Blue...get a Clue...

Every day with my little man is dejavu.  It's like living with a carbon copy of the bro.  From an obsession with switches and buttons to his determination, he's like my brother.  And recently, he's started watching something that my brother watched religiously as a child.  Blues Clues.

I'll take the Barney phase again, PLEASE.  Don't get me wrong.  I find myself smiling while watching the show with him, but it's mostly a "OMG, I forgot how totally lame this show is."  There are a few things that do make me genuinely smile. But mostly, I'm laughing at the show, not with it.

In case you live under some rock or don't have kids, Blues Clues is a kids show on Nickelodeon.  It first came out when the bro was only five.  The whole premise of Blues Clues, when it first came out, was that children learn by repetition.  That being said, in Nickelodeon's (well Nick Jr's) infinite wisdom, they decided to air the SAME SHOW all WEEK long.  This was in hopes of the child learning something by the end of the week.  Usually, what resulted was that the caregiver wanted to gouge their eye out with a spork by the end of the week.

I'm not really sure how long Blues Clues did the whole "children learn by repetition" thing.  They don't do it (thank god), but if you look at the suicide rates between 1995-1997, I'm sure they are very high.  I know those years are very much a black whole in my memory.  Blues Clues is one of the reasons why.

My friend once came over to my parent's house when the show first came out.  I said to her "Dude, you HAVE to watch this show with me."  She was like "Um...oooookay..."  She could tell from my voice that I was pulling a 'misery loves company' thing with her.  However, she was a good sport and watched.  Within the first three minutes she sat there, just dumbfounded.  Then suddenly she flashed the 'Loser' sign on her forehead.

So here I am, years later, my son spies Blues Clues on Netflix.  I oblige him because it is educational and better than most stuff that is on TV now.  Unfortunately, he insisted on starting on Episode 1.  Which means I have to watch Steve.  Lord, just please shoot me now.

You see, Steve was Blue's first owner.  Then Steve went off to college at 30 and left his brother Joe to watch over Blue.  Joe, stayed with the show until 2006.  Apparently, they don't make new episodes of Blues Clues anymore...but I digress...

Steve...I don't know what it was about him...but I couldn't STAND Steve.  Basically, Steve was a guy that lived in an enchanted house with his blue dog and couldn't function on his own, so he asked little kids to help him figure out to do basic stuff around the house. (I'm just sayin').  And of course, every show, you had to help Steven figure out what his dog wanted by playing Blues Clues.

I mean seriously, just ask the dog what she wants...

"Blue, it's kind of a busy day here.  Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper are going to ask me to help them in the kitchen, Tickety is going to need help in the bedroom, and I'm going to have to clean up some mess that you make.  So can we cut to the chase and you just tell me what it is you want?  If you don't, you might have to spend some quality time with Mr. Crate."

But I guess there is no real learning there.  There you have it, I'm subjected to listening to something like a bad British Panto ("It's BEHIND YOU) for the sake of my children.