Handy Dandy Notebook As Featured on Nick Jr: Blue’s Clues

Introduction:

Blue’s Clues is a Nick Jr. original children’s television series that first premiered in the late 1990s. The show was produced targeting children education, using various learning techniques to teach kids while entertaining them. The television series is based around the main characters Blue, a spotted blue dog.  Blue leaves paw prints as clues for Steve, Blue’s caretaker, to solve what her schedule was throughout the day. One artifact in Blue’s Clues that is vital for figuring out what each paw print clue means is the Handy Dandy Notebook.

 

Handy Dandy Notebook:

The Handy Dandy Notebook is a small square shaped notebook with a spiral bind. The Handy Dandy Notebook is always kept in Sidetable Drawer who is small with a red body and orange colored top and draw. Sidetable Drawer is outlined with black and has a telephone sitting on top of it. The telephone is red with yellow dial buttons. When a clue is found Steve goes into Sidetable Drawer and takes out Handy Dandy Notebook. This notebook’s dimensions are approximately four inches in length by one inch in width by four inches in height and weighing between five and six ounces.  The Handy Dandy Notebook has a green cover with a solid black line around the edges for the front and back of the notebook. The cover of Handy Dandy Notebook also has a drawing of the “Thinking Chair,” a large red armchair with black detailed sewing along its edges. The Thinking Chair is what Steve sits in to puzzle his three clues of the day in together. Inside the red large spirals that hold the Handy Dandy Notebook together is a crayon with light and dark green stripes.  Steve uses this crayon to draw out all of his clues on the pages inside Handy Dandy Notebook which are solid yellow. This crayon serves an alternative purpose from just being a tool for drawing but also is used as a pointer and to emphasize the thinking process by Steve. While recalling clues Steve will point to them using the green striped crayon, and when giving the audience time to think about the clues Steve will lightly tap the crayon on his chin giving the viewers signal to do so.

 

Conclusion:

The Nick Jr. children’s show “Blue’s Clues” was a positively influential television series on the youth. The creator’s ability to mesh entertainment and education for such a young audience whose attention span is very short took great brilliance. It was through the animated objects found in Blue’s Clues that captured the youth’s attention. Most importantly, it was the Handy Dandy Notebook that excited kids to learn as it was something they could recreate at home.