HBO’s recent documentary Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kid’s TV attempts and largely fails to be more than a ‘documentary about Dan Schneider.’ In attempting to broaden its scope to survey an entire era, Quiet on Set only emphasizes the centrality of this one man. It frames him as a sort of Kubrick of kid’s TV, an auteur and a one-man industry, a visionary and a monster, venerated and despised in equal proportion. We learn from the documentary that perhaps the darkest evils of the period were not directly perpetrated by Dan himself, but these revelations provide little comfort. While HBO’s series can never quite escape the influence of its main figure, over time his name becomes synecdochal with the children’s television industry as a whole: cruel, cynical, exploitative, and blind to warning signs, or even straight-up evidence, of abuse and misconduct.
The early part of the miniseries released so far follows the rise of Schneider, a former child actor and star of 1980s sitcom Head of the Class, from has-been C-lister to the most important and renowned figure in live-action children’s television. He first got his start as head of production at sketch comedy show All That, where he discovered Amanda Bynes, the later star of his breakthrough effort, The Amanda Show (1999-2002). Schneider only ascended the ranks from here, eventually carving his place in the pantheon of modern television with the massively popular trifecta of Drake and Josh (2004-2007), iCarly (2007-2013), and Victorious (2010-2013), alongside other hits like What I Like About You (2002-2006), Zoey 101 (2005-2008), and Sam & Cat (2013-2014).
Quiet on Set emphasizes the all-around nightmare faced by a variety of individuals on his sets. Two female former staff writers accuse him of repeatedly requesting massages, making inappropriate sexual remarks in a work environment, and threatening employees who questioned his authority. Nearly everyone interviewed for the show concurs, and paints Schneider as being prone to fits of intense anger, condescension, and pushing boundaries established by actors and crew members alike. Although the show does touch on concerns often raised about inappropriate material, often involving young actors and actresses, in Schneider’s shows, it seems to shy away from painting the man himself as a sexual predator, on top of being an often oafish control freak and bully. Whether this is for legal reasons or due to the actual beliefs of the showrunners, it’s hard to tell.
Quiet on Set is not an especially artfully-constructed documentary. It relies on many of the tropes and cliches of the recent genre of Netflix-esque true crime miniseries, employing dramatic sound effects, droning stock music, and a rather spastic editing style. The series is, however, immensely powerful in how it shows the true horror many child actors faced behind-the-scenes making many of these shows which defined a generation. Particularly affecting is surprise-interviewee Drake Bell’s tale of abuse at the hands of Brian Peck, an actor and widely-beloved figure at Nickelodeon’s Old Hollywood-esque compound in the 1990s and 2000s. Behind his friendly facade, Peck was an abusive monster who took advantage of his reputation to prey on children. Bell describes in detail how Peck gained his trust, invited him to live in his house for a time, then subjected him to numerous horrific instances of sexual abuse. We learn that a number of high-profile celebrities, including James Marsden and Alan Thicke, testified on Peck’s behalf at his sentencing hearing, defending him even amidst conviction on counts of child sexual abuse. This entire segment of the show, covered in episodes three and four, brings to mind revelations from the #MeToo movement in the late 2010s, when the public learned of the depraved and long-ignored actions of such powerful Hollywood names as Miramax co-founder Harvey Weinstein. In a system which should provide protection for young and vulnerable individuals, so many seem to side with the abusers and subject the victims to absurd amounts of scrutiny and, in some cases, harassment. An anecdote about Dan Schneider’s behavior while at Nickelodeon seems to encapsulate this. After Drake Bell went to his police with reports about Brian Peck’s abuse, Schneider and a number of detectives came in to work, asked the parents to leave the room, and went on to question each child actor on their interactions with Peck before communicating that Nickelodeon had just severed all ties with him due to sexual misconduct with an unnamed underage star. Although Bell is clear that he enjoyed a respectful and positive relationship with Schneider, it’s hard not to see the man’s actions as tone-deaf and manipulative. Regardless of the documentary’s ambivalent attitude toward accusations against him alleging sexual misconduct against children, Schneider clearly represents the soul-sucking nature of the industry that he helped revolutionize. He exploited children’s talent for the advancement of his career, turned a blind-eye to signs of abuse and misconduct among his crew, and yet remained Nickelodeon’s posterboy for nearly twenty years. Just like last decade’s #MeToo movement did for Hollywood, Quiet on Set demands a reexamination of and reckoning with the children’s entertainment industry and all of the troubling facts behind the cheerful, family-friendly facade.
Sophomore Gavin Myer is a Staff Writer. His email is gmyer@fandm.edu.