This is not a dog.
You heard me right.
Blue from Blue's Clues is not a dog.
Sure, she looks like a dog and she barks like a dog.
But she is not a dog.
Get this, Blue is in fact an advanced member of an alien species looking to learn from
humans in an eventual bid to take over planet Earth, an alien species that is getting closer
to achieving that goal season by season.
And here's the craziest part, this is barely a theory.
As you're about to see, practically all of this is explicitly spelled out in the show's canon.
So sit down in your thinking chair and Think, Think, Think.
about your impending servitude to an army of canine themed overlords.
*Blue barks* That's alien for sit and obey.
Hello Internet!
Welcome to Film Theory, the show that's really found its niche talking about the dark lore
of children's programming starring puppies.
It is a very specific content category, but we are dialed into it.
For those of you who have no idea what's going on today we're talking about Blue's Clues,
the iconic Nickelodeon kids show that ran for ten years between 1996 and 2006 before
getting revived in 2019.
Every episode was an interactive audience adventure as the animated dog Blue and her
human companion roamed around their storybook house in order to find three clues that would
help them solve the episode's big mystery.
Honestly, when you look at it, this thing was like the training ground for theorists
of the future.
Blue's Clues walked so Film Theory could run.
Along the way, they'd sing songs, read the mail, and do stuff like this.
You know, the good sort of formulaic that any kid's show really thrives off of.
The show was hosted by Steve for Four Seasons, who then went off to college and pass the
baton over to his younger brother, Joe.
Now, in its current iteration, Blue's Clues & You!
It's hosted by their cousin Josh, all wearing primary colors, all equally oblivious to the
obvious answers that are lying right in front of their faces.
Sure, Steve.
I’m sure your dog Blue wants to eat a bubble sandwich.
Try it.
See how much dog vomit you're cleaning up out of that carpet.
Anyway, Blue's Clues is probably, in my opinion, one of the best kid's programs of all time.
If you've never seen it.
Who taught you how to feel?
Me too, Steve.
I didn't forget you either.
Who is cutting onions in here?
Anyway, now that my family's exhausted the entire canon of Paw Patrol and is currently
waiting patiently for the new movie to release later this year.
We've moved on to revisiting some classic Blue's Clues in order to fill the void in
our Friday night movie nights.
And let me tell you, let's go back to the show as an adult I’m picking up on a lot
of small, strange details here and there, things that seriously make me use my mind
and take a step at a time.
And I got to tell you, it's time to do the thing that I want to do, which is expose Blue's
Clues for the alien conspiracy that it is.
You see, the colorful storybook world of Blue's Clues holds a secret in its later seasons
and spin off movies, a secret that recontextualized the entirety of the show.
For decades, we've been led to believe that Blue is a puppy.
Nope, she is anything but.
She is an emissary from the stars scouting out us earthlings.
And our reckoning is coming, friends.
So skidoo on over, because it's.
(Beautiful singing voice): Theory Time, Theory Time, Theory Time!
(Slippery Ash): Ooh, a clue.
A clue.
Oh, what did you say?
You have the flu?
Sorry to hear that.
I've been sick too, lately. You can probably hear it in my voice.
It's been a really nasty winter so far.
(Slippery Ash): No, a clue.
Oh, you see a clue.
Thanks, Slippery.
The first clue is the subscribe button.
Let's put that in our handy dandy (Slippery Ash) :Notebook!
Wacom tablet.
Right.
So we draw one long line at the top.
A long line at the bottom.
Connect the two with some rounded lines at the ends, and then we write the word “Subscribed”
in the middle.
Wait, does yours not look like that?
You better fix that.
Otherwise, Mailbox is going to cry.
And you don't want to make Mailbox cry, do you?
Let's begin in a simple place, shall we?
Blue’s Age.
The sheer fact that Blue is still alive in the new reboot series automatically throws
her dog-ness into question, considering that she should 100% be dead at this point.
You see in the world of the show, there is clearly a passage of time that's established.
For the most obvious example of this: In season four, Steve goes off to college.
There. Done.
Time is not a frozen entity inside this universe.
