Blue’s Clues turns 25 this week… and Nick Jr. is celebrating by bringing back an old friend.
Steve Burns, the original host of the long-running kids’ show, popped up in a sweet video shared by Nick Jr. on Tuesday, directly addressing fans as he once did on the show and bringing up a sticky subject: his exit from the show in 2002. Wearing his signature green striped shirt and using his gentle, friendly “Steve” voice, he asks if we remember when “one day, I was like, ‘Oh hey, guess what? Big news, I’m leaving’… and we didn’t see each other for a really long time? Can we just talk about that?”
Burns acknowledges that his departure was “kind of abrupt,” but he got to go to college, and “now I am literally doing many of the things that I wanted to do.” He also marvels at how far his viewers have come in the years since he last saw them: They started out with clues, and now they have “student loans and jobs and families, and some of it has been kind of hard, right?” But “I really couldn’t have done all that without your help,” he says, adding that even all these years later, “I never forgot you. Ever.”
Blue’s Clues debuted on Nick Jr. on Sept. 8, 1996, with Burns leading preschoolers through a series of mysteries with the help of his animated dog Blue. It was a huge hit, but Burns left the show in 2002, handing the hosting reins over to “Joe” (played by Donovan Patton). The show continued until 2006, and was recently rebooted as Blue’s Clues & You!, which premiered on Nickelodeon in 2019. Burns and Patton returned to make a cameo appearance on the reboot’s series premiere.
Press PLAY below to watch the heartfelt video, and share your thoughts in the comments below.
So about that time Steve went off to college… #BluesClues25 pic.twitter.com/O8NOM2eRjy
— Nick Jr. (@nickjr) September 7, 2021
