Unpacking Bluey's 'Flat Pack'

I must say, I was quite late discovering the phenomenon Bluey. Many people had recommended it, told my wife and me what a great show it was—both for kids and adults. We had seen memes and amusing quotes, had a chuckle at some of the very ocker Australian humour, and were impressed by some of the family values it seemed to promote (Sure, Dad seemed like a bit of a bogan at times, but he is clearly the head of his household, and his wife and children love and respect him). But at the end of the day, I just saw it as another kid’s merchandise cash cow. And most likely, an annoying one. One that needed to be avoided at all costs.

Only a month or so before writing this, we finally decided to put it on for the kids while we did some work in the kitchen. The first episode that came on was Cricket, a sport I have no interest in, but can appreciate as a staple of Australian family gatherings in the backyard. And as any responsible father would do, I stood there for a moment to get a feel for the show and decide whether I thought it was suitable for my family.

The next thing I remember, I’m missing four minutes of my life, and my wife is calling me to see why she is doing all the work herself.

I reported to her how funny the show seemed, and that night we decided to sit down as a family and watch a few episodes from the start. And the rest is history. Our family was hooked on Bluey.

While there were a handful of episodes our family didn’t enjoy—just about any episode with Calypso in them—and a smaller handful of ones that raised questionable morals or advice that we felt needed a bit of parental guidance, for the most part, we found it to be a *refreshingly* wholesome family show.

But a few nights ago something unexpected happened.

We got to Flat Pack.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Flat Pack caused a bit of an uproar when it aired for depicting primitive people saying, “Ooga-Booga”. The episode was apparently edited and re-aired without this usage. I had read about this controversy long before I’d ever watched the show but had forgotten all about it. Even after seeing the episode, I couldn’t tell you if it was the edited version or not because I had been too distracted by something our family had a much bigger problem with.

Funnily enough, this was a problem that no one else on the internet seemed to have. In fact, everyone—even the only Christians I found who had written on the episode—seemed to praise it and the message it taught to children.

The episode was concerned with the dad and mum characters (Bandit and Chilli respectively) attempting to build a piece of flat-pack furniture. Dad insists he has no need for instructions, and as the construction progresses, frustrations set in. So far, this was one of the most relatable episodes I had ever seen. Many times, I have been assembling flat-pack furniture (even following the instructions) and can feel my blood boiling with the constant stop-starting to check whether Part D was meant to have the dowl holes to the left or right and whether Screw H was the short fat one or the short skinny one. And has anyone seen my Allen key? Eventually, it gets to the point where everyone just needs to stop offering me help and let me do it myself, or I’m going to snap at someone who really won’t deserve it.

I thought that would be the gist of the episode. However, it cleverly crept in a totally unexpected direction.

Kids love boxes, no doubt about it. And foam, bubble wrap, whatever they can get their hands on. My kids especially love when we buy a fridge or something with a huge box they can use as a fort. So when the kids in Bluey asked Dad for all the packing scraps, I looked forward to seeing what their imaginations could come up with. The first piece of rubbish they scored was a sheet of bubble wrap, and they decided to wriggle around on it and pretend to be fish. Not the first thing I would have come up with. Maybe it was because of the bubbles? Who knows what goes on inside kids’ heads.

As the construction continues, their dad throws out a sheet of cardboard, which looks like sand, so naturally, the girls decide to stop being fish, and instead be ‘frog-dogs’. This makes sense; presumably, the girls will continue playing with the bubble wrap ‘water’, and now with the land. Seems innocent enough, right? As more rubbish gets thrown their way, the girls decide to instead be lizards, then they decide to use some of the trash as a volcano and play dinosaurs. Creativity at its finest. Do you see what’s happening though? I’ll admit, I still hadn’t spotted it by this point.

But then the girls’ dad fell on top of the volcano—putting an abrupt end to their dinosaur game—so they started being birds.

And that’s when the penny dropped.

I remember when I was a kid watching Jurassic Park. Absolutely loved that movie, with its nightmare-inducing velociraptors. But it also introduced the barely explored concept that—at some point in their evolution—velociraptors learned how to fly. Much to the jeering of his peers, Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) puts forward the theory that dinosaurs perhaps had more in common with modern birds than reptiles. It was a crazy idea at the time but must have gained traction at some point because after that dinosaurs were starting to be depicted in books with feathers. Even the once terrifying velociraptors of subsequent Jurassic Park movies had ridiculous-looking plumage sprouting from their bodies.

So when Bluey and her sister Bingo spontaneously went from being dinosaurs to being birds, I knew something was up. Of all the things they could have become, it happened to be birds? But maybe I was just reading too much into things. After all, it was just kids playing, and changing their games as new situations arose. Right…?

After birds, the girls decided to be little mammals, and then (after their dad had completed one side of what was slowly turning into a porch swing), the girls decided it would make a fun climbing gym, and thus decided to be monkeys.

That’s when I hit the pause button. “This is evolution,” I said, running through the list of games the girls had been playing to justify my position. “I’m sure of it.”

