‘Blue’s Clues’: Steve Burns Had a Date With a Playboy Model That Took a Weird Turn

Steve Burns was Nickelodeon’s beacon of wholesomeness during his Blue’s Clues reign. Everyone loved him! Always listening, always pleasant, and always ready to teach, he left fans in the lurch when he departed the show in 2002. Hearts broke. His personal life has remained private all these years, but the beloved actor once shared a story about being “fame-ish” and his date with a Playboy model.

‘Blue’s Clues’ star Steve Burns pursued by Playboy model

After Nickelodeon shared Steve Burns’ heartfelt video to fans that addressed his Blue’s Clues departure, people collectively cried. Many reminisced about watching him on the kids’ show and spoke on how they carried those memories into adulthood. With 36 million views and counting, it was a sweet moment in pop culture history.

But the moment also has some fans sharing funny anecdotes about Burns. Twitter users posted an old video of him speaking at gathering for The Moth back in 2011. In it, Burns complimented Blue’s Clues, and remembered its educational merits and popularity. Kids believed he was their real-life friend.

He described his role to the crowd and said, “It was crazy, and it was awesome. But it was not exactly the kind of thing that I would think would ever get me a date.” Burns said that when People Magazine named him one of America’s most eligible bachelors, fan mail started arriving at Nickelodeon from women. Most of it was filtered, but “one of them made it my desk,” he said. He was very surprised.

A model sent him a professional photo of herself dressed in a swimsuit. She wrote her information on the back, including a note about modeling for Playboy and her phone number. Burns hung it up in his office for a month or two and finally decided to call her after animators egged him on.

“At that moment I realized, yes, this is my John Hughes moment,” he said.

Burns and his date crashed a kids’ party

Burns admitted that he’s a self-proclaimed nerd, and it felt awkward to set up the date. When he picked the woman up, she was six feet tall, and she remarked to him that she thought he’d be taller. Thinking he had to save the date not just for himself but for his nerdy friends back at Blue’s Clues’ headquarters, he had to think fast.

He noticed Blue’s Clues birthday party decorations in her neighborhood, and happened to have his gear in the car. Burns asked his date if it’d be OK to stop, and they crashed a kids’ party. After having a great time surprising the partygoers as Steve, the pair headed off to their restaurant destination.

Burns said when they walked in, a couple glanced at them, and he knew the husband recognized him. “I watch him say to his wife, ‘That’s Steve from Blue’s Clues, and he’s with an escort.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Oh yeah, that’s exactly what this looks like.’”

Things went downhill, and Burns said his date complained about everything at the restaurant she selected, and they had nothing to talk about. When dinner ended, he was ready for the bad date to be over, but she asked to see his place.

Playboy model’s mom pitched a TV show to Steve

At Burns’ home, the young lady got excited when she saw he had the big red chair from the show. It was gift from the network, so when she asked him to sit in it, he was reluctant. She then asked Burns if she could perform a striptease for him. Things felt weird, but then got weirder when she demanded he “sing that song about the mail.” He refused.

When he drove her home the next day, he felt relieved, but then she said her mom wanted to meet him. The mother offered him some coffee, and then pulled out a folder with crayon drawings. “It turns out much of this was an elaborate plot to pitch me a children’s television show about giant, inflatable balloon animals,” Burns recalled. “It was awful.” Needless to say, the ruse didn’t work, and Burns realized he was comfortable with being himself.