25 Facts About Blue's Clues

1.

Blue's Clues became the highest-rated show for preschoolers on American commercial television and was critical to Nickelodeon's growth.

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2.

Blue's Clues was the first cutout animation series for preschoolers in the United States and resembles a storybook in its use of primary colors and its simple construction paper shapes of familiar objects with varied colors and textures.

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3.

Blue's Clues's reported that up until the 1980s, researchers had only an implicit theory about how viewers watched television, and that young children were cognitively passive viewers and controlled by "salient attention-eliciting features" like sound effects and fast movement.

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4.

Blue's Clues told The New York Times that he had "no hard feelings" regarding his departure.

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5.

In 2004, Blue's Clues stopped production, which Santomero called "devastating", although it continued to air on Nickelodeon, and a spin-off, Blue's Room, was launched in the same year.

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6.

Blue's Clues celebrated its 10-year anniversary in 2006 with a prime time special and the release of a DVD entitled "Blues Biggest Stories", which consisted of eight half-hour episodes spanning the show's history.

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7.

Blue's Clues was designed and produced on the assumption that since children are cognitively active when they watch television, a television program could be an effective method of scientific education for young children by telling stories through pictures and by modeling behavior and learning.

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8.

Previous children's television programs presented their content with little input from their viewers, but Blue's Clues was one of the first children's shows to actively invite its viewers' involvement.

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9.

Pace of Blue's Clues was deliberate, and its material was presented clearly.

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10.

Researcher Alisha M Crawley and her colleagues stated that although earlier programs sometimes invited overt audience participation, Blue's Clues was "unique in making overt involvement a systematic research-based design element".

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11.

Blue's Clues differed from Sesame Street by not using cultural references or humor aimed at adults, as this could confuse preschoolers but, instead, made the show literal, which the producers felt would better hold the children's attention.

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12.

The primary settings in Blue's Clues were the host's house and backyard, and transitions between them were usually done continuously, without the use of cuts.

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13.

The biggest transition in Blue's Clues occurred when the host "skiddoed" and jumped into a picture or book, done in a magical way with plenty of warning that it was coming, and began and ended in the new environment.

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14.

Producers and writers of Blue's Clues used content and television production techniques such as camera techniques, the use of children's voices, musical cues, sound effects, repeatable dialogue, and visuals in order to encourage and increase comprehension and attention.

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15.

Blue's Clues was set in the home—the environment that was most familiar and secure for preschoolers—and looked like no other children's television show.

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16.

Blue's Clues was filmed in a studio in Tribeca, Manhattan, New York.

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17.

Blue's Clues was the first animated series for preschoolers that utilized simple cut-out construction paper shapes of familiar objects with a wide variety of colors and textures, resembling a storybook.

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18.

The purpose of the notebook in Blue's Clues, which was used to record the clues presented throughout an episode, was to teach preschoolers how to overcome their poorly developed memory skills by using external mnemonic aids and lists.

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19.

Ratings for Blue's Clues were high during its first season, and it was Nickelodeon's most popular preschool program.

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20.

Blue's Clues had sold almost 40 million units of its 45 VHS and DVD titles by 1998 and generated over $1 billion in product licensing in 2000.

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21.

In total, Blue's Clues was syndicated in 120 countries, and was translated into 15 languages.

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22.

Blue's Clues won an award from the Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness for promoting deaf awareness in the media.

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23.

In 2004, Anderson said that Blue's Clues "raised the bar" for educational television; he and Variety reported that audience participation became an important part of other educational preschool TV programs such as Dora the Explorer and Sesame Street.

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24.

The study demonstrated that watching Blue's Clues changed how children watch television and that their problem-solving skills and interaction would transfer to other programs they watched.

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25.

Crawley and Anderson studied whether experienced viewers of Blue's Clues interacted more with other children's TV shows and whether the viewing behaviors they learned from Blue's Clues could be transferred to other shows.

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