Trivia / Blue's Clues

• Adored by the Network:
  • Blue's Clues was the poster boy for Nick Jr in the late 90s, early 2000s. Even when Dora the Explorer took away some of its limelight, Blue's Clues was still quite popular to the point where it received a prime-time documentary special in 2006. Blue's Clues, Dora and Little Bear were the only shows from that era to air on the Nick Jr. channel in the 2010s. In preschool show years, that's a lengthy lifespan. A sum of the target demographics parents probably watched Blue's Clues when they were their age. And in 2018, the long-standing adoration of the show culminated in the announcement of a reboot of the franchise.
  • It's also adored by AFN Family, which has been airing the show nonstop since it made its' debut on what was then known as AFN Kids.
• Amateur Cast: A majority of the voice cast was made up of the show's crew and co-creator.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: The show had a lot of merchandise during its heyday and made a lot of money for Nick.
• Children Voicing Children:
  • Perhaps the only animated program other than the Peanuts specials to play this trope completely straight. Every child character on the show is voiced by an actual child and for the most part by their respective gender. For example, Sidetable Drawer was voiced by then five-year-old Aleshia Allen, and the voices that help Steve were also provided by children.
  • Averted in the UK version, where all of the characters (sans Blue) are voiced by a single voice actress (Kara Tritton).
• Crossdressing Voices: In the Season 6 finale episode Meet Blue's Baby Brother, the male puppies from Puppyville were voiced by females.
  • Green Puppy, a female dog, was voiced by Adam Peltzman.
  • Cinnamon, Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper's newborn son, was voiced by Annalivia Balaban.
  • Periwinkle was voiced by Victoria Pontecorvo (who later went on to voice Blue in Blue's Room) in the PC game Blue Takes You To School.
  • In the UK version, almost all of the characters, including Mr. Salt, Slippery Soap, Periwinkle, Shovel/Spade and Mailbox/Postbox were voiced by the same actress, Kara Tritton.
  • Snail, a quiet female pink snail that is spotted three times Once per Episode is voiced by Nick Balaban, who is male.
• The Danza: Steve Burns as Steve and Joshua Dela Cruz as Josh. Joe's real name, however, is Donovan Patton.
• Descended Creator: Most characters on the show that weren't voiced by children were voiced by the series' staff members.
  • Blue was voiced by co-creator Traci Paige Johnson.
  • Mr. Salt and Mailbox were respectively voiced by Nick Balaban and Michael Rubin, the show's composers.
  • Magenta was voiced by Koyalee Chanda, a director on the show.
  • Green Puppy was voiced by Adam Peltzman, one of the show's writers.
  • In the first season, Mrs. Pepper was voiced by coordinating producer Penelope Jewkes.
• Defictionalization:
  • Numerous physical Handy Dandy Notebooks, complete with thick, green crayons, were sold over the show's run, including designs that never appeared in the show (including a "Handy Dandy Maraca Notebook" and a set of notebooks shaped after Joe's shirt). If you wish to cosplay as Steve, Joe or Josh, you're in luck (especially since the older Flying Colors notebooks from the Steve and Joe eras, along with homemade recreations, are relatively easy to find on eBay).
  • Steve/Kevin/Duarte's outfit consisted of a green striped rugby shirt, khaki pants, and brown shoes. So, if you ever have interest in cosplaying as Steve, all of the clothing items needed are not only easy to acquire, but affordable if bought together.
• Dueling Shows:
  • Possibly with The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss in said show's final season.
  • The format for Sesame Street segment Journey to Ernie is almost similar to that of this show.
• Early-Bird Release: The season one finale, "What Story Does Blue Want To Play?" was released on the Story Time VHS months before premiering on TV on November 9, 1998.
• Follow the Leader: Steve was such a popular character for speaking to the audience, that most Nick Jr. shows tried to have that lightning strike twice (or three times, four times, etc.). Most attempts either shot for the stars, or crashed and burned.
• Franchise Killer: There were several moments that could've potentially caused the show's train to come to a screeching halt.
  • Steve Burns leaving was the first one. For some reason, both parents and kids found themselves less invested in new host Donovan Patton (AKA Joe), who would admit years later that Steve was clearly the superior host. However, the show managed to pull on for another two years with Patton as host.
