I wanted to create a page for all of those Blue's Clues theories videos that I see on YouTube. Personally, I hate most of them and think they're really stupid so I wanted to record my reaction to them in some sort of way. I've tried to debunk them a bit and point out the flaws in their theories. I've divided them into four sections since a lot of the theories were very similar to each other. This isn't all of the ones on YouTube because there's a lot of repetition so I didn't think the others were really worth talking about. I also typed out somewhat brief summaries of the theories just in case you didn't want to watch any of the videos. Content warning for talks about familial abuse, mistreatment of mental illnesses and disorders (mainly schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder), pedophilia, substance abuse, and possibly some other stuff.

This first video is from MostAmazingTop10. This is the longest one out of all of them and has ten different theories in it. I'll talk about each theory down below. You can watch the video first if you want to, but I do explain all of the theories mentioned in the video so you don't really have to watch it if you don't want to sit through something that is twelve minutes long.

This theory is about Steve having done some sort of terrible crime that has gotten him locked away. This caused him to regress back to his childhood. He has imagined his surroundings in the show and is actually just in his room talking to himself. This is why he walks in place whenever he walks to different rooms in the house. This is also why all of his mail comes to him instead of him giong outside to get the mail and him going into his backyard is just the yard time that he gets at the institution.

I feel like we see the insane asylum thing a lot when it comes to dark and scary theories for anything. There's no way that he's able to talk to all of these objects without being completely insane! I wonder what crime he committed. I do hate the stereotype that mentally ill people always commit heinous crimes especially people who tend to hallucinate. One thing in this theory that I do like that they brought up is how Steve tends to walk in place and that's just him in his room imagining that he's walking to different rooms of the house. There are times in the show where he does walk off screen and they don't transition from different rooms with him walking in place, but he does walk in place most of the time.

There is also the part where they mentioned mail time. Mailbox does comes in to give Steve the mail most of the time, but there has been a few instances where Steve has had to go outside to get the mail. In "Blue's Big Treasure Hunt," the episode starts out with Steve going outside to get the mail. In the episode "Making Changes," Steve had to go outside to get the mail because he closed the window for Cinnamon. With the window closed, Mailbox couldn't go inside so Steve went outside instead. Another episode where Steve got the mail outside was in the episode titled "Nature." The whole episode takes place outside. There are even Joe episodes where he gets the mail outside, but this theory is about Steve so I don't think it's important to list those episodes.

The last thing they talk about is Steve going into his backyard is just the yard time that he gets at the institution. There are times where he actually goes to other places besides his backyard and he doesn't even skidoo to them. One episode where he does that is in the episode "Magenta Gets Glasses." In that episode Steve walks to the optometrist with Blue, Magenta, and Miranda. In "The Baby's Here," Steve, Blue, and Paprika all travel to the hospital. Steve is walking, but Blue is on her bike with Paprika sitting in a basket on the front of her bike. He also walked to everyone's houses in "Blue's Big Holiday." I think Steve may have walked to Julia's Slipper Repair in the original version of "Blue's Big Pajama Party," but I'm not so sure. You don't see him skidoo there or skidoo back home so I assume he walked there. Steve and Blue also walk to the library in the episodes "Geography" and "Blue's Book Nook." They've also gone to Periwinkle's house a few times in the episodes "Blue's Big Mystery," "Periwinkle Misses His Friend," "Blue's Collection," and "¡Un Día Con Plum!" In some of them they just went to his front yard, but they did go into his garage in "Blue's Collection." They also walked to a pizza parlor in the episode "Blue's School." There are also a few Joe episodes where they walk to places, but all of these theories are about Steve so I'm not going to include them.

I guess all of this stuff could be explained simply with "Steve is hallucinating all of it, even the real people!"

The house is haunted and is keeping Steve as prisoner and forces him to interact with cursed objects. This is how he's able to move around by jumping through paintings. These paintings are portals.

