Dan Schneider Quiet on Set Series: Nickelodeon Abuse Claims

Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Dan Schneider, the disgraced overlord of Nickelodeon’s golden era, was first accused of misconduct in 2018, when Hollywood was reckoning with the abuse baked into the industry with the Me Too movement. Behind the marquee sketch series All That and The Amanda Show, together with sitcoms Kenan & Kel, Drake & Josh, Zoey 101, iCarly, and Victorious, allegations that the creator and producer often terrorized sets mounted for years. Those allegations are finally being addressed in Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, a new four-part docuseries on Investigation Discovery. After reports first emerged in 2018 about his alleged on-set anger issues and documented tendency to post pictures of young actresses’ feet he employed on Twitter, additional victims stepped forward. In 2022, former child actors, including iCarly’s Jeanette McCurdy and Zoey 101’s Alexa Nichols, called out “sexualized” scenes Schneider included in children’s shows. Crew members, for their part, alleged gender discrimination and harassment, specifically recalling moments when Schneider asked them for massages in the middle of the work day.

The series brings the damning allegations against Schneider into sharp relief, skewering Nickelodeon’s entire kids TV apparatus that blinded itself to the abuse adult employees and young stars, such as Drake Bell, reportedly faced. Schneider denied allegations against him in the documentary. “Though we cannot corroborate or negate allegations of behaviors from productions decades ago, Nickelodeon as a matter of policy investigates all formal complaints as part of our commitment to fostering a safe and professional workplace environment free of harassment or other kinds of inappropriate conduct,” Nickelodeon said in a statement to Vulture. “Our highest priorities are the well-being and best interests not just of our employees, casts and crew, but of all children, and we have adopted numerous safeguards over the years to help ensure we are living up to our own high standards and the expectations of our audience.” Here’s every disturbing revelation from the series so far.

Schneider earned his first “Created by” credit for The Amanda Show. He specifically developed the series with Bynes in mind after casting the tween in All That and being stunned by her ability to do complicated character work and make people laugh. When he tried to follow her into mainstream, adult success with the WB series What I Like About You, he reportedly facilitated Bynes running away from home and attempted emancipation, the documentary says. Bynes later withdrew the emancipation petition. Amanda Show director Virgil Fabian and Business Insider journalist Kate Taylor say his involvement in her life created a gulf between Bynes and her parents, who continued to be her legal guardians and later her conservators until March 2022.

When Schneider first became embroiled in allegations of staging obscene sketches in 2018, the public immediately began rethinking moments where young actors were splashed with viscous liquids in shows like Zoey 101 and Victorious. The documentary recalls a Zoey 101 scene where the titular character, portrayed by Jamie Lynn Spears, gets green goo squirted on her face. In a Business Insider investigation from 2022, Zoey 101 actor Alexa Nichols said the scene made her uncomfortable, especially after a male co-star said it looked “like a come shot.” A Victorious scene with Ariana Grande’s character filming her web series could be read in a similar way — a shot of her laying upside down while pouring water on her head recalls the camera work of porn, while another image sees Grande squeezing a potato to try and “milk” it.

The documentary argues that these associations with lewd acts portrayed by children wasn’t an accident — it was par for the course. Writers allege the name of the Amanda Show character Penelope Taynt derives from the slang term for perineum, the space between the penis and the anus.(Schneider apparently asked the team to pretend that the word has nothing to do with its gross meaning.) On All That, there was a recurring Pickle Boy bit where actor (and later convicted sex offender) Brian Peck haunted the fictional set carrying the phallic vegetable and sometimes eating them, which made people uncomfortable. The child actors found it weird but shrugged it as one of Schneider’s oddities. There’s this weird element of like, they were all able to pull a fast one and get away with it, and that’s a part of the joke,” cast member Kyle Sullivan, who spent four years at All That, says. Pickle Boy “likes to hurt and tease pickles,” was the tagline for the character.