  • The second, clearer one, was the Spin-Off into Blue's Room in 2004. The many changes made to the spinoff- specifically, the non-appearance of many of the cast from the main show and that Blue can now talk, aside from the change to puppetry, as well as the revamp of the notebook^note Instead of items being drawn into it, items now magically appeared in the notebook, were sentient, and sang a little ditty - which many fans found not only boring and dry, but also annoying barely gave the franchise any longer to live. This was because it was likely made as an attempt to compete with Sesame Street and its Elmo's World segments (in fact, many of the puppeteers and crew members who worked on the "Blue's Room" segments also worked on Sesame Street).^note The fact that Sesame took a page out of Blue's Clues' book with the Journey to Ernie segments didn't help. It didn't help that, just like Sesame with Elmo's World, episodes of Clues now ended with a Room segment, which likely caused even more people to tune out. Production of both shows ceased in 2006 and 2007, respectively. That being said, the show enjoys a comfortable shelf life as an offering on Amazon Prime / Instant Video and shows such as Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood (created by Blue's Clues co-creator Angela Santomero) and Wallykazam! (created by Blue's Clues head writer / voice of Green Puppy, Adam Peltzman) likely wouldn't be nearly as successful if this show hadn't paved the way first. It also used to be the only late 1990s to early 2000s show to still air on the Nick Jr. channel, even nearly twenty years after it first aired, even if it was on a Friday Night Death Slot (4 AM Eastern) within the US and repeats have practically stopped on many international feeds (in particular, those that don't transmit to the Americas or the UK), although the DVDs are still being sold in many other markets. A reboot was finally announced on March 6, 2018, eleven years later.
• I Am Not Spock: Steve Burns and Donovan Patton are always going to be remembered as Steve and Joe.
• In Memoriam: One episode about a neighborhood festival ended with short animated segment of a trolley, underscored by a whistled rendition of "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", to honor the late Fred Rogers.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • As of 2020, only five episodes of the South Korean version of the show (hosted by HyunShup Shin) have surfaced online, and the show is otherwise considered lost media.
  • Julia Louis-Dreyfus' guest spot on the show in "Blue's Pajama Party" only aired once on said episode's premiere and was never released to home video.
  • The two additional scenes added to the VHS release of "Blue's Birthday" have not been included on any further home media releases of the episode.
• Kids' Meal Toy: The show received four promotions from Subway from 1998 to 2000; Blue's Big Birthday in 1998, Blue's Big Pajama Party in 1999, and two separate promotions in 2000, one of them being Blue's Big Musical Movie.
• Meaningful Release Date: The VHS release of "Blue's Birthday" was released on September 8, 1998, which was the second anniversary of when the show premiered.
• Milestone Celebration: The final episode of the original series (which is also counted as the first episode of Blue's Room's second season), "Meet Blue's Baby Brother!", was made to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the series in 2006.
• Missing Episode: "Blue's Big Musical" and "Bluestock" are missing from Paramount+ (likely due to music rights issues).
• Non-Singing Voice: In Blue's Big Musical Movie, Slippery Soap's singing is done by Evan Dorfman instead of Cody Ross Pitts, and Paprika's singing is done by Aleisha Allen instead of Jenna Marie Castle.
• The Other Darrin: Since every child character was voiced by a young kid, many of them were replaced over the course of the series. One of the only exceptions was Aleisha Allen as Sidetable Drawer, who voiced her for the entire run.
  • Paprika went from Jenna Marie Castle from seasons 1-3 to Corrine Hoffman from seasons 4-6, coinciding with the character's age-up from a baby to a toddler.
  • Tickety Tock went from Kathryn Avery from season 1 to the first few episodes of season 4 to Kelly Nigh from the A Playdate With Blue album and Blue's Big Musical Movie (produced at the end of the third season) to season 6.
  • Slippery Soap went from Cody Ross Pits from seasons 1-3 to Patrick Van Wagenen from seasons 4-6. He was voiced by Sean Hanely in season six's premiere, "The Legend of the Blue Puppy" only.
  • Shovel went from Stephen Schmidt from seasons 1-3, then Jonathan Press from Blue's Big Musical Movie to season 5, to Thomas Sharkey in season 6.
  • Pail went from Marshall Claffy from seasons 1-3, Olivia Zaro in Blue's Big Musical Movie and the album A Playdate With Blue (both produced in-between seasons 3 and 4), Julia Wetherell from seasons 4-5, to Nicole Gibson in season 6.
  • Orange Kitten went from Caitlin Hale from seasons 2-4 to Naelee Rae from seasons 5-6.
  • Periwinkle went from Cameron Bowen in season 3, then Kenny Kim from seasons 4-5, to Jansen Panettiere in season 6.
  • Outside the kid characters, Mrs. Pepper went from Penelope Jewkes in season 1 to Spencer Kayden for the remainder of the series.
  • A few characters had different voice actors in some of the Humongous Entertainment computer games that didn't perform them in the series. Stephanie Searson voiced Tickety Tock and David Burger voiced Mailbox in Blue's ABC Time Activities and Blue's Birthday Adventure. Victoria Pontecorvo (who would later perform Blue's speaking voice in Blue's Room) voiced Periwinkle and Nicole Gibson (Pail's season 6 voice) voiced Orange Kitten in Blue Takes You To School. Pail was voiced by Heather McLeod in Blue's Kindergarten.
  • On the soundtrack Blue's Big Treasure, Steve's grandma's voice is performed by Monica Passin instead of Rue McClanahan like in the "Blue's Big Treasure Hunt" episode.
• Out of Order:
  • Episodes often aired out of order. For example, "Blue's Surprise at 2 O'Clock" aired after "Blue's Sad Day" and "What Does Blue Want to Do on a Rainy Day?" on the week of October 19, 1998.
