'Blue's Clues' star praised for silent response to Nickelodeon scandal

Steve Burns, who will be familiar to millions across the world as the star of kids series Blue’s Clues, has posted a thought-provoking video in the midst of the ongoing Nickelodeon scandal.

It’s surprisingly powerful stuff, despite the fact most of it takes place in complete silence.

The video comes in the midst of the fallout from Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.

The four-part documentary delves into the controversial and toxic work environments that child stars in the 1990s and 2000s were allegedly faced with on popular Nickelodeon shows.

The series has already seen actor Drake Bell open up candidly about the sexual abuse he suffered as a child star while working on the sitcom Drake & Josh.

Now in a clip posted by Burns, whicj is just a minute long, sees him say: "Hey, just checking in. Tell me, what's goin' on?"

He then spends the rest of the clip looking intently at the screen, nodding every now and then, as if he’s listening.

A key part of Blue’s Clues involved waiting for the children watching to respond, staying silent like he was doing in the clip.

The result ends up being pretty moving, whether or not those watching actually respond or just speak internally.

Viewers flocked to the comments to share their emotional reactions afterwards.

One wrote: “This made me cry...what a sweet man.”

Another added: “Me too, instant tears. the comments just added to the tears.”

“Why am I tearing up. I didn’t say anything,” one more said.

“Because he used to wait for us to reply in blues clues,” a user added.

Sign up for our free indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings