There was nothing blue about this record-breaking attempt.
Blue’s Clues’ iconic host Steve Burns helped the ritzy Goddard School’s Manhattan location started off its year by smashing a new Guinness World Record for the most viewers tuned into a reading livestream.
Burns read “Curious Blueberry the Carousel Horse” to 17 preschoolers in Goddard’s Stuytown classroom — while he was beamed into 6,535 classrooms worldwide at its viewership peak.
The record is the first of a new category, which the self-described Blue’s Clues “original gangster” had to establish by reaching a minimum of just 1,500 tuned-in viewers.
“We did it! I think we smashed it — crushed. We’re in the book man!” Burns, who played a fictionalized version of himself on the children’s show from 1996 until 2002.
“I was a little nervous, but we saw the numbers coming in, so I felt confident, I felt strong .. It’s such a gift to do stuff like this, especially live.”
The Goddard School System — which serves kids from 6 months old through 5 years — embarked on a record-breaking journey to honor National Literacy Month, and to bring together its thousands of students across its 650 franchised nationwide locations.
That vast community of pre-schoolers and their parents — who pay $3,250 per month — is likely the reason Goddard secured the newest Guinness record.
Every classroom in the Goddard system had been instructed to tune in to the livestream.
Because the “most viewers tuned into a reading livestream” is a new category for Guinness, the school only had to reach a minimum of 1,500 to get its name in the history books, which it easily surpassed.
Each of the 6,525 “viewers” equated to a single device, meaning millions of kids — and likely their parents who grew up watching Burns and Blue — could have been watching along.
“I feel great! There’s 100,000 families we serve. There’s 650 schools across the country. There’s thousands of teachers, faculty, and it’s a way to show what we can accomplish when everybody comes together. That’s really what it’s exciting about it — it’s not an individual person record, it’s a record for the family,” explained Marcel Nahm, the chief marketing officer of Goddard Systems LLC.
Choosing Burns to conduct the reading was an obvious choice, according to Nahm, because he embodies the curious spirit Goddard hopes to impress on its students — even though the young kids had no inkling they were in the presence of a celebrity.
“These kids have no idea who I am. ‘Who’s this guy?’ But I love it. Kids are kids, no matter what, and if you can connect with them that’s very awesome. It’s very rewarding,” said Burns.
After Blue’s Clues, Burns took a two-decade-long break from children’s television, prompting rumors he had died or had been thrown in jail.
The truth was that the entertainer had tried to graduate into more mature content, starring in horror movies and even starting a band.
He caused mass excitement on the internet during the COVID-19 pandemic when he re-emerged in a series of TikToks to “check in” on his now-adult Blue’s Clues audience and their mental health.
For his next chapter, Burns is looking forward to releasing his “Alive” podcast, which he says will build on the “joy and wonder” that was present in the iconic children’s show — but this time it will be for adults.