Hey Duggee - I have questions...

[SinkGirl]

My twins are both in love with Hey Duggee and have been for about two years now. While other children would have moved on to more complex things, my two are autistic and show no signs of moving past Duggee. Which means I have seen each episode 8000 times, and the more I watch, the more questions I have:

1. Why are some animals animals and some animals like people? What dictates which animals can talk and which animals make animal sounds? And is it really appropriate for the Squirrels to be stroking Duggee?

2. Is Squirrel Club a franchise? I suspect not, as when they go for a jamboree, the group is the Hummingbirds. So Duggee wears that uniform through choice. Weird.

3. How much are the parents paying for this? It seems to be Duggees only job, and he’s running a whole clubhouse and paying for an interpreter. Happy travels on the bus to squirrel club, are these sessions funded by social care?

4. Who is deciding what criteria means a badge is awarded? Duggee reckons he’s an expert in every bloody subject because he has a badge, but then the Squirrels get the same badge for doing bugger all, so the badges are meaningless. Bit dangerous giving them a first aid badge after wrapping someone into a bandage ball and applying a plaster - I hope none of the squirrels ever need CPR.

5. Can you imagine how insufferable Duggee would be if you knew him? He thinks he knows more about camouflage than a bloody chameleon, or more about plays than people literally putting on a play. He’s such a dogsplainer. He would be a nightmare at a dinner party.

6. Where are the risk assessments for these outings?

7. Is it really a good idea for an elephant to adopt a crocodile? Sure, fine when he’s a kid, but what about when he reaches adulthood?

I have officially seen too much Duggee. Thank god it’s this and not bloody Night Garden.

Off to watch the stick song

Sinkgirl, I feel your pain. When DS1 was the age your two are now he used to watch the same five second clips of songs over and over again. His other love is gameshows. He has now watched the first episode of the new Michael McIntyre show twelve times since Saturday. He still rocks and flaps every time they make the people spin around.

Massive advantages to ds1 are that he is the kindest, most gentle and lovely boy.

Thank you so much for this thread @SinkGirl. I have not had such a good laugh in ages. You really got me with with the ‘blood splatter anaysis badge’ so appropriate for my line of work i’m definitely stealing it 🤣 I didn’t really know what Hey Duggee was so have educated myself on it a little since last night. Now I have so many questions too! What is the purple thing? A blackberry with legs? With a 80’s style sweatband? Or an octopus? If so why only 5 legs? Why are all the animals the same size apart from Duggee (who seems to have a ‘glandular’ problem)? Why is the stick song basically 2 unlimited’s No Limits? Why is the stick insect so large in comparison to everything else. Why does the brown thing, a mouse?, look like a penis when it lifts it’s head up? How come the squirrells all understand Duggee but don’t speak ‘woof’ back to him? So so wrong on so many levels, and I won’t even go into the inappropriate affection between Duggee by the squirrells. Blimey kids TV is a whole new world to me! 🤣🤣🤣

YES KarlKennedy, Duggee's day off...he really should have put in some boundaries.

A polite 'Squirrel Club is closed at the weekend but we'll all be back tomorrow,' surely?

I love Roly. The Shape Badge is a fav. But not as good as the A Capella badge- genius.

Check out Kiri and Lou too.

The rest of the CBeebies schedule can do one. Especially Bing.

@KipperTheFrog

I wish DD2 was still into Duggee. Now it’s cocomelon on repeat. I will hear no criticism of Duggee. He is awesome. I still put it on sometimes to try to tempt DD2 back into it.

Oh god. DT1 sometimes watches Cocomelon on the iPad and I have to leave the room. Hell on Earth. You have my sympathies.

Duggee is obviously the best of a bad lot and I quite enjoyed it to begin with. Now I make sarcastic comments about his arrogance under my breath.

“Oh yes, Duggee’s very good at painting - he’s got his decorating badge!” - err, the squirrels cover the clubhouse in potato prints and various shite and they get the decorating badge too, so I don’t think that says you’re very good at decorating. Sigh.

@RosieLemonade

Duggee is more rewatchable than paw patrol for example. I’ve not reached the grating level of it yet. *@SinkGirl* was it you who made beautiful Duggee biscuits for your twins?

I am amazed you remembered that! Yes, that was me, over a year ago. As you can see,Duggee fever has been around a long time in our house!

Oops, forgot the pics

@MummBraTheEverLeaking

We love Duggee here, as DD is getting a bit older however she's starting to move on but lately has wanted to watch it again (instead of Daniel Tiger and his repetitive crap jingles, Buster the fucking Bus and godawful cocomelon on youtube) In fact it's on now!

I love the River Badge, so quotable (I recently ran owt... DIDN'T I?!?") Not to mention spotting the pop culture references for the grown ups.

River badge (and Tadpole badge) I love - how many kids shows do Apocalypse Now parodies? Oh and... ‘Ellie deer! ‘Ello sweetheart!

I’m going mad.

@ForeverBubblegum

Sorry to jump on yourthread, but can anybody explain the set up with happy's cousin Eric? Is it an open adoption, so he still spends time with his birth family? Or did his elephant aunt/uncle also adopt? Is he actually his cousin or is he sibling/young parent? Happy seems very obsessive about talking about him, so I feel they have some kind of shared troma or backstory.

I do actually have an answer to one of your questions. Duggee not only chooses to wear the uniform, he designed and made it himself, and has made various styles of the uniform over several decades, possibly since before becoming a squirrel leader. (Ref. Fashion badge)

Oh, I know he made it. And many versions. That was one of DT2’s obsessive episodes for a while... but he could just wear normal clothes. Weird to make yourself a uniform, no?

