The Moth Presents Steve Burns: Fameishness

let's welcome Steve Byrnes hi I'm very excited to be here thank you okay okay um from about 1995-96 until about 2002 I had the great fortune of being the host of Nickelodeon's Blue's Clues I see many of you were five in 1998 um it was it was a very very very wonderful thing but that was kind of an interesting reaction there because you either know that show where you totally don't know that show um it afforded me a sort of rare thing I called it micro celebrity because I wasn't famous really I would tell everybody that I was famous which which is actually different I say I would say that you know being like famous people are like famous people without the public dignity is involved in being actually famous so for the uninitiated Blue's Clues was an animated children's television show wherein I would galavant if you will with with with a magical animated blue puppy and I would talk to solve shakers and and bars of soap and I'm completely unrecognizable now but the way I look then imagine I had lime green socks on and really embarrassing pleated pants a striped polo shirt that I wore in every single episode and hair like Lego helmet hair and I was yo P and don't be and so excited about absolutely everything and I had this giant red chair that I couldn't wait to sit in all the time and and and when the mail showed up I froak out like just broke out I would I would leap into the air and start gambling about like a lamb and just like swinging my arms and I would sing this crazy song and I would freak out and then I would scream like pee-wee Herman at the yeah it was crazy um and it was awesome but it was was not exactly the kind of thing that I would think would ever get me a date but it was great and it was all - it was all - wonderful effect because the show was incredibly well thought out and it was it was incredibly educational and my favorite part of the show my job in the show was to talk directly through the camera and and to actually cultivate if I could a relationship with with an individual child through a TV the conceit being that that that I can hear them and that they can hear me and that's tricky and what we found out is that it totally worked and kids thought I was their friend for you like millions of them and I thought oh wow because the show actually became very popular and despite how wonderful was the more popular became the more that started to weigh on me for real I started to think well I'm saying these wonderful things to kids I'm saying you know you are so smart and you can do anything that you want to do but I couldn't have thinking you know it's not true for real you know is that am I saying the right things to all of these children it felt like a really tremendous responsibility on top of that my name on the show was Steve and my name in real life is Steve and it was becoming this sort of thing where people assumed I created the show her that I was Fred Rogers and in some way and it was this indelible thing like I wore the same shirt every time it was like a very iconic iconic thing on purpose and it was in multiple countries now and and I had moved to New York to be Serpico really you know for a you know I was either gonna I was I moved to New York I was gonna fail privately or I was going to be Al Pacino and that was it for real and now this thing was happening and it was getting huge and I thought well I didn't expect any of this I didn't even know any children when I moved to New York you know I I'm really worried like am I the right guy for this job I took it really really seriously and I spent my contract was up for renewal and I was starting to really seriously think as great as this is I they might have the wrong guy here you know and maybe this should be a teacher or a child development specialist or something and I was I was very very conflicted about it and I was seriously thinking I'm having an identity crisis and maybe I shouldn't do this and then I became one of People magazine's most eligible bachelors and that sounded good you know I'm the nerd from high school obviously and so that was wonderful and I thought that was the greatest thing in the world I took the magazine to bars with me like hey I wanted to make t-shirts like I was just like whoa and so then we started getting fan mail like we've never gotten fan mail before you know from from ladies and it was very different and and and Nickelodeon kept a lot of that from me but but one of them made it to my desk and I opened it and it was it was an eight by ten glossy of an incredibly gorgeous woman in a swimsuit was like wow she could be a swimsuit model and I flipped it over and she there was a letter and she was a swimsuit ball and she had been in Playboy she's a Playboy model and this is her phone number and we should have dinner sometime I'm in the area and I'm like I can't do that she clearly an axe murderer and this isn't real so so I didn't I didn't call her but I did hang it on on my office door and it and because it was funny you know and and it stayed there for a long time it stayed there for like a month two months or something and then I heard a knock on my office door and I opened it up and there's like half of the animators out there now the animators those are my friends at Blue's Clues right the animators they're nerds their total arts they live in caves and they like move pixels around and they and they shun the light they're the Nerds they're my people right and they're deadly serious and they're pointing to the picture and they're like you have to call her for us now and it's clear they don't mean for them they mean for me and then because we are the same and then at that moment I realized yes this is my John Hughes moment and I have to call the Playboy model you go how do you not do that so I call her and she's really who she says she is and you know and I'm really me and you know we're not axe murderers and yeah we're gonna we're gonna go to a fancy restaurant we decide to go on a really fancy date I'm going on date with a Playboy model and she asks me to send a limo and I suggest well maybe I could pick you up in my Volkswagen Beetle and and we can drop the car off in Brooklyn and take a car to the city how's that you know she's like well that sounds great too so she lives in New Jersey so I'm driving to New Jersey terrified I've got flowers I'm like sweating behind the wheel and I've got the ghost of like 30 animators in the backseat of my beetle with me like stay focused Steve don't let us down so I Drive all that to Jersey and the suburbs and I knock on her door and she opens the door and she's at least 6 feet tall and she has giant fake boobs just giant and and they weren't in the the swimsuit picture so they're clearly new and clearly not real and clearly fake and clearly giant and they're here like for real and and I and