- Content: BLUES CLUES’ Steve Burns Responds to QUIET ON SET Documentary: ‘Heartbreaking’
By Movieguide® Contributor
BLUES CLUES’ Steve Burns is reacting to QUIET ON SET: THE DARK SIDE OF KIDS TV, a documentary that exposes sexual abuse allegations within kids TV network Nickelodeon.
“I don’t have any particular insight into any of that. I’m coming to it much the same as anyone else, with horror and heartbreak,” Burns told TODAY.com. “It’s just terrible to watch it unfold. I don’t know what else to say, other than that it’s heartbreaking.”
BLUES CLUES aired on Nickelodeon’s preschool-oriented channel, Nick Jr.
“We’re in New York, they’re in L.A. There’s no overlap whatsoever between any of those shows and what we were doing,” he said about Nickelodeon and Nick Jr.
Part of Movieguide®’s review of QUIET ON SET reads:
QUIET ON SET: THE DARK SIDE OF KIDS TV is an important five-part documentary exposé streaming on Max. The documentary miniseries discusses the abuse occurring on several Nickelodeon programs produced by Dan Schneider, who got his start starring on ABC-TV’s popular sitcom HEAD OF THE CLASS in the late 1980s. As he succeeded in producing hit after hit for Nickelodeon, Schneider allegedly became more volatile and abusive with the increase of his power. Episodes Three and Four focus on a case involving the dialogue and acting coach, Brian Peck, for the program DRAKE & JOSH, who was convicted of abusing the program’s star, Drake Bell.
QUIET ON SET makes clear that children between 8 and 15 are extremely vulnerable and need to be protected from exploitation. Every aspect of this series is important for exposing the underside of Hollywood. QUIET ON SET has a very clear, strong moral worldview, with a few brief mentions of prayer. Although there’s very little visual sex or violence and practically no foul language in QUIET ON SET, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution because of the subject matter.
Burns displayed compassion for the victims, adding that it must be “unfathomably painful” for them to have their trauma known to the public.
“The fact that this is now what everyone’s talking about at the water cooler, it just breaks my heart,” Burns said.
Burns departed from his role as “Steve” on BLUES CLUES in 2002 but didn’t explain why until 2022.
He revealed in an interview he had started to lose his hair and didn’t want to have to wear a wig on TV. But he also suffered from depression.
“I didn’t know it yet, but I was the happiest depressed person in North America,” he said. “I was struggling with severe clinical depression the whole time I was on that show. It was my job to be utterly and completely full of joy and wonder at all times, and that became impossible.”
“I was always able to dig and find something that felt authentic to me that was good enough to be on the show,” Burns continued, “but after years and years of going to the well without replenishing it, there was a cost.”
His efforts to cope with his depression while on the show didn’t work. But after he left, he found relief.
“My strategy had been: ‘Hey, you got a great thing going, so just fight it!’ Turns out, you don’t fight depression; you collect it,” he said. “After I left BLUE’S CLUES, there was a long period of healing.”
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