‘Losing their minds’: Why Aussie kids are bowled over by re-released Bluey episodes

Hit kids TV show Bluey has had five episodes translated into an Australian Indigenous language for the first time.

The show’s reimagined episodes left kids in awe at a special screening, a producer of the animated series said.

“There were a few hundred kids there watching the episode, and they were losing their minds,” Will Porter told the BBC of the Yolŋu Radio screening.

Bluey’s one of Australia’s most successful showbiz exports - shown in more than 140 countries and already translated into 20 different languages.

The newest translation into one of the world’s oldest living languages – Yolŋu Matha, a collection of dialects from north-east Arnhem Land – was first announced last month.

Episodes The Beach, The Creek, Sleepytime, Grandad and Rug Island were chosen because they spoke to a connection to country and family.

The project, which the producers described as ground-breaking, dropped on ABC in time for NAIDOC Week, the annual celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture.

This year marked 50 years of the National Aboriginal Islanders Day Observance Committee movement celebrating the First Nations people, with the theme Fifty Years of Deadly running from July 5-12.

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“If one person turns on the TV and sees an episode of Bluey in a First Nations Australian language, then who knows what inspiration and what seed can germinate and where we can go from there,” executive producer Mayatili Marika told BBC.

Local children and elders were part of the group voicing the characters, as well as prominent musician Dimathaya Burarrwanga, a founding member of ARIA Award-winning surf rock band King Stingray.

Burarrwanga voices Bluey and Bingo’s dad, Bandit, while radio personality Rosie Mununggurr voices their mum, Chilli, and Elder Andrew Gurruwiwi plays grandad.

There were also some tweaks made to the original episodes where things didn’t translate or there were local stories to add in.

One such example is switching out the fictional “drop bears” in 2019’s The Creek, for Ŋamini Baŋ′ Baŋ′ - an old legend from Arnhem Land stories of a creature that takes children if they don’t go to bed.

The creature was most recently popularised through a song by Gurruwiwi’s folk band, Go To Sleep (The Legend of Ŋamini Baŋ′ Baŋ’), released in July 2024.