Lu & the Bally Bunch
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 If you wanna watch something about bugs that doesn't have any scenes of characters constantly acting like complete crybabies, The Atom Ant Show, Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends, Maya the Bee (anime) and A Bug's Life are your only other options. But not this one though.
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Lu & the Bally Bunch is an Irish-Canadian-American-British animated preschool series created by Nicky Phelan. It follows the daily life of Lu, a little ladybird who has just started pre-school with her new friends. The series made its international debut in New Zealand on March 17th, 2023 via the TVNZ app.
Plot
I: Lu is a little ladybird who has just started preschool with her new friends. Together they explore their brand new social lives though play, music, big feelings and even bigger fun.
II: Lu is a little ladybird who has just started preschool with her new friends, and is embarking on a brand new social life. This animated dramedy for preschoolers takes place in Ballybug, a small village home to a community of bugs. Lu's teacher Shella is a snail, and Lu goes to preschool in the shell housed on her back. Lu and her new friends Barnaby, Biba, Declan, Elodie and Gus are forming their first friendships and still learning the social skills to handle them! This slice of life series explores the fun, drama and messiness that ensues. Filled with music, humour and heart, Lu & the Bally Bunch is a celebration of friendship for preschoolers.
"Grr!" Qualities
- The main problem with the show is that everything about it is feels like your preschool cartoon starter pack riddled with many cliches that have been done before in other preschool cartoons since between the extremely late 90's to 2000's, right from the characters to the episode plots, to how it always ends.
- Lu playing the role as the same old titular spoiled bratty, tantrum throwing, dinosaur loving crybaby character.
- Shella being just another teacher/caregiver character who has little to no flaws, and always uses gentle reasoning whenever characters get into disagreements.
- Lu's friends as the same kinds of friend group characters who sometimes share the same traits with their titular friend (their nonstop crying, yelling at each other, etc).
- Elodie as the show's generic token international friend.
- The Bugs' families being the show's personality-less characters who do nothing but just exist as families.
- The same cookie cutter plots that always end with a song before the credits like other preschool shows.
- Another problem the show has is that the bugs act like complete crybabies over the most ridiculous, stupid, childish reasons and will get on your very last nerves very faster than you can say anything, with Lu being the absolute worst offender.
- It doesn't help that a clip of Lu crying in the 2021 pilot titled "Ladybird Lu" was shown in the Cartoonito USA reel from back in 2021, which could be why a lot of people weren't excited for the show in the first place.
- The audio of the bugs' cryings are reused from other episodes, making it even more annoying.
- Similarly, they also get into a fight over stupid things that aren't such a huge issue to deal with, especially between Lu, Declan and Barnaby, and their fight only ends if Shella or Elodie steps in to solve their differences, meaning they can't solve their arguments themselves.
- And after all of that, they apologize to each other or calm down like nothing happened, and never get punished, sent to time out, home from shell school or grounded for their crybaby, overreacting, conclusion jumping, spoiled bratty behaviors.
- The voice acting, while it's decent (especially Shella and the parents), can get really annoying sometimes, with their crying, yelling and arguments between each other being the worst offenders, most especially Lu, Declan and Barnaby.
- This is also especially annoying to viewers who have extremely sensitive hearing, or uncomfortable with loud or high-pitched voices and noises, with Lu being the worst example.
- The character designs, while cute and cuddly, are too simple and barely look anything like bugs but rather more like fairies or color-coded human characters, most especially Declan. The only exception to this is Shella and to a lesser extent, Elodie.
- They also look like they were stolen from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Blue's Clues (especially since Angela C. Santomero worked on both shows), Hey Duggee (doesn't help that the show's writer, Jo Clegg wrote for the episode, "Home Toy"), Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! (especially with Lu's Dad and Declan) or even covers of Baby Einstein VHS tapes and DVDs.
- Some of the bugs have ears, which a lot of them don't even have.
- Shella, while the only character in this show that stays true to her species, looks like a leg less genderbend version of Slinkman from Camp Lazlo.
- Declan doesn't even look like a bug at all despite being a beetle.
- Elodie, while at least staying true to her design, has a round head, ears and arms. The latter two of which are what real worms don't have.
- Lu herself is also suppose to be a ladybug, but instead, she looks like a recycled clone of Bubbles from The Powerpuff Girls because they both have pigtails, they both are kind and sweet, but have their "Beware the Nice Ones" moments, and not only do they both cry a lot, but they also make the same expression when they cry. Sure Bubble's crying can be annoying to listen, too, but at least it's MAINLY for good reasons, unlike Lu.
