingo feels disheartened when Dad is being too rough with her while playing games, and with Mum's help, she asks him to be more gentle.“

This episode does so many things right. The animation, art, writing, and music all work together to create an amazing, heartful, and beautiful episode.

The episode, in the most basic reading of it, is about setting boundaries with your kids so they know they can let you know when something’s wrong. This is standard, and something every parent (hopefully) knows, but what’s interesting about Yoga Ball is that its primary focus is on Bingo and her feelings, rather than Bandit and his parenting. This is a key component of the episode: when Bingo’s being hurt, the perspective shifts to her own. Sounds are amplified, the music drastically changes, and the camera moves dramatically, giving us viewers a taste of what she’s experiencing.

[Image description: Bingo running from a yoga ball in a hallway.]

Bingo solves her problem by talking to her mom about it. The show normalizes people talking about their feelings to eachother, especially children and parents doing so, and also normalizes parents apologizing to their children.

It’s less about “parents, this is what you should do” and more “parents, this is how your kid feels when you play too rough with them”. You’re implored to feel bad for Bingo and want her to be happy. This is a recurring theme in Bluey: both the parents and the children are humanized and sympathetic. While Yoga Ball offers parents who are viewing a solution to the problem presented (finding your child’s boundaries for rough play), through the presentation and writing, parents are encouraged to find their own solution before it’s even given to us. We aren’t being lectured, we’re being told a story.

[Image description: Bingo crying under a tree.]

This episode shows very clearly that Bluey is a cartoon about respect: respect for the viewers, both the old and young ones, and respect for its characters; children in the Blueyverse are treated with dignity, both by the parents and by the writing itself. Bluey knows that children are worth listening to. By respecting, understanding, and listening to children, Bluey soars far beyond other similar children media, and manages to knock it out of the park nearly every episode. Bluey’s main goal isn’t trying to teach us lessons about parenting, that’s just a convenient side effect of the main goal: showing us how to love and respect one another, especially parents and children.

[Image description: Bandit hugging Bingo, both smiling and happy.]

Thanks for reading! I really loved this episode. Great job to everyone involved. It’s rare for a children’s cartoon to have this much soul and thought put into it, especially these days. When I feel like it, I’ll get around to writing about other stuff I like in Bluey, as well as some stuff I’m not a fan of.

#bluey #cartoon #episode analysis #yoga ball #s1e16

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