Last month I wrote about a show on Netflix called “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.” The show was just three episodes that chronicled some of the troubling/criminal things going on at Nickelodeon from the mid-90s to the early 2000s.
The really troubling stuff highlighted by the show focused on a couple of pedophiles who were working there. Of one those was Jason Handy who was sending nude photos to young girls. Police raided his home and found more than 10,000 images of children. He spent 5 years in prison and then moved across the country. He was later arrested again and is currently serving time in a federal prison in Virginia. This is the guy whose job was to walk kids around the set.
Equally disturbing were allegations about Brian Peck aka Pickle Boy. Peck was a dialogue coach who worked directly with some of the kids. The central allegation in the series is that he sexually abused an up-and-coming teen star named Drake Bell for several months. He also reportedly had a personal friendship with John Wayne Gacy. Peck was arrested and convicted but only served 16 months for his crimes.
There were other allegations in the series that were troubling but not nearly at the same level. Most of those involved producer Dan Schneider who was said to be a tough who treated women employees especially badly. For instance, he would frequently ask his employees (usually women) to give him shoulder massages on the set. He also inserted some porn-themed jokes into his shows for teens. Here’s what I wrote about him in my rundown of the show:
The creator of many of the shows featured in “Quiet on Set” has since issued an interview/apology for his behavior. Dan Schneider has never been accused of anything inappropriate with kids. In fact, Drake Bell credits him as being one of the few adults who supported him rather than Brian Peck after the trial. But Schneider was by his own admission a pretty terrible boss, especially toward the women who worked for him. Nickelodeon cut ties with him in 2018 after two decades of hit shows. If nothing else, his habit of writing what seem like porn-related jokes into some of his teen shows really does seem pretty creepy.
The point is that “Quiet on Set” didn’t make Scheider look very good but he was really the least of the bad things that were happening at the time. Today, Schneider has filed a lawsuit against the producers of the show, accusing them of defamation.
Dan Schneider has sued Investigation Discovery for defamation over his portrayal in Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, accusing the company of falsely implying that he sexually abused children who worked on the Nickelodeon series he created and ran.
Schneider, in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, says his depiction in the five-part docuseries is a “hit job.” While it’s true that two child sexual abusers worked on network shows, he says he had “no knowledge of their abuse,” condemned it and “was not a child sexual abuser himself.”
“But for the sake of clickbait, ratings, and views — or put differently, money — Defendants have destroyed Schneider’s reputation and legacy through the false statements and implications that Schneider is exactly that,” the lawsuit says.
The show never directly claimed Schneider had abused any child he worked with but his lawsuit says it implied that was the case.
In a separate statement sent to Variety alongside the legal complaint, Schneider wrote: “Recently the docuseries ‘Quiet on Set’ highlighted mistakes I made and poor judgment I exhibited during my time at Nickelodeon, most of which happened decades ago during my early career as a producer, working on shows for Tollin/Robbins Productions. There is no doubt that I was sometimes a bad leader. I am sincerely apologetic and regretful for that behavior, and I will continue to take accountability for it. However, after seeing ‘Quiet on Set’ and its trailer, and the reactions to them, I sadly have no choice but to take legal action against the people behind it. In their successful attempt to mislead viewers and increase ratings, they went beyond reporting the truth and falsely implied that I was involved in or facilitated horrific crimes for which actual child predators have been prosecuted and convicted.”
Schneider continued: “I have no objection to anyone highlighting my failures as a boss, but it is wrong to mislead millions of people to the false conclusion that I was in any way involved in heinous acts like those committed by child predators. I owe it to myself, my family, and the many wonderful people involved in making these shows to set the record straight.”
I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know if he has a case for defamation based on implications. My take as a viewer is that most of what made Schneider look bad in the series were the things he has already admitted to doing. His reputation did take a hit but it was because of the porny jokes he wrote into kids shows more than anything else. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how this goes in court. Here’s Schneider’s initial reaction/admission that he wasn’t always a great person to work for.