American Bluey fans can finally stream the banned episode “Dad Baby,” thanks to a May 1 surprise release on the official Bluey YouTube channel.
The episode, which originally aired in Australia in March 2020, has never appeared on Disney+ and has gained mythological status among fans for being the only Bluey episode to be left off the platform.
Prior to its YouTube debut, American fans could only watch the episode by purchasing it on iTunes in a $9.99 episode bundle, or by purchasing the Bluey: Seasons 1 & 2 DVD set, where the episode appears in the bonus features.
Now, the seven-minute-long video is streaming for free online, and as of Friday afternoon, it’s already amassed over 2.2 million views and counting.
In the episode, dad Bandit shows Bluey and Bingo how their old baby carrier works. When he puts it on to demonstrate, Bingo hops in, pretending to be a baby. Bluey remarks that Dad looks pregnant — and thus, a new game called “Dad Baby” is born. Dad plays along, discovering many “pregnancy” challenges along the way, until it’s time for the baby to be “born.” He then “delivers” baby Bingo in a kiddie pool in the backyard, aided by his neighbor and fellow dad Pat.
Disney+ has never given an official reason for why “Dad Baby” is absent from its platform, but it’s not the first time the streaming service has censored or banned a Bluey episode. Disney didn’t respond to Yahoo Entertainment’s request for comment.
Over the course of the show’s three seasons, ScreenRant reported that Disney altered 11 episodes for various reasons, ranging from depictions of unicorn poop to mentions of neutering to the use of words like “crazy” and “groin.”
Only one other episode has been fully banned. Season 3, Episode 23, “Family Meeting,” was originally banned from Disney Junior for its discussion of flatulence. However, after much fan backlash (fans consider it one of the funniest episodes of Bluey), the episode later appeared on Disney+.
“Some of the Bluey content did not meet Disney Junior broadcast [standards and practices] in place at the time the series was acquired,” a Disney Branded Television rep said of the “Family Meeting” ban in a 2022 statement. “Now that it is rolling out on other platforms, it is a great opportunity to reevaluate which is what we plan to do.”
Bluey creator Joe Brumm is known for pushing boundaries, resulting in a show that’s not afraid to break TV rules, to the surprise and delight of its fans.
When he set out to make Bluey, Brumm said, he wanted to create a good co-viewing experience for both kids and their parents.
“There were shows like that in older demographics, but they were a bit few and far between at the preschool stage, and I thought this is probably where you need it the most because you do end up watching a lot of it … and hating a lot of it,” Brumm told the Hollywood Reporter in a 2023 interview.
“You just realize how formulaic and similar [kids’ TV] is. And because I’d worked in the industry, I just saw why it ended up like that. So, when it came time for me to do mine, it was quite easy to avoid all of the same pitfalls.”
One way Brumm managed to avoid those same pitfalls was writing the episodes himself, rather than hiring kids’ TV writers.
He’s also insisted on staying true to his vision by pushing back against executives at Australian Broadcasting Corporation, BBC and Disney, which all air Bluey in their respective markets.
“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,’” Brumm told the Hollywood Reporter. “And so, we’d just be like, ‘Well, we just won’t show that entire episode or that scene or that sequence.’ 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.”
He also insisted that the characters remain Australian, despite fears that it might hurt the show’s international appeal, and that the characters that are children be voiced by children themselves, even if it made casting more difficult.
The show has also managed to keep fans on their toes by releasing episodes in unexpected ways. Recently, fans were shocked by the 28-minute episode “The Sign,” followed by the unannounced season finale “Surprise!”
Now, “Dad Baby,” with its quiet release on YouTube, is the latest Bluey installment to catch fans off guard.
WHOA!
Up on YouTube for all to see, “Dad Baby,” the episode of #Bluey that Disney wouldn’t put on cable or D+.
Bandit demonstrates a papoose baby carrier; Bingo jumps in; Bandit goes through a play pregnancy.
Funny and weird.https://t.co/s5H5KkM5ms
— Stefan Edward Jones 🇺🇦 (@StefanEJones) May 1, 2024
Walt Hickey, author of You Are What You Watch, told Yahoo Entertainment that Bluey has “blown it out of the water” when it comes to kids’ TV that is consumed by both kids and adults alike.
“[Bluey] is the result of decades of advancement in kids’ television, going from being essentially glorified cereal advertisements … to genuinely beneficial educational content, to increasingly interesting material that is educationally compelling for multiple age groups of kids in a house,” he told Yahoo Entertainment. “That’s what makes [Bluey] so very successful.”
According to Hickey, Bluey also owes much of its success to streaming — which, while exposing it to challenges like censorship, has helped the show to become a global sensation.
“The streaming phenomenon has made it so that it’s far easier for something to become a truly global hit in [a] shorter time than ever,” said Hickey.
“It’s a lot easier to go from being an Australian network show to a balloon and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, in no small part because of some of the barriers that have gotten broken down, and just the ease at which some of this content can spread.”
Bluey is streaming on Disney+.
