Blue's Clues

"We gotta find the next pawprint,

And that's our second clue!

Then we put it in our notebook--

'Cuz they're whose clues?

Blue's Clues!"

Famous, long-running, and hugely influential children's TV show, produced by, and previously shown on, Nickelodeon. If you grew up in America during the 1990s or early 2000s, the odds are good that this show will be familiar to you.

Set in a vibrant, candy-colored world of animated characters combined with a human host, the show features the escapades of Blue, a blue-colored dog. Once an Episode, Blue will want to do something--be it read a book, have a snack, or make some kind of craft. However, Blue seems to be the only creature in her world who can't talk, so the only way she can communicate with her human owner is by playing Blue's Clues--a game in which she will tag 3 objects around the house (or backyard) with her pawprint, labeling them a "clue." It's up to her owner--along with the kids at home--to figure out what she wants to do by piecing together the clues.

First introduced in 1996, the show is notable for pioneering the kid's show version of an Interactive Narrator--one who talks "to" the camera, seemingly at the children watching. Blue's Clues was so successful, this went on to become the norm for most kid's show hosts--especially those directed at the "Under 6" age bracket. It also originally ran under the notion that children learn through repetition--so the same episode of the show would run for a full week. (The show no longer practices this.) It was hugely successful, leading to several direct-to-video movies, an eventual Spin Off called Blue's Room, and, of course, heaps and heaps of merchandise.

The show was originally hosted by Steven Burns (A.K.A. "Steve"), but he quit the show--not due to heroin overdose, as rumors claimed, but due to the fact that he was losing his hair, and was afraid of seeming too "old" to the kids. (He also was somewhat worried about typecasting, and he also wanted to pursue a career in music - and he has been successful in indie rock circles thanks to his connections with his friends, the Flaming Lips.) His replacement was "Joe," his TV younger brother, who still runs the show, and its spinoff Blue's Room, until 2006, when production came to a halt. Reruns are now seen on the Nick Jr channel, and DVDs still exist.

This show provides examples of:

