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Blue’s Clues which recently celebrated it’s 10th anniversary is spinning of a new series, Blue’s Room. Blue’s Room differs from Blue’s Clue in that 1)it is live action, 2)Blue talks. The Blue’s Room format should be familiar to regular Nick Jr/Blue viewers because it has been used for 5 specials.

Joining Blue is her little brother Sprinkles, Roar E Saurus, and Frederica. Joe also remains a regular, if not as integral, part of the cast.

In the premiere episode, Blue helps out while Old McDonald has to run some errands. The puppets gather eggs, feed animals and milk a cow. All the while kids are learning without knowing it (my 3 year old now knows what a “dozen” is).

The episode will premiere January 26th at 10:00am. If you miss it, head over to NickJr.com where replays can be viewed. Also, a new episode, Knights of the Snack Table will be packaged with 2 Blue’s Clues episodes on a new DVD available January 30th: Blue’s Clues - Blue’s Room - Knights of the Snack Table

Other reviews can be found at Children’s Media Consultant and Newsday.

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Nick Jr. will be getting a new series this fall as today they announced picking up Yo Gabba Gabba!. The series will be a live action magazine style show. Consistent with most new preschool television it will heavily use music.

From the press release:

Yo Gabba Gabba! stars Host DJ Lance Rock (Lance Robertson) who brings to life five friendly toy characters in a colorful land full of song and dance. The magazine-style format of the series is infused with a retro style and beat driven music. Yo Gabba Gabba! will feature animated segments, real kids and special guests, in addition to a vibrant world of puppet characters

As for the title of the show, it is the magic phrase that triggers the puppets to play and dance along with viewers.

The show is produced by The Magic Store and W!ldbrain. Wildbrain also produces the Playhouse Disney hit Higglytown Heroes and this is the first venture for The Magic Store.

The initial order is for 20 episodes and the show is slated to premiere fall of 2007.

Related: Yo Gabba Gabbba Home Page

There’s a sample clip after the jump. (more…)

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There will be 3 new episodes of popular Nick Jr. shows airing on Valentines day.

In Go, Diego, Go! “Sammy’s Valentine” Diego helps Sammy the Sloth deliver a valentine to Lulu the sloth.

Tasha, Pablo, and Uniqua are bikers who help mailman Tyrone recover a mailbag full of Valentine’s Day cards in The Backyardigans “Special Delivery”.

And in sticking with the delivery theme, on Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! “Mr. Valentine” Widget, Walden, and Wubbzy help the sick mailman deliver Valentine cards.

Go Diego Go will air at 9:30, The Backyardigans at 10:30, and Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! at 1:30, all on February 14th.

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Business Week takes a look at Disney’s planned overhaul of Disney.com. It appears that Disney is going after a MySpace, Web 2.0 kind of thing to improve stickiness.

I’m guessing (and hoping) that the bulk of this will be aimed at the older kids. I certainly don’t want my soon to be 4 year old adding friends to their MySpace page. But, part of the redesign does involve playhousedisney.com which currently lags behind NickJr.com.

Disney isn’t even second on the list in terms of stickiness, with the 55 minutes its Playhouse Disney site keeps kids around, less than the 70 minutes that users of Viacom’s Nick Jr. hang around for games, videos, and more. The site also lets kids “mash up” videos—that is, create their own videos by altering videos Viacom has given to them.

Without really a strong push from my wife or I, my kids do tend to favor NickJr.com, and especially the Wow Wow Wubbzy games. Still, they’re not hitting the site for 70 minutes at a crack (or even 55).

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If you’re watching Nick Jr in 2007, chances are you’ll see your share of State Farm commercials. In a deal announced today State Farm is going to be pushing their automotive insurance on Nick Jr. It turns out that studies show that parents are much more attentive when watching TV with their kids than otherwise. The deal will also include a presence on NickJr.com.

To this I say, “whatever.” I’d rather my kids see non-offensive commercials for products they have no interest in than be bomarded with questions like “can we get Floam?“

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For those of you looking for a DVD of The Wonder Pets you’re luck. Or at least you will be in the spring when the first DVD from the show will be released. There isn’t much detail, this was just mentioned in a recent press release from Nickelodeon.

