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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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'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.
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 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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I had to block this one in my house. Daniel is whiny and my kid started mimicking it, otherwise I think it's good
Nobody is as whiny as Caillou.
Lol, yeah I had been pre-warned about that one and have avoided it entirely for my kid's >6 years
Mr Rogers was a different show for sure.
And he had a specific use of language that was incredibly deep and mindful unlike Daniel Tiger.
Well, I was horrified the first time I saw the Cocomelon and was unsettled as a dad. This article explains why.
I need to check Bluey, we watched Miraculous, tales of Ladybug with our kids and enjoyed it (the plot is for adults).
There is a whole bunch of "junk food" in both tv and videogames (those were you win no matter what). I'm hoping things get better.
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.)
The newer Bluey episode "The Sign" made me ugly cry.
Let's not even mention Rug Island, the device in reading on is not nearly waterproof enough for the rain of tears it provokes!
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.
Going into parenthood I never thought I'd say it about a kids show but Bluey has damn near made me cry and Bandit makes me strive to be a better dad
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.
I cannot recommend Bluey enough. It’s made me, a 40 year old father of one, ugly cry. And I’m not one to cry from watching a show.
If you hate Cocomelon like me, you’ll love Bluey. It’s like the polar opposite of it.
Can you help me understand why you feel that a show inducing ugly crying is desirable?
The appeal is in the strong emotions which it induces. The crying is a side effect of this, not the appealing factor in itself.
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.
Right, that's a bit circular though. It isn't a law of nature that humans should do anything that is considered "good art".
Why do we want to synthetically manipulate our brains into an emotional reaction, especially in the case of a negative emotion?
Because it is a form of learning.
Also ugly crying is not always a negative reaction. It's empathy which is important to our survival (and also wonderful).
Is this a serious question?
Completely serious.
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.
That’s where the confusion is; it’s not a negative reaction. It’s an intense emotional reaction, sure, but not inherently negative or bad.
Along with Bluey, Gabby's Dollhouse is pretty good. It’s not over stimulating and it’s interactive.
If you're in Australia, there's a live Gabby's Dollhouse theatre show on at the moment that's also very good: https://gabbysdollhouselive.com/
Tumble Leaf. Slumberkins.
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.
Watching the Cricket episode made me tear up. https://www.bluey.tv/watch/season-3/cricket/
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.
https://www.bluey.tv/watch/season-3/rain/
Cricket took out Sleepytime as my favorite.
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.
When your daughter gets a little older I’d recommend checking out Gabby’s Dollhouse.
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.
It's crack for kids.
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.
I heard awful things about Cocomelon. My 17-months-old doesn't watch TV much, but when she does it's usually old Soviet cartoons lol.
My children both love nupogodi and the animated Hungarian folk tales
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.
Let's not forget the musical side of Bluey.
And I don't mean just the OST (there are 3 albums), Bluey can also serve to introduction your kids to a wide range of classical music.
https://blueypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Classical_Music_in_Bluey
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3lXnsxg2AOj6QASadNBYcN (Spotify's Bluey classical music playlist.
I watched a few episode of Bluey and I feel they are really great for parents. So great that I think they are meant for parents, not children...
Healthy, emotionally secure parents raise good kids. "Put your own mask on before helping others..."
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.
"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.„
He rags on the Distractatron but that’s the exact method that Sesame Street started out using early on (if Malcolm Gladwell is to be believed).
Yes Sesame Street was a blend of care and craftsmanship along with research & testing.
Bluey is about a family living in a 8000 ft mansion, with lots of spare time.
I think it is influenced by the Flintstones, a little bit.
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.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/03/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...
It's available "where you get your podcasts" (though might be old enough now to not be after the NYT added a paywall for old audio material)
Note _Well_
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.
cocomelon i like
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”.
I recommend the band They Might Be Giant's kids songs (some with great animated videos). Super catchy, fun and vaguely educational.
Especially the albums Here come the 1, 2, 3s and Here Comes Science.
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.
Pretty sure that's why the author wrote that blog post
Bluey is a little brat to her parents that is totally unnecessary.
Bluey is flawed and often in the wrong, that is kind of the point of her character.
It’s an OK show for children, but a really good show for parents.
If you want children shows that are actually educational and fun, I usually recommend PBS Kids.
I’d wager you don’t have children, at least not high-energy ones. Or maybe you’re thinking of Muffin.
How do you model the character learning lessons if they’re already perfect?
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.
You're getting a lot of downvotes, but you're right, Bluey can be quite cruel when playing with her dad.
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.
Correct. Try Ms Rachel for your younger child instead of Cocomelon. The very young ones tend to love her.