Steve from "Blue's Clues" laments lack of pay: "Every waiter I ever knew made more money than I did"

Burns was on Rainn Wilson's "Soul Boom" podcast (speaking of guys synonymous with one role) and discussed his time as the human face of "Blue's Clues" for six years and almost 100 episodes. Evidently, he believed it to be a voiceover role, and that he wouldn't have gone to the audition had he known it was to be on the show because, "I was a pretentious young man at the time" and "children’s television had never occurred to me." That tracks when you realize that Burns saw himself, and seemingly still sees himself, as primarily a voiceover guy. He went as far as to say that being on "Blue's Clues" was his "side hustle" at the time.

It also would appear that Burns needed a gig other than "Blue's Clues." You can find a litany of people who worked in basic cable in the '90s who can tell you just how little they got paid. For example, every member of MTV's "The State." To that end, Burns said, "Every waiter I ever knew made more money than I did for the first many seasons of that show." Honestly? Seems plausible. One, it would be zero-percent surprising if Nickelodeon nickel-and-dimed a young actor looking for a gig. Two, if you were working in the right showbiz-adjacent restaurant, you were probably getting some good tips!

While Burns didn't make stacks on stacks on stacks on "Blue's Clues," he did make an indelible impact on many young children from 1996 until 2002, and that has given him something invaluable: The ability to make money off of empty nostalgia driven by adults who are still clinging to their childhoods.

(h/t The Hollywood Reporter)