The HBO docuseries Quiet On Set details the dark side of children’s TV. Despite the virility of the series, the most pressing takeaway I had was largely overlooked, even by conservative commentators. As the focus of the series is relevant to my childhood, it was naturally interesting to me.
The big bad of the series is Dan Schnieder, the creator of the Amanda Show, Drake and Josh, iCarly, and more. These shows propelled numerous child actors to stardom. Many shots were taken at Dan Schneider, but most of them did not land. It hurt the docuseries that the main interviewees were women complaining about a male work environment and woke Black people. One former child actor featured on All That said, “As a Black man in therapy” which immediately caused me to dismiss what he said.
Make no mistake, I am not saying that Dan Schneider is a good guy. Some of his work, particularly in the show Sam and Cat featuring Ariana Grande was certainly meant to be sexual. But Nickelodeon has always had a reputation for being fun and gross. So in addition to slime, worms and peanut butter in a Fear Factor parody are considerably benign and much of the series focused on sexual interpretations of clips from around 20 years ago.
However, the biggest scandal in the series was not Dan Schneider but Brian Peck. Brian Peck is a convicted pedophile sodomite who molested child star Drake Bell. The biggest disappointment was that Drake’s father, Joe Bell was suspicious of Brian Peck from the beginning. However, Joe Bell was lectured on homophobia for being suspicious of Brian Peck who would later molest his son. The predator was spotted, but the man noticing the danger was ostracized for it, and Brian Peck sowed division between father and son so that he could sodomize Drake Bell.
Mistakes were made, but ultimately a culture that denounced homophobia was a contributing factor to Brian Peck’s deviant behavior.
Ironically, Dan Schneider stood by Drake Bell in all of this while Hollywood put out to support Brian Peck during his sentencing hearing where he got off easy for what should have been a capital offense (biblically speaking). Brian Peck would soon work again on children’s television despite being a registered sex offender.
All this happened because homoeroticism was tolerated around children and Hollywood accepted and promoted it. The other takeaway is that therapy is woefully insufficient compared to the power of Christ, as made abundantly clear in the lives of Drake Bell and the other former child actors.
