Joe, the host, presents the audience with a puzzle involving Blue, the animated dog. To help the audience unlock the puzzle, Blue leaves behind a series of clues, which are objects marked with one of her paw prints. In between the discovery of the clues, Joe plays a series of games—mini-puzzles—with the audience that are thematically related to the overall puzzle. As the show unfolds, Joe and Blue move from one animated set to another, jumping through magical doorways, leading viewers on a journey of discovery, until, at the end of the story, Joe returns to the living room. There, at the climax of the show, he sits down in a comfortable chair to think—a chair known, of course, in the literal world of Blue's Clues, as the Thinking Chair. He puzzles over Blue's three clues and attempts to come up with the answer.