Blue's Clues

Blue's Clues is an American live-action/animated educational children's television series that premiered on Nickelodeon on September 8, 1996. Producers/creators Angela Santomero, Todd Kessler, and Traci Paige Johnson combined concepts from child development and early-childhood education with innovative animation and production techniques that helped their viewers learn. The show was originally hosted by Steve Burns, who left in 2002 and was replaced by Donovan Patton until 2006. The show follows an animated blue-spotted dog named Blue as she leaves a trail of clues/paw prints for the host and the viewers, in order to figure out her plans for the day. Blue's Clues became the highest-rated show for preschoolers on American commercial television and was critical to Nickelodeon's growth. It has been called "one of the most successful, critically acclaimed, and ground-breaking preschool television series of all time." A spin-off called Blue's Room premiered in 2004.

The show's producers and creators presented material in a narrative format instead of the more traditional magazine format, used repetition to reinforce its curriculum, and structured every episode the same way. They used research about child development and young children's viewing habits that had been conducted in the thirty years since the debut of Sesame Street in the U.S. and revolutionized the genre by inviting their viewers' involvement. Research was part of the creative and decision-making process in the production of the show and was integrated into all aspects and stages of the creative process. Blue's Clues was the first cutout animation series for preschoolers and resembles a storybook in its use of primary colors and its simple construction paper shapes of familiar objects with varied colors and textures. Its home-based setting is familiar to American children but has a look unlike other children's TV shows. A live production of Blue's Clues, which used many of the production innovations developed by the show's creators, toured the U.S. starting in 1999. As of 2002, over 2 million people had attended over 1,000 performances.

By 2002, Blue's Clues had received several awards for excellence in children's programming, educational software, and licensing, and had been nominated for nine Emmy Awards. It has been syndicated in 120 countries and translated into 15 languages. Regional versions of the show featuring local hosts have been produced in other countries. It was one of the first preschool shows to incorporate American Sign Language into its content. The show's extensive use of research in its development and production process inspired several research studies that have provided evidence for its effectiveness as a learning tool.

Blue's Clues was the longest-running Nick Jr. series until it was surpassed by Dora the Explorer in 2011, until 2019. In March 2018, Nickelodeon announced a reboot of the series, which became titled Blue's Clues & You! which premiered on November 11, 2019, continuing for Blue's Clues to be the longest-running Nick Jr. series.

Plot
By 1990, parents, teachers, and media experts had been criticizing "the lack of quality fare for children on commercial television" for many years. Up to that point, PBS was the only source for quality children's television; other broadcasters voluntarily set educational standards for their programming and "were expected to regulate themselves", but it led to little change in the quality of children's programs. By the time Blue's Clues premiered in 1996, there was a large amount of TV shows for children, but most of them were violent and designed to sell action toys and other products. According to author Diane Tracy in her 2002 book Blue's Clues for Success, "The state of children's television was pretty dismal."

There was little incentive for producing high-quality children's television until 1990, when Congress passed the Children's Television Act (CTA), which "required that networks be held accountable for the quality of children's programming or risk losing their license". Congress provided little direction in how the CTA was enforced and the law was so vague, no real improvements were made, so the FCC "strengthened its regulations enforcing the CTA" in 1996. The additional regulations included a provision called "the Three-Hour rule", which mandated that broadcasters air at least three hours of children's programming per week, between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., and that they be tagged with an E/I (Educational and Informational) logo. The cable network Nickelodeon, which had been airing programs for six- to twelve-year-olds, was not legally bound by the CTA but complied with it many years before the laws and regulations were passed anyway.