The house being haunted is actually rather creative. I don't think a haunted house was ever mentioned in any of the other theory videos. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with this one and I do kind of like it. One thing I'm curious about is how Steve was able to leave if the house was keeping him as a prisoner. Maybe the house was getting bored of him and wanted someone new to torture. I wonder if any of the other characters are the house's prisoners, too. I do like the idea of the paintings being portals and that's why he is able to skidoo into them.

An insane Steve was moved to another facility because his symptoms were worsening and now Josh resides in his room. Steve drew Blue and all of the other characters with crayon all over the walls of his room. Josh took on Steve's old persona because he was surrounded by all of these drawings and they were all he could interact with.

Here's another theory where Steve is insane. At first I thought this was going to be about dissociative identity disorder based on the title fo the theory since people really love to use that disorder in so many of their theories, but it's not that at all. The only thing here that confuses me is why they skipped over Joe. I guess this was here to explain why there are multiple hosts. This one could possibly be an addition to the tenth theory titled "insane asylum."

The theory started out with Steve just being a simple babysitter, but that's too lighthearted so he's actually stuck babysitting for eternity or he's stuck babysitting evil children. He has to be careful and has to be playing along and doing what the children want him to do or else.

This one started out being so normal, but this video is about scary theories so the children are all evil. They're absolute demons and will murder him if he messes up. Well, that part wasn't said in the video, but I think that's what would happen. This is another theory that confuses me because it doesn't explain the other hosts. If Steve was supposed to be babysitting these evil children forever then how was he able to leave? Well, those two ideas of him babysitting for eternity and babysitting evil children are separate, but I still wonder how he got leave when he was cursed with doing those two things. Would the evil children let him leave unscathed like that? Why would whatever or whoever is keeping him captive eternity let him go? He can't be babysitting forever if his time there eventually ends. Maybe they had gotten bored of him and wanted someone new to toture so that's why Joe came around. It seems rather funny that Steve made his younger brother take over, he must not like him very much then. He would seem rather selfish to do that.

This one is based off of Steve's backstory of being a lonely boy with no friends and would read that book about Blue everday. This is from the episode "Blue's First Holiday." Because of this episode people think that Steve and Joe had a fairly dark childhood. They were abused and isolated by their family which caused them to be closed off socially. Steve created Blue as an escape from his abusive life. Steve eventually escaped when he was older, but still suffers from all the trauma so that's why he always needs Blue by his side to guide and comfort him.

This one is rather sad, I'm not so sure what to think of it. We don't ever see their parents, but we have met their grandmother in "Blue's Big Treasure Hunt." In the episode that was mentioned in the video, "Blue's First Holiday," Steve and Joe were all alone with all of the usual characters at the house. There were no parents there with them, not even their grandmother was there. I don't think they've mentioned their parents in any episodes at all. We have seen baby photos of Steve and we have seen footage of Joe as a baby so ... I don't know where I was going with this thought. I can't really say this is true nor can I say this is incorrect.

Steve was a member of the CIA who specialized in subliminal messaging and manipulation. The government hired Steve, altered his appearance so he looked more kid friendly, and got him to be the host of the show. The show is used as a way to brainwash kids.

This theory just seems like it was made specifically about the actor Steve Burns and not his character. This is just some person's weird conspiracy theory that is obviously not true. I wonder what Steve would think of this one.

Steve's odd childlike behavior was caused by him murdering his family. One day Steve just lost his mind and ended up killing his family. After realizing what he had done, he was consumed by guilt. This caused him to regress back to his childhood. He coped through imagination and play. Whenever he's searching for the clues in the show, he is actually trying to piece together clues from his childhood and try to figure out what caused him to snap and kill his parents.

