When "Think of the Children!" is ignored and taken too far...
Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV is a 2024 limited documentary series that details the toxic behind-the-scenes world of children's live-action television from the late 1990s to the early 2010s, specifically during Dan Schneider's tenure as a producer on Nickelodeon. The series was originally billed as containing four episodes, which aired from March 17 to March 18 on Investigation Discovery and were simultaneously released on Max and Discovery+; a fifth episode later aired on April 7.
The series covers the rise of Schneider at Nickelodeon, going through his career in chronological order starting from All That. Along the way, allegations of Schneider engaging in inappropriate behavior and fostering hostile work environments alongside instances of abuse and misconduct occurring on his shows are discussed. It features interviews with writers for Schneider and former cast and crew members of shows he worked on, including All That, The Amanda Show, Zoey 101 (former actress Alexa Nikolas) and Drake & Josh (Drake Bell). Bell is featured prominently in the series beginning in the third episode, in which he reveals he was the victim of sexual abuse by Brian Peck, a former Nickelodeon dialogue coach.
Tropes:
- Blaming the Victim: Many of Brian Peck's friends and industry colleagues refused to believe that he was as horrific as the charges against him suggested, and wrote letters of support to the court. Some of them suggested that Peck didn't initiate any sexual encounters and that the victim must've been coming onto him. However, it's said to be possible that these people who supported Peck were unaware of the true extent of his terrible deeds, and it's unclear how many of them went to Peck's trial to support him. note
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Subverted. Dan Schneider tried to deflect criticisms of his pervasive toxic behavior by claiming to be a creative but eccentric genius. Many former cast and crew state that Schneider really wasn't the brilliant programming creator he built himself up to be in his public persona, and cutting Schneider out meant that the cast actually got a lot more work done when he was gone.
- Contractual Purity: Discussed. Drake Bell notes the irony of being told to "be a good role model" for the kids watching his shows, given the horrible things that were happening to him behind the scenes courtesy of Schneider and Peck.
- Demographically Inappropriate Humor: Discussed. One of the major talking points of the series was the abundance of adult humor present in Schneider’s kids’ TV shows, such as Jamie Lynn Spears getting a gooey substance squirted on her face, Ariana Grande very suggestively fondling a potato asking for its “juice,” and a fascination with foot closeup shots. It’s no wonder both the actors and audiences look back on some episodes with raised eyebrows. To further drive it home, Jamie Lynn Spears discussed how frequently she and her costars didn't even realize what they were filming until they rewatched the episodes as adults and the memories came back.
- Double-Meaning Title: “Quiet on (the) set” is a phrase used to call for silence while a scene is being filmed. Here it is also used to describe how many people kept silent about the abuse suffered on and off the set.
- Dramatic Irony: When Drake Bell called his father Joe and said that Brian Peck had been arrested for sexually assaulting a child, Joe was relieved and said how happy he was that Brian had been caught before he could do something to Drake. Trouble is, Drake Bell was that child that Peck was assaulting.
- Everyone Has Standards: For all of Dan Schneider's Mean Boss behavior, even he was appalled by Brian Peck sexually abusing Drake Bell, and gave Bell his full support during the legal proceedings and aftermath. Even at the time of the documentary's release, Bell still defends Schenider because of this.
- Harsher in Hindsight: Discussed and invoked. Much of the Demographically Inappropriate Humor that Schneider oversaw didn't make sense to the kids who were filming them at the time. But when they went back and watched those same bits as adults, they realized exactly what those jokes meant, which just makes the former cast members feel sick, especially after what Brian Peck did comes to light.
- Helicopter Parents: Discussed. Parents who tried to be protective of their children, such as Bryan Hearne's mother or Drake Bell's father, were often vilified by the production team as being overly nosy or paranoid, which led to at least one child turning against their parent.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: The show certainly takes this opinion with the state of Dan Schneider's when the series first aired and it's not hard to see why. The show documents how he became the Trope Maker for kid's media and kid coms in the 2000s, being the one who brought Nickelodeon into the limelight with several successful shows with successful child actors, with Dan's name attached to all of them. But by 2018, after many allegations, reports and witnesses of abuse of staff, inappropriate behavior with child actors and growing controversy, Nickelodeon cuts all ties with Dan who is left with such a toxic reputation that he's been forced into de-facto retirement.
