Prehistoric Blue: A review of a Paleo-Media episode in a Non Palaeo-Show
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| Ah, sweet young Gen X nostalgia |
Hello, and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind. Today, we're gonna be doing something different and try an epoisode of a show that normally doesn't feature dinosaurs or even focus on prehistory. Shows for younger kids do this a lot, mostly beccause of the errenonous assumption kids and only kids like dinosaurs (a topic I may discuss latter). Today, will be Nick Jr.'s classic, Blue's Clues. Yeah. I am going into a show for 5-year olds. Why? I just want to, and it's my show for 5-year olds, growing up with it. I’ve recently started watching Blue’s Clues out of nostalgia, and boy I love it.
One reason I’m doing and like Blue’s Clues rather then say, its comtemporaies Dora the Explorer or Go Diego Go! or the more recent PAW Patrol because honestly, its a lot more watchable and peaceful then most of toddler shows, then and now, which other other are pretty hot garbage in my book due to talking down to them and having way too many stimulants which st the risk of sounding like alarmist headlines, aren't very good for developing brains, like overly-bright colours, excessive jump cuts, and loud overacting.
Anyways, onto our show.
The episode begins with Steve walking outside his house rather then in it (and thus no fsmous "Hi out there" sequence), wanting to show us something Shovel and Pail found: they're fossilised dinosaur tracks. Shovel is a bit terrified by the prospects of dinosaurs in the backyard, but Pail reassures him that dinosaurs are extinct before explaining the most basic ideas of palaeontology and how fosils form.
Blue the puppy herself shows up out of a bush to reveal she saw something, and starts a game of Blue's Clues so Steve can figure out what it is.
Much of the rest of the episode sees Steve playtending to be a dinosaur called "Steveasasaurus rex", stomping around, prentending to roar and talking in a deep gruff voice, and holding his arms in a pronated way. Shortly after finding the first clue, Steve goes outside to find Shovel still scared, thinking there are dinosaurs in there despite Pail's assurances, and we have to guess what he'd actually saw based off further details. For instance, a long neck in a bush turns out to be a toy giraffe, spikes behind a log turn out to belong to a porcupine, and foot claws turn out to be a bird's. Admittedly it's pretty obvious for anyone over the age of five, but it's still fun regardless.
Afterwards, there's a brief sequence where Steve establishes with Mr Salt and Mrs. Pepper that dinosaurs were either herbivorous or carnivorous and chooses between either lettuce or chicken soup. Then comes the requisite Mail Time segment where Steve's friends, aka toddlers are filmed doing random things, here its visiting the American Museum of Natural History, looking at the famous Barosaurus and Kaatedocus casts, unchanged since 1991.
Afterwards comes the highlight of the episode, the Blue Skidoo segment. Here, Steve and Blue skidoo into a cardboard diorama, where they meet three dinosaurs that have traits just like the animals and a toy Steve, Pail, and Shovel.
First is an Apatosaurus. Steve and Blue introduce themselves to it pretending to be dinosaurs, and watch it eat, using its long neck to reach leaves.
Second comes a mother Stegosaurus and her newly hatched baby, only for a skirmish to break out between her and an attacking Allosaurus, chasing it off with her thagomizers. It's surprisingly intense for the series' standards, since it otherwise has no antagonistic characters, even if the Allosaurus merely backs off fast, has cartoonish design, and has the roars being made by a kid's, deflating the scare factor.
Finally Steve and Blue meet an Archaeopteryx (one with an enormous beak) and watch as it climbs up a tree to hunt a bug. An interesting thing is that the Archaeopteryx isn't shown flying, just hopping and flapping for short distances, It's actually consistent with research from Voeten, Cubo, and de Margerie et al. (2018) suggesting it could only fly for short bursts, like a turkey or a chicken. Meanwhile, I like how unlike the other dinosaurs featured, its brightly coloured indigo and purple, helping it stand out among the others (though I admit as the only small one it already does that good enough).
If you're wondering what the links are between the dinosaurs and the modern animals are, BTW:
- The Apatosaurus and giraffe have long necks to reach tall plants.
- The Stegosaurus and porcupine have spikes for defense.
- The Archeopteryx and bird have claws and feathers (which should be a hint they're literally the same kind of creature).
