Blue's Clues Analysis

Created in 1996, Blue’s Clues told the story of a puppy named Blue and her owner Steve as they explored the world around them. Done completely in computer animation, aside from the live-action host, Blue’s Clues ran for 8 years before a puppet-based sequel was created (IMDB). Designed for Nickelodeon’s preschool block, Nick Jr., the show aimed to change the way young children watched and learned from television. Each 30 minute long episode followed the same general formula. The show would open with a greeting from Steve and Blue, in which the viewer was invited into their home, and into their world. From there, Steve would introduce the theme of the day, as well as the initial conflict. This could range from Blue’s choice of hiding spot in

hide and seek, or what she wanted to have for lunch that day. But because Blue couldn’t communicated outside of her barks, she turned her communication into a game, referred to on the show as “Blue’s clues.” Throughout the episode, the viewer follows Steve on his journey, usually throughout the house or the neighborhood, but occasionally into storybooks or pictures.

There Steve would lead the viewer through a game, often designed to help someone in that area, and once the game was finished, a clue would be discovered, marked by Blue’s paw print. Steve always needed help finding the clue, asking the viewer to point to it, or explain what they were seeing. Midway through the episode Steve would return to the living room, and talk to Mailbox, who would share a video letter of children discussing or demonstrating something related to the week’s theme. The conclusion of the episode usually returned to the living room, during which Steve would sit in the big red thinking chair and go through the three clues they’d collected, and try to come up with a solution, after which the answer would play out on scene. Steve would also take the time to review what they’d done throughout the course of the

episode.
I chose to write my cultural artifact paper about Blue’s Clues because of the huge personal impact it had on me. I didn’t watch a lot of television when I was younger, but my household was a huge proponent of educational programs. That being said, my mother was very picky about what I watched, and only allowed me to see shows that she thought would be best for my growth and development. For example, she loved the songs and messages about personal growth presented in Barney and Friends, but wouldn’t allow me to watch Sesame Street until after I’d done much of my oral language development, for fear I’d start to speak like Elmo did. But Blue has always been one of our favorites. I had Blue’s Clues shirts and pajamas, computer games, my very own notebook. I had a birthday party that was Blue themed, likely because our poor VHS copy of “Blue’s Birthday” was worn thin. Not only that, but despite the fact that I deemed myself too old at 9, I very excited sat down to watch the 10th Anniversary special in 2006, showing that Blue continued to have an impact on me as I got older. But Blue’s Clues didn’t just have an impact on me, which is another reason why I decided to focus on it for this paper. Blue was a staple of children’s television for a long time, and as shown in my research, heavily affected how children’s shows were produced thereafter. Blue’s Clues created a format that worked, an idea that really stuck, and as a result, it’s probably safe to assume a majority of American children watched it during their preschool years.
Blue’s Clues was not like other children’s television shows.

While normally creators need to completely come up with an idea for a show, pitch it, and hope for the best, Blue’s Clues was the opposite (Jaffe). Nickelodeon approached the creators specifically about creating a new type of television show for their new Nick Jr. line-up, shoving the creative team in a conference room for a month until pre-production was finished (Behind the Clues). But the idea for Blue’s Clues didn’t just pop up out of thin air. To understand how this show came about, one must first look back to the popularization of children’s’ television. In 1969, Sesame Street was introduced to families across the country, and the very idea of how children learn was challenged. The most important contribution Sesame Street added to educational programming was the increase of the importance of child research. I’ll go into detail about the different research behind the two aforementioned shows a bit later, in an effort to analyze it against developmental ideas discussed within this course. But, as a brief summary, Sesame Street directly addressed the question of how children allocate their attention during a standard television program, resulting in the creation of the segmented “magazine” style the show is known for

