Blue's Clues (seasons 5 & 6)

From Mixed Receptions TV Shows Wiki

Blue's Clues is an American children's television series that premiered on Nickelodeon in 1996. Producers Angela Santomero, Todd Kessler, and Traci Paige Johnson combined concepts from child development and early-childhood education with innovative animation and production techniques that helped their viewers learn.

Unfortunately, the show went downhill in Seasons 5 and 6.

Bad Qualities[edit | edit source]

Overall[edit | edit source]

  1. Nickelodeon decided to milk the series for all its worth during these seasons by keeping it going after Steve left to college because he decided it was time to go.
    • One of the reasons why Steve Burns left is because he was going bald.
    • While replacing the host is not bad at all, Joe himself is not as good as Steve, see reasons below.
    • It can give Monster High (TV Series) a run for their money.
  2. Some plots are rehashed from older episodes. For instance, "Animals in Our House?" is basically Joe's version of "Animal Behavior!".
  3. These seasons are filled with bad/mediocre/meh episodes, such as:
    1. "Can You Help?" (which started the downfall of the whole series)
    2. "The Snack Chart"
    3. "Joe's Surprise Party"
    4. "Bedtime Business"
    5. "Blue Goes to the Doctor"
    6. "Blue's Big Band"
    7. "Our Neighborhood Festival"
    8. "Blue Takes You to School"
    9. "Meet Polka Dots!"
    10. "Body Language"
    11. "Blue's Big Car Trip"
    12. "I Did That!"
    13. "Animals In Our House?"
    14. "Morning Music"
    15. "The Legend of the Blue Puppy" (which started season 6 on a sour note, and furthered the show’s downfall even more)
    16. "Love Day" (possibly the worst episode of the show)
    17. "Blue's Wishes"
    18. "Joe's Clues"
    19. "Playdates"
    20. "The Fairy-Tale Ball"
    21. "Soccer Practice"
  4. Several awful/bad/mediocre/meh/annoying new characters:
    • Roary the Dinosaur only has one trait, which is roaring really loudly. His roars also sound like Tarzan yells and his voice is extremely annoying.
    • Polka Dots (a sea-green plush toy who creates puzzles for others to solve) is overly talkative and obnoxiously loud.
    • Fred (Frederica) (a princess doll) has a tendency to pretend that it's her birthday, which gets annoying and repetitive. She also has a whiny, scratchy, and overall very irritating voice.
    • Silly Seat (a chair who tells silly jokes and crazy riddles) is a laughable sofa who does nothing but tell "knock-knock" and "what do you call?" jokes to make others laugh.
    • Joe (Blue's caretaker in these seasons and Steve's brother) was flanderized throughout these seasons to become a hyperactive and goofy host, even though he was tolerable in his debut episodes from Season 4, and the good episodes of these seasons, along with Blue's Clues & You!. He has also become a Gary Stu.
      • He fed Blue and Magenta chocolate in three episodes ("The Snack Chart", "Scavenger Hunt", and "Soccer Practice"), despite the fact that chocolate is poisonous to dogs in real life because it contains theobromine (though Blue might be immune due to her origins, and she and Magenta are cartoon dogs, but still).
