On This Day: Blues Clues Was Played For The First Time EVER

On this day 24 YEARS AGO, the first of Nick Jr.'s three long-running charttoppers Blue's Clues was first broadcasted onto our screens.

In 1996, Traci Paige Johnson, Todd Kessler and Angela C. Santomero were given the task of making a game show for the preschool crowds. The show was originally going to be titled Blue's Prints, Mr. Salt was originally going to have a Brooklyn, New York accent, Steve was supposed to have a red polo shirt and Blue was originally going to be a cat.

However, these changes were reversed when Nickelodeon at the time was already working on a cat-related series entitled CatDog which would premiere in 1998.

So they went with a blue dog animated by Dave Palmer, Mr. Salt to have a French accent and Steve to wear a green striped shirt. And with a couple of small adjustments, airing on September 7th 1996 at 8PM primetime, Nickelodeon's Blue's Clues was born. The original series ran for eight years, six seasons and 143 episodes (including a 90-minute musical movie)

Steven Burns, Donovan Patton and Joshua Dela Cruz invited children to join them and their pet puppy dog Blue voiced by creator Traci Paige Johnson on learning educational adventures in this story-based preschool game show. While looking for the three pawprint shaped clues to figure out the question asked in each episode, puzzles and games are played to help increase learning, problem-solivng and critical thinking skills.

In August 2004, following the original Blues Clues series wrapping up on May 10th of that year, Blue's Clues helped open the door to the first Nick Jr spinoff show Blue's Room in which was all live-action puppets and Blue could talk and sing proper English in her playroom, and with working with some of the great voice actors of the Sesame Street franchise. This spinoff would continue to air regularly until March 29th, 2007.

Twelve years later in November 2019, Blue's Clues is gracefully brought back onto our screens. Josha Dela Cruz from Disney's Aladdin took over as the new host with Burns and Patton making constant reappearances for nostalgia factors and purposes.

Since then, the Blue's Clues franchise has became an international phenomeon for the past 24 years. It was the first Nick Jr. series ever to have a spinoff and a reboot series. It has been running over 24 yearas with a 12 year interval, airing three series, 11 seasons and over 200 episodes, merchandising, a Broadway musical adaptation, over 15 videogames, six CD albums and theme park appearances. And with 40 more episodes of BC&Y up their paws and sleeves, the franchise is still considered to be a classic for years to come.

Thanks for all of your years of support watching this franchise, and always remember the message will forever be there that "we can do anything that we wanna do."