Do you remember Steve from Blue’s Clues on Nickelodeon, the show that basically helped raise most millennials?
Steve Burns recently revealed that he barely made any money from starring in the first few seasons of the Nick Jr. developmental children’s show, in which he was featured alongside the animated dog Blue.
Steve, only 22 years old at the time, starred in Blue’s Clues from 1996 to 2001 before being replaced by Donovan Patton, and now it is starting to make sense why he decided to exit the show.
On an episode of the podcast Soul Bloom with Rainn Wilson, Steve opened up about his time on Blue’s Clues and his mental health journey, revealing how much he made from the children’s show.
“Every waiter I ever knew made more money than I did for the first many seasons of that show,” Steve said.
“My real gig was, I was a voiceover guy. I fell into that early,” he added.
Steve thought he would be doing a voiceover for an animated character on the show. “Because I thought it was a voice thing, I went to the audition. And when I got there, there was a camera in the room. And I thought, ‘Oh, shit. I better do something.’ Yeah. And so I looked at the script, and, you know, I figured … I’m gonna act the shit out of this.”
While the low pay was indeed wild, it wasn’t necessarily why Steve parted ways with the show. In a 2006 Nickelodeon special, Behind the Clues: 10 Years of Blue, Steve revealed, at the time, he was losing his hair. “I knew I wasn’t going to be doing children’s television all my life. Mostly because I refused to lose my hair on a kids TV show, and it was happening fast.”
Thankfully, Steve and Donovan would return for the premiere episode of the new and improved Blue’s Clues and You, hosted by Joshua Dela Cruz in 2019. Steve would star in the feature film Blue’s Big City Adventure alongside the other guys as well.
It’s a bummer about the low pay, but I think I speak for most millennials when I say we’re glad Steve auditioned for Blue’s Clues.
Listen to the full podcast episode here.