Sure enough, when their father threw them a large box next, it got made into a cave complete with neolithic-looking sketches, and the girls became stereotypical cavemen (this was apparently the scene featuring the infamous ‘Ooga-Booga’ line).

Now here is where the show took another unexpected twist.

Credit: OfficialBlueyTV on X

In the cave “painting”, you can clearly see the kids’ progression of games, from frogs to cave dwellers. But looming over the top of the picture is a strange image. Two people, standing on a cloud, like gods. They are fighting, and as they do, various items—water, trees, and a volcano—fall from the sky to the evolving world beneath.

So, what is being depicted here? In its strictest sense, this is ancestor worship, though I’m not sure that’s quite the feel they’re going for. More likely, it is alluding to the “divine clash” motif that kicks off many ancient myths about the creation of the universe. There is some usurper god—or group of gods—who believe the current reigning gods are not doing a sufficient job and stage a coup. These stories can be found all over the world, and often result in the formation of the world as one or more gods are dismembered and scattered to become various elements of creation.

(Oh, and at this point Chilli looks up and sees her children playing beautifully, musing to Bandit that “We made them.” You know, just like the cloud dwellers in the drawing.)

A moment later, Bluey and Bingo have developed into a technologically advanced society. Bluey is now very old, and Bingo decides to set off on a rocket to discover new worlds. Bluey is left wondering what to do now, when her mother calls out, beckoning Bluey to join her parents on their newly-completed swing. There is a strange shot of Bluey’s hand reaching up, taking the hand of her mother who helps her ascend the stairs (the shot is even illuminated in golden light) where Bluey takes a seat between her parents. As they look out over their garden—and interestingly watching Bingo blasting happily through space—Bandit comments accomplishedly, “This is heaven!” The divine parents have assisted Bluey in her journey to reach their celestial domain, and now she can rest in their company, watching over the rest of creation playing out before her.

I was left scratching my head. And so was the rest of my family. It was a strangely New Age ending to an episode that was otherwise pushing for the superiority of science over religion. They spent the whole episode advocating for a secular belief, but then there was this conflicting hope that there is some sort of paradise—complete with loved ones to welcome them home—after they die.

And this isn’t the only instance of pagan religious ideas creeping into the show. In the episode Postman, the kids make a paper plane and thank “Brother Wind” for not letting it land in the next yard. Another time (Favourite Thing) they perform some catchy Grace-like song before a meal, in which they “…praise our loving Mother Earth to thank her every day” for her bountiful provisions. And in another episode (Wild Girls), a young girl pretending to be a hunter-gatherer living in the woods is saddened when her friend decides to play with another group who are pretending to be farmers. The tone shifts dramatically when the downhearted girl suddenly becomes a witch, terrifying the farmers to such an extent that they need to venture into the woods to make offerings to keep her away, something reminiscent of The Blair Witch. And all because the little girl’s teacher incited her to try and scare one of the other children rather than finding a constructive way of dealing with her friend wanting to play a different game.

Now, I’m not going to be one of those parents who tries to campaign to have a show censored or pulled off the air. Especially Bluey, because I feel like it’s copped enough flak already. We still watch it, because my kids are old enough where we can discuss why we do and don’t adhere to certain beliefs. And even better, our kids are now at an age where they are flexing their discernment muscles and picking up what certain shows are putting down. And—at the end of the day—hey, I still enjoy it.

But I feel like awareness needs to be raised for conservative Christian parents out there who would rather avoid exposing their children to these ideas. Especially with the large amount of Christian viewership pushing it as a wonderful show for the whole family, but not mentioning anything about these odd, not-so-subtle pagan ideas creeping into our children’s minds. Especially the song before dinner, which I’m sure many kids watched and thought would be fun to sing before their own meals because that’s what Bluey does.

Our kids watch shows that I’m sure many conservative parents wouldn’t allow their own to watch, but they are shows that you have a rough idea about beforehand (if you sit your kids down to watch Harry Potter, you shouldn’t be shocked to discover it has witches and magic in it). Yet this is a show marketed towards impressionable preschoolers and has a reputation for demonstrating more positive ways for parents to… well, parent.

Even if I were to have looked it up on our go-to reference for suggested Christian viewing, Movieguide, it would sound like the perfect show for our family to watch—but the website only has Season One, where the episodes I’ve mentioned aren’t until Seasons Two and Three. And hey, it’s never claimed to be a Christian production, and I certainly don’t expect it to present Christian messages (even though, for the most part, it does a bang-up job). I’m only writing this because I wish somebody had warned me before I was totally caught off-guard with my own family.

But at the end of the day, it’s your responsibility to make the best decisions for your own family, and I’m not telling you you should or shouldn’t be watching certain shows. Just don’t be surprised when these strange scenes crop up. And don't underestimate their impact. It might be easy for you to dismiss, but you might have a harder time helping your kids to unsee what you wish you had known about beforehand.

Perhaps it might be best to remind your kids of what Bluey’s dad had to say at the start of Flat Pack: “I’m not taking advice from a cartoon dog.”

Or as another writer once put it, “As for me and my family, we will serve the Lord."