I honestly thought that I was going to be suave and like going for the kiss on the cheek and give her the flowers and we'd be off but I couldn't like I was coming in under the radar so I shake her hand and I'm looking up at her and she's looking down at me like oh boy and you know she's wearing tight acid-washed jeans and red pumps and and a glittery leopard print tank top and I'm like what and it's immediately awkward like well shall we she's like yeah so we we go to my car we sit in the car and I'm putting on my seatbelt and she stares straight ahead and just says I thought you'd be taller and I clicked my seatbelt instead so did I but so now I'm having a panic attack and I'm like how can I say this because the truth is she's really really beautiful and that's a Playboy model and you know like this is my one shot at this for sure you know I've got to make this right for the animators and me so as I'm pulling out of a cul-de-sac I notice on a mailbox a balloon a blue balloon and then I noticed on another mailbox another blue balloon leading up to another mailbox with a bunch of paw prints on it and a sign underneath it that said you just figured out Jonathan's birthday clearly someone in her neighborhood was having a blues clues themed birthday party in my car at that moment I had a box of toys Blue's Clues toys some autographs and the outfit from Blue's Clues and I thought believe it or not this is the only game you have man so so I looked at her as Wobblies I good is it would you mind and she was great she was like no that would be awesome I know these guys come on let's do it so I put on the outfit and I get the toys and I walk into Jonathan's backyard he's having a birthday party with a Carvel cake and I'm like hey who is Jonathan happy birthday and the kids freaked out the mom freaks out and the dad's like who is this man you know and she's great she runs she runs interference she's like no that's really him I'm your neighbor and we have an awesome time for like 20 minutes and these kids are awesome and like I'm making this kid's life it's fantastic and now we've got something to talk about right so we're in the car and everything's great we drop the car off we go to the restaurant and the first thing that happens is I walk in with her and there's there's a couple right here and it's a married couple and the guy looks at me recognizes me clearly and 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 that's exactly what this looks like so we sit down to have dinner now we're trying to talk to each other we've got absolutely nothing in common she's incredibly negative she hates the restaurant she picked it she hates it it was impossible to get a reservation there she hates the food she orders a steak and then orders ate one at the restaurant hates the wine she's kind of mean and like we've got nothing to talk about and I'm regretting the whole thing and this is a terrible disappointing experience so I'm just drinking just like drinking to try to get through this and the animators in my head or drunk too and they're like what are you doing don't mess this up for me you have to keep going don't ruin this so it's it's the end of dinner and she's like I will I want to see your place and I did it house they go okay okay yes yes I've shut down enough parts of my brain now that that it that I can do this so we get back to my place and I've got that big red chair from the show in my house they they gave it to me on my birthday it's awesome right and it happens to be in my house she said go sit in the chair let me take some pictures and I'm like no I don't want to sit in the chair the chair means different things to me you know so I am so I'm sitting in the chair eventually and she's like well I know what you do what I actually do other than model is I'm a stripper and like okay right okay that's fine I won't because I'm a kid show host you know everybody's got to do something and and she says would you mind if I show you what I do and I'm like no okay now this is gonna be cool you know cuz like this you know 14-year old Steve this is great to him this is like fantastic I can this is exciting so alright fine and I think my god you know I'm gonna see my first fake boobs that's gonna be wonderful and it wasn't at all it was terrible and weird and they look like boobs that were designed by dr. Seuss or something I read I'm sure that there are great ones but that was just like so awful and so weird she's doing her dance and then she comes up to me and I'm in the chair and she's like seeing that song about the mail and I said no I'm not gonna sing myself and she starts getting very demanding no come on sing it sing it like no and it's very clear to me that it's an ultimatum with her right she's saying seeing that song about the mail where this is over and at that moment even the Nerds in my head said walk away man just just walk away man there's there's there's no winning here no one's gonna win you know just just walk away but I was wasted at this point she's drunk so I can't get her home so she has to stay and it's terrible and it's awkward and I Drive her back the next morning and I'm dropping her off and she says my mother wants to meet you look you look at your mom you're like so she was with her mom and her mom comes she's like you know you must be Steve I have a cup of coffee and and I'm sitting there in their living room and her mom's got a manila folder and she opens it and she starts handing me crayon drawings and it turns out that much of this was an elaborate plot to pitch me a children's television show about giant inflatable balloon animals called the balloonies and it was just awful and all I wanted to do is go home but I couldn't because I had to drive from there to the airport I was doing a make-a-wish event that that that afternoon now I had done a lot of work with make-a-wish before um I don't usually talk about something I don't usually talk about but for those who don't know what it is it's it's for a very unhappy were often dying children they get to choose one thing right and this organization makes that wish happen now I got to do a lot of those and the thing that is always striking about it is no matter how awful the circumstances are for the kid no matter what they're going through they immediately see this as an opportunity to make their parents happy yeah and this was another one just like that and this this is complicated for me because I also am aware that this child chose me right like me that's what they want right and I'm not sure what me is me and my Steve Byrnes my Steve with the shirt who's me I don't know which one it is right and so it's really complicated but that helped me realize that whether I wanted it to be true or not whether I expected it to be true or not the answer was both and that was plenty cool enough for me thank you Steve Birds you

