🎙️ Steve Burns’ podcast is full of clues about being human

Presented by Cozy Critters

🏔️ Overcoming Summit Fever

Summit fever is that dizzy rush that hits when you’re close to the top, the moment you mistake proximity for arrival.

In podcasting, it’s easy to catch. You land a big guest, hit a chart, or get that first sponsor and suddenly start gasping thin air, convinced the climb is over. But creative work isn’t Everest.

There’s no single flag-plant moment that means you’ve made it. The higher you go, the more peaks you see. The view just gets wider, and the weather a little wilder.

The cure for summit fever? Remember that the joy isn’t in reaching the top. It’s in having the lungs to keep climbing.

🎙️ Signal Flow: Steve Burns

Industry game changers and valiant minds share their wisdom, adversities, and paths to innovation.

Steve Burns is best known as the original host of Blue’s Clues, where he spent seven surreal years solving mysteries with a cartoon dog and a talking mailbox. Then he disappeared. On purpose. Since then, Steve has released indie rock albums, toured with The Flaming Lips, written the theme song for Young Sheldon, hosted and was a storyteller for The Moth, and gone massively viral by quietly breaking the internet with a heartfelt message to a generation of now-grown-up viewers. He hosts Alive with Steve Burns from Lemonada Media.

Editor’s note: The following interview has been edited for flow and clarity.

I had hermit crabs growing up. And eventually they’d outgrow their shells, crawling across the sand as these horrible, naked, pink, vulnerable little things. That’s kind of what starting this podcast felt like. Exposed. Out in the open in ways I hadn’t been before. And I’m pretty sure that’s a good sign.

I didn’t really know what to expect going in. I just wanted to make good use of what I saw as this enduring connection I accidentally have with a generation of people who are, frankly, in a mental health crisis.

I wanted to continue the conversation we started 25 years ago on Blue’s Clues, but now as adults. Back then, we were leading an examined life together, even if we didn’t know that’s what we were doing. We’d run around with magical condiments and a cartoon dog, looking for clues that might lead us to greater understanding. Then we’d sit down, think about what we’d learned, and talk it through. That sounds like a podcast to me.

The show feels a lot like that again: sitting down with intention and asking big questions about life, pain, joy, and meaning.

It’s about trying to humanize the digital experience. The internet is optimized for conflict. It rewards outrage, performance, and division. What if we could make space for something else? What if we could show up as human beings with skin in the game — fragile, weird, funny, loving, angry, anxious, curious — and be seen that way?

I write all the music for the show. They’re not songs. More like moods or meditations. I compose most of it on an old four-track tape recorder because I want the podcast to feel like you can see fingerprints on it, like it was crafted by human hands. It’s full of imperfections, but that’s the point.

The format itself benefits from low production value, the opposite of polish. It should look and sound like something you could make at home. I think if we took even one more step toward high production, it would lose something essential.

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The podcast also borrows some structural DNA from kids’ TV. There are gentle nods to Blue’s Clues with the pacing, the directness, the sense of wonder…but spoken to adults. It’s about carrying that childlike curiosity into conversations about death, love, sex, taxes, and cryptocurrency. It’s a way of saying: We can talk about the hard things without losing our joy.

Maybe that’s what we’re ready for now, a more human experience with our screens. Because being online has become a national pastime of being a jerk to each other, and I think we’re tired of it.

When I think about legacy, I don’t really have an answer. I don’t have kids, I used to feel self-conscious about that. When I was helping care for my dad as he was dying, I couldn’t help but wonder…who’s going to do that for me someday? That experience makes you reflect on what you leave behind.

I guess I’d like to be remembered for listening. Really listening. Blue’s Clues taught me how to do that. It required me to listen to silence, to let it breathe. Silence isn’t empty. The good stuff tends to dwell in the quiet parts.

And maybe that’s what I’m chasing now. A way to bring a little stillness back to the noise.

🎧 Podcast of the Week: Radiolab

Radiolab is the gold standard for curiosity-driven storytelling. Each episode cracks open a question about science, philosophy, or the human experience, and answers it with equal parts wonder and sound design wizardry. It’s the kind of show that makes you say “just one more” at 2 a.m., and somehow leaves you a little wiser every time.

🥾 Further Exploration: Video + Interactivity Poised to Shift Podcasting

From branching narratives to hybrid video formats, creators are leaning into new formats to meet audiences where they are.

ICYMI:

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🎙️ Why filmmaker Rhym Guissé stepped behind a podcast mic

💡 The Quiet Spark

A weekly question to ignite fresh thinking, stir self-reflection, and fuel your creative process behind the mic.

Where in your work are you still playing it safe?