I guess this could be some sort of explanation on why we've never seen his parents. What does Joe and their grandmother think of this? Was Joe in on it? I can't think of much to say about this one. I don't think he would ever murder anyone, but why would he kill his parents? Maybe it goes along with the abusive family theory. I wonder how the clues in the show would help him figure out why he did it. They don't seem like the type of clues that would go along with a murder.

Whatever Steve is seeing is actually from a virtual reality simulator. Steve actually suffers from brain damage and this simulator is some sort of therapy for him. This is why we see him pretend to walk to different places. This is why he is also finding clues and solving problems, this is all a way to help him recover. The thinking chair was specifically designed to stimulate his thought processes.

This one is quite interesting and rather unique. I don't understand how this one is scary because it's just a guy trying to recover from brain damage. Some of the other ones weren't really scary either especially the ones where he's just mentally ill. I feel like there's something missing from this theory. What caused his brain damage and why exactly is he specifically going through virtual reality therapy to recover from it?

Steve is always in his house and is too afraid to leave it. He got bored at home so he decided to make educational videos for children. These videos give him something to do and distract him from his anxiety and allows him to feel connected with the outside world. The children watching his videos eventually wanted to see him outside of his house which is why he's in his backyard sometimes. The pressure eventually got to him and he just left the show entirely.

It's interesting how the stereotype of being agoraphobic means that you're afraid to leave your house continues to live on. The part where she said that children eventually wanted to see him outside the house is interesting because the first time he goes out to his backyard is in the episode "Blue's Story Time" which was the fourth episode of the first season. This is where we first met Shovel and Pail. Steve does have to go outside often if we want those two to be apart of the episode since they're usually outside. Sometimes Shovel and Pail do come inside, but that mostly happens whenever it's the end of the episode. Steve's first few videos must have gotten extremely popular if he finally decided to go outside in the fourth episode. I did list in the first theory episodes where he went to other places so him being agoraphobic is probably not true.

Steve is actually a drug addict and this is why he talks to so many inanimate objects. He's constantly hallucinating on drugs. This is also why his house is so colorful and why there is a pink and blue dog. This is also why he's extremely overly enthusiastic about all of the Blue's Clues songs. The kid voices that we hear are actually his neglected children. He's so addicted to drugs that he can't even care for his children. He's so excited during mail time because it could mean that he's gotten a welfare check that he could use to pay for drugs or it is the drugs itself.

There are so many drug addict theories. I've got the other ones compiled down below. Personally, I really hate these theories. They're so uncreative and rather boring and are always used as some sort of throwaway when you can't think of anything else to explain the existence of something. I feel like people can't fathom a universe that is separate from our reality so they have to make up stupid theories to explain it and try to connect it to our world. He doesn't have to be addicted to drugs, the Blue's Clues universe can still exist in ours without needing to say such things. The weirdness of it can all just be contained in that one area and that's why very few people know how to skidoo and why not many animals and inanimate objects know how to talk. All of that stuff is just in that one town. They've also mentioned real areas in the show before like Peru and Rhode Island so it can exist in our world.

This theory was created by Jon Solo. In this one, he explains Steve's backstory since we don't really know much about him. This theory is heavily inspired by the origin story of Freddy Krueger. If you don't know Krueger's backstory then here's an excerpt from his Wikipedia page: "in A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy is introduced as a child killer from the fictitious town of Springwood, Ohio, who kills his victims with a bladed leather glove he crafted in a boiler room where he used to take his victims. He is captured, but is set free on a technicality when it is discovered that the search warrant wasn't signed in the right place. He is hunted down by a mob made up of the town's vengeful parents and cornered in a boiler room. The mob douses the building with gasoline and sets it on fire by throwing Molotov cocktails, burning him alive. While his body dies, his spirit lives on within the dreams of a group of teenagers and pre-adolescents living on Elm Street, whom he preys on by entering their dreams and killing them, fueled by the town's memories and fear of him and empowered by a trio of 'dream demons' to be their willing instrument of evil. He is apparently destroyed at the end of the film by protagonist Nancy Thompson, but the last scene reveals that he has survived."

