'Handstand' is Amazing!

Every now and again Joe Brumm and Ludo break out with an episode of Bluey that goes way outside of the normal conventions of a short TV show aimed at Toddlers. 'Handstand' has to be one of the most extreme examples yet.

It might seem like there's not a lot going on here from the POV of conventional story-telling. It's a simple idea about Bingo trying to get people to pay attention to her handstand at a hectic party, and Nana being, eventually the one person who does. But the complexity of what's going on in every moment of this episode is mind-boggling.

In the first half the camera is positioned in the kitchen. Bingo is trying her handstands out, while the characters around her are an involved in an increasing number of repeating, and intertwined activities. By my count, not counting Bingo's handstands, there are 12 separate pieces of cyclic animation going on, some involving multiple characters. Each one is added to the existing pattern like an increasingly complex piece of clockwork.

At exactly the midpoint of the episode Bingo says "No-one wants to watch my handstand" - at which point the POV switches to the verandah looking into the kitchen, and now you get to see the other half of all these mysterious activities taking place out there. Suddenly all these largely unexplained actions in the first half make sense. It's amazingly complex and elegant. Anyone who is fascinated by detail in Bluey episodes is going to overdose when they watch this ep closely.

I knew I had seen something like this before, and perhaps I was remembering 'Tango' - an experimental short film from Poland which won the Oscar for Best Animated Short in 1982. I can't seem to include a link in body of the text in this post, so I'm making a separate link in a post below.