Nickelodeon assigned a team of producers, Angela Santomero, Todd Kessler, and Traci Paige Johnson, to create a new U.S. television program for young children in mid-1994 using research on early childhood education and the viewing habits of preschoolers. They did not, according to Tracy, have the traditional backgrounds of most producers of children's programs but possessed "an amazing combination of talents, backgrounds, and personal attributes". According to The New York Times, Kessler was the first creator to be brought on board to the project; Santomero and Johnson joined soon after. Kessler had a background in children's television, with prior experience on Sesame Street, but he disagreed with its format and thought that it was too static and not visual enough. He also worked as a freelance producer for Nickelodeon from 1993 to 1994. Santomero worked at Nickelodeon as a researcher and Johnson was a freelance artist and animator. Researcher Daniel R. Anderson of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, one of the first researchers to study the effect of television on young children and who had also worked on Sesame Street, was an adviser for the new show. At first, Nickelodeon had hired Anderson as an adviser for its Nick Jr. block of preschool programs starting in 1993, although Santomero had already been getting his input about research informally. When Nickelodeon enlisted her to co-create Blue's Clues, he came on in a more formal capacity.

Santomero, Kessler, and Johnson met at the Nickelodeon Studios for a month to develop Blue's Clues. The character Blue was originally conceived as a cat, and the name of the show was to be "Blue's Prints," but the show's name was changed and Blue became a dog because Nickelodeon was already producing a show about a cat. Kessler handled the show's "computer-based production", Santomero the research, and Johnson the design. Alice Wilder served as a producer and director of development and research.They were given a "modest" $150,000 to produce a pilot.

Blue's Clues premiered in the U.S. on September 8, 1996. It was a smash hit, largely due to the producers' extensive research, and became crucial to Nickelodeon's growth. Within 18 months of its premiere, Blue's Clues was as well-known as more established children's shows such as the 30-year-old Sesame Street. It became the highest-rated show for preschoolers on commercial television. By 2002, 13.7 million viewers tuned in each week.

In 2000, with very little "fanfare" and after 75 episodes, co-creator and co-producer Todd Kessler left Blue's Clues and Nickelodeon, to pursue other projects. He told The New York Times that he had "no hard feelings". He continued to be listed as an executive producer for the remaining run of the show.

In 2004, a spin-off, Blue's Room, was launched. It featured puppets instead of animation as well as the original show's second host, Joe, in several episodes. Blue's Clues celebrated its 10-year anniversary in 2006 with a special that consisted of a 12-minute retrospective produced by VH1's "Behind the Music" staff and a collection of "milestone" episodes, including first host Steve Burns' 2002 departure.

In March 2018, Nickelodeon announced it would revive Blue's Clues with an order of 20 episodes. The revival has a new host named Josh, a "refreshed signature look", and a switch to CGI animation.

Casting
The most important casting decision was that of the host, the only human character in the show. The host's role was to empower and challenge the show's young viewers, to help increase their self-esteem, and to strongly connect with them through the television screen. The producers originally wanted a female host, but after months of research and over 1,000 auditions, they hired actor/performer Steve Burns based on the strength of his audition. Burns received the strongest and most enthusiastic response in tests with preschoolers. Johnson said that what made Burns a great children's TV host was that "he didn't want to be a children's host ... He loved kids, but he didn't want to make a career out of it." Burns remained on Blue's Clues for seven years and was in over 100 episodes before he left. Burns himself stated, "I knew I wasn't gonna be doing children's television all my life, mostly because I refused to lose my hair on a kid's TV show, and it was happenin'—fast."

Accompanied by a "concentrated multiplatform promotional campaign" that included articles in Nickelodeon's magazine and on its webpage, an arc of three episodes introduced Burns' replacement Donovan Patton, who played Steve's brother Joe. Patton was subjected to the same kind of scrutiny to earn the job, and was selected out of 1,500 auditions. Patton had never seen Blue's Clues before he auditioned for the part but, like Burns, was the favorite with preschool test audiences. Burns helped train Patton to perform the role. "We saw Steve Burns' retirement from the show as a chance to put Blue's Clues on a new course," Johnson said. Also, according to Johnson, Joe's character was more like a preschooler and more innocent than Steve.

Johnson was cast as Blue's voice because, of the show's crew, she was able to sound the most like a dog. Nick Balaban, who wrote the music for the show along with Michael Rubin, was cast as the voice of Mr. Salt. Balaban initially used a Brooklyn accent for Mr. Salt before settling on a French accent. Rubin also provided the voice of Mailbox.