 * Adorkable: Steve
 * Adobe Flash: Until Blue's Room, all the animated parts were animated this way. Thus, it the first Nick show to use Flash. (At least on the whole network. Kablam! was the first show to use Adobe Flash on the regular Nick schedule).
 * Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: And just in case you're totally color-blind, most colorful animals tend to be named after their color as well.
 * Animate Inanimate Object: The mailbox was probably the most recurring, but there were tons of these.
 * Anthropomorphic Food: The salt and pepper shakers, and numerous other minor characters.
 * Art Evolution: In the book releases. Take a look at the earlier ones and you'll find that Blue's face is a bit chubby and the blue coloring is rather dark. Then take a look at the later book releases - the coloring is lighter and Blue's face has been thinned out. This generally holds true for the other characters as well and there are other, more subtle changes to the appearance of the art.
 * Audience Participation
 * Book Ends: Literally. The show apparently takes place inside a Blue's Clues book.
 * Breakout Character: Green Puppy, in the tie-in book releases only. Green Puppy never got all that much screentime in the television episodes, but she somehow managed to get two books in which she was the main character of the story.
 * Catch Phrase: "Bark bark bark!" (said with the same inflection as "No you don't!", to clarify)
 * Comically Missing the Point: In the early episodes, whenever Steve goes to the Thinking Chair to resolve the episode with the given clues, he usually makes a bizarre guess, like Blue putting a cow in a cup and slurping it up with a straw (she just wanted milk), or wrapping a pillow in a blanket and reading it a story (she only wanted a nap).
 * Continuity Nod: In an early episode, Steve bought Blue a pet turtle (named Turquoise) for her birthday. Turquoise shows up in the background of most scenes set in the bedroom after that.
 * Cute Kitten: Orange Kitten and Periwinkle are of the Talking Animal variety.
 * Cute Little Fangs: Green Puppy.
 * The Danza: Steve Burns as Steve. (Joe's real name, however, was Donovan.)
 * Demoted to Extra: Poor Magenta (and Green Puppy, and Purple Kangaroo, and Orange kitten...)
 * Depraved Kids Show Host: Subverted, all of the nasty rumors of why Steve left were false, and he appeared on Oprah to dispel the rumors and give advice to parents on how to help children who thought he had died. He was careful with publicity things he appeared in afterwards for a while, in case kids might confuse him for his character, and when his girlfriend asked him if he wanted to have relations on the Thinking Chair he received as a gift, he declined, saying it would feel like millions of parents would be watching him.
 * The Ditz: There's always at least one clue in the show (sometimes ALL THREE) where Joe or Steve will ask the kids if they see a clue, or where it is. It takes three times for him to FINALLY understand what the kids are saying. ("A clue!" "A shoe? Yes, I'm wearing shoes." "No, a clue!" "You, too?" "No, a clue!" "Oh! A clue! Right over there!")
 * Dropped a Bridget On Him: Kids who watch Blue's Clues most likely believe that Blue is a boy, due to the color of his fur. Not so.
 * Excited Kids Show Host: Steve goes (very close to) BERSERK when he finds a clue for the first time.
 * Happily Married: Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper.
 * Hey Its That Guy: Rosie O'Donell, Amanda Bynes (during her All That days), Michelle Trachtenberg, They Might Be Giants, and Tia and Tamara Mowry all made guest appearances (just to name a few)
 * The late Blanche Deveroux shows up as Steve's grandmother.
 * Hey Its That Voice: Ray Charles was G-Clef in The Movie. Yeah, the Ray Charles.
 * One-appearance characters in older episodes? Some of them were Henry and June.
 * One of the voice actors for Periwinkle was Jansen Panettiere, who voices Truman in The Xs and young Rodney Copperbottom in Robots. You might also know his older sister, Hayden.
 * Lampshade Hanging: In one episode, one of the clues was a cloud. Right before drawing it down, Steve wonders how Blue could put her paw-print on it.
 * Licensed Games / Edutainment Games: One for The Play Station. Also, one for the V-Tech V-Smile console. Apart from that, nearly a dozen edutainment titles for the PC/Mac (many of them by Humongous Entertainment--a demo version of Blue's ABC Time Activites can be downloaded from Infogrames). Many of them were surprisingly good.
 * Limited Wardrobe: Steve wore nothing but green striped shirts and khaki pants. All of Joe's shirts are different colors, but they have the same square pattern.
 * Matryoshka Object: One episode has Steve opening a present with an increasingly smaller present inside each one.
 * Merchandise Driven: All types, from shampoo to plush toys (some, such as Green Puppy, are very rare) to model Thinking Chairs.
 * No Fourth Wall: The people on the show would often query the "audience" on the answer to the show's questions and puzzles. Not to mention Blue pawprints the screen in the beginning of an episode.
 * One interesting example: One time after Steve greets the viewer, he asks how they "got" there. The conclusion he reaches? "Oh, by television. Cool! (knocks on the screen)".
 * Once an Episode: Tons. Getting mail, sitting in the Thinking Chair, the "Skidoo..."
 * Parental Bonus: There's a scene in one episode where Steve, Blue, and some bunny are acting out a story. Steve is playing the king, and impersonating of course, The King of Rock and Roll.
 * Pink Girl Blue Boy: A notable subversion - both Blue and Magenta are female.
 * Portal Picture: Blue, Steve, and Joe can all "Skidoo" into pretty much any picture around and interact with the residents. Actually, that's pretty awesome...
 * Put On a Bus: Steve (literally)
 * Retool: From the beginning, the Blue's Room spin-off never really caught on. So when they made it into a full series, they made several changes. The biggest was adding Blue's new baby brother Sprinkles as a regular member of the cast. Joe was also given a more prominent role and the sets were expanded. It still didn't work and the program ended once its episode order was up and has rarely been seen in repeats since.
 * Ridiculously Cute Critter
 * Roger Rabbit Effect
 * Rule of Three: The viewer is always expected to find three clues.
 * There are also three pink snails hidden in the background of every episode for older viewers to find.
 * Running Gag: In "What is Blue Afraid Of?," Steve and Blue skidoo into a mansion with a ghost, Boo, who's afraid of his own name. Whenever Steve says it, the ghost shrieks and shudders. Steve eventually catches onto this and starts getting quite a kick out of saying the name and watching the ghost jump in fright.
 * Spin Off: Blue's Room, which swaps out most of the main cast save Blue and Joe for puppets. Oh, and Blue can talk now. Some older fans are not pleased with it.
 * Spot Light Stealing Squad: PERIWINKLE. (In later seasons)
 * And to a lesser extent, Sidetable Drawer.
 * Suddenly Voiced: Blue in the Blue's Room spin-off series. Additionally, in the book releases, Blue was suddenly voiced before Blue's Room even started. Seriously, pick up any of the more recent numbered Blue's Clues book releases not set within the world of Blue's Room and you'll find that Blue actually talks out loud to Joe, Green Puppy, Magenta and everyone else.
 * Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Steve's replacement, Joe.
 * Take Your Time: Blue wants a snack, but won't tell us what that specific snack is. We have to waste god-only-knows how much time playing Blue's Clues to find out what snack she wants. (She must not have been that hungry). What are we going to do today? We have to play Blues Clues to find out we're going to the beach! (Wouldn't that time have been better spent actually DRIVING there?)
 * In fairness, all episodes seem to take place in Real Time, so we can be sure that things will be resolved in less than 20 minutes, which isn't that long. And besides, Blue's Clues is a really great game.
 * Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: The show actually makes a concentrated effort to avoid this. Almost all of the characters have non-gender-specific features, and all of them speak with the wholly androgynous voices of small children. It's actually more likely for random characters to be female.
 * The Movie: Blue's Big Musical Movie, the only direct-to-video movie for the show.
 * Throw The Dog's Human Companion A Bone: In Blue's Big Musical, Steve suddenly realizes that he's never found a clue on his own without the help of the kids. He's sorely depressed about this fact until he looks inside of a box (that the camera can't see in) and realizes--there's a clue in there! He found it himself!
 * The Southpaw: This has no bearing whatsoever, but Joe is left-handed.
 * Title Theme Tune: "Another Blue's Clues Day." They didn't start using it until after Joe became host, though. Up until then, a simple instrumental theme was used to lead into the program.
 * Trailers Always Spoil: At least one promo for an episode actually gave enough information for especially astute viewers to figure out the answer to Blue's Clues before the episode had even started.
 * Universal Drivers License: In "Away Great Playdate" on Blue's Room, Joe conducts a train, drives a taxi and pilots a plane.
 * Viewers Are Morons: Somewhat subverted, as it's a kid's show. But the presenters often talk to the audience like they are imbeciles, regardless of their age, and if the viewer doesn't work out the show's puzzles, the characters would give the answer anyway.
 * In the tenth anniversary special, "Meet Blue's Baby Brother," Blue, Joe and the viewers were treated to a game of Gold Clues to figure out the identity of Blue's baby brother. The first clue was the word "puppy." Er, gee, thanks, but was it really necessary to give us a clue for us to figure out that Blue's baby brother is a puppy? Especially considering the fact that we traveled to Puppyville to find Blue's baby brother.