It’s a ruff day for Bluey fans in Australia.
Families who love to stream episode after episode of the popular cartoon featuring the titular blue dog will have to go without the season two episode titled “Hammerbarn” for the time being after it was pulled from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s on-demand streaming service ABC iview.
As to why this specific episode is missing? The network’s rules regarding commercial partnerships.
A recent collaboration with Australian hardware store chain Bunnings Warehouse, which is selling Bluey merchandise and even rebranding itself as the fictional “Hammerbarn,” goes against network policies as the broadcaster “cannot align with a commercial brand or partnership,” according to an ABC rep.
“This campaign is a BBC Studios and Bunnings partnership,” the spokesperson told the Daily Telegraph, noting that “Hammerbarn” episode “will temporarily be unavailable on ABC iview while the Bunnings Hammerbarn campaign is live.”
The rep added that the episode “will return to ABC iview at a later date.”
However, the episode is still available to stream on Disney+ in the United States and BBC iPlayer in the United Kingdom, so not everyone has to miss out.
Since its debut in 2018, Bluey—centered on the world of seven-year old blue heeler Bluey, her younger sister Bingo, her mom Chilli and dad Bandit, often with a lesson intertwined in each seven-minute episode—has garnered millions of fans around the world. In fact, the children’s show is a staple for Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling‘s household, which includes daughters Esmeralda, 10, and Amada, 9.
“They love Bluey! Bluey is huge in our house. Huge,” Eva told Now To Love in 2020. “They get kind of this crazy energy afterwards and they play tricks on us. They really love the frozen statue thing. But they love Bluey and we love Bluey and we watch it a lot.”
And some top Hollywood names have even gotten the chance to make their mark on the show. NataliePortman—who is mom to Aleph, 14 and Amalia, 8, with ex-husband Benjamin Millepied—even shared how “honored” she was to have the chance to do a voiceover on Bluey in 2021.
“It’s a very important show for my family,” the Oscar winner told Hoda Kotb on Today in 2024. “I was really, really honored to get to be part of it.”
Likewise, Hoda’s kids Haley, 8, and Hope, 6, are huge fans. As she told Natalie, “Bluey is such a hit in our house, too.”
For more surprising facts about popular animated characters, read on.
Hello Kitty Isn’t a Cat
Many fans were left purrrrrfectly confused after this revelation.
“Hello Kitty is not a cat,” Jill Cook—an executive at Sanrio, the company behind the character—explained to Today in July 2024. “She’s actually a little girl born and raised in the suburbs of London. She has a mom and dad and a twin sister Mimmy who’s also her best friend. She enjoys baking cookies and making new friends.”
While the news may have surprised some, Cook wasn’t the first to share this insight. As a matter of fact, Christine R. Yano—a professor of anthropology who penned the book Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Trek Across the Pacific—had also previously confirmed that Hello Kitty isn’t a feline.
“Hello Kitty is not a cat,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 2014. “She’s a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat. She’s never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature. She does have a pet cat of her own, however, and it’s called Charmmy Kitty.”
Other fun facts about Hello Kitty? According to Sanrio, she is five apples tall, weighs three apples, was born on November 1 (making her a Scorpio) and dreams of being a pianist or poet.
Goofy Isn’t a Dog
Gawrsh! Did you know this fact?
Bill Farmer, who’s provided the voice of Goofy for decades, explained why the Disney character can talk while Mickey Mouse’s pet Pluto can’t.
Goofy is “not a dog, but he’s a canine,” the voice actor said on an August 2024 episode of Popcorn Podcast with Leigh Livingstone and Tim Iffland. “So it’s kind of like a wolf is not a dog but it’s a canine—same thing. Goofus canis, that’s what he is. Or, he’s a MOG—he’s a man-dog.”
However, Pluto, he added, is a “regular dog”—a blood hound as it turns out.
Squidward Isn’t a Squid
You’ll want to get to the (bikini) bottom of this discovery.
SpongeBob SquarePants‘ creator Stephen Hillenburg once revealed that Squidward Tentacles is actually an octopus—not a squid.
“This is Squidward the Octopus, SpongeBob’s grumpy next-door neighboor,” he shared in the 2005 Case Of The Sponge ‘Bob’ video resurfaced by BuzzFeed. “I like the octopus for this character because they have such a large, bulbous head, and Squidward thinks he’s an intellectual so, of course, he’s going to have a large, bulbous head.”
But if you’re wondering how Squidward can be an octopus when he has only six legs instead of eight, Hillenburg had an answer for that, too—noting “it was really just easier for animation to draw him” with fewer tentacles.
Blue From Blue’s Clues Was Originally an Orange Cat
Break out your handy dandy notebook and jot this one down.
“One of the things that nobody knows is that Blue was originally a cat,” the show’s co-creator Angela Santomero said in the 2006 special Behind the Clues: 10 Years With Blue resurfaced by Mental Floss. “First his name was Mr. Orange and then we’re like, ‘Uh, maybe Mr. Blue.'”
But according to the special, Nickelodeon was already working on a series about a cat—leading animators to toss out the original idea and redesign Blue as a dog.
Doug Was Almost Named Brian
Now this really isn’t funnie, er, funny.
But as it turns out, Doug Funnie from the cartoon series Doug was almost named Brian. As for what led to the change?
“I just thought Brian was too fancy of a name,” Doug creator Jim Jinkins told HuffPost TV in 2014, “So, I geared it down, and started calling him Doug. If you think about what that sounds like, it sounds incredibly average, and that’s what I was trying to do: express from that point of view.”
Boo From Monsters, Inc. Isn’t Her Full Name
This fact is so good it’s scary.
In Monsters, Inc.: An Augmented Reality Book, the name of Boo—the little girl who accidentally ends up in Monstropolis and befriends monsters Mike and Sulley—is revealed to be Mary Gibbs, according to BuzzFeed. And if the name sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the real-life moniker of the actress who provided the voice of Boo.
Need more proof? In the movie, there’s actually a scene where Boo is sorting through some of her drawings and fans can spot the name “Mary” scribbled at the top of one of the pieces of paper.
Minnie Mouse Has a Longer Moniker
Speaking of names, while Mickey Mouse’s girlfriend is often called Minnie Mouse, according to the BBC, it was revealed in 1942 that her full name is actually Minerva.
