Break out your handy dandy notebook and grab a seat in the thinking chair because Blue's Clue's Steve Burns is offering a clue on why he left the children's series almost two decades ago.
The original host addressed his exit in a video shared to Twitter in honor of the show's 25th anniversary.
"You remember how, when we were younger, we used to run around, and hang out with Blue, and find clues, and talk to Mr. Salt, and freak out about the mail and do all the fun stuff?" he recalled while wearing his traditional green shirt. "And then one day, I was like, 'Oh hey, guess what? Big news. I'm leaving! This is my brother Joe. He's your new best friend.' And then I got on a bus and I left and we didn't see each other for, like, a really long time? Can we just talk about that?"
After joining the show in 1996, Steve left the Nick Jr. program in 2002. He told viewers he was heading off to college and introduced them to his brother Joe, who was played by Donovan Patton and served as Steve's successor. And while he still made cameos in specials and in the rebooted series Blue's Clues & You starring Joshua Dela Cruz, Steve's departure, he admitted, was "kind of abrupt."
"I just kinda got up and went to college," he continued. "And that was really challenging, by the way, but great because I got to use my mind and take a step at a time and now I literally am doing many of the things that I wanted to do."
So what did Steve do after he left? He pursued a career in music and continued to land a number of acting and voiceover roles. But he never forgot about the fans who grew up watching him on TV.
"And then look at you. And look at all you have done and all you have accomplished in all that time! It's just so amazing, right?" he added. "I mean, we started out with clues. And now, it's what? Student loans, and jobs, and families, and some of it has been kind of hard, you know? I know you know."
Near the end of the video, Steve gave a special shout-out to these fans and showed his appreciation.
"And I wanted to tell you that I really couldn't have done all of that without your help," he said. "And, in fact, all the help that you helped me with when we were younger is still helping me today, right now, and that's super cool. I guess I just wanted to say that, after all these years, I never forgot you, ever. And I'm super glad we're still friends. Thanks for listening. You look great by the way. Whatever it is you're doing, it's working."
@nickelodeon three generations of Blue’s Clues hosts ???? #BluesClues25 #generations #generationschallenge #90skids #00s
? original sound - Nickelodeon
This wasn't the first time Steve had spoken about his departure. He also did so in a 2016 interview with HuffPost.
"People think I left the show to pursue a music career. That didn't happen at all," he said, later adding, "I left the show because it was just simply time to go. I was pretty much playing a boyish, older-brotherish kind of character on the show. I was getting older; I was losing my hair; a lot of the original gangsters on the show, like the people who created it, were all moving on to other careers. It just felt like time. I just had a gut feeling like it was time to go."