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Bluey’s moving house? Real estate is suddenly at the centre of Australia’s most beloved show, and fans aren’t sure how to feel.
If you’ve spent even 10 minutes in the presence of a child who is occupied watching Bluey (or maybe even enjoyed an episode or two by yourself), chances are you’d recognise the house.
The weatherboard Queenslander is not only an exemplary rendering of the style of home that’s ubiquitous on Brisbane streets, it’s also become an iconic backdrop for the vast majority of the episodes of this beloved Australian kids’ show.
So when news dropped this week that the Heeler family might be preparing to make a move, fans have been understandably shocked.
The impending sale was first foreshadowed at the end of a new episode that was released on ABC on 7 April, followed by the news that another episode, “The Sign” would follow soon, but this one three times the usual length of Bluey’s seven-minute runtime.
It became official when listings website Domain revealed the ad for the “quaint, animated family home” located vaguely somewhere in Brisbane, being managed by real estate agent Bucky Dunstan, who eagle-eyed viewers will remember is an old classmate of Bandit’s through a glancing mention in season three.
Bucky is set to make a fully fledged appearance, voiced by Rove McManus, as the show attempts to tackle a story that series creator and writer, Joe Brumm, told Domain might be the show’s toughest topic yet: moving house.
“It feels like after three seasons the house itself has become a sort of fifth Heeler character,” Brumm said.
“Some past episodes have touched on how a room can become imbued with memories and take on a life of its own. But families leave houses all the time. It happened to me as a kid around the same age Bluey and Bingo are, and then again a bit later on. I still remember it vividly,” he explained.
Part of the series’ appeal, at least among adults, lies in its willingness to delve into some of the tougher aspects of parenting. So it makes sense that Brumm has decided to wade into the territory of real estate.
And while the industry often talks about how anxiety-inducing property transactions can be from a financial perspective, the hubbub around the news that the Heeler home is up for sale has served as a good reminder that moving house can be a big emotional event for kids and adults alike.
To tackle the topic, Brumm said the team has handled it “the usual Bluey way; by allowing the characters to get upset and/or excited about it and not clobbering the audience with verbiage”.
But Bluey sleuths who are hoping that the real estate aspect of the upcoming show might finally shed some light on the home’s confusing floor plan will be disappointed.
Rhiannon Steffensen, production manager at Ludo, the creative studio behind Bluey, confirmed that “the house is just an enigma”.
“It changes depending on what we need its function to be,” she shared with Domain.
“I remember starting season three and we’d gotten to the ‘Housework’ episode and I was trying to find all of the other backgrounds we’ve done and I was like, ‘I don’t understand where this room is with the formal dining room off the lounge room’ so I asked the art director and he’s like, ‘We’ve never seen that room before. That’s just new’.”
Whatever happens in “The Sign,” viewers can be sure that the house – described in its listings as boasting “lovely period floorboards and mysterious hallways that don’t logically seem to join spaces together but always feel cohesive and purposeful” – will get its due from the creators.
“Bluey is really reflective of Brisbane, and I think that the Heeler house epitomises that. I think the iconicness of the show begins and ends with the house and the backyard, and that home base for the Heelers in terms of making it just very, very Queensland,” Steffensen said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juliet Helmke
Based in Sydney, Juliet Helmke has a broad range of reporting and editorial experience across the areas of business, technology, entertainment and the arts. She was formerly Senior Editor at The New York Observer.
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