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There’s lots of Go Diego Go news from Nick Jr. First, the station announced that production is beginning on a 3rd season of the show. The new season will have 20 episodes including 2 hour long specials.

A new episode, titled Great Jaguar Rescue will premiere Monday, January 15 at 9:30am with a repeat showing at 11:30am. The premiere of the show will also mark the release of the DVD by the same name featuring that episode and 3 others.

And for even more Great Jaguar Rescue stuff, beginning January 5th there will be a new Go Diego Go game on NickJr.com.

All of this is leading up to the launch of Go, Diego, Go Live! The Great Jaguar Rescue . The national tour kicks off February 1st in Louisville, Kentucky.

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There will be 4 new Christmas specials debuting on Fridays in November on Nick Jr. The special episodes of Go Diego Go, LazyTown, The Wonder Pets, and The Backyardigans will premeire on December 8th and December 15th.

Friday, December 8 at 12:00 p.m. Go, Diego, Go!/ “Diego Saves Christmas”

Santa’s sleigh is stuck under a snow hill, and Diego must find Linda the Llama, who can pull heavy things. The pair tiptoes up the mountain singing the “jalen” song. Santa sprinkles ‘Magic Christmas Sparkles’ on Linda so she can fly with the reindeer and help him deliver all the Christmas presents.

Friday, December 8 at 12:30 p.m. — The Wonder Pets/”Save the Reindeer”

The Wonder Pets head to the North Pole on Christmas Eve to rescue Santa’s Baby Reindeer, who is stuck on cracking ice. After saving her with a net made from Ming-Ming’s sweater, they learn that she ran away because she didn’t know if she had what it takes to be one of Santa’s squad. With the Wonder Pets’ encouragement, Baby Reindeer finally takes her place among the grownups.

Friday, December 15 at 12:00 p.m. — The Backyardigans/”The Secret of Snow”

Uniqua travels way up North to learn the secret of snow from Ice Lady Tasha. Cowboy Pablo and Tarzan Tyrone befriend her en route. With the help of the Ice Lady’s assistant, Austin, they defeat every obstacle. But when Tasha discovers Austin has betrayed her, will she reveal the secret?

Friday, December 15 at 12:30 p.m. – LazyTown/”The LazyTown Snow Monster”

Robbie Rotten poses as a scary snow monster to frighten the LazyTown kids, but they have some tricks up their sleeve. In the end he flees, and failing to read the signs near the frozen lake, falls into the icy waters. In the spirit of the season it’s up to Sportacus to rescue Rotten.

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It’s a week of Dora the Explorer specials on Nick Jr. Each day the week of December 4th will feature an hour long Dora special from 9:00am to 10:00am. The schedule is below:

December 4th: Dora’s World Adventure
December 5th: Dora’s Fairytale Adventure
December 6th: Dora’s Dance to the Rescue
December 7th: Dora’s Pirate Adventure
December 8th: Dora’s World Adventure

**Each of these Dora specials are available on DVD in the TV for Tots store**

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On Sunday December 19th Nickelodeon will premiere a new hour long episode of Dora the Explorer. The episode titled, Dora’s World Adventure, features Dora and Swiper going on an adventure around the world.

The premise of the episode is that Dora is preparing to celebrate Friendship Day. Only Swiper admits to swiping all the friendship bracelets from France, Tanzania, Russia, and China. Swiper and Dora set off to return the friendship bracelets to their rightful owners.

In France kids will visit the Eiffel Tower and learn how to say Bonjour while using shape clues to return the bracelets. They then journey to Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania before heading to heading to The Winter Palace in Russia and the Great Wall in China.

Along the way kids will learn to say hello in the native language and have to be on the lookout for different thieving animals in each locale.

It’s pretty much what you expect from a typical episode of Dora, with emphasis on shapes, counting, and colors. There are new songs at each country and my daughter is a huge fan of the Friendship Song.

Kids can play along at NickJr.com and the episode is also available on DVD. In addition to the DVD their is a companion CD that includes tracks from the episode as well as songs from Ziggy Marley and Aaron Neville.

The eipsode will premiere at 8:00pm on November 19th on Nickelodeon.

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