The docuseries is a rude awakening for the 2000s kids who grew up watching Nickelodeon.
As a kid, I spent countless hours watching The Amanda Show, a sketch comedy series starring Amanda Bynes that aired on Nickelodeon from 1999 to 2002. The show was created by Dan Schneider, who went on to helm many of the channel’s most beloved series, including Drake and Josh and iCarly. In addition to providing plenty of laughs, it was a rare example of a children’s show that took the comedic talents of its young star seriously. But after watching the new docuseries Quiet on Set, I know my fond memories of watching The Amanda Show will never be the same.
The four-part docuseries aired on Max and Investigation Discovery earlier this month, and a surprise fifth episode is in the works for next week. The show explores the dark side of Dan Schneider’s tenure at Nickelodeon, painting him as a temperamental, manipulative boss with a disturbing habit of inserting sexual innuendos into scenes with child actors. Details of Schneider’s conduct began to leak out in 2018, when Schneider left Nickelodeon amid allegations of abusive behavior. The New York Times reported in 2021 that an internal investigation had found Schneider was verbally abusive to staff, while a 2022 Business Insider investigation highlighted his controlling demeanor and sexism in the writers room.
On set, Schneider’s crew included two now-convicted sex offenders. In 2004, Jason Handy, a production assistant, was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading no contest to performing lewd acts on a child, distributing sexually explicit material, and child exploitation. The same year, dialogue coach Brian Peck pleaded no contest to two charges related child sexual abuse against an anonymous child actor and was sentenced to 16 months in prison. Quiet on Set’s biggest bombshell is that Peck’s victim was Drake Bell, a star of Drake & Josh and a regular on The Amanda Show.