Season five Episode 29 tells us the story of how Steve first met Blue.
At the time she was a young puppy and Steve looked to be about eight years old, which
tells us that they were together for at least ten years before Joe entered the picture.
Now, in Season two Episode nine - Blue's Birthday.
Blue's Cake has eight candles in it.
And we're not talking dog years either.
I think we've all heard the general rule of thumb that one year for a dog equals about
seven years of human life.
So if your dog is two real years old, it's dog age would be about like 14, right?
Well, it turns out the math isn't exactly that simple.
Dogs mature more quickly than we do early on in their life.
Size and breed also play a factor with smaller dogs tending to live longer than larger ones.
So knowing that, what would Blue's age expectancy be?
Well, based on her large floppy ears, she's likely one of the breeds from the hound family.
We also know that Blue talks a lot in yowling barks and high pitched whines.
This also fits with the hound group; as dogs bred for hunting have a very similar, distinctive
sound and tend to be more talkative than other dogs because they had to communicate with
their humans while on the chase.
But the thing that actually clinches it is her weight.
We know, based on Blue's visit to the vet in season five, episode 30, that she weighs
in at…
Which would put her as one of the smaller hounds.
In other words, Blue most closely resembles a beagle, giving her a rough life expectancy
of 15 years.
At absolute best.
The record for the oldest dog in history is 22 years, and I doubt that they were as sprightly
as our puppy Blue here.
So if Blue was eight at the top of season two and now 23 years later, we have this new
reboot, there is no way that she would still be qualifying for puppy status, let alone
living status if she were actually a dog.
What's that?
Maybe time froze between the season breaks.
I mean, you would think that, but no.
Time continued to march forward for all of the characters.
Case in point, Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper.
In the season one finale of Blue's Clues, the big mystery solve is that these two seasonings
are having themselves a baby named Paprika.
It is really cute.
By the fourth season, paprika has become a toddler.
Two years have passed in two seasons.
In season four, the family has themselves another child: Cinnamon.
By the series wrap, Cinnamon is still a baby that can barely talk.
But hold on.
In this new reboot series, Blue's Clues & You!
Everyone is older.
Paprika is a teenager with a smartphone, and Cinnamon is probably around ten, wearing a
cool sideways ball cap.
The full 21 year gap between the original series finale and the reboot hasn't passed,
but it has been at least a decade for the characters inside of this world, meaning that
Blue is likely 21 years old or older.
That is not a dog who is able to dance, party and freeze on a single toe.
And the lies and the deceit about Blue's age don't stop there.
If you jump to the reboot and watch season one Episode 11 - Happy Birthday Blue.
Count the candles on the cake.
Not only has she not aged, apparently she's aged backwards.
Her cake only has five candles, three less than what she had when it was her birthday
with Steve.
The evidence here just doesn't add up.
And before you think that maybe this is a new replacement dog, it's not.
It is confirmed to be the same Blue from the old series by both Steve and Joe.
So if it's the same dog 20 plus years later, how can Blue still be alive and kicking?
The only reasonable explanation is that Blue isn't a dog at all.
But to prove that, we've got to find ourselves some more clues.
(Slippery Ash): A clue. A clue!
Tattoo. Tattoo?
Yeah.
I got one on the small of my back.
It's a cute little butterfly.
Why do you ask?
(Disappointed Ash): No, Matt.
A clue.
Oh, a clue.
And it's on Blue's Paw Prints.
Isn't that meta?
So why would Blue's Pop be a clue?
Well, it's because her anatomy isn't like a dog.
For starters, she's able to pick up books with an opposable thumb.
You don't have to be a vet or have a masters in animal sciences to know that dogs do not
have thumbs.
And yet, on many occasions throughout the show and the promotional artwork, we see blue
holding things, rowing rafts, holding a piping bag or a guitar, all with a big ol’ prominent thumb.
A thumb that is somehow able to retract back into her hand.
Sorry, let me rephrase this.
Blue's whole paw is able to morph and change.
Blue normally has herself three obvious toes as she hops around the house.
