Not an entertaining show to a parent, but Wonderoos is another kids show that has had a positive impact on my 2 children. In each episode a wonderoo identifies a choice has to be made, makes the choice that leads to a worse outcome, and then rewinds to make the right choice. While making the choice they always say, "let's chalk it out", and I've heard my kids say this and then state two choices in their own activities. There is also an episode where a lonely wonderoo at the playground decides between trying to make friends with the other kids or just waiting to see what happens. First they wait, and nothing happens, and then they rewind and go introduce themselves and become friends. One day at the park my shy 4 year old asked me to help her introduce herself to another kiddo. Def she got that from the show!
I don't know about how that show is made, but my guess is that it is more like cocomelon, scientifically tested for efficacy, but with the right intentions set by child development experts.
Bluey is next-level. S-tier television. It’s wholesome, calm, and entertaining. Episodes like Camping, Baby Race, Cricket, and Onesies are all emotional sucker-punches to the adults watching. (My pet theory, which my wife first suggested: Camping is essentially the Star Trek TNG episode Darmok.)
Bluey is much more wholesome than Miraculous. Not a judgement thing, my eldest watches Miraculous too and I don't really have a problem with it. It's just not on the same level as Bluey. A huge plus for parents is also that Bluey is WAY more engaging for adults. Far and away my favourite program to watch with my kids. Some episodes really pull at the heart strings.
Miraculous changes a lot in the later seasons. I'm saying this because while our kids were very much into the first 2 seasons, it was me and my wife who got hooked for the other 3 seasons.
The first 2 seasons are also full of fillers if you want, I don't shy away from skipping them when I'm alone, but we did watch it all with our kids.
We had a good time with it. Not sure if you watched it all, I'm looking forward the next season to see how the plot unravels.
But I'll definitely check Bluey :)
That being said, I wish there was a genre tagged as "engaging for adults, fun for kids": there are a bunch of movies and shows along these lines, but they aren't tagged in any other way.
Another genre that exists but I can't find is "boring for kids but child-friendly", basically any tv show that says stuff they can't properly follow, doesn't have action scenes, but has a convoluted plot for adults. On the top of my mind I can think of Shrinking (my kids still don't understand cursing in english, only italian, so this is great), but I remember there was an even better one that I can't think of right now.
Usually creative work and the arts are judged by their ability to move something inside of us to which you can say that crying is a proxy for that. It's effectively saying it's good art.
I understand your question, and it is hard to describe. Our brains are pattern generators, and it "feels good" to resonate with patterns we've already experienced. Neural circuits create patterns by strengthening connections upon our experience. This is particularly true as we get older and our brains become less plastic. Lesser used patterns become harder to access as they are no longer reinforced as frequently. However, this feels less good for our brains, and we value novelty.
So in the same way that riding a bike after a long time is much harder than it is to ride one when you use it every day, you can generalize this to something like emotions. It is bad to only experience one type of feeling all the time, and variety is good. Having a controlled, relatable medium lead you to experience a less commonly-felt emotion feels good. I don't know if I can explain why--maybe we have mechanisms in our brain for encouraging this novelty--but this is likely why we seek out these emotional experiences.
All emotional reactions are "manipulated" - we choose to expose ourselves to situations wherein we might feel emotional reactions of various sorts. Why is art, "negative" reactions or not, any different?
As another commenter points out, it's a good way of learning - about yourself, how you feel, about other perspectives. It's also, hopefully, a chance to grow - reflect on your past, your mistakes, how you've treated others.
I understand it's very ingrained in our culture at this point that this is a thing people do. But, if I decontextualize enough mentally, it starts to feel quite strange: manipulating one's brain into having a negative emotional reaction.
You’re not being well understood here, but I do this too, and have done — with everything — all my life.
The answer is ultimately that if you deconstruct and logically analyse any particular human activity it either ruins the fun and/or makes you realise how primitive and dark most forms of entertainment are. People like being emotional, for whatever reason.