- Lu's dad looks eerily too similar to Walden from Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!.
- Declan's big brothers, Dara and Dermot, also suspiciously resemble Chip and Skip from Camp Lazlo as well. It doesn't help the fact that they're both beetles, even though Chip and Skip don't look like beetles either.
- Lots of characters that range from unlikable, to horribly flawless, to just completely underdeveloped. Not a single one are even tolerable enough to side with aside from being generic stereotypes as seen on "Grr!" Qualities #1:
- Lu herself is another one of those annoying, spoiled characters who cry and/or get mad at others over the most minor problems that aren't even such a big deal to begin, even though she's the TITULAR character. Gee, I wonder where Nicky Phelan got an idea like that from? And she also gets no comeuppances and scoldings by Shella, her parents or Elodie (except for a couple of times), even if she learns a valuable lesson, making her a karma houdini due to how too careful the show plays it. And the worst part about her is, this marks her another bad example of the "It's aimed at kids" catergory as well as being a bad role model for preschoolers, too.
- Lu's voice when she cries, gets angry (or "Grr!" in this show's case) or arguing with her friends are easily irritating to hear. Especially in "Counting Spaghetti", "Goodbye Rain Boots", "Roly Poly Disappearance", "Toy Hospital" and "Packing for France".
- She gets into arguments with her friends over a stupid problem that aren't even that bad. Especially Declan and Barnaby.
- Her friendship with Barnaby is the worst out of her friends because of how they fight over simple things like a cardboard box or the latter's stupidity causing problems for her like in "Counting Spaghetti" where she got so livid at Barnaby over him accidentally getting a small splat of paint on her painting of Tara to the point where she tried to ruin HIS PAINTING BACK!
- She can also act like a hypocrite at times, with one such example being in "Bug Nollig" where after she expressed her upset to Uncle Lorcan about how she accidentally made Luka cry, she starts crying too.
- Absolutely none of her friends are better either since as also said on the first bad quality, a lot of them have the same unlikable problems as their friend such as them being equally just as a crybaby as Lu.
- Out of the five, Declan is the most unlikable of the Bally Bunch because he does things behind other's backs and gets into screaming matches with them when he gets caught or when he doesn't listen to them when they keep telling him to. He shares the most the problems with Lu because he is just as much as a crybaby as she is and he also never gets any punishments for his actions, making him both a Karma and Idiot Houdini combined.
- His voice is also is the most cringiest to listen to. Especially when he cries in "Home Toy", "Find the Blueberries" and "When Bugs Cry".
- Aside from all of that, he's suppose to be a joke maker, but none of them are even funny. Not even enough to make him a comic relief either.
- Barnaby is an idiotic bee who causes problems for Lu, sparking petty battles between each other. His voice is also the second annoying of the characters because he sounds like a fat kid running on a treadmill. Despite his age, he's so dumb, that it makes other dimwitted child characters like Ralph Wiggum look smarter.
- Biba has little to no personality traits other than just being Lu's best friend, making her the most wasted of out of all her friends.
- Elodie, aside from being another "generic token international friend of the group" character once again as said in the first pointer above, just exists as Lu and her friends' meditator of the group, but is a badly written example of that kind because she never scolds Lu for having arguments with her friends rather than just calm her down (which by the way, doesn't always work on little kids in real life), with one particular example being in "Counting Spaghetti".
- Gus is only there as the generic smart guy. Even though he's the most tolerable of the bugs, it isn't enough for him to be called a likable character.
- Shella, their teacher, acts too nice to even feel other emotions and whenever the bugs get into arguments or cry their eyes out, she uses meditation rather than discipline which is not a good idea because it doesn't ALWAYS work in real life meaning punishing your kids is the only way to go, thus labeling her as a bad example of the infamous Mary Sue type characters, making you wish you could just pour salt all over her.
- She can also be seen as a watered down version of Madame Gazelle, but rather a flawless version at that, as well as being a "generic nice caregiver" version of Steve and Joe (as well as Miss Marigold, since she's a teacher, too) from the aforementioned Blue's Clues, the titular character from Bear in the Big Blue House, the adults from Sesame Street the titular character from Hey Duggee and even (but to lesser extents) the titular purple Dinosaur from Barney & Friends, both before and after he flanderized.
