Unnamed 2016 Pilot

In 2016, a seven-minute pilot episode was created for *Bluey*. It was screened at a few events and received mixed feedback, but mostly positive.

## Synopsis

Not much is known about this episode, as it remains unreleased, but some plot details have been shared.

Bluey and her younger sister Bingo are playing in the backyard, pretending to be rainbow lorikeets. As they do so, however, they accidentally step on Wendy's flowers, much to Judo's amusement. Wendy calmly tells the two to watch where they're going next time and semds Judo to her room for a week. Bluey and Bingo listen and resume the game, this time watching where they're going.

It is also known that Bandit and Chilli, the dad and mum of Bluey and Bingo, were the voice of reason and Lucky's Dad made an appearance, though his role is unknown.

## Cast

* Brook Jenell Slack as Bingo/Judo/lorikeets
* Karen Prell as Bluey/lorikeets
* Steve Whitmire as Bandit
* Melanie Zanetti as Chilli/lorikeets
* Jim Cummings and Frank Welker as lorikeets
	+ Welker also voices Lucky's Dad
* Ruby Wax as Wendy

Additionally, E.G. Daily provides Bluey's vocal effects.

## History

In 2014, Joe Brumm and some animators at Ludo Studio created a one-minute short featuring Bandit Heeler pushing his daughter Bluey on a swing while playing on his phone, causing Bluey to make a 360 around the tree branch. Just as they were about to screen it at festivals, Bob Iger of Disney came to the studio and asked what they were making. Realizing they would be in huge amounts of trouble if they told him about the short, Joe's younger brother Dan told Iger they were making a children's cartoon about a family of Cattle Dogs. Iger loved what he had heard and ordered a seven-minute pilot to see what the show was like.

Now with a huge deadline to meet, the Brumms and Ludo went to work immediately on this pilot. Realizing that they couldn't do it 100% Australian like in the 2014 short, Muppet performer Steve Whitmire was contacted to help on the pilot and voice Bandit, since they couldn't get in contact with Nathan Lane, to which he agreed and served as executive producer and showrunner. Tim Lagasse was contacted by Dan to direct this new pilot. Also brought on board was both Karen Prell and E.G. Daily as the speaking voice and vocal effects of Bluey herself, respectively; Brook Jenell Slack as both Bluey's younger sister Bingo and next-door neighbor Judo; Melanie Zanetti as Chilli, the mother of the household; and Ruby Wax as Wendy, Judo's mother. With the exceptions of Whitmire, Daily and Wax, all of the voice performers provided vocal effects for rainbow lorikeets seen in the episode alongside Jim Cummings and Frank Welker, the latter of which also served as voice director and voice of Lucky's Dad, the other next-door neighbor of Bluey's.

Once casting had been done, production on the pilot began. In it, Bluey and Bingo would play in their backyard and look at the lorikeets in their tree. As one would imagine, hijinks would ensue that involved Wendy, Judo and Pat, with Bandit and Chilli being the voice of reason. According to Joe, these were all inspired by his experiences raising his two daughters. Production concluded on August 18, 2015, with the cast and crew being exhausted from the production rush. At a film festival the next year, the pilot was screened to mixed feedback, but mostly positive. The person who enjoyed the pilot the most was Bob Iger, seeing a huge amount of potential in the show and even liking the fact that Karen Prell and other Jim Henson veterans were in the cast and crew, despite him not liking the Muppets.

## Search Effort

This pilot was never aired on any TV network, nor released on any social media platform or streaming service. Only staff of Bluey's production company, Ludo Studio and people who worked on the pilot are known to either be able to view the pilot or have seen it in the past. There is only one image of this 2016 pilot available to view online, that being of the Heelers in the kitchen with Chilli chopping up a carrot. The image originates from a Griffith News article in 2018 about the show, detailing its premiere and casts in both versions of the show, even confirming that the crew finally managed to get Nathan Lane to voice Bandit.

In 2019, the search for this lost pilot began, determined to get it found and properly preserved. The search team started off with two lost media YouTubers: LSuperSonicQ and SewerReviewer. The two first contacted creator Joe Brumm; however, he said that he didn't have a copy, as creators are not legally allowed to keep copies of pilots of shows. The next person to be contacted was Bob Iger, and he was more willing to give information about the pilot. The two YouTubers asked him certain details about the pilot, such as what Lucky's Dad's role was in the episode, and if the other two voice directors (Charlie Adler and Hank Azaria) were involved, but it was too long ago for him to remember, and he couldn't remember any of those details.

Since then, the search team has made progress, but has yet to completely succeed in making the pilot viewable to the public, as all contacts tried so far were not willing to provide a copy (or were willing to, but first had to check if they still have one) or did not have it, though they had provided more information about it.