I like the explanation that says it’s about learning, though. Learning somehow feels intrinsically good.
Bluey is excellence, but I’ve always said Bluey is a kids show for parents.
It’s representation of how the parents behave around, and communicate with, their kids, and the numerous examples of ideas for how to play with your children make the show invaluable to parents.
The fact that kids love it too only reinforces its clever brilliance.
It’s designed by a parent, specifically a dad, and it shows in so many subtle ways.
The way each episode tells you the name of the episode, for example. My kids can name the episode they want by name, which I can search. For other shows, you get a toddler’s description that can itself be a puzzle to interpret.
They’re also short enough that they don’t have to add filler.
Other than cuts every 2-3 seconds to keep engaged in Cocomelon, also notice that CAMERA NEVER STOPS, ever. Every scene you see it's moving. It could be a slight movement or exaggerated one, but it's never stationary.
Blueys great, my kid loses his shit when the shows on. Its also interesting seeing a female character marketed to kids as a segment rather than just young girls which isnt that common.
My son is still under 2, so he prefers other low intensity shows like Mini Kids and Night Garden. The way he gets into Mini Kids is insane, I havent seen cocomelon but I am betting he would get drawn too far into that. Mini Kids sounds like the antidote to cocomelon, no fast cuts, slow music, and mostly just toddlers interacting with toys and each other on television.
Cocomelon just phones it in. Almost all of their songs have some similar catchy intro leading into the song. Sometimes the intro is the same across different songs. Recently, my kid got into the song "Bicycle Built for Two (Daisy Bell)". I grew up listening to Disney Children's Favorites sung by Larry Groce, who sings it expressively and dynamically. Cocomelon's interpretation is just flat and conservative, as if it's a chore to get through.
The Rain episode is pretty cool too. It has almost no words apart from the goodbye at start. The good thing about bluey is that it teaches kids to do mischievous things and gives you ideas to do fun activities with kids.
My wife and I have a daughter in the demographic of these shows, though she's a little young for Bluey. There's a YouTube (and now Netflix) show called Ms. Rachel for a younger audience that I'd put in the same positive category as Bluey.
We probably watch one or two hours of Ms. Rachel videos a day with our daughter. We've got several family friends with a household rule of "no screens at all for kids" who would scoff at that but their rule seems both draconian and technophobic to me. Our daughter has picked up many words and concepts from the show and we've learned a lot of the songs as a family and sing them when the context comes up (ex: "baby put your pants on..."). Ms. Rachel has been a hugely positive parenting tool for us.
Every once in a while, though, YouTube will try to autoplay some Cocomelon after a Ms. Rachel video and wow it's just absolute garbage. I think this article captures it well: it feels like slop engineered to keep young eyeballs glued to the screen with no higher purpose than increasing the number of engaged minutes.
Instead of "no screens," the more granular "you can choose from this menu of approved content on your screen for a reasonable amount of time per day" is the better parenting move for our family.
Great article. Insane that this kind of anti-social kid-numbing garbage production line is not only allowed to exist in our society but also very well rewarded. This is another symptom of our deeply sick world, in which financial success is completely decorrelated from having any kind of positive impact on the world.
So far we've managed to keep our 2 and a bit year old's tv diet to Bluey, Hey Duggee (a bit crack-y but he loves it and it is still crafted and quite tounge-cheek-funny), Trash Truck (a very calm, sedate one on Netflix, useful if you're travelling and can't get CBeebies) and Down on the Farm (a Cbeebies show where kids do stuff on a farm). Occasionally Kiri and Lou too. And some sports sometimes (football, rugby, cycling, F1). I love the sports as it's distracting but he also doesn't care that much and loses interest. Can be enough to get a break but he won't binge like Duggee or Bluey.
Yes, lucky we're in the UK so have CBeebies available, but there's no reason to not screen and curate your kids media diet. I don't understand people who just let their toddlers consume crap on YT.