      • He and Steve are almost the exact same character with only a few differences between them. Both hosts even do the same things, such as telling the viewers/audience that they need their help playing Blue's Clues.
      • His shirt changes color in every episode for no apparent reason.
      • Basically, like how Sammy Hagar ruined Van Halen and Avril Lavigne ruined punk, most people think Joe ruined the entire series because of his flaws. The similar problem goes with Elmo being too involved with Sesame Street.
      • Like his Blue's Room self and Blue (when she talks in Blue's Room), Joe also treats the viewers/audience like how Barney the Dinosaur, Elmo from the Sesame Street segment Elmo's World and when he gets the most screen time on Sesame Street, Bert and Ernie, Grover, and Prairie Dawn (along with Zoe and Cookie Monster) in Sesame Street's spin-off Play with Me Sesame, Dora the Explorer, Diego from Go, Diego, Go!, Kai-Lan from Ni Hao, Kai-Lan!, the Teletubbies, the narrators and puppets from Baby Einstein, the Little Einsteins, JoJo from JoJo's Circus, Special Agent Oso (in Season 1), the Sensational Six from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Darby from My Friends Tigger & Pooh, Pinky Dinky Doo, and other kid show characters do. He also talks down to the viewers/audience too much than Steve does.
  5. Blue is shown going to the bathroom in "Morning Music", which is a bit inappropriate for the show's target demographic of preschoolers.
    • However, this is probably because Joe and Blue want to teach kids how to use the bathroom.
  6. The talking clues, introduced in late season 5, were unnecessary. They can defeat the purpose of showing children (or even teens and adults) how to draw, but also can be annoying to listen to.
  7. Most of the inanimate/sentient object character designs are unfitting for a children's cartoon, as they fit more into Battle for Dream Island or Inanimate Insanity instead. Coincidentally the show was animated by most of the animators of those shows.
  8. Some of the animated characters may look a bit like adults, but it's weird that they still tend to have child voices.
  9. Quantity Over Quality: It ran for 10 years like Ed, Edd n Eddy and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. The show jumped the shark a few times because of this.
  10. Extremely hammy acting for Donovan Patton as Joe.
  11. These seasons of Blue's Clues, along with Blue's Room, focus less on older, more mature, classic, and reboot characters like Steve, Josh, Sidetable Drawer, Mailbox, Mr. Salt, Mrs. Pepper, Paprika, Cinnamon, Sage, and Ginger, Shovel, Pail, Slippery Soap, Tickety Tock, Rainbow Puppy, Magenta, Green Puppy, Periwinkle, Orange Kitten, Green Kitten, Purple Kangaroo, and The Felt Friends (Fifi, Freddy, Phaderus, etc.), and more on younger characters who relate to children in the 0-4 age range along with Blue's Clues Season 5-6 and Blue's Room characters such as Fred, Polka Dots, Sprinkles, Roary, Silly Seat, Doodle Board, Boogie Woogie, Sprinkles, Joe, and Blue (especially her Blue's Room counterpart).
  12. Ended the series on a sour note, and these seasons, along with Blue's Room, nearly killed the Blue's Clues franchise, as it went dormant after the latter's cancellation in 2007 until the announcement of Blue's Clues & You! 11 years later.