- Lu and her friends' parents, Uncle Lorcan and Bert have no personality and are the flattest characters of the whole show. They're only created just for when they take their to kids to Shell School and are never seen again for the rest of the episode, or when the plot doesn't take place there. Also like Shella, they never scold or tell of their kids whenever they get into an argument, act like crybabies or even when they did the worst thing they could do to one of their friends. These examples are especially shown in "A Twig's Tale" and one of their (in this case, Lu and Biba's mommies) worst appearances, "Elevator Play Date". So in other words, they're fillers.
- They don't have any traits them make them likable and funny. This is very noticeable when compared to other parents from preschool cartoons like Bandit and Chilli Heeler, who have more character than them. Heck, they even make Peppa Pig's parent characters feel like the parents from Rugrats or even the ones from South Park.
- Barnaby's moms and Uncle Lorcan and Bert are poorly written examples of LGBTq couples.
- Out of the five, Declan is the most unlikable of the Bally Bunch because he does things behind other's backs and gets into screaming matches with them when he gets caught or when he doesn't listen to them when they keep telling him to. He shares the most the problems with Lu because he is just as much as a crybaby as she is and he also never gets any punishments for his actions, making him both a Karma and Idiot Houdini combined.
- The Silkworms are also straight up filler characters because all they do is announce the episode's title card and play their instruments and sing with the bugs at the end. That's it. This also makes them a rip-off of The Fiesta Trio from Dora the Explorer.
- The Bugs' younger and big siblings are plot devices and are only there just to kick the episodes' plot off.
- Lu herself is another one of those annoying, spoiled characters who cry and/or get mad at others over the most minor problems that aren't even such a big deal to begin, even though she's the TITULAR character. Gee, I wonder where Nicky Phelan got an idea like that from? And she also gets no comeuppances and scoldings by Shella, her parents or Elodie (except for a couple of times), even if she learns a valuable lesson, making her a karma houdini due to how too careful the show plays it. And the worst part about her is, this marks her another bad example of the "It's aimed at kids" catergory as well as being a bad role model for preschoolers, too.
- Each episode comes off as repetitively predictable, right from how it starts to how it ends:
- The episode starting off at Shell School (or Lu getting ready for Shell School).
- Shella announces the school activity.
- A problem will be encountered that isn't such a big deal to begin with and the Bugs cry and fight each other over it.
- Shella will calm them down rather than call them out for their immaturity.
- The problem will get solved and the bugs acted like nothing happened.
- The episode ends with a (repeating) song, similar to how episodes of Blue's Clues end that way, except that the "So Long Song" is a way better ending episode song than any of the songs in this show.
- Or, when they don't take place at Shell School:
- the episode would start off with Lu's Mom or Dad taking their daughter to either one of her friends' house or someplace like the Playground (or would meet one of her friends and their parents and would come along with her).
- Lu and one of her friends would have fun.
- A problem would soon come up.
- One of the bugs would, as always, act like a jerk to one of them or cry about it.
- They would eventually find a solution to this problem or apologize to them.
- Everything would work out in the end.
- The show being a seven minute episode series does not help at all.
- The episode ends with a song.
- Many annoying and mediocre episodes such as:
- Fruit Caboose (Which isn't a good way to start the show)
- Copy Copy Caterpillar
- Home Toy
- Elevator Play Date
- Down in the Grumps
- Counting Spaghetti (The worst episode of the show)
- Droopy Patrick
- When's My Turn?
- A Twig's Tale
- Play With Me!
- My Friend Biba
- The Box
- Goodbye Rain Boots
- Find the Blueberries
- Green Eyed Birthday Monster
- But Why? (Which utters the word, poo, completely uncensored)
- Cupcake Surprise
- Squeaky Squid
- Leaf Boats
- Roly Poly Disappearance
- When Bugs Cry
- The Chalk
- Squeak Jumps
- Treasure Hunt
- Toy Hospital (the second worst episode of the show)
- Scary Tara
- Bug Nollig (which ended the first season on a mediorce note)
- As said above in the first pointer, the audio of the character's voices are reused, which can be annoying to some, such as Elodie's laughing and Lu's crying. It doesn't help that the show is half Canadian, since a lot of Canadian cartoons tend to reuse voice clips of characters screaming, crying or laughing.
- The theme song is really annoying as it's just 20 seconds of the lyrics repeating the title.
- The show tries too hard to be relaxing like Bluey, but failed thanks to the characters crying and fighting.
- It also steals elements from other preschool shows, such as Peppa Pig (especially with some of the characters traits being clones of the characters on that show), Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom, Hey Duggee, most classic Nick Jr. shows (especially Little Bill, Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends and Blue's Clues), Bluey and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood (ironically, Angela C. Santomero served as a executive producer for this show, Blue and Daniel Tiger).
