Nickelodeon began its reign of supremacy over children’s television in the early 90s and early 2000s. Chances are if you were growing up during this era and had a television in the house, it was switched to either Nickelodeon or Disney Channel every weekday around 6:00 p.m. CST for a new episode of “ICarly,” “Victorious,” or “Drake & Josh.” But, these young viewers didn’t know the true reality of what went into producing such popular shows.
“Quiet on Set, The Dark Side of Kids TV” is a new docu-series airing on ID and MAX, that tells the stories of child stars who were treated negatively for so many years. Through watching the series, I began to realize just how much I didn’t know about what was happening behind the scenes.
Over the years, Dan Schneider referred to in the documentary as Nickelodeon’s “golden boy” for creating and producing most of the networks his shows during this time, has been in the media for allegations concerning an inappropriate and uncomfortable work environment.
“Quiet on Set” exposed Schneider for forcing female workers to spilt salaries, asking them to massage him on set, and bullying all employees. Writers and actors from popular shows said Schneider created a hostile work environment with his anger, they didn’t want to get on Dan’s “bad side” because then they would face his wrath.
Not only were Schneider’s actions exposed, but Brian Peck, a dialogue coach for the network was exposed for his sexual abuse of Drake Bell from “Drake and Josh.” The show also exposed Jason Handy and Ezel Channel as pedophiles while working on set as production assistants.
Former childhood actors working under Schnieder such as Jennette McCurdy from “ICarly” and Alexa Nicolas from “Zoey 101” have begun to speak out about toxic work environments at Nickelodeon. Many people on social media have also started to question the sexual innuendos present in many of Schneider’s children’s content.
Feet seemed to be a topic that Schneider fixated on, leading many to wonder if he had some sort of fetish. At one point, in 2013, he had asked fans of “Sam and Cat” to send in their own feet pictures. Looking back at what they once brushed off, fans are now feeling discomfort.
Photo Credit: Eric Vitale/Getty Images
Many former actors also discussed how Schneider contributed to an emotionally unsafe work environment that discriminated gender and race.
Two actors from “All That,” Giovonnie Samuels and Bryan Hearne, discussed how they were treated negatively as Black actors. Hearne stated that he was given roles that perpetuated stereotypes and that Schnieder would not hang out with him in the way he would his white co-workers. Samuels felt that she was the token Black girl on the show.
A couple of days after the series came out, Schneider posted a video denying most of this behavior and avoiding responsibility, yet apologizing for some of his attitude on set.
As a person who enjoys watching documentaries, I found myself binge watching this series and I was shocked at what was revealed. It was extremely well done from a production standpoint, but in all honesty, it was more emotional than I thought it would be. While I am glad all of this information is out there now, it’s beyond awful that children had to go through this in the first place.
ID came out with a new episode on April 7th.
