It's funny how he stumbled into fame. After a mediocre career at Boeing, he became an actor on a local sketch comedy show called 'Almost Live'. He had a dozen or so characters, one of which was a science guy.
WCTS, the local PBS station in Seattle wanted a science show for kids and someone at the station had seen Nye doing his science guy bit on KING-TV 5. WCTS got permission from the producers of 'Almost Live' to use Nye and the character for their show. It got picked up by other PBS stations and eventually Disney bought it from PBS.
Here are some of sketches from the show that spawned his career as a science communicator.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O93HitwE8QUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYyLSzPNgg0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZOSdFBfpSQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGHBQLxynrI 
