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From shapes and colors to death, sex, and taxes: Blue's Clues host Steve Burns explains how his audience has grown up
Former Blue's Clues actor Steve Burns reflects on the way his audience has matured alongside him
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You never really outgrow Steve Burns, and that’s because he grows alongside you.
If you grew up in the nineties, there’s a chance you’re familiar with Burns. The actor starred on the preschool show Blue's Clues from 1996 to 2002. Each episode would feature Steve and his cartoon dog, Blue, searching for ‘clues’ and pondering the everyday riddles of life. To the kids watching at home, Burns was more than a television character; he was a peer.
Today, his fans are adults, but their relationship with Burns has remained, thanks to convention appearances, podcasts, and more. “It’s always interesting to me because when we started the conversation with those fans, they were 3 and I was 21 or something,” Steve Burns tells Popverse during a New York Comic Con interview. “Now they’ve grown up, but what I don’t think they realize is so did I. There’s been a lot of growth for both Steve and the fans, I hope, in those 25 years. We’re much more like peers now because we’re all just adults. And so, there’s a whole different way of relating that feels much more natural to me.”
In 2025, Burns launched a podcast called Alive, which he has used to continue his ongoing relationship with his audience. “We could simply scale the dialogue. Instead of shapes and colors, now it’s death, sex, and taxes. But the contours are exactly the same. It’s you and me dealing with the important stuff, leading an examined life, asking good questions, looking for clues and bits of information that lead to greater understanding, and then we sit down and think about it together.”
For more insights from Steve Burns, check out the full interview below.
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