In ‘Quiet on Set,’ Former Child Stars Open Up About Nickelodeon Abuse: NPR

For those with fond memories of watching kid-centric Nickelodeon television series like All that, Amanda’s show and Drake and Joshthe Investigation Discovery series Silence on the set: The dark side of children’s television It can be a shocking shock.

The four-part docuseries has already generated headlines for featuring former star Drake Bell. telling publicly for the first time her stories of abuse about two decades ago by Brian Peck, a speech coach and actor employed by Nickelodeon. Peck He pleaded no contest to two charges. and was sentenced to 16 months in jail in 2004, but the identity of the artist he was convicted of abusing was not revealed in court.

But the show also spends a lot of time delving into the work of creator, showrunner, executive producer and performer Dan Schneider, who built a children’s television empire in the late ’90s and early ’00s at Nickelodeon. Schneider, who helped create, write or produce shows like All That, The Amanda, Kenan and Kel Show and icarlyis credited with discovering young stars like Amanda Bynes, while also defining the shape of children’s television during that era.

The dark side of creating children’s television

Nickelodeon and Schneider’s success was based on creating shows that seemed made just for kids, starring kids, presented at a time when young people had far fewer entertainment options. It was a golden era of children’s television, with young entertainers who would become stars as adults, including Kenan Thompson, Ariana Grande, Nick Cannon, Victoria Justice, Miranda Cosgrove and Jamie Lynn Spears.

Silence on set claims the behind-the-scenes reality could be heartbreaking, featuring interviews with former employees of the shows, as well as parents, artists and journalists to detail claims that Schneider became a more toxic boss as his influence grew. The docuseries features accusations that he devalued female writers, played favorites among young actors and excluded performers of color, disrupted sets with angry outbursts and insisted that female employees give him back massages during production.

Schneider does not offer a new interview on camera, but appears in images and archival material. The show also includes text statements in which she denies some allegations, insisting that what she did on the shows was scrutinized by dozens of adults, including programming executives, and that she never considered gender in hiring decisions.

The show also displays a statement from Nickelodeon at the end of each episode saying that it “investigates all formal complaints as part of our commitment to fostering a safe and professional workplace.” “(We have) adopted numerous safeguards over the years to help ensure we live up to our high standards and the expectations of our audience.”

Children’s TV with adult insinuations

Among the most discordant sequences of Silence on set: Scenes with young actors from Schneider’s shows that seemed silly on the surface, but also evoked disturbing sexual innuendos in programming aimed at children, including a young Ariana Grande suggestively squeezing a potato to try to get juice from it, or a moment where a blob of sticky droplets landed on Jamie Lynn Spears’ face.

The documentary also recounts how some employees who worked at Nickelodeon were later convicted of sexual abuse, including a man who met child actors as a production assistant and Peck, who played characters and worked with child performers on shows directed by Schneider.

“The bad just doesn’t go away,” says the mother of a child artist who was the target of a man later arrested on sexual abuse charges involving another young man. “The bad remains for life.”

But the show’s most emotional moments come when Bell tells his story. He says Peck convinced him to let his father be his manager and then became deeply involved in the young artist’s life. Over time, Bell said, Peck began sexually abusing him, creating a situation from which the young artist felt he could not escape.

“The abuse was extensive and became quite brutal,” Bell tells the camera at one point, shifting in her seat. “I really don’t know how to explain that on camera… Why don’t you think about the worst things someone could do to someone like sexual assault, and that will answer your question? I don’t know. I don’t know how else say it.”

Bell, now 37, also talks about issues with self-destructive behavior as he was growing up. He pleaded guilty in 2021 to one felony count of attempting to endanger children and one misdemeanor count of disseminating material harmful to minors, related to an incident in Ohio involving a teenage girl.

Fans who grew up with these shows and stars, enjoying their atmosphere of kids running around in the asylum, may feel particularly troubled to hear that the artists were exposed to these types of predators and toxic work environments. It’s hard to imagine what these stars’ bright smiles and cheerful attitudes could have hidden on screen, although some have spoken out in the past, including former icarly co-star Jennette McCurdy, who wrote the scathing memoir I’m glad my mom died.

In many ways, a docuseries like this is a natural progression from the revelations of toxic behind-the-scenes behavior in adult-focused television shows, movies, and the music industry sparked by the #MeToo movement. Likewise, there had been previous reports on accusations against Schneider and problems on Nickelodeon shows, but the power of Silence on set lies in getting people to sit in front of a camera and speak publicly about their accusations in a convincing way.

An important question that remains is whether programs like Silence on set may change popular attitudes about how child actors are treated in the same way that other works have changed ideas about sexual assault, harassment, and the workplace codes of conduct that fuel Hollywood’s dream factory.