Steve Burns hosted Nickelodeon's Blue's Clues for seven years. The hit puzzle show for kids made them feel like they were playing along at home. Burns …
TV can be a brutal business — for actors and viewers alike. Every time you tune in, you run the risk of watching one of your favorite TV characters abruptly succumb to Sudden Death Syndrome. Prestige dramas excel at killing off beloved characters without compunction (or foreshadowing). That's not surprising, considering these shows exist to break your heart. But nowadays, even situation comedies are okay with bumping off major players — and these deaths are rarely informed by storytelling structure. Nervous networks execs, backstage scandals, difficult personalities, and dissatisfied actors can all too easily culminate in a character's untimely demise. Just ask George Costanza's dead fiancée.
If you're an '80s or '90s kid who was lucky enough to have access to cable television, then one of your childhood dreams was most certainly to get slimed on national television. Yep,you wanted to be on Nickelodeon and get hazed by the world's first network for kids. Or maybe your dreams were more specific. Perhaps you wanted to run the obstacle course on Double Dare, or attend the Kids Choice' Awards, or zip through a Toys 'R Us (R.I.P.) as the winner of the Nickelodeon Super Toy Run.
Children that grew up in the 1990s and early 2000s all know how coveted it was to have their parents pay a little bit extra for the kids-only Nickelodeon channel. The adolescent stars that made up some of our fave shows, such as All That, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, and Kenan & Kel, were simply the coolest, and we all yearned to be a part of their cliques — or at least get slimed. While some stars, including the likes of Ariana Grande or Emma Roberts, found a way to turn their early television success into long-term careers, others remarkably decided to step away from the spotlight when they were at the very top, à la Jamie Lynn Spears.