  • The Season 1 episode "What Story Does Blue Want To Play?" did not premiere until very late into the second season. While there's no official reason for this delay, it's worth noting that Steve does an Elvis impression for a large chunk of the episode.
• Permanent Placeholder: Co-creator Traci Paige Johnson did Blue's barks during table reads under the assumption they would get a more professional voice actor down the line. However, everybody liked Johnson's take on Blue enough that they kept her as Blue's voice.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends:
  • Multiple false rumors exist as to why Steve Burns left the show. Burns himself stated that he left because he was losing his hair and wasn't comfortable with having a bunch of kids watch him gradually go bald on national television.
  • Steve is dead. It's gotten to the point where even he has discussed the rumor. Despite it being untrue, people keep on believing the hoax that he died years ago.
  • There have been a few rumors that Magenta is a male character to invert gender roles. Magenta has always been a female character.
  • One rumor is that Steve Burns married Alyson Court (Loonette), which is false as Court is married to Z.M. Thomas and Burns is currently not married. Alyson Court cleared this up by stating that people on Twitter misread her calling Steve her "buddy" as "hubby".
  • Some rumors flew around that the reason why the series was spun off into Blue's Room was because Donovan Patton (Joe) was leaving the show. Not only did he make appearances on the spinoff, but Joe never officially left the series; Nickelodeon just decided to cancel the show after the sixth season.
• Real-Life Relative: Cinnamon's voice actress, Annalivia Balaban, is the daughter of Mr. Salt's voice actor Nick Balaban.
• Science Marches On: The "Planets" song in "What Experiment Does Blue Want to Try?" includes Pluto. When the song was performed in Blue's Clues & You!, Josh added "it's called a dwarf planet".
• The Shelf of Movie Languishment: Five episodes from the fourth season ("Blue's Book Nook", "Rhyme Time", "Puppets", "Blue's School", and "Something to Do Blue") were held off from airing until 2003 (for the former three) and 2006 (for the latter two, which were released on VHS first in 2004) for unknown reasons.
• So My Kids Can Watch: Julia Louis-Dreyfus appeared as a slipper repair lady on the original broadcast of "Blue's Big Pajama Party" for her son Charlie.
• Technology Marches On:
  • The first and second clues in "Mailbox's Birthday" are a tape player and an audio cassette. Other old technology, such as VCRs and CRT televisions, turn up from time to time.
  • Steve owned a boxy beige computer. In many episodes, Blue skidooed into CD-ROM games that resembled point-and-click games of the era.
  • In "Periwinkle Misses His Friend", the answer to Blue's Clues was for Periwinkle to draw a picture and mail it to his friend Plum. During the credits, Plum gets Periwinkle's picture in the mail. Nowadays, Plum wouldn't need to wait so long.
  • In "Inventions", one scene involves putting inventions in chronological order, including the phone. The cell phone in this scene is a brick phone that only makes calls.
• Unspecified Role Credit: Originally, all voice actors were listed under "Steve's Friends". Starting in season 3, the credits listed who played who in the main cast, with everyone else credited under "Steve's/Joe's Friends".
• What Could Have Been:
  • Justin Long was offered the chance to replace Steve Burns as the host of the series. However, Long turned down the offer as he just secured a proper agent at the time and was interested in other projects.
  • The 1995 pilot was titled Blue's Prints. In it, Steve wore a red polo instead of his signature green shirt.
  • Blue was originally a kitten instead of a puppy. She was changed into a dog because Nick Jr. was set to air Hello Mrs. Cherrywinkle, which had a cat character.^note It was falsely rumored that Allegra's Window or regular Nickelodeon's CatDog was the show that made Blue a dog. However, Nick never picked it up and it would premiere in 1997 on Family Channel and later in the US as a show syndicated to public television stations, but not on Nick. Before Blue's color was set on, she (as a cat) was also originally orange. Ironically, a character named Orange Kitten would appear beginning in the second season.
  • Mr. Salt was originally supposed to have a Brooklyn accent before a French accent was chosen.
  • As seen in the tenth anniversary special, Gilbert Gottfried was one of the people who auditioned for the role of Joe.
  • Steve's final episode would have been the Grand Finale; according to Angela Santomero, the original script was a Tear Jerker of an episode. This script was scrapped in favor of an optimistic three-episode arc where Steve goes to college and Joe moves in, thus ensuring that the show will go on.
  • The show was meant to have an Italian adaptation that was supposed to be broadcast on Rai Uno in Spring 1999. Nothing came of it, and ultimately the dubbed version of the original show started airing on Nickelodeon's Italian feed in May 2005.
  • Prior to Blue's Clues & You!, Steve Burns stated that he wanted a spin-off where Steve opens up "the worst detective agency in the world". It is likely this planned spinoff evolved into the Blue Prints Detective Agency that is mentioned in the first episode of Blue's Clues and You!.

---