Blue's Clues

Blue's Clues is an American interactive educational children's television series created by Traci Paige Johnson, Todd Kessler, and Angela C. Santomero. It premiered on Nickelodeon through the Nick Jr. block on September 8, 1996, and concluded its run on August 6, 2006, with a total of six seasons and 143 episodes. The original host of the show was Steve Burns, who left in 2002 and was replaced by Donovan Patton (as "Joe") for the fifth and sixth seasons. The show follows an animated blue-spotted dog named Blue as she leaves a trail of clues/paw prints for the host and the viewers to figure out her plans for the day.

The producers and creators combined concepts from child development and early-childhood education with innovative animation and production techniques that helped their viewers learn, using research conducted thirty years since the debut of Sesame Street in the U.S. Unlike earlier preschool shows, Blue's Clues presented material in a narrative format instead of a magazine format, used repetition to reinforce its curriculum, structured every episode the same way, and revolutionized the genre by inviting their viewers' involvement.

Research was part of the creative and decision-making process in the production of the show, and was integrated into all aspects and stages of the creative process. 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. Its home-based setting is familiar to American children, but has a look unlike previous children's TV shows.