This is consistent to her design across all iterations of the show, and yet when she goes
up to smash a paw print on the screen for a clue or during the intro sequence, she grows
a fourth toe.
And also, again, there's that humanoid monkey thumb that's hidden somewhere in there, too.
This is not normal dog anatomy.
Why has this not raised anyone's alarms before?
And the non dog behavior doesn't stop there either.
In Season six Episode eight - Soccer Practice, Blue and the gang play a game of soccer.
After they're done, they all sit down to share some chocolate ice cream.
Yep.
You heard that one right, chocolate ice cream.
I think most people know that giving a dog chocolate is basically like giving them poison.
But ice cream is just as bad for the dog.
It can lead to bloating and vomiting.
But here at the end of the episode, both Blue and her friend Magenta are eating chocolate
ice cream.
Clearly, there are two impostors among us.
And right now, Blue and Magenta be looking mad sus.
Whatever she's doing, she is clearly not a dog.
How, then, can I prove that she's from another planet?
Well, just by watching the show.
In season six episode one - The Legend of the Blue Puppy, Joe and the gang are watching
a blue moon.
All of a sudden, Moona the moon fairy appears.
As the story goes on the night of the very first blue moon.
A whole litter of puppies just appeared out of nowhere.
But one was different from all the others.
She was blue.
That is not a dog.
That is an alien trying to look like a dog and failing miserably.
It's also at this point that I should probably mention Blue's other origin story.
In Season Five's holiday episode, we find out that Blue Again is no normal dog.
Instead, she appeared out of a storybook just because Steve wished her into reality.
Steve gets this mysterious book in the mail from an unmarked package about a blue dog
who doesn't do normal dog things.
We're told that Blue wants a friend who can teach her all the songs and stories and games.
The book then ends with the most abrupt fourth wall break imaginable.
That night, Blue jumps out of the book using the magical power of skidooing, and the rest
is history.
Now it would seem like the blue moon and book stories would contradict, but they don't.
In fact, they just repeat each other.
They're just the same story being told differently.
Blue is a creature that came into being because of the blue moon and was immediately different
from normal dogs.
That much is very clear and it would seem that one power that the moon puppies possess
is the power to skidoo, hopping into fictional worlds like books and paintings.
This is a skill that seems specific to moon puppies like Blue, who are then able to pass
along those abilities to their caretakers who get exposed to her.
Notice how shocked everyone is the first time that she skidoos into a world, but eventually
they're all doing it.
Anyway, Blue wound up inside of a book, waiting for the right human caretaker who would then
be able to teach her human ways.
But skidooing isn't her only magic power.
Returning back to the moon fairies in the Legend of the Blue Puppy episode, we see that
blue has an even greater ability.
Spoiler alert it's not what you expect.
Yep.
A mysterious key.
Late season Blue's Clues gets to some weird places, man.
The TL;DW of all this is That Blue is finally old enough to unlock her secret ability.
The key, which has been hidden inside her alien dog stuffed animal the whole time.
Hint Hint.
Opens Blue's magical playroom.
Blue transforms into a giant puppets and she can talk.
No, no, no, thank you.
I'll just go back to the barking, please.
What's also interesting is that time moves differently inside of Blue's room.
We can actually see from the clock in the background that each toy box segment here
doesn't run as the same time outside of the toy box.
The whole thing functions a lot like the hyperbolic time chamber from Dragon Ball Z, where decades
of training can get done inside the room in mere minutes of real time.
So is this a similar sort of facility?
Is Blue's Room a place for Blue to hone her powers of human speech?
Seems like the next clear evolution for Blue species.
So if Blue were to harness her true alien powers within Blue's room, what would the
fully evolved form of Blue's species look like?
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Rainbow Puppy, the newest addition
to the roster added as a part of the reboot.
Rather than just being one color, Rainbow Puppy is, as you might have guessed, a Rainbow.
RGB gamer for life.
More importantly, though, she can speak fluent English and walks on two feet rather than
four like Blue and Magenta.
Not only does this make Rainbow Puppy less doglike, she's clearly a more powerful version
of Blue.
