Episode Transcript
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6:00
We're just working on this cartoon. And
6:02
he said, my brother's creating this animation. You've got
6:04
a great voice. You want to work some voice
6:06
overs down? And I showed her a bit of
6:08
it, and her eyes just lit up. And she's
6:11
like, yes, this show is beautiful. I'd already seen
6:13
the pilot, and I had fallen in love. Like,
6:15
the most cute. Like, my heart hurts. This is
6:17
so cute show. And so she just threw down
6:19
a demo. I sent it to Joe, and he
6:21
really liked it. And then they did
6:24
their due diligence and auditioned for like three
6:26
months, and then came back and said, no,
6:28
you were right. And then the rest is
6:30
history. Yoo-hoo. Hi, I'm
6:33
your wife. My wife.
6:35
Yes. And if you want me to
6:38
stay your wife, you'll learn about dishwashers.
6:43
Bluey's explosion in popularity has made
6:45
Dave and Melanie into celebrities. But
6:47
from the beginning, the identities of
6:49
the child actors have been kept
6:51
a secret. That includes Bluey, Bingo,
6:53
their cousins, and all of their
6:55
friends. And that's very purposeful.
6:57
There's just no reason to have a
7:00
kid's name revealed. Probably
7:02
most of the kids aren't actors.
7:04
They're just kids of cast,
7:06
crew, friends kind of thing. They're
7:09
doing this adult thing, which is making an
7:11
animated series. But just let them
7:13
be kids and have their own lives. And I
7:15
think it's a really, really wonderful
7:17
decision the production company made. Yeah, I
7:20
don't even reveal the names of my
7:22
children on my podcast, which is much
7:24
smaller. And that's entirely the same reason.
7:27
Yeah, there's absolutely no reason anyone needs to
7:29
know. It's just enjoy the show for what
7:31
it is and just let them
7:34
be kids. In
7:38
virtually every cartoon out there, the
7:40
child characters are actually voiced by
7:42
adults. This is true in everything
7:45
from Rugrats. This playground is for
7:47
good kids who get along and
7:49
play nice. To Powerpuff Girls. Wow,
7:51
Professor, thanks. Yeah, thanks. Hi,
7:54
this is a quarter. To Bob's Burgers.
7:56
These years mean a lot to you,
7:58
Logan. So how about you? keep him.
8:01
But for Bluey, Joe Brum always knew
8:03
that he wanted these characters voiced by
8:05
real kids. I think this is what's
8:07
unique about Bluey is that the way
8:09
my brother writes for kids, he writes
8:11
the kids' lines the way the kids
8:13
actually speak. There's a leaf bug in
8:15
the way. Aww,
8:17
she's so cute. You have
8:19
to be more careful, Leafacus. You're lucky
8:22
we didn't squishy. When
8:24
Joe and Richard record these kids, they already have
8:26
a good idea of how they want the lines
8:28
to sound. They all say the line,
8:30
and the kid will copy them as best they
8:32
can. And we've been very lucky
8:35
to get kids that have these great musical
8:37
ears that can pick up on all the
8:39
nuances of the director's read and kind of
8:41
match it musically. The toilet's got a ribbon?
8:43
Maybe it won a prize. Yeah, the best
8:45
toilet in the world. But
8:47
often they kind of go off script a
8:49
little and just sort of hit a weird
8:52
key or a weird intonation or something like
8:54
that. Isn't anyone going to mention their salads?
8:57
And it ends up funnier than the director could
8:59
have planned himself, and that line invariably is the
9:01
one that ends up getting used. I
9:03
love sausage too! That
9:08
sincere, childish delivery really shines through
9:10
in Bingo and Bluey's squeaky giggles.
9:15
They're so good. They're the best laughs in
9:17
all of animated ever. I think they are.
9:20
You got right, you didn't right. You
9:22
know, they're sincere. You don't just ask a
9:25
kid to laugh. You tickle them or you
9:27
do some silly face and it's this real
9:29
laughter. Bingo, calm it
9:31
down a bit, mate. And I think that's
9:33
why they end up sounding so genuine and
9:36
so funny. Ooh,
9:38
banana. What's
9:41
your favorite sound on Bluey? It's
9:43
Bingo's voice. That's
9:45
my youngest daughter. What is
9:47
it about Bingo's voice that you
9:50
like so much? Um, yes, she
9:52
turns kind of like me. Daddy.
9:54
Yes, mate? Just leave
9:56
the door open this much. The
10:00
leash can come in. One
10:02
of the most heartwarming things about this
10:04
show is how many of these voices
10:06
come from Bluey's crew and their families.
