A banned Bluey episode is now free to watch in the US and UK, but not on Disney Plus
Since its launch in 2019, Disney Plus has become host to hundreds of different titles, making it one of the best streaming services around.
However, recently the streaming titan has started dating a children’s television show Bluish, has not always gone smoothly. While the vast majority of family-friendly episodes can be streamed on the service, Disney Plus has actually banned one of the platform’s supposedly controversial entries in the US and UK.
But now you can watch the episode, which wasn’t banned in Australia, for free until you feel like it. To do this, though, you’ll have to watch it on YouTube instead of Disney Plus. Check it out below:
If you’re not familiar with it Bluish: It is an Australian animated series aimed at young children about a family of Blue Heeler dogs exploring the realities of everyday life. In fact, it’s so popular that it even made it onto our list of the best Disney Plus shows.
But I digress. In the episode titled “Dad Baby,” the episode that Disney Plus was banned from showing on its primary streaming platform, pups Bluey and Bingo play innocently with their father Bandit, who pretends to be pregnant with Bingo, and “gives birth” her at the end of the episode. The episode ‘Dad Baby’ has now been uploaded to the official Bluish YouTube channel and has been viewed 1.5 million times as of May 1, 2024 (at time of writing).
Why was the Bluey’s Dad Baby episode censored?
Despite the episode’s storyline tying into its depiction of innocent childhood curiosity, it never aired on Disney Plus. This is likely because the streaming platform owns the US and global streaming rights to the show, even though the episode has previously aired on non-Disney-owned services in Australia and the UK.
There has been no official comment from Disney regarding the decision not to air the episode, and while there is a lot of speculation, I think the reasons are crystal clear. The guard asked several questions in an article about the ban Bluish episode, which debated whether it was the candid nature of the birth scene that caused sensitivity issues, or whether the depiction of a supposedly pregnant man (well, male in this case) would be seen as contributing to the ongoing gender culture debate.
There are a number of reasons why children’s TV shows are banned from the public, one of the most famous examples being: Pokemon1997 “Dennō Senshi Porygon” episode, whose extreme flash lighting caused young viewers to have seizures. If you ask me, that’s a legitimate reason for a ban, so the case of the “Dad Baby” episode seems like a bit of a Disney attempt.