In season three Episode 11 of the reboot - Rainbow Puppies Skidoo Adventure, we see that she
can skidoo way more than Blue ever could.
In most episodes, Blue only manages to skidoo like once, maybe twice.
But in this episode, Rainbow Puppy skidoos into Chalk World, The Post Office, The Farm,
the ocean, the Theater, Rainbow World and finally Skidoo World.
Seven times in a single episode, she is clearly far stronger than Blue or Magenta ever were.
And on top of that, she doesn't have an owner.
Blue and Magenta both have owners, but I'm guessing Rainbow Puppy doesn't because of
her abilities.
She doesn't need a caretaker like the others because she's a fully evolved version of…whatever
alien species these creatures are meant to be.
Will the same happen to Blue?
Will she soon have enough power of her own that she no longer requires an owner?
Absolutely.
You can actually see the start of it once Blue unlocks her room.
Joe, her caretaker at the time, is completely sidelined.
He doesn't know where Blue's disappeared off to.
Heck, he doesn't even learn about Blue's Room until we tell him.
He's clearly left on the outs.
With Steve, it was always about his relationship with Blue.
But once Blue unlocks her final ability, Joe serves no purpose.
He's not needed anymore.
It's all about you, the viewer, the one who's allowed inside of Blue's Room.
In fact, Blue is so not interested in Joe anymore that she doesn't even play Blue's
Clues with him.
Joe has to be the one to create the game himself.
We would not.
Joe is an afterthought.
The humans have served their purpose.
We even catch glimpses of blue standing on two feet in the recently released movie.
She's starting to evolve into a higher powered being.
She's starting to approach the levels of Rainbow Puppy.
In this new Blue's Clues movie, we see Blue's powers to an extreme degree.
She's able to skidoo a whole bus through a billboard to get to New York City.
And while they're in New York, everyday items like a mailbox, mustard and salt and pepper
shakers come to life as Blue walks past.
Blue has the ability to create living beings.
So we've established that Blue is clearly not a dog from Earth.
But what's the goal here?
Well, after sitting down in my thinking chair to think, think, think, I realize Blue's true
purpose.
She's training up to become the next Rainbow Dog.
And so what's Rainbow Dog's deal?
Domination.
In Rainbow Puppies Skidoo Adventure we see Skidoo World for the first time ever.
The world that Josh and blue travel between when they skidoo.
In this world I noticed a few interesting things.
One, it's rainbow colored, showing rainbow control over this meta-space.
But secondly, we see lots of pictures throughout Skidoo World.
These aren't random photos either.
They all represent different skidoo locations throughout the series.
The Planet Picture represents Season two Episode four - What Experiment Does Blue Want to Try
where they skidoo into space.
A jungle is Season two Episode four of the Reboot - Blue's Big Baking Show, where they
skidoo Into a Jungle and the Gingerbread House is from season two Episode six of the reboot
- Blues Night Before Christmas, where they skidoo to the North Pole.
These aren't just random places; this world holds all the places that Josh and Blue have
been traveling to, and it holds the magic that makes everything come alive.
This isn't just a portal.
It's a hub world.
When any of the puppies skidoo, the power to go there again is stored here in this Skidoo
World, they're capturing different locations across the world, allowing them to have simultaneous
control over everything.
Blue and Rainbow Puppy may seem friendly, but believe me when I say anyone that claims
to be a dog but can walk, eat chocolate and have opposable thumbs is someone that cannot
be trusted.
Get as far away as he can from Blue and her friends because she could be skidooing to
a place near you.
And never, ever go into Blue's room alone.
They're all just using you.
Instead, you probably just say: So long, there's no time for one more song.
If you manage to do that my friends, I got to thank you for doing your part, you guys
sure are smart.
but hey, that's just a theory.
A FILM THEORY!
Aaaaand if you want to watch the dark secrets of Dora the Explorer, check out the video
on the left.
Spoiler alert that game's programing gets real weird.
Or if you want to check out why you shouldn't trust Ryder from Paw Patrol that videos on the right.
Now if you'll excuse me.
I’m still looking for that third clue?
Anyone see this clue?