10:08
For example, there's the busker, a musician
10:11
dog whose signature line is, Who likes
10:13
to dance? He's
10:15
voiced by the show's composer, Joff
10:17
Bush. Thanks, matey. That deserves another
10:20
song. Then there's Bluey
10:22
and Bingo's grandmother, Chris Heeler. Hi,
10:25
girls! She's voiced by
10:27
and named after Joe and Dan's
10:29
mother, Chris Brum. Oh,
10:31
yes, Bingo! I floss every
10:33
night. Joe also named
10:35
the grandfather, Bob Heeler, after their
10:37
dad, Bob Brum. On the
10:40
show, real-life Bob actually doesn't voice Grandpa Bob,
10:42
but he did do the voice for one
10:44
of the Grey Nomads in the episode Road
10:46
Trip. Would you like a
10:48
big peanut sticker? I've got a spare
10:51
one. Oh, yes, please. And
10:53
as it turns out, there's one more close relative
10:55
who has a key role on the show. A
10:59
bit of a backstory is that I
11:01
have this bizarre graying stripe down the
11:03
middle of my head, and
11:05
so my older brother calls me Stripe. And
11:07
amongst all the cousins, I'm Uncle Stripe. And
11:09
then I saw a script which was Horsey
11:11
Ride come across my desk, and there was
11:14
a character in it called Uncle Stripe. I
11:16
thought, great. I
11:18
think that character might be written for
11:20
me. There was no heads up.
11:23
Dan's brother Joe just knew that he would get
11:25
the message. I think I first
11:27
found out just from the script there and thought,
11:29
ah, OK, I'm going to give this a
11:31
red hot crack as an audition. In Bluey,
11:34
Uncle Stripe is Bandit's brother. He's
11:36
got stubble on his face and a light
11:38
blue stripe around his abdomen. And
11:40
obviously I was auditioned and had to be able to
11:42
do the role. Fortunately, along with
11:45
being a sound designer, Dan also had
11:47
years of experience as a voiceover artist.
11:50
In living and working around here, it's all
11:52
about taking pride in what you do, about
11:55
being part of a community. role
12:00
of Uncle Stripe felt especially natural.
12:14
But that doesn't mean that Stripe is always low-key.
12:16
He sort of yells
12:19
a lot Stripe, and you just scream
12:21
from the belly and you just really
12:23
give it your all. And
12:28
then the animators love that because they've
12:30
got this just full-range wild
12:32
line that they can kind of
12:34
animate however they'd like to. And
12:37
it ends up just funnier on screen. Not
12:44
only does Joe like to cast his
12:47
friends and family on the show, he
12:49
also draws from his real-life experiences with
12:51
these people to write these stories. In
12:53
fact, some of the funniest and most
12:55
poignant moments on the show came from
12:57
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14:37
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14:40
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many ways, Bluey is a family affair. The
17:52
series was created by Joe Brum. His
17:55
brother Dan sound designs and mixes the show and
17:57
also voices Uncle Stripe. Their parents are the Bluey
17:59
family. Bob and Chris have both
18:01
voiced characters, and the kids in the
18:03
show are voiced by the children of
18:05
cast, crew, and friends. When
18:10
writing the show, Joe draws on all of
18:13
these connections to make Bluey feel relatable, like
18:16
the episode Squash, where Bandit and Stripe
18:18
face off in a squash game. Big
18:20
brothers always beat little brothers. That's just
18:22
the way it goes. I've
18:24
got two brothers, Joe and my older brother, Adam, and we
18:26
played a lot of squash, sort of in our 20s and
18:28
30s. Squash is a
18:31
high-speed game played in a small, enclosed
18:33
court. Squash with
18:35
your brothers is different to squash
18:37
with friends, because it's combat squash.
18:39
You just, you swing in, you
18:41
run in, and it's wild, and
18:43
it's dangerous. Take that! Ow!
18:48
From a sound design point of view, it
18:50
was so much fun, because you can't fake
18:52
a game of squash. It's such a specific
18:54
sound. So I went down to
18:56
a squash court, and I recorded myself hitting squash
18:58
balls, bouncing against walls, hitting the
19:01
glass. Ow! You
19:05
know, and the cheats of, like, the squeak of the shoe.
19:08
Ow! Now,
19:11
a dog's foot wouldn't make that sound, but
19:14
if you're watching a rally of squash
19:16
and you don't have that high-pitched, reverberant
19:18
squeak of a shoe, it's
19:20
just not gonna sound and feel like a game
19:22
of squash. Dan actually has
19:24
a co-writing credit on this episode. It
19:27
was his idea to make Bluey and
19:29
Bingo control Bandit and Stripe like video
19:31
game characters. Okay, one more point, and
19:33
we win, Bluey. Make it happen. Okay!
19:38
Just do your best, Bingo. I'm trying,
19:40
but my controller isn't working properly.
19:43
No matter how hard he tries, Stripe just
19:46
can't seem to beat Bandit. Ah!
19:48
Why do you keep losing?
19:50
Because Big Brothers always beat
19:52
Little Brothers. The
19:54
genesis of that story of Big Brothers always
19:56
beat Little Brothers is kind of true, because
19:59
Joe just would always... Dickie.
30:01
A huge thanks to sound
30:03
designer Dan Brum. I'm
30:05
Dallas Taylor. Thanks for listening. Alright,
30:10
I'm about to hit stop. Anybody else want to say anything
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to the microphone before I hit stop? We
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love Louie! Yay!
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When 60 Minutes premiered in September 1968,
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31:01
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31:04
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fight back against that constant stream of negativity. Our
31:09
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31:11
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31:13
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31:15
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