Blueberry was a domestic Fluffy, and she thought her life was pretty good, all things considered. Her daily routine consisted of waking up, eating breakfast, then her Daddeh would put her in the vroom vroom munstah for a few forevers, then she’d get out of the vroom vroom munstah and go to Daycare.
Daycare was definitely her favourite part of the day. She got to play with her bestest friend in the whole world, Sky. Sky was a munstah Fluffy, so all the other Fluffies had worstest scardies when she was around. But Blueberry was brave! She was no scardies! Sky had blue fluff like her, except hers was a lighter shade and she had a pretty white mane while Blueberry’s was green. Other than that, they matched! And Sky was actually a really nice Fluffy once Blueberry started playing with her.
Sky was smart, but not a smarty (Blueberry had trouble understanding that at first) and she was “cultured”. Blueberry had no idea what that meant, but Sky told her that her daddeh called her that because he let her watch things on the TV that wasn’t FluffTV. Apparently FluffTV was a channel and Sky’s Daddeh’s TV had a channel called “Disnee Pwus” that had stuff that Hoomin Talkie Babbehs watched.
Blueberry had to admit… She was a little jealous. Sky told the best stories ever! She told stories about all the different “moovees” she saw, and boy did they sound so much more exciting than FluffTV.
Today as they were eating lunch, Sky was recounting the tale of her latest movie watch.
“And den da Meanie Smawty Kitty Munstah said “Wong wive da king!” and thwew da Smawty Fwiend Daddeh Kitty Munstah fwom da cwiff” Sky exclaimed, waving her hoofsies for dramatic effect. “Da Daddeh Kitty Munstah feww an got sowwy hoofsies fwom da scawy hoofie munstah hewd…”
Blueberry gasped in horror. “Dat’s tewwibwe!”
Sky was practically crying at this point. “Den Babbeh Kitty Munstah finds his Daddeh wying on da gwound… Babbeh Kitty Munstah thinked dat his Daddeh is sweeping, twy to wakies… But Daddeh Kitty Munstah is forebah sweepies! HUUUU…”
“Huuu HUUUU, dat am biggest saddies ebah!” Blueberry sobbed.
“Meanie Smawty Kitty Munstah finds Babbeh Kitty Munstah an says dat forebah sweepies is Babbeh Kitty Munstah fauwt… Makes Babbeh Kitty Munstah wun way, den sends meanie barkie munstahs to gib da Babbeh Kitty forebah sweepies! An da Meanie Smawty Kitty Munstah is new Smawty Fwiend of dah kitty munstah hewd!” Sky recounted.
“HUUU HUUU HUUUUUUU” Blueberry was inconsolable. That was the saddest story she ever heard!
Sky was taken aback. She didn’t want to make her best friend sad! “But it otay! Babbeh Kitty Munstah make fwends with Piggie Munstah and Smol Munstah an gwows up big an stwong! Den Gwown Up Kitty Munstah meets Speshal Fwiend, and Monkey Munstah take Gwown Up Kitty Munstah tu see his Daddeh’s Ghostie in da cwouds! Gwown Up Kitty Munstah go homesie, gibs Meanie Smarty Kitty Munstah sowwy cwaws, den become new Smawty Fwiend! And hab babbeh wif speshal fwiend dat gonna be futuwe Smawty Fwiend!”
Blueberry was starstruck. “Wowieeee… Dat sound 'mazing… Bwuebewwy wish Daddeh wet Bwuebewwy watch Disnee Pwus…”
Sky looked troubled. She looked left, then she looked right. She ran over to the arts and crafts section and grabbed a pen and paper. Blueberry was confused. What was she doing? Sky came back and ushered Blueberry to follow her to the corner of the room where no one was watching.
“Sky nu think dat Bwuebewwy can watch big moovees without Daddeh seeing, but Sky kno way dat Bwuebewwy can watch Sky’s faborwite TV show on Disnee Pwus.” Sky whispered.