(Gladwell).
Directly based off of what Sesame Street started, Angela Santomero, Traci Paige Johnson, and Todd Kessler were brought in to create a game show catered to preschool viewers in 1994 (Behind the Clues). Originally starring a blue cat, and entitled Blue Prints, the show’s mission was “to empower, challenge, and increase the self-esteem of preschoolers while making them laugh (“Me and You”).” To do this, the creators brought in a woman named Alice Wilder to serve as the middle man between show production and educational research (“Me and You”). Blue’s Clues did two major things to improve on what Sesame Street began. First, they abandoned the magazine format. Kessler specifically fought to defend the attention spans of children, arguing that they could both watch and comprehend a 30 minute, narrative style presentation, subsequently backed by research that I’ll discuss later. Secondly, the creative team increased the quantity of their research. As opposed to testing a few episodes a season to make sure segments were going over well, a method called formative research that Sesame Street had employed (Jaffe), Blue’s Clues tested every single episode script before taping even began . They not only wanted to make sure that the episodes made sense to younger audiences, but they also tested to make sure the order of clues made sense, and increased in difficulty (Gladwell). They didn’t just want a show that worked. They wanted a show that children truly learned from.
Blue’s Clues was met with both child and critical acclaim. It had met its goal: the show was entertaining, but kids were picking up on the designed curriculum without realizing they were learning (Schmelzer). And one of the major reasons for its success was its host, Steve. Steve Burns, as described by the show’s creators, was a man who knew how to talk to kids. He had a way of looking into the camera and really bringing his viewers in (Behind the Clues). Everything from the pauses in the script, to the voices of children placed into the soundtrack was deigned to make the audience feel like part of the narrative (Mifflin). Not only were kids learning, but they were learning in an active manner. Things ran smoothly until Steve elected to leave the show in 2002, when his younger brother, Joe, stepped in to take care of Blue when the host continued on to college within the show’s world. It ran for four more years, but was shown repeatedly on Nick Jr. and other preschool programming channels. The spin off, Blue’s Room, ran until 2007 (IMDB).
As mentioned previously, extensive research has gone into both looking at how children watch television, and what effects television has on their learning and development. Beginning with Sesame Street, their major research focus was making sure children were paying attention to the programming in front of them. In order to see which segments worked and which didn’t, they would play a section for a child in a room full of toys. Researchers would then note when the child looked away from a segment, or when they moved away to play with the toys. What they found was that attention was directly linked to comprehension; children looked away when they didn’t understand. In order to properly stimulate cognitive development, segments needed to be reformatted so children could comprehend them, and therefore learn from them. Therefore, order of segments were important (Gladwell). Later studies took this idea a step further, using eye movement tracking technology to see what exactly on the screen children were looking at (Jaffe). For example, on segments with Muppets teaching how word sounds made up words, two phonemes we moved from separate sides of the screen and pushed together, while the Muppets made the sounds. However, because the phonemes were not centered on the screen, the Muppets were, children were watching the Muppets. The Muppets were what was entertaining, what was holding their interest (Gladwell). Therefore, that’s what they were following, not learning. Their cognitive development wasn’t being stimulated at all from these types of segments.
Blue’s Clues specifically set out to fix these problems. Cognitive development was vital, but they wanted to do it in a way that didn’t sacrifice fun or comprehension. First, they addressed the issue of comprehension. As long as things happened logically, as long as kids could make a connection, it didn’t matter the length of the segments. At the time a dominant theory in developmental theory, Piaget’s work meant that easily distractible children couldn’t handle large jumbles of video or longer segments. Sesame Street supported the first part of this, by showing children couldn’t understand things out of order. But Blue’s Clues challenged the second part, and in doing so changed the idea of the length of child’s attention span (Jaffe). This is why they elected to employ a narrative, thirty minute long show. Their idea was that if it made sequential sense, kids could follow it. A longer show led to a bigger build up, and a better feeling of accomplishment at the end. But this accomplishment, this sense of self-esteem, had to come from the child’s own connection and mastering of the skills and activities being presented. Blue’s Clues obtained this connection and mastering in two separate ways.