The GOAT

There are controversies and then there are CONTROVERSIES!, and today I'm going to be addressing one of the biggest. Forget Messi vs Ronaldo (Ronaldo), forget Federer vs Nadal (Fed), forget even Kirk vs Picard (Sisko). Today, we'll be addressing the burning topic of all topics: Hey Duggee or Bluey?

In all seriousness, CBeebies is twenty years old, and the Guardian have commissioned an article looking at some of the best programmes from the history of that channel. For anyone who is familiar with them, the top two are no surprise at all - the only real question was which would come on top of the heap.

For the uninitiated, Bluey is an Australian animation about a family of dogs - Bandit, Chilli, Bingo, and the titular Bluey. On the face of it, it's the usual anarchic "here's a situation, hijinks ensue" show we've seen a million times before... but what sets Bluey apart is the writing, which is just stellar. It's a children's show that I could happily watch myself.

On the other hand, Hey Duggee is an British animation about a dog (Duggee) who runs a day care facility for five children. Each episode the squirrels go on some adventure to collect a badge. And, again, it's set apart by the writing of the piece, and again it's something I could watch by myself. Indeed, until Bluey came along, my go-to opinion for just about any piece of entertainment was, "well, it's no Duggee... but then, what is?"

One thing to note is that part of the greatness of both of these shows is that they don't talk down to kids, as a great deal of children's entertainment does. Children obviously don't have the skills and experience of adults, and they haven't yet been inflicted with the decades of relentless cynicism that we've developed. But there's a big difference between that and being stupid, and a great deal of children's TV forgets this. Bluey and Duggee do not, and that is a real strength.

Honestly, my view with these things is that the need to pick an absolute winner is somewhat silly - in all the cases, there's no reason you can't acknowledge the excellence of both sides, and indeed be grateful that we live in a world with both - indeed, in most of the cases, each side has made the other better. So it doesn't really matter which is better - they're both good.

But... if I simply had to choose, Duggee wins it for me.