Channel: The Moth

Views: 2,850,949

Rating: 4.9726968 out of 5

Keywords: The Moth, The Moth Radio Hour, The Moth Podcast, Blue's Clues, Steve, Burns, fameishness, famous, microcelebrity, npr, storytelling, storyteller, stories, story, children's, show, television, kids, funny, hilarious

Id: CwmtkFPYXsg

Length: 17min 8sec (1028 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 25 2011

Reddit Comments

[u/Vincent__Vega]

When I first click on the link I was all "shit 17 min". Then I ended up watching the whole thing. That man can tell a story really well.

[u/Undress2Kill]

That was so incredibly good! I really can't believe how well he presented himself, and was able to deliver such a riveting story that really escorted such emotions.

[u/[deleted]]

Steve was awesome. Fuck stupid ass Joe.

But wow has Steve lost some hair.

[u/Newshoe]

His place in Brooklyn is wicked....of course it doesn't have the big red chair

[u/LexusNexus]

What the fuck. My dad told me that he committed suicide. I THOUGHT HE WAS DEAD. Today is the happiest day of my life. Also, I'm going to need to have a chat with my dad and reevaluate everything I ever thought was true.

[u/prdstrctn]

so he became buster bluth?

[u/ejukator]

Here's the mail, it never fails. It makes me want to wag my tail. When it comes I want to wail - Mail!

[u/disposablevillain]

Also, this

[u/[deleted]]

He froke out?