"I won’t pretend like I haven’t stuck an iPad in front of my son and let him watch Cocomelon or Blippi so I could get some work done. Guilty as charged.„
I like Bluey but couldn't get my young one to sit through it for a nebulizer. Cocomelon did the trick and I'm very thankful for them for that. Honestly, I don't think it's as garbage as everyone makes it out to be. It's hard trying to find video-form nursery rhymes that aren't weird out there. They have that done well. I really like Bluey but I feel like it's for a much older crowd.
I don’t understand the negative talk about Cocomelon. Kids learn a lot through songs. Cocomelon is full of songs. My son enjoys singing many of them. I’m happy with this.
I’ve never let my kids watch cocomelon (or much screen time at all).
But we do listen to cocomelon. It has some legitimately well done music IMO. For example “over the river and through the woods”.
The show’s popularity has led to some people buying Blue Heelers as a pet for their kids… which will probably backfire because they aren’t meant to be house dogs
(Blue Heelers need an insane amount of exercise and can be pretty aggressive)
Heelers will demand four hours of an aerodynamic throwing stick tossed the length of a football field and back and then want a 5km run to the beach to cool down.
Failure to deliver can result in the destruction of everything you love.
Yeah, owned one for 12 years and she was potentially nippy to anyone she didn't know from puppyhood. Was ball-obsessed, broke a lot of stuff and hated anyone wearing hi-vis.
Her destructiveness though was nothing on a German Shepherd.
My 3 legged heeler can still run laps around me. But if you can keep them busy, they are very loyal and can understand a crazy amount of words/signs. My previous heeler went deaf and still obeyed perfectly by watching signs and body language. Incredible dogs.
I've been in the bluey house. It is approximately 8600ft (800m sq). The work-life balance that the family has doesn't seem particularly odd when it comes to Australian households.
I found Ezra Klein's chat with Jia Tolentino about Cocomelon and Bluey ... and parenting, zen, hallucinogens, attention and more ... one of the most deeply interesting things I have heard in the last year.
I've noticed that the best shows usually have two layers, allowing two otherwise incompatible audiences to share the same experience. This is also why old South Park episodes were so fun: it was fart and poop jokes, but it was also some societal commentary.
why bluey or cocomelon? mister rogers is chronically untalked about for kids content in 2025.
its an incredible show and deeply enriching for both me and my little one. we’ve given our two year old very limited screen time with mister rogers and, since, they’ve taken up great fondness to making believe, we talk about characters and situations on the show regularly, and they naturally separate themselves from the screen after a while.
I’ve been very strict about exposure and screen time but mister rogers has been a blessing and provided me great relief for an hour a day.
The jazz aspect of the show
completely flew over my head when i was a child but it’s brilliance shines now that i listen as an adult. No two shows are played the same. Costa and his band are constantly riffing. The show is honestly a f-ing incredible work of art.
I think the author chose these two shows as a comparison because they were created in roughly the same time period, so they're more directly comparable. Mister Rogers was created in a different era, with different media environment, funding and monetization strategy, and functionally in a different medium.
Daniel Tiger (Mr Rogers spinoff/remake/???) is really quite good as well. They did well at preserving the idea of the original in a very different format.
There is no need for explicit, spelled out lessons. Also conflicts can arise externally, and flawless people can solve them. That still can be an example, can't it.
Also Bluey indeed bullies their father. He acts like he hates it every time, but based on how Chilli escapes most of the time, they must really hate it. I don't remember Bluey called out for that, only rewarded.
Once you realize that 70% of the shows are basically “Dad distracts the kids after work so Mom can get dinner ready” or similar, it makes sense. Bandit lays down the law when he needs to, but most of the time he’s just playing.
You’ll notice that he’s much more concerned with how Bluey plays with Bingo than he is with how she plays with him. He’s big, he can take it.
Faceytime is a good example of “kid is naughty and gets in actual trouble”.
I don't know about how that show is made, but my guess is that it is more like cocomelon, scientifically tested for efficacy, but with the right intentions set by child development experts.
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