- Lu's friends at times feel like a watered down version of both Peppa and George's friends, Ben and Holly's friends and The Squirrels.
- Lu herself is basically a combination between both Peppa and George, because she and the former are both bossy at times (like how Peppa does to George), would get mad at people over minor problem, both of their friendships with others getting toxic at times (that being Lu and Declan and Barnaby and Peppa and Suzy Sheep) and they're both hypocritical while George on the other hand is that they're obviously both act like crybabies by thinking every problem big and small that happens to them is the saddest thing ever (though George's crying moments are a lot more reasonable and empathetic than Lu's, given the fact how Peppa treats him and let's not forget that both of their cries are stock audio, too) and did we mention that they both have a toy dinosaur as they keep and take nearly everywhere they go?
- The fact that both Lu and Duggee have aired or were added in together in some international channels, feeds and services like the Brazillian, Latin American and Spain versions of Cartoonito and Max, the Portugal version of Max, Ketnet, ABC Kids (along with Peppa, Ben and Holly and Bluey) and even Duggee's home channel, CBeebies. You might even say that this is made to compete against Peppa, Duggee and Bluey.
- The show's sky background is nothing but pure white during the day, which is pretty lazy.
- The episode's plots come off as childish and immature thanks to the show playing it too safe with it's genre, even for preschool standards, especially the writing and directing being handled by Nicky Phelan, Jo Clegg, Cat Little, Denise Cassar, Pete McEvoy, Shannon George, Brian O'Brien, Kristina Yee, Joe Sellman-Leava and Kerrie Costello. It's so bad, that it makes Ray DeLaurentis' work look better.
- Each episode lasts for about 7 minutes, which isn't a good thing because it makes the episodes feel too fast paced and rushed (even though it's usually a thing for preschool cartoons in the UK like Peppa Pig, Ben & Holly and Hey Duggee). It would've been better if the episodes were half hours. The same plots played over and over again as said at the above pointer still don't help anyway.
- The show uses some bad morals sometimes including:
- If somebody accidentally ruins something that you're making, do the same to theirs as revenge.
- Things such as a toy that fell under a shelf, a plant dying, a twig broken in half are something to cry about.
- Accusing people for ruining a holiday just because their crying interrupted your solo.
- Not even the good morals can help either, because they're shoved in and are pretty weak compared to other preschool cartoons that use good morals.
- The songs used in the show such as Friends are Great and Feelings are extremely annoying as most of the songs have lyrics that repeat the same lines over and over again.
- The animation in this show, despite looking cute, comes off as choppy, looking more like it came from a Flash animated Nick Jr. show, a 2010's Nelvana show, or a 2000's children's computer game. One example is the characters reusing the same expression like for when Lu and her friends cry. Considering the fact that 9 Story Media Group and Brown Bag Films usually provide high quality and even stunning animation for various shows, they did a pretty mediocre job providing the animation for this show.
- This show is a bad example of on how to make a better preschool cartoon thanks to all these bad qualities, and how it tried to act like as if it's trying to rival Bluey, Peppa Pig and Hey Duggee.
- And further more, also because of this, the show would rather fit much more better as a Nick Jr. or CBeebies show than a Cartoonito show.
"Boop!" Qualities
- Even though Lu and her friends are crybabies, jerks and spoiled brats, it could make some sense because they're only little kids, and children their ages in real life are just as prone to crying over non-problems as much as them. But even then unfortunately, it still doesn't excuse Nicky Phelan and his crew's idea to make them constantly act like that all the time.
- The idea of the school lives of a group of bugs sound good on paper, even for a preschool show, but it's sadly executed poorly thanks to how annoying Lu and her friends are with their over the top crying.
- The voice acting is alright whenever the bugs aren't crying and arguing with each other. Especially Shella and the Bugs' families.
- Gus is the most tolerable of the bugs. Especially since he cries the least out of them.
- Great animation feeling reminiscent of classic Nick Jr.
- Some lessons the bugs learn sometimes, but not even morals can make up for the fact that they don't get called out for their actions and constant crying.
- The shorts are also okay, too.
- Despite the theme song being annoying, it can still be catchy, all thanks to Darren Hendley, who also composed the theme song for Octonauts.
- There are some episodes are decent and okay to watch, such as:
- Bin Bug
- Xylophone Blues
- Lu's New Shoes
- A New Pet
- Penguin Please (despite Declan being unlikable)
- Bike Ride
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