Parents of toddlers, rejoice! We’ve all been living in a dearth of new Bluey episodes. But did you know there’s a controversial “banned” episode that Disney+ refuses to stream, that Americans can now watch? That’s right—the episode “Dad Baby” is now available on the official Bluey YouTube channel, so you and your kids can watch the hilarious, harmless show, no thanks to the pearl clutchers at Disney.
“Dad Baby,” like most episodes of Bluey, centers around a game of pretend. Only in this episode, Bluey’s dad, Bandit, pretends to be pregnant and give birth to baby Bingo. Disney apparently made a unilateral choice that that was too controversial a topic for American viewers and decided not to air the episode here. Bluey creator Joe Brumm has even spoken about the controversy before.
“You’ve gotta be really careful in preschool,” he said in a 2023 Hollywood Reporter interview. “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.’ ‘Dad Baby’ for instance, doesn’t get shown in America. But what are you going to do, not make ‘Dad Baby’? I love it.”
If you’re curious about the plot of “Dad Baby,” here’s how it goes: Bingo discovers an old baby carrier and asks her mother, Chili, what it is. Bandit puts the carrier on as a joke, and Bingo, playing along, climbs inside. Bluey notices that it looks as though “Daddy has a baby in his belly,” and shouts “I know what we can play!”
Bandit keeps going along with it, joking that his back and feet hurt, and commenting about his cravings and stretch marks. Bluey, known for committing to the bit, then sets up her dad to “deliver” the baby in the kiddie pool in their backyard, while a bemused Chilli looks on from the balcony.
The episode is genuinely hilarious, and explores pregnancy and childbirth in a way that is completely child-appropriate. But because of the gender-swapping in a literal child’s game of make-believe, Disney has deemed this too offensive for kids to watch. Naturally.
Welp, time to head to YouTube to enjoy this delightful episode while we all wait for new seasons of Bluey to drop.
