It’s the end of an era as the creator and writer behind our beloved Aussie ABC show Bluey steps down to focus on a feature film!

In a blog post this week, Joe Brumm announced he was leaving the episodic version of the show to focus completely on a new BBC and Disney-supported feature-length Bluey movie.

“I really enjoyed the experience of working with a longer format on ‘The Sign’ in (Season) 3, so going even further with a feature film feels like a natural extension of that,” he said.

After about six years at the helm of the creative charge at Bluey HQ, Brumm’s time will now come to an end at Season 3 with the 7-ish minute installments no longer sporting a writers credit moving forward.

But the cute, controversial, and confronting themes that make the show great will hopefully continue with the Bluey creative team taking the pilot’s seat to keep the musical statues dancing. Brumm stressed that this announcement wasn’t the end of Bluey, but rather a shift in who would create the TV episodes from Season 4 onward.

Brumm said he believed he had given the TV part of the show all that he could and hoped to move his career into creating longer-format content.

“I always said I wouldn’t keep making the show if I thought I couldn’t make any new season as good as the last,” he wrote.

“This would have been the case for me with a potential season four, so I’ve decided to take a break from my involvement in the TV series.

“In the event I can’t wrap my head around doing more seasons myself, The Sign will mark my TV finale for Bluey, and I wrote it as such.”

Bluey has always been a show that’s adorable and cute, funny and heartfelt, exploring topics not normally covered on children’s TV. It has thoughtfully addressed topics such as death, loneliness, loss, and even the fleeting reality of childhood.

One of my favourite Bluey moments was in Season 3, during an episode called ‘Onesies,’ which confronted infertility honestly and unexpectedly. As a parent, this episode felt personal to me, having seen friends live with this reality, but usually, discussions about it are taboo due to cultural barriers. The episode was written by Brumm and, for context, it holds a 9.5/10 rating on IMDb — and isn’t even one of the highest-rated episodes of the show or season.

But with the popularity of Bluey turning American kids Aussie (accents, at least), finding national acclaim, and even inspiring its own theme park (sort of) with Bluey’s World, you’d think Brumm would be nuts to bail on his creation so early.

Well, he addresses that in his post too:

“Walking away from Bluey while it’s at such a height will seem crazy to some, but for now, I am finding it difficult to genuinely reach back into that four-to-six-year-old world and write authentically,” Brumm commented.

With Brumm feeling like he has made the right call for Bluey’s future and stepping down from writing Bluey, I just hope he’s right and the show remains as heartfelt and honest as it was from the start.

Time will tell, and I can’t wait to drag my son along to see the upcoming Bluey movie on the big screen.