The “Bluey” Episode That Was Banned By Disney Has Been Uploaded To YouTube After The Cartoon’s Creator Reflected On Its Controversy
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Last month, you probably heard about the way the kids' TV show Bluey had left parents everywhere in tears for its all-too-familiar depiction of moving house in an extended episode.
If you didn’t know, Bluey is an Australian cartoon that follows the adventures of a puppy called Bluey and her family, and it is one of Disney+’s most-streamed shows.
While it is made for preschool-aged kids, it is regularly praised by adults for the way that it takes on important subject matters in a child-friendly way.
And while we won’t spoil last month’s special episode for you (you can read all about it here if you really want to know!), we can reveal that Bluey is back in the news after the show’s official YouTube channel skirted around Disney’s strict censorship rules by uploading a banned episode of the cartoon.
For context, BBC Studios initially held the global rights for Bluey, but Disney acquired these rights from the BBC back in 2019. This means that if you want to watch the show outside of Australia and New Zealand, then you need to go through Disney.
This became easier when the company launched its streaming service, Disney+, in 2020, with this becoming the go-to destination for Bluey episodes old and new.
However, Disney has pretty strict standards on what their content can contain, and several moments from the cartoon had to be amended before the network could air them.
According to Screen Rant, these edits vary quite dramatically. Some are totally understandable, like Disney’s decision to remove a racist term for Indigenous Australians from an episode, as well as the depiction of a dangerous game that showed Bluey slipping and sliding on wet tiles in a bathroom — something that young viewers may be influenced to do themselves.
Other edits seem a bit less obvious, like removing depictions of poop and vomit from the cartoon.
And Disney’s choice to omit one particular episode in its entirety has always been considered strange by fans of the show.
The episode in question is Season 2, Episode 13, “Dad Baby,” and it is about pregnancy and birth. In the seven-minute-long episode, Bluey’s dad, Bandit, simulates pregnancy by carrying her little sister, Bingo, in a baby carrier strapped to his chest.
The episode ends with Bandit “giving birth” to Bingo in a paddling pool with the little pup being pulled out from underneath the carrier.
“Dad Baby” initially premiered in Australia in March 2020, but it has never aired on Disney or been uploaded to Disney+.
While it is likely due to its depiction of childbirth, Disney has never explicitly stated why it chose not to air the show for its audience — a decision that Bluey's creator, Joe Brumm, reflected on in a 2023 interview with the Hollywood Reporter.
When asked if he ever found himself “bumping up against that question of what’s appropriate for the preschool demo” during production, Joe admitted: “In almost every script, I would say. And some more than others.”
“But you’ve gotta be really careful in preschool. There are two categories [of things that won’t fly]. There’s things that are going to get a kid hurt, and I rarely have an argument for that. The other one is more about taste — it’s what’s appropriate and what’s offensive,” he explained.
“So, definitely lots of words have to get changed, and then behaviors and concepts get dulled down. And eventually I would just hit these walls, and sometimes I’d say, ‘Look, I can’t change this. This is too funny.’ Or, ‘I like it too much.’ And so, we’d just be like, ‘Well, we just won’t show that entire episode or that scene or that sequence,’” Joe continued.
He then added: “Some of them, like ‘Dad Baby,’ for instance, doesn’t get shown in America. But what are you going to do, not make ‘Dad Baby?’ I love it.”
But earlier this week, banned episode “Dad Baby” was quietly uploaded to Bluey’s official YouTube channel — allowing fans around the world to finally see what all the fuss is about.
Rather tellingly, the episode has been viewed more than 1.4 million times in less than 48 hours, with the overwhelming consensus from viewers being confusion over why it was ever banned in the first place.
You can watch "Dad Baby" in full here.
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