Blueberry gasped. If there was one thing Sky liked talking about the most, it was her favourite TV show. Something that apparently was so amazing that it put everything on FluffTV to shame. Blueberry didn’t even know that was possible. By the time Blueberry’s Daddeh came to pick her up from Daycare, Sky had fully laid out detailed instructions for Blueberry to follow. She just had to do what the paper told her.
The next part of Blueberry’s day was watching FluffTV until her Daddeh finished “working from home” (whatever that meant.) She had two hours. After saying goodbye to her Daddeh and promising to do good poopies in the litterbox, like she always did, her Daddeh left the room. It was show time.
Step 1. Find the remote. That was easy. It was on the shelf above the fire place. Actually getting it down was the issue. Blueberry flapped her wingies as hard as she could. Surely they’d let her fly, right? Nope.
“Nuu…” Blueberry cried softly. She knew what she had to do next. But it would give her owies. She used herself as a living battering ram and ran full tilt at the wall. Dazed, she fell back on her butt and rubbed her head with her hoofsies. The remote landed on top of her. Ouch. But at least it got results.
Step 2. Press the buttons until it went over the Disnee Pwus channel thingie. Blueberry looked at her sheet for this. Neither of them could read, so Sky drew a diagram of what Disnee Pwus looked like. It had * “D” shape and a “+” shape and it was blue. It took a lot of trial and error with pressing the buttons with her hoofsies, but eventually she managed.
Step 3: It was the icon with the four rectangle barkie munstahs on it. Blueberry compared the diagram with all the options. So many shows! It was mind-blowing in itself that you could just… pick what you wanted to watch! She found something that looked like the drawing and pressed the remote again.
Four barkie munstahs, two of them blue, two of them orange appeared on the screen, dancing against a blue background as cheerful music played. It was bright, it was colourful, it was everything a fluffy adored. And it was only the theme song!
The actual episode started playing and all at once, Blueberry was sucked into another world.
A few weeks later, Dave felt like something was off. Blueberry was the happiest she had ever been in her whole life. She was singing a lot more often … which was weird, because it didn’t sound like anything from FluffTV. They must have introduced a classical music channel because he caught her singing Jupiter by Gustav Holst. Oh yeah, that and she turned Australian.
She kept saying things like “dunny”, and “bin chicken” and wackadoo. She started asking questions about cricket. She was speaking in an Australian accent! Dave figured she must have got it from that blue and white alicorn from daycare. She also spoke in an Australian accent, maybe it rubbed off on her. It was bizarre, but… Also not annoying? Cute even? She developed a habit of turning the TV off when he went to check up on her after he finished work.
There she was, sitting peacefully on the sofa, no mess, no bad poopies, just delighted to see him. “G’day, Daddeh!”
It wasn’t until one day at daycare when the teacher stopped him to have a chat, that everything all clicked. “I have to say, I’m surprised you started letting Blueberry watch Bluey. I hear her and Sky talk about it all the time. They even taught new games to the other Fluffies that they learned from the show. It’s had an amazing positive influence on them.”
Dave had to admit. He COULDN’T STAND FluffTV. It was just a whole lot of mindless, vapid, oversaturated nonsense with flashing colours designed to make Fluffies sit down and shut up for a few hours, and occasionally teach them a life lesson. It was like Cocomelon and those creepy Elsa and Spiderman animations on YouTube but 1000000% more annoying. But as much as he hated it, Blueberry didn’t. It’s why he chose to let her watch it while he was at work on his laptop, with his headphones on.
There was one rule about TV, Blueberry was NOT ALLOWED to watch anything other than FluffTV. He was paranoid that Blueberry would accidentally flip to another channel and watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre or something and get scarred for life. That day, after Daycare, he decided to watch what Blueberry would do. He hid behind the door and peeked into the room.
Blueberry got up from the sofa, kicked the wall to knock the remote from the shelf, then sat back down. Like she had done this a hundred times before, she went onto Disney + and selected Bluey to watch. And judging by the progress bars on each episode, she had seen ALL of them. Blueberry selected an episode called “Sleepytime” and snuggled into the sofa cushion.
