For those who grew up watching Blue’s Clues and wondered whatever happened to Steve, the host’s exit might not be such a mystery.
Steve Burns recently revealed that he made very little from the first few seasons of starring in the Nickelodeon kids show, which he led alongside the titular animated dog from its inception in 1996 until 2001, when he was replaced by Donovan Patton.
“Every waiter I ever knew made more money than I did for the first many seasons of that show,” revealed Burns on the Soul Boom podcast, noting that he considered the part a “side hustle” at first.
Watch on Deadline
“My real gig was, I was a voiceover guy. I fell into that early,” he noted, explaining he only auditioned for Blue’s because he thought he’d be voicing a cartoon character.
Burns added, “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.”
Although the low pay couldn’t have helped, Burns revealed in the 2006 Nick special Behind the Clues: 10 Years of Blue that he left the show because he felt he was growing out of the role. “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 kid’s TV show. And it was happening fast,” he said at the time.
The revamped and retitled Blue’s Clues and You with new host Joshua Dela Cruz premiered on Nickelodeon in November 2019. Burns and Patton, who played Joe, returned for its premiere episode.