The sincerity of Steve and Joe played a key role in its success, too, with the hosts never talking down to their viewers and always respecting their ability to help solve the puzzle or learn the lesson.Ī ratings hit from the start – “We beat the Super Bowl once … in 2- to 5-year-olds,” Johnson says – “Blue’s Clues” also unleashed an avalanche of marketing, from books and computer games to stuffed Blues and Steves. One on the planets had to be made more sophisticated after researchers learned they were underestimating the kids’ knowledge of the solar system. “We know a lot of things after 10 years of doing this, but we are still surprised,” Santomero says.Īn episode on telling time went through extensive revisions because it wasn’t connecting well with the kids. The same with rough edits of each episode. Scripts are turned into storybooks that are read to preschoolers to get feedback on what works and what does not. “We’re in the schools every week, testing the material and getting ideas from them constantly,” Santomero says. 1996.įrom the start, Santomero says the show’s best advisors have been the kids who watch it. “And we thought the biggest prize for a little kid would be feeling smart, feeling like you helped.”Īngela Santomero worked with Traci Paige Johnson to create the show, moving from earlier ideas – Blue started out as a cat, and the show at one point was to be called “Blueprints” – to what eventually premiered on the network on Sept.
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“So for little kids, I thought they’d like to think the TV was talking to them, and be able to answer questions,” she says. “I always thought that kids came to television with active minds,” says Brown Johnson, executive creative director for Nickelodeon Preschool Television, explaining how the idea for a preschool game show turned into “Blue’s Clues.” Steve and his successor as host, Joe – the only real people amid a cast of animated or puppet characters – often paused to address the kids at home, enlist for their help in finding the pawprint clues Blue left around the house, and then to figure out what the clues meant. “Blue’s Clues” spoke to preschoolers on their own level and encouraged them to interact with the show. I thought it was a pretty tall order to get kids to play along and think along. “But I didn’t think it would work, certainly not in the way that it does. “I knew that it was smart, and I knew that it was good, and I knew that it was unlike pretty much anything I had ever seen in children’s television,” says Steve Burns, who played Blue’s owner, Steve, for the first sixof the show. Sunday.įor many kids and parents over the past decade, “Blue’s Clues” has been a cultural touchstone, a show that educated as it entertained, with a sincerity and sweetness not always found in children’s television.
With those words, the debut episode of “Blue’s Clues” was under way, kicking off its wildly successful run on Nickelodeon, which celebrates the 10th anniversary of the show with a primetime special at 8 p.m.
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