Some months into the COVID-19 pandemic, I learned that my children had begun watching the Australian cartoon series “Bluey.” My first instinct was to deliver a sermon on politicization. Surely the Land Down Under, imposer of some of the strictest lockdown measures on the planet, would use its cultural export to lecture children on the benefits of indoor masking. Perhaps the show’s anthropomorphic dogs would line up on-screen to get their “jab,” blithely queuing to embrace their destiny as wards of a medico-tyrannical state.

Yes, reader, I had some concerns. What I didn’t do, and should have done, was watch a few episodes myself to suss things out. What I would have discovered is that “Bluey” is not only a (mostly) nonpartisan production but the best children’s programming since Chuck Jones’s masterly Looney Tunes shorts of midcentury. Whatever you have heard about the adventures of dad Bandit, mom Chilli, and sisters Bingo and Bluey, the reality is even more charming.