@Firefly89

Op your post has made me smile thank you! My ds has just got into duggee... we dance to the stick song a lot! Never really thought about what will happen when the crocodile grows but duggee will probably have a badge in it...

Duggee, Happy has bit off his mum’s head. Can you help?

Oh yes, of course Duggee can - he’s got his Adopting Predators and Related Decapitation badge.

Yay!

@peakotter

Squirrel club is clearly a local branch of something bigger, but you can pick your own animal for the name. Hummingbird club is one of the others. Otherwise you’d be insinuating that Duggee makes up the badges himself!!

Duggee must have another job during school hours. I reckon he only runs squirrel club as a volunteer.

And he doesn’t pay the interpreter. The TV crew pay for that as part of the deal to film. I reckon the interpreter is a Louis Theroux type, delving into the real lives of people on the fringes of normal society.

Yes I most certainly am insinuating that. I don’t think he knows bugger all about most topics and made up most badges after a quick trawl of Wikipedia at best.

The Hummingbird leader has a different uniform though - but I agree this is possible.

Some good theories here. I don’t think Duggee lives in the kennel, since AA (his interpreter / carer?) calls it a kennel rather than your house. On the day off badge doesn’t he wake up in the clubhouse? It’s been a while, DT2 doesn’t want to watch that one, so I can’t quite recall...

For a another PP, squirrels could be doing a more basic level but then why are they the same design as Duggee? Very misleading in an emergency, like a first aid situation.

Also, they did a “brave banana badge” (not a thing) but took them ages to do things like singing? Weird.

I've only just realised the cheese episode is like stranger things!!!

@Baypony

Thank you so much for this thread *@SinkGirl*. I have not had such a good laugh in ages. You really got me with with the ‘blood splatter anaysis badge’ so appropriate for my line of work i’m definitely stealing it 🤣 I didn’t really know what Hey Duggee was so have educated myself on it a little since last night. Now I have so many questions too! What is the purple thing? A blackberry with legs? With a 80’s style sweatband? Or an octopus? If so why only 5 legs? Why are all the animals the same size apart from Duggee (who seems to have a ‘glandular’ problem)? Why is the stick song basically 2 unlimited’s No Limits? Why is the stick insect so large in comparison to everything else. Why does the brown thing, a mouse?, look like a penis when it lifts it’s head up? How come the squirrells all understand Duggee but don’t speak ‘woof’ back to him? So so wrong on so many levels, and I won’t even go into the inappropriate affection between Duggee by the squirrells. Blimey kids TV is a whole new world to me! 🤣🤣🤣

Yes, Betty is supposed to be an octopus, with five legs. And if you think some of them look weird in 2D you should see the 3D stuffed toy version. Norrie the mouse looks very odd. The size of all the animals is rather odd.

I have recently bought the twins Christmas gifts and DT2 has almost exclusively duggee stuff, to go with the many talking toys we already have which I hear ALL THE TIME.

I guess if you watch CBeebies and Duggee floats up like a pearl in a sea of steaming crap then it’s delightful. However, daily Duggee marathons on Netflix? Not so much.

There is nothing more depressing than the message that pops up on Netflix asking if you're sure you want to watch another episode of Hey Duggee

Right? Yes, we are still fucking watching, thanks. The message is one thing when you’re watching hour long episodes but Duggee is 7.5 mins long. Piss off, Netflix.

The only good thing about bloody Peppa is that they at least have the decency to group episodes together on Netflix.

At least Hey Duggee has a story, I'm stuck with a nearly two year old who watches nursery rhymes on repeat on YouTube.

Which idiot at nursery showed her Baby shark?

I long for Hey Duggee.

My toddler likes to let us know that she wants to get out of bed by shouting "Hellooooo? Anybody theeeerreee?" Thanks, Norrie.

Roly is the best character bar none, your biscuits are amazing @SinkGirl.

I have some ideas: in the Key Badge episode, they find out that Duggee's Grandad/Great Grandad or whatever has loads of old games in the clubhouse. I took that to mean that he had a Squirrel Club too.
@Baypony, I think the front view of all the 8 legged animals just show 5. The spider also has 5 legs. No idea why the figurines (which are crap in case anyone is thinking of buying them) still only have 5 legs.

Yes I thought that too about Betty’s legs but there’s an episode where she’s holding something in two of her tentacles and there are still only three on the floor.

Excellent point about the clubhouse being a family business. Can’t remember now if it was grandfather or great grandfather - perhaps the husband of great grandmama the explorer.

I reckon I could go on Mastermind with Hey Duggee as my specialist subject at this point

Also having the egg badge and omelette badge so close together is rather insensitive.

And why in the hell is Henny the ostrich a mutant giant bird?

Roly is the best, although DT2 loves Happy most - his poor talking Happy toy is trashed.

Every night when DT2 is in bed all I hear is “yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.... waaaaaaater”

Also “we’ve got a FIRE ENGINE” from Roly.

My whole life is constant Duggee, which might explain my current level of madness.

Just leaving this earworm here.

As for showing them Baby Shark - someone at school taught DD1 to play the bastard song on the bastard recorder - badly.

Anyone with an Amazon Alexa can play a Hey Duggee Quiz!

Make sure you've enabled Kids Skills in the Alexa app and then enable the skill using the link below.

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08QMYRSSQ/?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Just wanted to add another beauty ... the duggee love song I love the stick song but the love song with his girlfriend is fucking weird as shit

I'm just reading this now and it's 3 years later but I'm dying laughing. My son is Autistic and he's been obsessed with Duggee since he was a baby. He's now 6. I love Duggee too. He has enabled me to use the bathroom, finish a coffee while it's still warm and if it's a really good episode I can even get to have a conversation on the phone!