Math on Mars, Steve from Blue’s Clues, and the closure I didn’t know I needed.

Posted on September 12, 2021September 12, 2021 by Matt Todd

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I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but I do remember which house we lived in. It’s the first house I remember living in, and I could even drive you to the house if I wanted to. What’s that? You want the address so you can look it up?

Sure.

Here it is.

Just kidding. Did you really think I’d share my childhood home address on here? Come on, y’all. I learned way back in preschool not to share my address with strangers. And while I do love y’all and would like to think we’ve been able to build some type of community throughout the years, that won’t stop some stranger from swiping my childhood address and using it for nefarious purposes.

You know…stranger danger and all that jazz…

But I digress…

So, I was sitting in the TV room of my childhood home*, minding my own business and watching some educational TV show. I’m pretty sure it was on PBS. I don’t remember much about this show, except that it was hosted by a nice lady. I think she was an astronaut. And she was on Mars. And she talked to aliens who looked a lot like sock puppets. But they were most certainly aliens. I’m pretty sure they were green aliens. Because…everyone knows Martians are green.

My school portrait from First Grade. I **might** have been this old when this traumatic event happened. I refused to smile because I thought I’d lost too many teeth!

So I’m minding my own business watching this lady teach us math by talking to little green sock puppet aliens. Did I mention she was teaching us math? Oh yes. It was about math. Because there’s really no other way to teach math skills to little kids. You gotta pretend you’re on Mars.

Then the unthinkable happened…

It came time for the end of the show. I’m sure there was some type of “goodbye” routine, not unlike Mr. Rodgers singing “It’s Such a Good Feeling” or the Blue’s Clues “So Long Song” at the end of each episode. But when the time came to wrap things up, the show didn’t close like I expected.

The lady climbed aboard her rocket ship, waved at me through the TV, and said she was going away for a while. Something about it being the end of the TV season – whatever that was. Then the door closed and the rocket took off from the red Martian surface.

I. was. devastated.

I’m not exaggerating. I literally melted into a puddle of tears. I was crushed. After what felt like an eternity, I managed to gather myself together enough to run back to Mom and Dad’s bedroom in my childhood home. One part of my memory remembers that Mom was taking a nap. The other part of my memory remembers that she was talking to someone on the phone. I could be misremembering altogether. And it really doesn’t matter. Because I knew Mom was in her room and she would make it all better^.

I’m a blubbering mess. Mom has no idea what’s going on. I eventually spit out enough coherent phrases in between sobs that she can piece together that my favorite show about math on Mars was going away for a while and things would never be the same and why does the world have to be such a hard place for a young child to live?

Mom explained that there’d be another season. Astronaut Math Teacher Lady would return to Mars and all would be right with the world.

I said I understood. But I didn’t. I was still heartbroken.

40(ish) years later

I still think about the Martian Math Teacher Lady every once in a great while. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t obsess over it. But I occasionally wonder – Did she ever go back to Mars? Did the green puppet Martian ever find another friend?

I don’t remember ever watching another episode, so I really couldn’t tell you. I don’t remember the name of the show. And even though I’m well-versed in navigating the Google Machine, I wouldn’t even know what search terms to try. Heck. I don’t even know if I remember anything correctly about the show’s premise.

But I was sad when she left. That’s all I know.

Then Steve showed up

Although Steve left Blue’s Clues before my kids were old enough to watch the show during the original broadcast, our kids became big fans of his thanks to reruns and DVDs. I’m sure they would’ve watched him on Paramount+ if that was a thing back in the day.

Don’t get me wrong. They liked Joe. But they were big fans of Steve.

And even though they did the best they could to transition from Steve to his younger brother, it just wasn’t the same. It wasn’t quite as abrupt as my experience with Math on Mars Teacher Lady, but it was still rather abrupt.

But I’ll be honest – I never really wondered what happened to Steve. Until this week.

I must say that bringing Steve back to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Blue’s Clues was a pretty great marketing idea. And his address to the nation?

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Steve struck a deep emotional chord. It was just the message we needed at just the right time. If I were ever to go into politics, I’d definitely hire Steve as my speech writer.

And, you know what? I kind of felt like Martian Math Teacher Lady was talking through Steve directly at me. My inner five year old would like to think that she’s never forgotten about me after all these years, either.

So if you’re reading this Math Teacher on Mars, thank you for teaching me math.

Endnotes

*Give it up already. I’m not giving you my childhood home address.
^She was always there. Remember?

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Matt Todd

Howdy. I'm Matt. My wife, Christy, and I have four kids and two dogs, I'm passionate about orphan care. I'm a die-hard fan of the Evansville Aces, the Indiana Hoosiers, and Star Wars. I'm trying to live life by the Todd family motto: "It behooves us to live!"