My boy Devin is currently addicted to a couple of classic “Blues Clues” movies on DVD.  In the old school shows Steve is Blue’s owner.  If you have a toddler, or are some kind of weirdo, you know that now Joe has adopted (?) Blue and leads our kids in weekly games of Blues Clues.

I’m sure that there are many veteran fathers out ther that know exactly what happened to Steve, but since my son just started getting into the show over the last six months (his previous addiction was ELMO), I don’t have a, well, clue.  Let me know.

But that isn’t my point.  My point is that I like Steve a little more than that Joe guy.  Steve seemed like a real dude trapped in front of a green screen and making the best of a wack situation; like a guy you’d have a beer with.  Joe seems to love it there in fake crap land and it makes me queasy.  And yes I think Steve was a more masculine guy.  Not that Joe is feminine per se, it’s just that he isn’t as masculine as Steve.  I get that you have to act a certain way to get the attention of small kids, but I always wonder why that means giving up a certain amount of masculinity.

Devin doesn’t seem to notice, or care, that Joe and Steve both play with Blue, but never at the same time.  He knows them both and likes them enough to recognize that they aren’t the same guy.  I may not care either if I weren’t regularly coerced into watching the shows with my son, and therefore left to analyze each host’s behavior.

The reality is that “Blues Clues” too shall pass.  Joe and Blue will be replaced by Spider Man, Yugi-Oh, Power Rangers and all those other big kid heroes.  And I’ll be left longing for the simplicity of a world where a side table with a drawer is named Side Table Drawer, and a pail is just Pail.