So here is Steve's backstory. Steve used to be an elementary school teacher. He was a quite popular teacher and the other teachers didn't like him very much, but the children loved him. Steve was secretly molesting some of the students and one kid broke their "special promise" with Steve and told his parents about what was going on. The parent freaked out, called the police, and Steve was arrested. It was found out that he had actually molested dozens of children and also had pornographic images of his students at his house. The police did not have a warrent to search his house so none of the evidence found there could have been used in court. None of the kids were brave enough to talk about their experiences in the courtroom so Steve was found innocent. The parents were absolutely furious about this so they formed an angry mob and surrounded his home. They told him that he had two choices: they could burn his house down with him inside it or he could leave town and never come back.

Steve chose to leave town and lived somewhere far away so he couldn't be found. He was too scared to leave his home so he started to get a little bit crazy. He had no contact with others so this is why he adopted Blue. He thought Blue could help him be a little sane, but it didn't work. Steve ended up developing schizophrenia (or something close to it) and started talking to his furniture and he thought they were all talking back to him. Apparently, Magenta is a stray dog and only visits to play with Blue and also because Steve feeds her whenever she's hungry. All of the letters that Steve gets are actually from his previous students, the ones he never molested. He wanted them to keep in touch so he gave them his new address. Steve had also developed dissociative identity disorder in order to escape his past. Joe isn't a separate person, he is actually one of Steve's alters.

This is bit of a long theory. Since this was this guy's first theory that he's written himself, I will be gentle with my criticisms. I do not like this theory at all. I know I hate most of these theories, but this one just annoys me the most especially with some of the comments on this video talking about spirals being a symbol for pedophiles and talking about kids tv show hosts ending up being pedophiles. Although, most of the comments are just people saying the theory sucks because there's no evidence for anything and some people are saying it's good. I hate schizophrenia and DID being associated with pedophilia and I do also hate Steve being associated with pedophilia. I think it's totally fine to headcanon Steve with having either of those disorders, I can totally see evidence to back up the schizophrenia one, but please stop using these disorders in this way. Anyways, I do agree with some of the people in the comments saying that this feels more like fanfiction than an actual theory. I guess you could say that about the other theories, but this one feels too in depth and there's a lot more to it than the other ones. He made up an entire backstory for Steve to explain why he lives here and why everything is like that which is what makes it feel less like a theory that's usually created based off of the information we've already been given. I know that this was the point of his theory, though, to make up a backstory for Steve since we don't know much about him. We do know some little things like his penpal in Peru and his favorite food being bananas and that he has a grandmother, but it's not a lot. I would assume him having schizophrenia is there to explain why he talks to inanimate objects and to explain his hallucinations since it's usually used like that in other theories.

One major problem is him saying Magenta was a stray dog. She lived next door to them with Miranda. She wasn't a stray dog at all, but I guess you could explain all of that with just saying he was hallucinating everything even Miranda. Another thing that I saw people mentioning in the comments section was how Steve actually got Blue when he was a kid. It's all explained in the episode "Blue's First Holiday" so he couldn't have gotten her as an adult. That episode is also the only thing that truly goes over Steve's past. It wasn't a lot, but it does talk about the most important thing and that thing was how Steve and Blue first met.

In this theory Steve is on some sort of hallucinogen and that's why he sees what he sees. He's actually dropping acid in some sort of crack house. The theme of the episode is based off of whatever Steve is currently looking at or what he is currently reading while on acid. All of the characters are just in Steve's head, but Blue could be an actual dog and he just sees her as being blue when he's high.

This is just like a bunch of the other ones, but I do like how they explain why he sees certain things and what the theme of the episode is based off of. I thought that part was rather unique and creative especially compared to all of the other "Steve's a drug addict" theories. This one wasn't that bad.

