Blue’s Clues

I was 9 years old when Blue’s Clues made it’s debut. Intrigued by the show, I watched it even though I was probably older than the intended audience. I knew I was too old for it because my mom told me I was.

Blue’s Clues is about a dog named Blue and her dumb owner Steve. It’s slightly misleading because children often associate the color blue with boys so for a while everyone assumed that Blue was a boy. And by everyone I mean me. But alas, she is a girl. And Steve is still dumb.

Every day there would be some kind of mystery that needed to be solved and there would be clues covered in paw prints to help the audience figure out what to do. I think Blue would put her paw prints on the clues to help Steve because he was so idiotic. But I liked to assume that Blue was a thief and she left her dirty paw prints everywhere.

Steve and Blue’s days weren’t only filled with looking for clues though. They had more exciting things to do like getting the mail and taking to a side table drawer cleverly named Side Table Drawer.

They had little friends that were all household items like Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper, Mailbox, Slippery Soap, Tickety Tock, and random neighbors. I remember one of Blue’s neighbors celebrated Kwanza and I thought it was pretty strange since I went to school with more black kids than white kids (that’s not true at all) and none of them celebrated Kwanza.

Steve and Blue got mail every day without fail. They would sing a song to greet Mailbox who would actually stretch himself all the way inside their house. The song went something like this: “Here’s the mail it never fails, it makes me want to wag my tail, when it comes I wanna wail MAILLLLL.” I don’t think anyone has ever been that excited about getting the mail. Steve and Blue’s mail consisted of videos from kid’s classrooms and birthday invitations. I never got mail like that so it was hard for me to relate. Also, they never got bills which now makes me assume that they were either squatters or in the witness protection program and they were just hiding out in that house for a while.

A big episode for me was when Mr. Salt, who was randomly French, and Mrs. Pepper had a baby named Paprika. I feel like salt and pepper combined don’t make paprika so it leads me to think that Mrs. Pepper was sleeping with someone else. Maybe Mr. Cinnamon or Mr. Nutmeg or Mr. Cumin. Okay enough with the spice jokes that aren’t even really jokes.

A couple seasons in, Steve left for college and his brother Joe came over to take his place. When I was eleven years old, I knew that I could get into college if Steve could. I was a smarter and all around better person than he was. And I also didn’t wear the same green striped shirt paired with pleated khakis every day. I was miles ahead of him.

With the Joe era came new characters and new faces. There was a lot more human contact. There was also a periwinkle cat called Periwinkle and a magenta colored dog named Magenta that were both introduced. I don’t know much about their behavior, but I can assume that they were totally lame. I’m also fairly certain that Paprika started talking in the later seasons so that was pretty exciting as well.

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