Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV was released by HULU on March 17, 2024. Many former child actors who worked for Nickelodeon have come forward about the abuse and toxic working environment they dealt with at a young age. Nickelodeon dominated the kid’s television industry for years. Many of its most popular shows like “Victorious”, “iCarly”, “Drake and Josh”, and “The Amanda Show” were all produced by one man, the root of the toxic Nickelodeon work environment, Dan Schneider. In each episode of the documentary, we learn about how horrific the abuse was for these young actors. There are even personal statements from some actors, like Drake Bell and Alexa Nikolas. Others have written about their story in books. For example, Jennette McCurdy talks about her unsettling experiences while working for Nickelodeon. She refers to the inappropriate man she worked for at Nickelodeon as “the Creator” in the memoir, however now we have confirmation that he is Dan Schneider. Allegedly, she was offered $300,000 in hush money from Nickelodeon to not tell anyone about Schneider. In the 4 episodes of the documentary series, we learn the allegations that have been made against Schneider, who is speaking out against him, and how Nickelodeon will respond to the documentary.

In the 1990s a new creator of Nickelodeon, Dan Schneider, began to dominate the television industry. He received many awards in his early career, for example, in 2014 he won a Kids Choice Award. Schneider was said to take Nickelodeon to “new heights” and do what no other producers had done before. He was also formerly known as Nickelodeon’s “Golden Boy.” He shaped Nickelodeon in the 1990s and early 2000s, but no one ever expected his downfall. Early on people began to notice Schneider’s weird infatuation with putting feet scenes in his shows. This was the first sign for many people of how weird this man was. The first personal account we get in the show is from Alexa Nikolas, who played Nicole on Zoey 101. She says she “has been waiting 17 years for this moment” to tell her story of the abuse and toxic work environment that Dan Schneider created on Nickelodeon. Her character was short-lived for only 2 seasons of the show and “Nicole” left Pacific Coast Academy because she had “Obsessive Male Gender Disorder” and her parents chose to send her to a new all-girls boarding school instead of PCA. In Nikolas’s interview on the show, she calls out Schneider for including sexual innuendos in the script of his children’s shows.

The list of accusations against Schneider seems to be endless, but these are some of the most notable. Schneider is accused of gender discrimination in the workplace. The two female writers of “The Amanda Show” Jenny Kilgen and Christy Stratton said they were to split one salary that was equal to one of the male writer’s salaries. They both accused him of making inappropriate comments to them. These two writers have since then sued the Nickelodeon network for gender-based discrimination. Two former actors from the show “All That”, Bryan Hearne and Giovonnie Samuels, came forward about the racism they faced while on set. They alleged that Schneider cast them in stereotypical roles and were treated poorly at work by him. Many people have noted that many of Dan Schneiders’s shows only show one or two Black cast members. In the documentary, he along with many other writers are accused of “tokenizing those characters.” There has been no public news of these actors suing the network or Schneider for these accusations as of now. Schneider included dark adult humor into the script of these childhood shows we all watched, but most of it blew right over our heads because we were so young.

The most common accusation made against Schneider was his inappropriate actions towards young actors, especially women. He was said to have made the costume department of his shows put the girls in short skirts, bikinis, and other revealing clothing. He was accused of making the girls massage his back and would inappropriately touch them. In Jennette McCurdy’s memoir, she claims that Schneider forced her to drink alcohol while she was underage and gave her massages while on set. In “Quiet on Set”, Drake Bell from Drake and Josh, speaks out about his experiences on the show. Drake Bell talks about the physical and sexual abuse he faced from the Nickelodeon dialogue coach and close friend of Schneider, Brian Peck. Bell felt that now “was finally time to tell [his] story” and wanted to bring awareness to the situation. With all of these accusations coupled with the release of “Quiet on Set”, Dan Schneider finally spoke out about his time with Nickelodeon.

A few days after the release of “Quiet on Set”, Schneider responded to the show and the accusations in a video on his YouTube channel. Schneider told his audience that he regrets his past embarrassing actions. He said, “I definitely owe some people a pretty strong apology.” In his response to the documentary, he acknowledges that his inappropriate actions towards the female actors of his shows were wrong. He apologizes to his audiences who noticed the inappropriate jokes in his shows. Schneider suggests that the current writers and directors of Nickelodeon should edit the jokes out of his old shows to avoid further judgment of the network. He wants everyone to always enjoy his shows and “the more people who like the shows, the happier [he is].” Editing his old shows will not change those who have seen the horrible scripts in these shows, but he thinks this will make them more enjoyable for future audiences.

The former “Golden Boy” of kids TV and Nickelodeon has now become a symbol of the trauma of many of our generation’s favorite actors. This documentary revealed some of the deep and dark secrets of Nickelodeon and the reality of childhood actors.