I learned really valuable lessons from 'Blue's Clues.' I'd repeat them every day. 'You can do things. You are smart.'
Steve Burns
When I was a kid, my mom used to run the vacuum cleaner, and the noise would bother me so much that I would run into the woods to calm down. I feel like that vacuum cleaner has been on since I moved to New York City.
It's definitely the highest rated pre-school show on Cable. It's difficult to mix markets that way in terms of ratings. It's hard to tell, you know, where channel 12, or Public Television, is.
If we want parents to be discerning about what children are watching then we need to put stuff in there for them to watch, too.
'Blues Clues' has been incredibly good to me, and I've been working so hard on it for so long that I take it very personally. I wouldn't want to do anything to jeopardize what so many kids love. So there's a lot of responsibility there.
I knew early on after the first couple episodes were fully scored and animated that we had a real quality show here. But I always questioned whether or not it would work.
I mean, that's another big surprise of the show, is that I see sixteen year old people who recognize me and they're honest, for-real fans of the show. And it goes down to nine months. I mean, I've heard of nine month to year-old children who are watching the show.
Acting on a blue screen is awful.
I'm a micro-celebrity, about as small a celebrity as you can be.
When I was 14 I would pick up my brother's bass guitar, and I would just pound on it, having no idea how to play it.
We go through, I think, six different drafts of each script. And then my shooting it is roughly, you know, fifteen percent of the total work that gets done on a show. Then it's all post-production animation after that.
I always, always liked children... I was very afraid of them before. Because I never really grew up, I mean, with a lot of little kids around. Even though I am from a kind of Italian family, I never really grew up with a lot of little kids around.
I'm not supposed to talk about the snail. The snail is, well, congratulations to whoever noticed it. It's supposed to be a thing where you gotta look for it in every episode, and it's there three times in every episode.
Eat as much as you like - just don't swallow it.
And I think that if I were a for real celebrity that was recognizable everywhere, I'd just crawl under a rock and you know, have someone run over the rock with a car, or something.
The idea of the show is that it's active and that children will become involved and watch the show, but also participate in the show. And I didn't know if that would work.
Well, my aspirations certainly were not to be in a pre-school show. I mean, it's certainly nothing that I considered; it's nothing I ever thought anyone would ever let me do.
It's really hard to say how long the show will last and will continue. I hope it lasts for a very long time. As long as kids watch it, anyway. But beyond this, sure, I would love to be doing film. I'd love to be doing more theater and perhaps even writing.
Please don't make me sound like a crazy hermit, but I don't like crowds or noise.
I probably shouldn't live in New York.
I started trying to do my own music at home, and I was like, 'You know what, I can play the guitar, sort of. And I can do these things, sort of. And I can make these crazy noises on my computer, sort of. But I need a ridiculously good drummer. I need someone to help me with string arrangements.'
I just don't think it's true that people can't do something else after they've done something that seems so permanent.
I'm officially near-famous. If you've got four year old kids and you've got cable, then you've got no choice but to know who I am. But if you're one of my peers - a 26-year old guy who lives in Manhattan - you have no idea who I am. I'm only famous if you're four.
My fantasy for children's television is that it's not really children's television, it's everybody's television.
Music is my life - acting's just a hobby.