All the while, Steve and the audience have been finding clues to what Blue saw. These consist of green scales, a blobby shape, and a colour-changing footprint in the skidoo segment. Spoilers: It turns out to be a chameleon. Everyone fawns over it, and Steve and Blue bid us goodbyes with the show's goodbye song.
So with that out the way, what do I think of this particular episode of Blue's Clues and how it fits into the palaeo-media landscape?
Well for starters as mentioned above, its an unspoken rule that cartoon shows are obligated to feature an episode on dinosaurs or just prehistory, usually either by characters travelling back in time, bringing one to the setting, just existing in the present setting, or imagining themselves as cavemen, Flintstones-style. Prehistoric Blue is the formermost, albiet more a diorama that recreates the past then the past proper (at least that's what I figure). Most of these, especially preschool shows, tend to have a very inaccurate depictions, usually of blobby Knight-style dinosaurs with major anatomical inaccuracies and equally often a variety of anachronisms. As a whole it may have something to do with the assumption that because its for little kids, they can afford a lot of leeway since they don't know any better. I disagree in this regard, especially when young impressionable minds absorb them and spread inaccuracies around. I think that creators should strive to be as accurate as much as they can, like with Dinosaur Train (particularly the later seasons) and show people from a younger age and clear up misinformation (as I did with my A Day With a Dinosaur idea). Maybe that's another analysis for another day.
Moving onto more happier notes, much of what I like about Blue's Clues carries over to Prehistoric Blue. The stiff animation works as per the series' paper cutout and felt art style, helped by actually being a diorama. Meanwhile, the designs are of cartoony and stylised designs. Steve is a nice host who acts rather charming and like a kid without being being annoying or talking down to kids audiences. The music for it is often a booming one that suits the subject well. Blue herself meanwhile... isn't really in the episode all that much and doesn't contribute all that much to it of note besides the clues themselves. Hell, she doesn't even appear in the intro, oddly enough unlike literally every other episode, not until like two minutes in, pretty long by the show's standards.
Scientific accuracy is admittedly not Blue's Clues' main focus here. All the dinosaurs are of a cartoony and stylised design reminicent of Charles' R. Kight's work; the Allosaurus even seems to mimic the pose of his own painting as seen above (it's a nice touch, is what I'm saying). In particular, the Apatosaurus and Stegosaurus being round and with low slung tails, while the latter has elephantine feet instead of ones with visible toes and drawn without a beak. Even the landscape seen in the Skidoo is the palm-dotted volcanic plain dinosaurs are streotypically depicted in thanks to the Burian school.
Meanwhile, the educational bits are limited to the the most basic facts imaginable (dinosaurs went extinct, some ate meat and others ate plants, fossils turn to stone). To be fair, its expected when Blue's Clues isn't really edutainment all that much unlike the afromentioned Go Diego Go (and even that show didn't always get things right with its dinos), and has pretty much only chosen dinosaurs as the subject's because its something kids would like.
One glaring oversight I have when it comes to accuracy is that when birds get involved, they are treated as dinosaurs, but merely relatives: during the segment with Shovel, its insinuated feathers and wings are not found in dinosaurs, when we were finding non-avian dinosaur with exactly those traits at the same time it aired, helping confirm that birds are indeed nestled within the great clade.
And yet... I can forgive Prehistoric Blue in regards to such problems, since as I stated before the show ius more lowkey and less over the top and doesn't even try to be educational and risk showing the auduence some bad facts, and so doesn't come off as too unbearable to watch or listen to.
On a side note I have, the first is that Prehistoric Blue is not the only time Blue's Clues delt with dinosaurs. The spinoff Blue's Room had a talking toy dinosaur named Rory, while the reboot Blue's Clues and You has a remake of this episode called Blue's Dino Clues. And I'm very sure there are other stuff in the series to do with palaeo-media.
- Accuracy - 5/10
- Aging - 5/10
- Presentation - 7/10
- Behaviour - 6/10
- Visuals - 8/10
- Music - 7/10
- Storytelling - 7/10
- Rewatchability - 8/10
Goodbye for now. Stay safe in these trying times.
Sources/See Also
- Briggs, Helen (13 March 2018). "Archaeopteryx flew like a pheasant, say scientists". BBC News.
- Voeten, D.F.A.E., Cubo, J., de Margerie, E. et al. Wing bone geometry reveals active flight in Archaeopteryx. Nat Commun 9, 923 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03296-8
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