Nick Jr. Home Video Opening IDs

Background
This page describes the opening IDs Nickelodeon used on VHS releases of Nick Jr. properties. Prior to the Blue's Clues VHS release Blue's Safari and on DVDs before 2004, Nick Jr. (on both Sony Wonder and Paramount releases) simply used their television bumpers as a de-facto home video logo, like what Nickelodeon did in that time frame.

1st ID (2000-2004)


Nicknames: "Nick Jr. Kids", "Nick Jr. Montage"

Logo: Over a video of a cloudy sky, we see the Nickelodeon logo shaped like a banana, which then has the "skin" peeled away on the left and right sides. We then iris-in to a live-action video showing two sock monkeys, one orange with "NICK" on it and one blue with "JR." on it, sitting on a bed in a bedroom. The camera moves to the right to show two girls next to a puppet show theater box, one (Caucasian) in some sort of fairy/bug costume playing a toy accordion, while the other (African-American) is dressed like a princess and playing a recorder. The two laugh, and then we cut to a series of the following clips:


 * Little Bill dancing under a spotlight with musical notes in the air
 * A girl with pink, heart-shaped sunglasses riding a bike-shaped swing
 * An African-American boy making a chocolate cake mix
 * Little Bear watching his mom mix something in a bowl
 * Kids playing with a sprinkler in their lawn, and a Latina girl hugging her dog
 * Blue jumping at the screen
 * The girl in the princess outfit laughing

Then, a clip of Steve from Blue's Clues asking "Are you ready?" plays, leading to a boy and the sunglasses girl, and then the girl with her dog, responding "Ready!" This is followed by Little Bear asking "Are you sure?", followed by clips of all the kids saying "Yeah!" A boy on a swing asks "When's it gonna start?", followed by a clip of Little Bill saying "Right now!" We then see the children running away from the playground, lawn, and kitchen into the living room of the house, interspersed with clips of Little Bill running to the screen, Blue hopping to the right, and Little Bear getting out of his seat. Once everybody is in the living room, a CRT TV is turned on, showing the Nick Jr. "Hippos" bumper, which makes everyone laugh uproariously. It ends with the camera zooming into the TV and showing the remainder of the bumper.

Trivia:
 * This bumper was modeled after the opening and closing bumpers Nick Jr. used between 1998 and 2001. By 2002, the block's bumper style changed, but these still appeared on video releases until 2004.
 * The general format, as well as the clips and footage featured in this bumper, were later re-used for the opening sequence to the defunct Nick Jr. on CBS block.

Variants:
 * Closing Variant: It starts with Face zooming in and saying, "(deep voice) See you later, (normally) on Nick Jr.! Brr-brr-brrrrr!" We zoom out to see he's on the TV from before, which turns off after he laughs. We then see clips of the children in the house saying bye to the camera, alongside more clips of Nick Jr. shows. The sock monkeys from the opening variant make an appearance again, as a kid pulls them on a toy wagon into a homemade teepee.
 * Later releases replace the Little Bear clips with those of Dora the Explorer; a clip of Dora and Boots eating ice cream is shown during the baking scene, she says "You wanna play?" during the "Are you ready?" sequence, and is shown spinning with Boots during the living room scene. In the closing variant, Dora and Boots giggling is shown during the kids living the house scene. This variant first appeared on the DVD release of Blue's Big Musical Movie.
 * Some releases replace the "Hippos" bumper on the TV with a clip of Face spinning his eyes and doing his famous "Brr-brr-brrrrr!!!", giggling afterward.

Music/Sounds: A peppy acoustic/folk tune is heard throughout the bumper, alongside the clips of the shows and kids. The opening variant ends with the Nick Jr. jingle: "Nick Jr.'s just for me!" The closing variant just has the last part of it: "Just for me!"

Availability: Pretty common. Can be seen on any Nick Jr. VHS release from the period, namely tapes of Blue's Clues, Little Bill, Dora the Explorer, and Oswald. This can also be seen on the DVD release of Blue's Big Musical Movie; surprisingly, it's preserved on the 2013 reprint of that disc alongside the 1995 Paramount Home Video logo. Also appears on the Little Bear tapes by Reader's Digest before 2003. The closing variant is generally seen after the closing credits on these tapes, but in some rare cases it may precede the credits.

Editor's Note: This can be seen as Nick Jr.'s counterpart to Nickelodeon's "Maze" logo used on their tapes. Although Face's sudden appearance at the beginning of the closing variant could startle some, but it's a favorite of many who grew up with Nick Jr. around this time.

2nd ID (2004-2008 or 2010)


Nickname: "Frogs"

Logo: On a green background with a dark forest green-colored lake, we see an orange frog and a smaller blue frog on a lilypad. The orange frog ribbits three times. The blue frog loudly ribbits, starting the orange frog, and then the two smile at each other. "NICK" and "JR." fade onto their bodies. The frogs then shrink and zoom down to the bottom right corner of the screen.

Trivia:
 * This is basically a shortened version of the Nick Jr. "Frogs" bumper from 2003, starting when the frogs get into their positions on the screen.
 * The reason why the frogs shrink is that this, alongside other Nick Jr. bumpers from the time, were used as segues into the live-action/puppet interstitial series Play Along, which aired from 2003 to 2004.

FX/SFX: 2D Flash animation.

Music/Sounds: The frogs making noises, then a short synth pad note as "NICK JR." appears (which was the channel's "theme" between September 2003 and September 2004).

Availability: Very common.
 * Can be seen at the start of almost all Nick Jr. DVDs from the period, as well as later Nick Jr. VHS releases, which were often issued all the way to the end of VHS in 2006.
 * Beginning in 2008, the Nickelodeon "Fish" logo appeared at the start of Nick Jr. DVDs instead, but it may have been seen on some others prior to Nick's rebranding in 2009.

Editor's Note: Nonetheless, this is a cute logo, and a favorite of many.
 * The logo shrinking was meant to be used as a digital on-screen bug of the Nick Jr. on one's TV screen (usually on the bottom right corner; CBS was the first to do this in 1990) to identify the source of programming. Said bug would usually be transparent so it wouldn't block your show. This is kept in for unknown reasons on DVDs, despite there not being a bug on the screen.
 * When "NICK" and "JR." fade in, the frogs are still moving to the point the words overlap both of the frogs' mouths.
 * When the blue frog croaks, you can see that the open mouth is just another layer because behind it was the same frog before it croaked; you can even see some of the mouth on the sides; the blue frog also suddenly becomes bigger when it stops croaking.