Ex-Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider apologizes after ‘Quiet on Set’ docuseries
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After these claims appeared in the new documentary series Quiet on Set, Dan Schneider, the creator, and producer of several popular Nickelodeon shows, responded.
In the four-part Investigation Discovery series, which aired on Max on March 16 and 17, Kyle Sullivan and other cast members from All That, such as Giovonnie Samuels and Katrina Johnson, talk about their time working on Schneider’s popular Nickelodeon shows from the 2000s, such as Drake & Josh, The Amanda Show, iCarly, Victorious, Sam & Cat, and Zoey 101.
The documentary series features many inappropriate moments from different Schneider shows. For example, child actors were put in awkward situations, and jokes were made that were not proper for kids. Marc Summers, the former host of the popular Nickelodeon show Double Dare, watches a video of Ariana Grande, who plays Cat Valentine in Victorious and Sam & Cat, mishandling a potato.
Schneider put out a 19-minute video on YouTube on Tuesday that had a chat with BooGIE, who played T-Bo on iCarly, about how people felt about the show, which Schneider called “difficult” to watch. An agent for Schneider said that the interview happened after BooG!E watched the documentary and asked the director if he could talk to him.
“I am facing the things I did in the past that are embarrassing and that I wish I hadn’t done.” “I definitely need to say sorry to some people,” Schneider says on the tape.
Schneider’s rep wrote in an email to TIME, “Dan apologizes, expresses regret and embarrassment, and holds himself accountable for his previous behavior.” Schneider says he “crossed a line in the writers’ room with the jokes that he told and the pranks that he pulled,” and that he should have “never asked for massages.”
“Dan’s representative wants to remove some of his old jokes from the reruns of his old shows,” the statement reads. “We never intended any of those now perceived as sexualized jokes to be anything other than funny for kids,” she stated.
Schneider says that when he watched the show, he “could see the hurt in some people’s eyes,” and that it made him “feel awful, regretful, and sorry.” If he could go back in time, he would “just do a better job and never, ever feel like it was okay to be an asshole to anyone, ever.” He also talked about actor Drake Bell’s claim in the show that former Nickelodeon dialogue coach Brian Peck sexually attacked him, saying that Bell told him what happened at the time.
The statement says Schneider says he was “there for these young actors often when nobody else was” and that he doesn’t have any inappropriate ties with them. “It is just not true to say that his relationship with any of the actors was inappropriate in any way. That is not true at all.”
The Hollywood Reporter released a statement from Schneider the day before this interview in which he denied creating a toxic work environment and “sexualizing” child actors. “Everything that took place on the show “Dan Ran was carefully looked over by dozens of adults involved and was approved by the network,” the statement says. All these layers of scrutiny flagged and blocked any scenes or clothes deemed inappropriate.
