What is Blue Afraid Of?

You scared, bro? You should be, because I'm going to review the Halloween episode for the first season of Blue's Clues, "What is Blue Afraid Of?" Although technically, Halloween is not mentioned, it has a bit of Halloween atmosphere to it. Like for example, the dark sky in the background indicated it might be early evening, and the skidoo sketch into the haunted house. Okay, let's begin.

The plot of the episode is that Blue is (as the title suggests) afraid of something, and we play Blue's Clues to figure out what she's afraid of. Along the way, we look at shadows with Shovel and Pail, look at close-up pictures of food with Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper, get a video letter about shadow puppets, and finally, investigate the spooky sounds in Boo's haunted house. If you've watched the episode already, you will know that the answer to Blue's Clues was that Blue was afraid of an owl. Can you believe that? What's next? Blue being afraid of Sesame Street's Hoots the Owl? Anyways, my review.

What's really good about this episode is that unlike "Blue's Sad Day," Blue was really up to playing Blue's Clues in this episode, she was also up for it in other episodes about feelings like "Shy," and "Blue is Frustrated." But those are different stories. This episode had a lot of shrieks of terror and laughter! The funny parts of the episode are the scene were Steve pretends to be a vampire casting a shadow in the backyard and going "Bleh." Who is he, Count Dracula?, also, Mrs. Pepper's over the top screams are good, and Mailbox's knock-knock joke was quite clever, and Boo's over-the-top screams whenever Steve says his name are just priceless. JUST PRICELESS. I even like the phone call during the third clue, where the caller constantly says ?Who?" and Steve was like "No, I'm asking you who." Insert Abbott and Costello joke here, please.

Okay, let's wrap things up with my final thought. This episode was funny, with terror, and since it aired on October of 1997, it only airs around Halloween for Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. Hence a rerun of this episode on October 29, 1999 after the episode I wasn't crazy for, "Hide and Seek." In production order, it was episode 18, but in airing order, it was episode 19, and it was the last new episode from the first season until October 1998, when "What Story Does Blue Want to Play?" came along. Like I said, very strange airing order, folks. Pretty eerie.

You can find this episode on the 2010 DVD, Happy Halloween, with all of the other Nick Jr. related Halloween episodes. If you have the DVD, go ahead and check it out if you haven't already.