Bluey Plunges Into Politics as Its Public Broadcaster Installs a Full-Time Sheepdog Unit to Guard the Cartoon Dog's Likeness From One Nation Ads
The national broadcaster has assigned a team of handlers and lawyers to pursue every political cartoon that puts the animated heeler in front of a campaign.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has stationed a standing guard of thirty-one handlers at its Ultimo headquarters after the One Nation party began placing the cartoon heeler from Bluey into campaign animations, and staff have been told the watch will continue until the last frame is withdrawn.
Under the new arrangement, every clip that shows the dog beside a political figure is logged within minutes, timed against the broadcast schedule and carried by courier to a conference room where a panel of three producers decides whether it is an insult. Editors say the rota has already been extended to weekends, and a second shift has been drafted from the children's programming department.
A senior ABC executive, speaking at the handover, said: «We have no objection to politics. We simply cannot allow a character who has spent years teaching children to take turns to be shown hitting a prime minister with a rolled-up newspaper, and we will spend whatever it takes to keep that frame off the air.»
The corporation has also commissioned a pair of animators to redraw the show's dog in a neutral pose, so that any future campaign poster has nothing to copy except a bowl of cereal and a tennis ball. Production crews have been asked to fly the original model sheets to Sydney in a locked case, and a courier has been hired to carry them door to door through the marginal seats.
Staff in the children's department report that the working week now begins with a briefing on which political parties have been seen using the dog, and that the morning coffee run has been rerouted past the offices of the party in question.
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