Nickelodeon’s Deep Dark Secrets at Nite
Spanning from March 17 to March 18, true crime documentary channel Investigation Discovery partnered up with the streaming service Max to bring a new documentary. This documentary, titled Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, centered around the stories of children actors and writers from Nickelodeon during the late 1990s and early 2000s, explaining what they had gone through behind the scenes.
What the kids went through behind the scenes is unimaginably horrible. These stories ranged from racially insensitive sketches on the show All That to being forced to perform pedophilic-related humor. Even the parents of said actors had their own set of traumatic stories, like Bryan Christopher Hearne’s mother who was being mistreated by the showrunners for standing up for her child. This included production assistant John Handy, who sent inappropriate photos of himself to child actors. The parents of the children chose not to report this to the authorities for being afraid they would look like “bad parents.”
The biggest discovery of Quiet on Set was the information about Drake Bell’s sexual assault by his own dialogue coach, Brian Peck, when he was just 15-years-old. The third episode was his story about how he was groomed by Peck, to the point where, in the middle of the explanation, Bell starts to tear up, apologizing as he recounts everything, as it still hurts him all these years later. He recounted how Peck caused a separation between Bell and his father, along with Bell’s mother refusing to comply with his father’s wishes to not let Peck near Bell, and the lack of any parental awareness after Bell’s father was removed as his manager.
Soon after the documentary skyrocketed in popularity, Dan Schneider, the primary showrunner that was exposed, held an interview with iCarly actor, Bobbie Bowman, best known for his role as T-Bone to discuss the situation. . According to Schneider, the series had been hard for him to watch, claiming, “I definitely owe some people a pretty strong apology.” Schneider is trying to excuse himself now that he is packed into a corner, and Nickelodeon is not acting better. The only statement they’ve released — which was seen at the end of every episode — is as follows: “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.”
It continues, “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.” This is a basic apology; and just seems insincere, considering the network has the power to prevent the heinous crimes in the first place.
A common argument made about Quiet on Set is that, outside of the Drake Bell situation, a lot of the accusations about Dan Schneider were well-known years earlier. The public was aware of Schneider’s horrible behavior towards his actors, but we were still exposed to mere extra details and footage that were never shown, even more insight into his questionable relationship with actress Amanda Bynes.
Actors such as Josh Peck, Alexa Nikolas, Nancy Sullivan, and Kenan Thompson have publicly expressed their support for the victims who had spoken up, and their distaste for Nickelodeon and Dan Schneider. Even one actress, Amber Frank from The Haunted Hathaways, came forth now that her fellow actors were doing it. She disclosed that when she started on her show, the crew was sent computers from Nickelodeon, with child pornography visible when they opened it.
No words can describe the emotions felt when this was released online. What do you mean Nickelodeon, the channel meant for children, issued pornography to minors and yet no reports were made? It’s sickening, and yet there is still so much more to be uncovered.
Whether or not changes will be made is still unclear, but public outrage can push companies to pay attention to the crimes that have been committed by their staff, and take responsibility for their actions. Hopefully this will help bring closure and healing to all the victims of child abuse in the film industry.
Photo Courtesy of Investigation Discovery
