Steve Burns, best known as the original host of Blue’s Clues, wants to reconnect with his grown-up fans through his new podcast, Alive With Steve Burns.
In a recent interview with Today’s Savannah Sellers, Burns said the idea for the podcast was sparked by his viral resurgence in 2021 with a heartfelt video message.
“We started out with clues, and now it’s what? Student loans and jobs and families," he said at the time. "I guess I just wanted to say that after all these years: I never forgot you, ever.”
“People need to feel seen,” the 51-year-old told Sellers of the aim of his new podcast. “The vibe is really more curious than prescriptive. I'm not giving answers, it's just scaling what we always used to do.”
Instead of teaching shapes and colors, Burns is now diving into “the hard stuff” such as “debt, sex, taxes, the future of truth.”
Burns, who was catapulted into fame at age 22 when the series premiered in 1996 on Nickelodeon, also opened up about how he’s come to embrace the fictionalized version of himself that he played on TV.
"There was identity tension for a long time. I felt like I was miscast from the get,” he said. “I didn't know how to accommodate him until the viral video. I just was suddenly a Steve conflation. And in that moment I kind of put my arm around him and I was like, ‘Oh, I love this guy.’”
People who watch the video version of his podcast on YouTube may also catch a few familiar items from the beloved children’s series.
“They gave me the original [Handy Dandy] notebook among my most treasured possessions,” Burns said. “They gave me the original [Thinking Chair], and that usually holds dirty laundry.”
Burns departed Blue’s Clues in 2002 following the show’s fourth season and was replaced by Donovan Patton as Joe. Burns' absence from the limelight inspired widespread bogus rumors that he died by drug overdose or a car accident.
"Everyone thought I was dead for a while," he told The New York Times in 2024. "That hurt, to be honest. And it kind of messed me up because that was happening while the internet was just sort of beginning to internet. No one, including myself, was kind of prepared for the degree of consensus that it represented.
"When a zillion, trillion people all think you're dead for 15 years, it freaks you out,” he added.
Alive with Steve Burns will premiere on Sept. 17.