Season 6 (2004)[edit | edit source]

  1. The show experienced several unnecessary changes:
    • Several attempts were made to save time due to the Blue's Room segments. Most notably, "Play Blue's Clues" was shortened considerably and the "So Long Song" was dropped before Blue's Clues & You!. Even Sesame Street had the same problem with including Elmo's World at the end.
  2. The talking clues (introduced in late Season 5) became permanent, except "The Legend of the Blue Puppy", "Skidoo Adventure", and "Bluestock".
  3. Joe becomes even goofier than he was in the fifth season.
  4. A bad ending song called "The Goodbye Song" is used in every episode, starting with "Love Day".
  5. The show completely jumped the shark in this season, as a new segment called Blue's Room started taking up the last few minutes of each episode, until Blue's Clues & You! as the pre-2019 era.

Good Qualities[edit | edit source]

Overall[edit | edit source]

  1. Blue's Clues & You! is great and a huge improvement over these seasons and Blue's Room, as it stays faithful to the original Blue's Clues (especially the first four seasons) and the characters become more tolerable.
  2. The animation styles, including Flash and CGI, are still simplistic, but well done. In addition, the mix of live action and animation still turned out to be pretty well done.
  3. The voice acting is still great.
    • There's also decent acting from some of the Blue's Room cast, such as Victoria Pontecorvo, Jared Goldsmith, Christiana Anbri and Alex Hoffman.
  4. The new show intro and song are great and catchy, giving Blue's Clues a singing theme song.
    • This also includes the season 6 intro, where despite Blue's puppet counterpart being used, she thankfully doesn’t speak, and it’s only for a few seconds before Moona turns Blue back to her original animated self and the rest of the intro plays normal as usual.
  5. There are still some likable characters in these seasons, especially the cute and lovable animated characters, such as:
    • Blue herself (excluding her Blue's Room counterpart)
    • Steve (who guest appeared in "100th Episode Celebration" and "Blue's First Holiday" (the latter in a flashback as a child, and we hear him via a call in the present))
    • Sidetable Drawer
    • Mailbox
    • The Shaker family:
      • Mr. Salt
      • Mrs. Pepper
      • Paprika
      • Cinnamon
    • Shovel
    • Pail
    • Slippery Soap
    • Tickety Tock
    • Magenta
    • Green Puppy
    • Periwinkle
    • Orange Kitten
    • Green Kitten
    • Purple Kangaroo
    • Duck (the one at Blue's school)
    • Giraffe (also at Blue's school)
    • The Felt Friends (Fifi, Freddy, Phaderus, etc.)
    • Snail
    • Baby Bear
    • Cinderella
    • Shoehorn
    • Gingerbread Boy
    • Billy Chicken
    • Felix
    • The Wind-up Drum Toy
    • Gopher
    • Marlee
    • Magenta's Mailbox
    • Post Office Mailbox
    • Marky
    • Blue Bird
    • The Three Little Pigs
    • Moona (one of the only good new characters)
    • Key (another good new character)
    • Handy Dandy Journal (another good new character)
    • There are also cameos of some other likable characters, such as Rabbit, Skinny Pig, G-Clef, Sarah Scientist, the Sun, and Steve's and Joe's Grandmother.
  6. Most of the songs are decent/good. For example, the Mailtime song and the So Long song are still great and catchy.
    • All of the songs can still be pretty catchy to listen too, aside from "The Goodbye Song" having bad lyrics.
  7. The occasional celebrity appearances by the likes of They Might Be Giants, and Toni Braxton (who both appeared in one of these season's good episodes, Bluestock), are still quite clever and fun.
  8. Blue's barks are still cute. The fact that everyone can understand what she is saying is also still very deep and touching.
  9. There are still a handful of good/decent episodes, such as:
    • Season 5:
    1. "Colors Everywhere!"
    2. "The Big Book About Us"
    3. "100th Episode Celebration!" (a great way to celebrate the show since it's the show's 100th episode)
    4. "Playing Store"
    5. "Patience"
    6. "I'm So Happy!"
    7. "The Boat Float"
    8. "Shape Searchers"
    9. "Contraptions"
    10. "A Brand New Game"
    11. "Dress Up Day"
    12. "Up, Down, All Around!"
    13. "Story Wall"
    14. "The Alphabet Train"
    15. "Numbers Everywhere!"
    16. "Blue's Predictions"
    17. "The Scavenger Hunt"
    18. "Let's Write!"
    19. "Magenta's Messages"
    20. "Look Carefully..." (probably the only good episode to feature the talking clues)
    21. "Blue's First Holiday" (which ended the fifth season on a high note and would have been a good series finale if the show didn't get a sixth season)
    • Season 6:
    1. "Skidoo Adventure"
    2. "Bluestock" (which ended the sixth season, as well as the entire series in general, on a high note and also a good series finale)
    3. "Behind the Clues: 10 Years of Blue" (a nice documentary about the show)
  10. Season 5, despite starting the series' downfall, is considered to be the least bad of the bad seasons and can be considered the closest thing to the original charm of the first 4 seasons since most of the characters have kept their charm, it still has decent/great songs, like the intro "Another Blue's Clues Day", which includes keeping the original "Play Blue's Clues" and "So Long" songs, the lessons can still be decent/good (with The Scavenger Hunt, despite being from an average episode, being one of the most notable), Joe is a charming host a lot more in this season whenever he's not being annoying, and it has a lot of great episodes like "100th Episode Celebration" and "Blue's First Holiday", so it's considered the most average. However, there are still some flaws.

Season 6 (Blue's Room segments)[edit | edit source]

  1. Cute puppet designs.
  2. Good puppetry.
  3. They encourage kids to use their imagination.
  4. Blue's puppet counterpart is still cute, despite being flanderized.

Reception[edit | edit source]

TBA.

Comments[edit | edit source]

This show went completely jumped the shark in those seasons.
-- XanManYT (talk) 12:12, 18 May 2022 (UTC) I like joe


-- 20:39, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

The second comment shown says "Blues Clues is my favorite PBS Kids show". Everybody says Blue's Clues is Nick Jr.
-- Jett Wilston 17:48, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Steve didn't leave the show just because he was bald. It was because he felt like it was time for him to leave because of how old he was getting
-- Tim Delzer (talk) 05:38, 7 March 2023 (UTC)