On the surface the ABC Kids television program "Bluey" is an animated cartoon for children. One level deeper and it is an animated cartoon which is for parents; and includes teachable concepts. One level deeper and it becomes the subject of literary analysis and has spawned multiple podcasts including "Gotta Be Done" and "The Hammerbarn Project". One level sideways and we find that this program is watched by an entire class of people who do not have children, and just like watching simple stories which are not the usual run of homicides, armed robberies, violent crimes, and endless politics which the news wants to serve up. Bluey is an anti-news program, if you will.
The show Bluey also has a very strong sense of place; being obviously set in Brisbane without directly mentioning it. Various attempts have been made in forums to determine where the Heeler family lives and the general concensus is that they either live in Red Hill or Hawthorne.
However, the one thing within the Blueyverse that is impossible to nail down is the architecture of their house. Several rooms simply do not make any sense at all and whatever is upstairs can not possibly fit inside the building if you look at it from the outside.
I have found three possibly plausible theories as to the internal workings of the Heeler House at No.2 Whatever-It-Is Street (which by the way also doesn't make any sense as the long shots of the house show it at the very top of a hill; yet very clearly within the show, the surrounding houses are all on the level).
Theory 1 - The Rule Of Funny:
If we apply Occam's Razor with surgical precision, then this is the theory which hacks away everything but the most rational explanation. If the Heeler house follows The Rule Of Funny, then the only reason that anything needs to exist within the Blueyverse is it does so to be funny at the time. The Rule Of Funny requires the least amount of rational thought because if we accept that this is a work of fiction and that everything only exists within this world because it is a work of fiction, then all continuity is irrelevant and things only need to exist in the moment for dramatic or comedic effect.
If your prime audience for a thing is children who do not care about the internal logic or continuity of the thing, then why should you care? In this respect, the internal architecture of the Heeler House is a bit like Chekov's gun. Anton Chekov once made the remark that "one does not place a gun on stage unless one intends to fire it"; which is a statement about the economy of elements on stage. Chekov obviously wasn't a fan of decoration and so, the various elements on stage in his eyes, should only serve to further the plot. If the Blueyverse is following the Rule of Funny, then the only logic which needs to be applied is if a thing needs to exist in order to move the plot forward and/or to get a laugh.
Theory 2 - Bluey's Perspective:
One of the meta-theories that I have heard about the Blueyverse is that the show which is designed to be seen through the eyes of children, only includes elements which are rational to children. This theory is similar to The Rule of Funny but differs in that things do not exist in order to move the plot forward or to get a laugh but because these are the things that Bluey notices.
I can speak from personal experience here. My grandparents' house had two levels. Not quite at the top of the stairs, there was a laundry chute. It never occurred to me as a small boy that the laundry chute was in fact a laundry chute because I assumed that it was some kind of hall chest, or another piece of solid furniture. When I opened the laundry chute on one occasion, it was like i had opened the door to another realm. A hole with a shaft of light coming upwards was (and very well might still be) amazing.
As a big person, I was on one occasion staying in London for a couple of weeks. I would leave my semi-squalid backpackers' hostel and walk to the nearest tube station. I remember thinking after a few days that I would like to cross over the river some time and have a look on the other side. It was only after I bothered to look at a tube map that I realised that for the whole time I'd been there, I actually already been crossing under the Thames and had already been on the other side.
If things in the Blueyverse only exist because they are relevant to Bluey, then this would explain why the architecture of the house makes no sense. Things do not exist in Bluey's house unless they are relevant to her. This is a common experience among small children, I think. They can not possibly imagine that their parents, or their teachers, have lives outside of the immediate context of their own existence. When a child sees a teacher out in the wild, it is as though worlds have collided.
Theory 3 - The House Is A TARDIS:
I can see no evidence of time travel within the Blueyverse. However, I think that we can take it as internal fact that the Blueyverse operates on different laws to our own. As evidenced in "The Decider", they do in fact live in Queensland; albeit some different Queensland to our own. We know that there is industry and commerce; we know that there is air travel (as Chili works in Airport Security), we know that there is a past (because Bandit is an archaeologist), and we know that the default personoid in the Blueyverse is a dog (and that birds, cats, chimps etc exist).
The conclusion that we have to draw, after trying to work out how the kitchen, front living room, their bedrooms, the hallways, and at least one patio, is that the long shot of the house from the outside is genuine, that all of the inside shots of the house are genuine, and that the house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
The most egregious abuse of the internal architecture of the Heelers' house is at the end of a hallway where the girls' bedroom is. In Season 2, one shot shows that it is by itself at the end of the hallway and that there is a wall which faces their bedroom door. In Season 3, a show from a similar perspective, now shows that there is another door and another room opposite their bedroom door.
If the house follows similar rules to what we knw about TARDIS technology from elsewhere in media, then in a house/building which is bigger on the inside, rooms can appear and be deleted. I have seen examples in this kind of house, where someone has had to run around for ages looking for their room because it has been moved. I have also seen examples where the outside of the thing, merely appears as a single door on a hallway; with the entire room disappearing and reappearing. Other examples in various media franchises exist, such as The Room of Requirement, which only appears when a person is in need of it. This would imply that TARDIS rules for buildings also follow Chekovity.
Conclusion:
For any given piece of media, which exists in multiple episodes, discontinuity errors are always going to creep in. Sometimes they are deliberate and sometimes they are accidental but irrespective of either, there will always be some section of the audience who wants to pull it apart, have a look at all of the pieces, and see why they work or do not work.
This then begs the question: "Why?" Why is there a section of the audience who compulsively wants to pull apart the internal workings of the media that they enjoy?
Theory 1 - The Rule Of Funny:
Oh no. Have we stepped into some kind of meta-narrative here? Have we turned the spectators into the spectacle? Indeed we have!
I suspect that at the heart of everyone who has ever lived, is some component which finds it both fun and funny to open apart everything in the world. The entire realms of enquiry of science, philosophy, religion, art, drama, are all ultimately about opening stuff and have a play with them.
Theory 2 - Our Perspective:
We can only see the universe through our own eyes and thus, our interpretation of media will only include elements which are rational to us. Remember, books belong to their readers; which means that the reader has some sort of ownership over the books they read and the experiences they have while reading. After something has been published and it has been received by the audience, it belongs to the audience and the interpretation of the audience is the final. Authorial intent is to some degree pointless because whatever interpretation you have of a thing, matters.
Theory 3 - Every Person Is A TARDIS:
Are all people like this? So much bigger on the inside. Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.
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