- Hypocrite: Katrina Johnson relays an experience where the producers said she was getting too fat for the show, and then when she went through puberty and lost her baby fat was called too womanly for the show. This alongside Amanda Bynes being a Breakout Character in All That led to her being let go from the show.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Subverted. Brian Peck would molest Drake Bell for years until Bell finally gets fed up and called his mom, who called the police, with Peck getting arrested but gets defended by numerous figures in the entertainment industry and received only 16 months in prison. He would then become a dialogue coach for The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and the worst he gets is getting fired, which means he is somewhere walking free.
- Mean Boss: Dan Schneider as he yells and berates his writers, cast, and crew. Everyone is scared when he arrives and it's been described as an atmosphere change when Dan leaves set.
- His alleged treatment of Christy Stratton and Jenny Kilgen, full stop. Not only does he make the two (who happened to be the only female writers at the time) split a salary, they were constantly made the butt of the staffroom's jokes and made to do humiliating things that bordered the line of sexual harassment (calling themselves sluts, making Christy play out a sodomy scenario just to pitch a sketch, accusing Jenny of "doing phone stuff", etc.). This also includes intimidation when Christy once (jokingly) called out Dan for not honoring a bet and when Jenny reported the split salary.
- Beyond his domineering attitude to the writing staff, he also routinely engaged in petty pranks against everyone including the child actors, such as just sneaking up behind one and shouting. We know this because he filmed it and would post the videos online as what he believed to be humorous "behind the scenes" videos. Rewatching them, the documentary notes that everyone is clearly upset but too afraid to tell Schneider to stop so they just act along with it. Much like the age inappropriate humor used in the on-air TV shows, the guests on the documentary are again baffled and infuriated that these were publicly released online but never drew any criticism at the time.
- The Millstone: The cast and crew of various shows note that for all Schneider liked to bill himself as a tortured genius who was hard to work with but made great art, that's not really true. Instead, his contributions were Demographically Inappropriate Humor and pulling mean-spirited pranks since he could get away with it. Meanwhile, once Schneider was gone, the work rate and quality of the shows both got a lot better.
- Mood-Swinger: Discussed, as the interviewed cast and crew describe how it was difficult to know what would set Schneider off on any given day; one crew member describing an incident where he went from jovial and cheery one moment to pulling her into another room to scream at her in anger the next.
- Not Allowed to Grow Up: Katrina Johnson was the initial "cute little girl" on All That that was pushed by Nickelodeon. Then the combination of her hitting puberty and Amanda Bynes being hired led to her falling out of favor and eventually let go.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Drake Bell does not know how to articulate in detail the ways Brian Peck violated him, and settles on telling the interviewer to imagine the worst thing they can think of, and that it probably happened to him. Context is revealed when the charges from the case are briefly flashed across the screen.
- Only Sane Man: Drake Bell's father Joe realized that Brian Peck's behavior towards Drake was inappropriate and tried to voice his concerns to anyone who would listen. Unfortunately, everyone else brushed him off and Peck eventually manipulated Drake into turning against Joe.
- Pet the Dog: For as sketchy as Dan Schneider could be and was, he was very supportive of Drake Bell upon finding out he was groomed and raped by Brian Peck and went out of his way to make sure he was safe. Whereas a lot of outside actors supported Peck and victim-blamed Drake (who was a minor at the time), Schneider did no such thing and made sure he was out of the business, at least as far as he could ensure it. To this day, Bell defends Schneider on this.
- Rage Breaking Point: After Brian Peck offers to play the dad on Drake & Josh, Drake finally decides enough is enough and confesses all the abuse he faced from Brian Peck to his mom, who promptly calls the police.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Drake Bell calls out all of the big named actors that wrote letters of support for Brian Peck and even sat in the gallery for him. Because of Bell being sexually abused by Peck, Bell wastes no time in calling anyone who defended Peck as a monster who was Blaming the Victim.