Dave rolled his eyes. He was considering barging in and ending it right then and there, but something made him pause. Blueberry… was quiet. She was completely transfixed. And the show… To his greatest surprise it wasn’t annoying and brain rotting like practically every other cartoon aimed at that age demographic. It was… Soothing? Pleasant? Actually really adorable?
The orange cartoon dog wanted to go to sleep and wake up in her own bed without going in to sleep in her mom’s room. She dreamt that she and her stuffed rabbit were floating around in space, the rabbit left to join the other stuffed rabbits that made up Saturn’s rings, leading to the cartoon dog to start crying, in the dream and in real life, drawing her mother’s attention. Then the orange dog rode on a comet towards the sun, and as she sat on the planet Mercury, Jupiter by Gustav Holst started blaring, in full orchestra as the camera cut to show her being hugged by her mother, then the Sun said, in the voice of her mother “Remember I’ll always be here for you, when if you can’t see me. Because I love you”, and then-
Dave felt warm tears run down his cheeks. Wait… Was he CRYING?! The dog show that Blueberry was watching made him tear up?! Why was he feeling emotional at a good damn preschoolers show?!
“Huu huuu…”
Dave took a glance at Blueberry and sure enough, she was tearing up too. Blueberry watched another episode. The mom was telling her kids a story about when the blue dog was a baby, she wasn’t reaching the same milestones as the other babies at daycare, so the mom dog thought she was bad mother. Then one of the other moms from daycare, who had many kids, told the mom dog (while looking directly at the audience!) that she was going great, and the orange mom dog stopped worrying.
Damn, where was that lesson on those Mummah FluffTV programs?!
Another episode. A grey cartoon dog (a cousin, maybe?) was told by her father that she was special. The grey cousin dog used the excuse that she was special in order to do what she wanted and ruin the other kids games.
Dave winced. Now that was definitely Bestest Babbeh behaviour, which he didn’t want Blueberry to copy. But wait, her dad sat her down and told her that while of course her parents thought she was special, to other people she wasn’t special at all, which was accepted without tantrum.
…Huh.
Actually… This cartoon wasn’t half bad. For BLUEBERRY, he meant. Definitely not for him. He wasn’t going to admit that he enjoyed watching some random Australian preschooler show, no sir. A loud SCREEEEEE jarred him out of his thoughts.
Blueberry had spotted him and she frantically leapt at the remote to turn the TV off. Knowing she was well and truly busted, she promptly burst into tears. “HUUU HUUUUUU, Bwuebewwy so sowwy, Bwuebewwy jus wan watch Sky favowite TV show, Bwuebewwy am bad Fwuffy!”
Heartbroken, she went to go sit in the Sorry Box. Dave frowned. Yes, she had broken the rules, but… In this case, it was harmless. And if anything, it was the best thing that ever happened in her short lifespan.
“Okay, you’ll have to sit in the Sorry Box for 20 minutes.” Dave said sternly, setting an alarm on her phone to let her know how long 20 minutes is.
Blueberry hung her head in shame. “Otay Daddeh…” she said glumly.
“If you want to watch this cartoon, you have to ask me to turn it on for you. I don’t want you to accidentally watch something scary.”
Blueberry gasped. She stared up at him in complete shock. “Weawwy?!”
“Yes, really.”
Blueberry was overjoyed. The next day, she ran into Daycare and immediately tackle hugged Sky, eager to share the good news. After that, Blueberry started to watch Bluey all the time. The best part was that her Daddeh would watch it with her! It was unthinkable! Dave found it to be tolerable. He vehemently denied that he enjoyed it to anyone that accused him of liking it. No, he was just watching it because his Fluffy was, duh.
Blueberry hugged her new Bingo plushie that her Daddeh bought her at the store. He had to admit, seeing Blueberry being that happy made him feel happy too. Thank fucking god he didn’t have to ever listen to that god awful FluffTV channel again.
