Bandit may be celebrated as television’s ultimate “cool dad”, but the reality at home is very different. Dave McCormack, the voice behind Bluey’s famously playful father, admits his own children once liked to show off about his role on the hit show — but are now very much over it.
“My kids always say, ‘little do they know’ when we’re in a shop and someone’s wearing Bluey stuff,” he told the Standard. “But they don’t show off about it anymore — they’re embarrassed by me now. It’s not Bandit who’s uncool. It’s just me.”
That gap between Bandit’s near-mythical status online and the realities of everyday parenting is part of what has made Bluey resonate so strongly. Bandit is playful and imaginative, but he is also tired, flawed and occasionally overwhelmed — a version of fatherhood that feels aspirational without tipping into fantasy.
McCormack is keenly aware of that distinction.
“People focus a lot on the jokes and the silliness,” he says elsewhere in the conversation. “But Bandit’s a sweetheart. He really cares. And he and Chilli have a strong relationship — so he must be doing something right.”
His co-star Melanie Zanetti, who voices Chilli, agrees — and says the character’s appeal has deepened as the series has evolved.
“Chilli is really fun,” she says. “I think because Bandit is so visibly playful, sometimes people miss that. But as the show’s gone on, you really get to see her humour and warmth more.”
Like McCormack, Zanetti has experienced the strange dissonance of being globally recognisable — and yet almost never recognised in real life. Her most memorable fan encounters tend to happen entirely without her involvement.
“I was in Santa Barbara and there was a whole family at a table decked out in Bluey gear,” she says. “My friends were like, ‘Are you going to tell them?’ and I thought, let’s just let them eat their lunch. You do kind of think, ‘Wow, you have no idea.’ But getting to witness that love for the show is really amazing.”
Those moments underline just how wide the show’s audience has become. While Bluey began as a pre-school animation rooted in suburban Brisbane life, it has since grown into something far broader — embraced by parents, child-free adults and even teenagers.
Zanetti says one of the biggest surprises has been hearing from adults in their twenties and thirties who describe the show as emotional comfort viewing.
“I’ve heard people say it’s helping ‘reparent’ them,” she says. “That’s the stuff I didn’t expect.”
That emotional depth is intentional. Bluey does not shy away from weighty themes — grief, change and time passing — often within episodes that run for just seven minutes. Zanetti recalls recording moments that caught her off guard with their emotional force.
“The end of the episode Dragon really choked me up,” she says. “When Chilli says, ‘You’re not coming, are you?’ — that’s going to happen to all of us at some point. That reality just hit me so hard when I was recording.”
McCormack agrees the show’s ability to handle big ideas lightly is part of its rare magic.
“It’s profound in a really efficient way,” he says. “That’s not easy to do.”
Despite being unmistakably Australian in tone, humour and setting, the show’s emotional truths have proved universal.
“It’s such a quintessential Australian show but still resonates so deeply,” Zanetti says, recalling working overseas when colleagues recognised her voice. “They’d say, ‘This feels exactly like our family.’”
That universality is now playing out live on stage. Bluey’s Big Play is currently running in London’s West End at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, until 11 January, before embarking on a UK tour in 2026. The Olivier Award-nominated production brings the Heeler family to life using large-scale puppetry, original music and a story written by Bluey creator Joe Brumm.
For both actors, seeing the show translated to the stage has been unexpectedly moving.
“It feels like they’ve taken Bluey, blown it up, and it’s happening in real life,” Zanetti says. “The energy and the world are so true to the show.”
What excites her most, though, is watching audiences experience it together.
“You see all the little faces being excited, or worried for a character, and then that joy at the end,” she says. “We don’t usually get to watch the show with a live audience, but in that moment, we do — and it’s really wonderful.”
McCormack laughs that the response is anything but restrained.
“The volume of the crowd, the energy — it’s like a rock concert.”
Beyond the stage, the Bluey universe continues to expand. A feature-length Bluey movie has been officially announced for release in August 2027, giving the Heeler family their first big-screen outing and allowing for deeper exploration of the characters than the television format allows.
Zanetti says that prospect is particularly exciting.
“Seven minutes is incredibly tight,” she says. “The idea of having more space to explore those relationships is really special.”
For McCormack, the show’s success — on screen, on stage and soon in cinemas — ultimately comes back to something simple.
“Parenting is parenting,” he says. “We’re all the same. And that’s why it keeps connecting with people everywhere.”