- Removing the Crucial Teammate: Discussed, and averted.
- In the fifth and final episode, produced to comment on the reaction to the main four episodes, former child actor Bryan Hearne has a succinct and particularly scathing summation of Dan Schneider's tenure at Nickelodeon: even ignoring all the behind the scenes toxic boss behavior, if you took out all of the age-inappropriate sex jokes (that the target audience wasn't supposed to understand anyway), Schneider basically did nothing but make everything worse — those off-color jokes were his main "contribution" to all the shows he ran. Otherwise, he was largely just taking credit for stories and scripts written by other people, who he then bullied relentlessly in the writers' room so they'd never catch on that he wasn't responsible for most of the work on the shows.Bryan Hearne: "Realistically, if you take the inappropriate jokes away, do you have a show anymore? If you take all the foot jokes and the face shots and all that inappropriateness, is it just commercials then?"
- Other commentators throughout the documentary point out that Schneider tried to lean into the cliched defense often used by toxic bosses in the TV industry, of the "tormented genius" who's hard to work with but who has amazing creative ideas - but this is contradicted by everyone who worked with him, who claim that other than bullying pranks and adding inappropriate sex jokes to scripts, other people were more responsible for the core content than he was. Notably, everyone remarks on how the work environment at Nickelodeon has drastically improved in the years since he's been gone.
- In the fifth and final episode, produced to comment on the reaction to the main four episodes, former child actor Bryan Hearne has a succinct and particularly scathing summation of Dan Schneider's tenure at Nickelodeon: even ignoring all the behind the scenes toxic boss behavior, if you took out all of the age-inappropriate sex jokes (that the target audience wasn't supposed to understand anyway), Schneider basically did nothing but make everything worse — those off-color jokes were his main "contribution" to all the shows he ran. Otherwise, he was largely just taking credit for stories and scripts written by other people, who he then bullied relentlessly in the writers' room so they'd never catch on that he wasn't responsible for most of the work on the shows.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The decisions of quite a few people who worked on Dan Schneider's shows.
- After Christy Stratton's firing, which left Jenny Kilgen as the only female writer for The Amanda Show, Jenny quit after realizing that she would be the sole target of Dan's verbal abuse and harassment.
- Karyn Finley Thompson, after being hospitalized for a panic attack due to the workload Dan put on her and being repeatedly denied a better position that she was promised, up and left one day and never came back.
- After dealing with getting bullied by the cast of Zoey 101, Dan Schneider and Britney Spears, Alexa Nikolas decided to just quit the show and later acting in general.
- Tabloid Melodrama: Averted. In the fifth and final episode, Drake Bell notes his astonishment that the news media never reported on his sex abuse court trial against Brian Peck, one way or the other, even after Peck was convicted guilty. At the same time, multiple industry associates came forward to defend Peck and call him a liar - so you'd think that at least the tabloid press would "report" on the trial by siding with Peck's defenders or something. It's unclear if the studio initiated a news blackout, or if news outlets were simply too cowardly to cover a controversial trial. A possible result of this lack of coverage is that Disney later hired Brian Peck for another children's show, claiming they were honestly unaware he was a convicted child sex predator due to the lack of news coverage.
- Wham Shot: The Stinger of the second episode has this when the interviewees reveal that the victim of Brian Peck was an actor on one of Schneider's shows, so someone they themselves knew. Cut to someone walking in and taking a seat: Drake Bell, of Drake & Josh. From there, the true extent of Peck's horrific deeds is brought to the forefront.
- What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: It's discussed in the show that looking back at some of the “funny” scenes, especially ones involving young female child actors like Amanda Bynes and Ariana Grande, reveals that many of them had sexually suggestive under/over tones. Usually they involved objects that were phallic-looking in appearance such as pickles or the fingers of a glove. On shows meant for kids as young as six or seven!
- Would Hurt a Child: The entire point of the series as it's about how horrible and cruel many on the production staff are to child actors, with even some going as far to molest and rape them.