Steve is a former detective who worked a case so disturbing that it boke him mentally. Now he spends his days dosing himself with enough drugs to hallucinate and forget the case that tore him down. The detective part of the theory explains why he's so interested in clues and the drug part of the theory explains why he can talk to salt shakers.

This one is also rather creative. I like the addition of him being a detective because Steve ended up being a detective. I do really hate all of the drug theories, though. The thing is that they're all rather uncreative and overused like I said before and I feel like any time it's brought up, drug addicts are demonized in some sort of way. They're already shamed for their addiction and I feel like it's just adding to that stigma especially when it's being categorized underneath theories that are meant to be scary. It would not be scary if he was actually addicted to drugs, but the theories are just so bland and boring.

This explains why he can talk to inanimate objects and can travel into pictures. The kids voices are either a child or a young relative that he is constantly neglecting due to his drug problem. Steve's exit from the show means the he entered rehab.

He actually left because he went to college, but whatever, ignore that if you want to. I guess he could have been lying to them by saying he was actually going to college. Although, he doesn't really have anyone to lie to if none of the characters are real and are all just in his head. Well, I'm sure he would still lie to them because he thinks they're real.

Steve is a crackhead. He's a severe drug addict and hallucinates everything. The kids voices that you hear could be his neglected children that he regrets. At this part they lie about a certain episode existing. They said that there was some sort of episode where the police knock on his door to make sure he's okay and it was an episode about safety and how to call emergency services.

I am so confused about why they lied about this episode being real. I have never seen anything like this in any of the episodes. I don't think there ever was a police officer in any episode and if there was I would have remembered it and would have said something to a friend about it. During this part they showed a picture from the episode "the Anything Box" which has nothing similar to whatever they were talking about with safety and calling emergency services. That episode was just about them playing with a cardboard box. I don't know where they got this idea from. I think they may have gotten the idea from clue into safety, but that's not an episode. It's just a website that was made to help parents teach their children about safety. Maybe there was something similar to what they were describing in one of the games. Anyways, this theory is not good. All of the theories about him neglecting his children is very interesting. Why does he have children? All of the kids leave at the end of the episode so I assume he doesn't have custody over the children, but why would the other parent let their children go over to his house if he's just going to neglect them? I'm sure that parent is aware of all of that. Wait, who is the other parent?

Steve wasn't an adult with an adolescent mind, he's just a babysitter. The kid voices that you hear responding to him are just the kids that he is babysitting. He would often play along and dumb things down for the children. Steve is actually quite brilliant.

Steve's house is actually a daycare. This is why he takes so long to solve the clues. He left because it didn't pay enough.

These two were surprisingly quite wholesome and make much more sense than the previous theories. I've grouped these two together since they're pretty much the same. I like in the first one how they said that Steve doesn't have an adolescent mind, he's just playing along with the kids and is just guiding them along the game and is making sure that they are the ones who solve it instead of him. I do have some sort of theory that Steve does act like that on purpose and actually isn't dumb, but I feel like I don't have enough evidence to back it up. Of course, the actor isn't dumb and that's exactly what he's doing, but I feel like his character is doing that, too. The main thing I have backing this up is in the episode "Joe Gets a Clue." It's during the scene at the end where Joe gets his notebook. He exclaims, "if there's a clue, I will find it," but then Steve corrects him and points to us which causes Joe to say, "or you'll find it then I'll draw it." Because of this, I think Steve acts dumb on purpose. Even in this episode Joe tried to figure out the answer while they were playing the game so there is no way that he is not completely oblivious if his brother is trying to answer it before they found all three clues. This is really my only theory and I think it ties into the babysitter theory rather well.

With the second video, I don't really like the reason that he left the daycare was because it didn't pay enough. I feel like he would not be the kind of guy to care more about money than about the children. They could have just kept the fact that he left because he wanted to go to college. He could have wanted to get some sort of education and knew he wouldn't have been able to do both things at the same time so that's why Joe took over.