Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV is a tell-all Nickelodeon documentary that exposes the horrendous acts producers and staff on set did to the child actors. It follows the rise of popular shows like All That, Drake & Josh, and many others created by producer Dan Schneider.
Among those involved in these shows were Amanda Bynes and Drake Bell, who are featured in the documentary about their negative experiences working with Schneider and his crew.
Bynes does not appear in the documentary, but we get a glimpse of her early life and uncomfortably close relationship with Schneider. The third episode features Bell’s encounter with dialect coach, Brian Peck, and their relationship through the years. Bell experienced sexual assault from Peck, prompting a lawsuit and more issues to arise between Bell, his parents and Peck.
Schneider responded to the 4-part documentary, trying to save face and make up for his mistakes over the past 20 years.
“Facing my past behaviors — some of which are embarrassing and that I regret — and I definitely owe some people a pretty strong apology,” Schneider said.
Each episode features different talent and staff who worked with Schneider across multiple shows. The first two episodes seem to talk more about the women writers who finally made it to the Nickelodeon writers’ room, just to be treated like a sub-human. These women would have to share a salary or even be asked to act provocatively in the room, leaving them feeling terrible.
The documentary intertwines with different jokes that the child actors made that were deemed madly inappropriate and sexual, often making references to male genatalia, male ejaculation and sexualizing women’s bodies.
“In the beginning, I would see an instant message pop up, Dan would send a message for you to say out loud, ‘Scream hammers.’ And you scream it. And then it would be more degrading, like, ‘I’m an idiot’ or ‘slut.’ And if you didn’t, he would send you the message again, caps, exclamation points, he would scream out, ‘Say it,’ until you did,” recalled Jenny Kilgen, who would later initiate a gender discrimination complaint against Schneider’s company that later settled.
To grow up watching these shows meant you had a great childhood, full of great storylines, well-rounded characters played by now absolute stars, but some of these incidents and things that happened behind-the-scenes really leaves an unsettling feeling. The jokes that we laughed at and were too young to understand are now just sexual innuendos.
Despite the documentary’s depressing 4-part story, it does shine a light on so many things and opens the door for more conversations about minors in the entertainment industry. A huge supporter of seeking justice against the hostile environment Schneider and his crew created is Alexa Nikolas, who played Nicole on Zoey 101. She went public on TikTok to share her story of working on the show and working with Dan Schneider and his crew.
“Whenever I had wardrobe fittings, [Dan] always had to be in them,” Nikolas said. “Thank God there was a curtain, but he was literally [sitting] on [a] chair right outside of the curtain.”
In a live stream of the protest shared to her Instagram, Nikolas said, “I did not feel protected at Nickelodeon as a child, personally. I’m demanding that Nickelodeon starts protecting children and not predators.”
During the protest, she called Schneider “the creator of childhood trauma.”
Drake Bell, the child who was sexually assaulted by dialogue coach Brian Peck, finally shared his story after about 20 years. He discussed how much Peck negatively impacted his life until he was able to get the help he needed, especially when it came to Peck’s arrest in August 2003.
Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV is a fantastic production that opens the door for future help for child actors. You can check out the documentary on Max or Hulu.
First & Jenn 
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