Bryan Hearne, an All That series regular for two seasons from 2000–2002, described his discomfort with some of the show’s content. He played recurring characters Little Fetus and Captain Big Nose, roles which required him to wear tight fitting costumes. “What really made me feel the most uncomfortable were the leotards,” he says. “I was just a growing boy trying to grow into my body … and I felt very exposed.” Worse, his superhero suit for the Captain Big Nose felt like the noses for shoulder pads looked like genitals. “You can’t help but think it looks like penis and testicles on my shoulder,” he remembers, before recalling another “come shot” joke while playing the character. “Frankly, it was uncomfortable … in moments to myself, I was thinking, ‘This is what we have to do to stay on the show.’”

Other All That cast members found the “On Air Dare” segment to be particularly excruciating. Hearne hated watching his fellow cast mates performing “Fear Factor”-like dares, which included sitting in a tub of worms or covering yourself in peanut butter for dogs to lick it off you. “There was this weird dynamic where they were taking something that exists in an adult context, like Fear Factor, and transmogrifying it for kids,” Sullivan says. “When you do that, it’s actually an inappropriate thing to do.”

Hearne’s mother, Tracy, wondered why her Black son appeared in a scene where he sold Girl Scout cookies in the style of a “crack dealer” on the streets. “Dan had a nicer relationship with some of the white kids,” Hearne says. “My time on Nickelodeon played a big part in how I dealt and still deal with racial issues.” Tracy alleges that her complaints over the adult content of the show and treatment of her child was the reason why Hearne was not asked back for season nine. “I had no idea what I was saving my son from — it was a house of horrors,” she says.

Talking heads in Quiet on Set allege that Schneider ran a hierarchical and overly demanding workplace. “The set on all that was dysfunctional,” Sullivan recalls. “You could get away with more — like going overtime in ways that were pushing the envelope.” Beyond accusations that he illegally overworked child actors, writers and editors say that Schneider could flip like a switch.  “Dan was volatile and could turn any moment,” writer Christy Stratton says. “I was scared.” She adds: “working for Dan was like being in an abusive relationship.” Editor Karyn Finely Thompson described a moment where she keeled over from overwork and rushed to the hospital. “I could hear someone say, ‘How is the show going to get finished,” she notes.

Writers Stratton and Jenny Kilgen were the only women in The Amanda Show season one writers room. After being scouted in an online forum for the job, they say it turned into a traumatic and humiliating experience. Schneider, the show’s creator and producer, agreed to hire the writers if they split the salary. For both, it was their first experience working full-time in Hollywood and accepted. While on the job, Stratton claims Schneider was fun to work with initially, until his mean jokes and gross requests rose to the fore. In one instance, Stratton was made to pitch an idea while pretending to be sodomized on the writer’s room table. “I think of that poor girl and what she had to go through,” Stratton says. “I would not do that today.” Kilgen alleges that Schneider forced her to watch pornography.

The former was fired after season 1, the latter was invited to come back on the condition that she took a 16-week contract and worked the remaining 11-weeks in the season for free. Kilgen made it through four days of season two before quitting. “There was no way i was going to be the only woman in that fucking world with him,” she tells Quiet on Set. Kilgen sued Nickelodeon for gender discrimination shortly thereafter. Stratton wrote a letter in support of Kilgen to assist with the filing. In the documentary, we see an excerpt of the suit against Storybook Productions that shows Kilgen claimed Schneider denied equal pay. The suit was settled for an undisclosed amount.

In the documentary, MJ, the mother of child actor Brandi, recounts the abuse her daughter faced after guest starring on an episode of All That. James Hardy, who was later convicted for child abuse and child pornography in 2004, sent MJ’s daughter emails after she appeared on the show, eventually sending her an explicit image of himself. In response to the predation, MJ took her daughter out of the industry permanently. While investigating Hardy, police found a notebook where he described himself as a “pedophile, full blown” and the mementos he collected from girls as young as seven. That same year, Peck, the actor responsible for the pickle joke, was found guilty of child rape. Bell alleges Peck subjected him “extensive” and “brutal” sexual abuse during his time as his dialogue coach on set. He recounts his surprise that so many actors wrote letters in support of Peck, including James Marsden, Taran Killam, and others. “Now that Drake Bell has disclosed his identity as the plaintiff in the 2004 case, we are dismayed and saddened to learn of the trauma he has endured, and we commend and support the strength required to come forward,” Nickelodeon told Vulture.

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