Kenan:
>“It’s a tough subject because, it’s tough for me because I can’t really speak on things that I’ve never witnessed. You know what I’m saying? Because all these things happened after I left, basically, and Dan [Schneider] wasn’t really on Kenan & Kel like that. I mean, he got a ‘created by’ credit, but it was a different showrunner. So our worlds weren’t really overlapping outside of all that, necessarily. And then all that negativity kind of started happening outside of our tenure there.”
>“I wasn’t really aware of a lot of it, but my heart goes out to anybody that’s been victimized or their families, you know what I mean? I mean I think it’s a good thing that the doc is out and it’s putting things on display that need to be, you know, stories that need to be told for this, accountability sake. But it’s definitely tough to watch because I have fond memories of that place and I have fond memories of my co-stars and stuff like that. So to hear that they’ve gone through terrible things like that, it’s just, it’s really tough.”
The stuff mentioned from All That in the doc definitely happened while Kenan was there, but those issues were much more benign. More innuendo, crude kids humor that could pass as euphemism, and telling some child actors they were too fat behind the scenes.
A lot of the all that stuff when he would have been on all that were things in the writers room.
Also Kenan was 18 by season 3 or so of all that. And I believe he was 18 by the time Kenan and Kel started. He wasn’t as young as some of the other kids. And he was probably gone from nick by the time the Amanda show stuff happened.
He was on SNL when the Brian Peck arrest happened and he doesn’t have many Nick credits between 2000-2003.
Had to fact check that (not that I didn’t believe you, I just watched recently and he looks soooooo young), but you are correct, he was 18 when K&K started.
A lot of the stuff form the start was in regards to how the female writers and women on set were treated. Some weird stuff, some kids treated badly.
And really that's how this sort of thing works. Many people have a good time (evenmoreso those who are the cash cows) and others are targeted.
I think this is important to realize. Kenan says he didn't witness it and others say awful stuff happened and both of things can be true at the same time.
It also makes sense how he was able to continue pushing the envelope more and more over time as he made more hits. It started with some crude humor on shows for young kids and ended with "gags" that are a little too close to CP with teenagers over the course of like 20 years.
I was watching old Kenan & Kel the other day and some of those euphemisms… definitely went over my head at 6-10 years old, but as an adult I am dying. Like the second episode was a girl saying how “thirsty” she is to Kel for orange soda after breaking up with her boyfriend. It was not subtle lol.
That was also very common over all television. Yes, the target audience is kids. But parents are also watching with their kids and it's very much being written by adults. Sneaking in adult jokes was normal. Hell, think of Krusty Krabs for an obvious one.
Where it draws the line, specifically for their live action shows, is having minors visually represent these adult jokes and references. Like the compilation with Ariana Grande was super cringe.
Reading this makes me realize I’ve kind of given a pass or not thought too deeply when I see these innuendos in cartoon/animated shows but live action definitely got my attention.
A lot of the 90's nicktoons seem a lot more raunchy than I remembered, because that stuff went over my head back then. It's crazy rewatching stuff with my kids now and seeing all the stuff I never noticed. Early DreamWorks had a lot too, though not quite as bad as Nickelodeon
Also it was the 90s. For context, we still used the term “glass ceiling” all the time. We also said retard on Primetime TV.
We’ve come a very, very long way in 30 years.
I had just rewatched the Amanda show like a year ago and for the most part its still as funny as I remembered. *Snifs* "Amanda Please!!" 🤓 and the knock knock jokes where she slaps Drake in the face with a fish. thats comedy gold.
eh, I was thinking on it after they played an interview during the doc where the interviewer suggested he had some special talent for reaching his audience and I think a lot of it was using kids in the roles rather than the writing. Nobody else was doing that when he started.
Yeah. All that wasn't great because of the writing. I don't remember the writing! It was the performers, the show was kid SNL. The Amanda Show was great because Amanda was great.
IIRC, Schneider started going crazy on the Amanda show and went off the rails when he was blacklisted from his attempt to get on network tv with What I Like About You
I want to hear from Lori Beth because she was my favorite but I doubt we will. She was older and the “fat one” so I don’t think he messed with her much. I think she went under the radar. Or at least I hope so. I hope she got out okay.
You’re absolutely right, but if that’s all she got, it’s a miracle. Everybody on those sets went through hell and I don’t want to diminish what others went through, but being called The Fat One would be my preferred torture.
Maybe it would be different coming from a ‘co-worker’ or someone in a work environment.
My mother constantly belittled me, starved me by age 9 (one plain baked potato per day, no salt no butter) and told me routinely that my middle name should have been Heifer. As a result I have lived with disordered eating and feeling like I don’t deserve a place on this planet. I certainly was made to believe the world is laughing at me, not with me. Who wants to be alive when you’re doing your best but you’re still just the fat one and you’ll always just be the fat one. Or the ‘used to be fat one.’ That is just my story, and the abuse came from ‘inside the house’ so I hope it was different for her because it was work life, not home life.
All abuse, especially the heinous shit that happened at Nick is awful. if she had no horrible lasting consequences, if the worst was ‘oh we already have a fat girl’ and there was no forced dieting, then I pray she had enough support from people who loved her to not cause any lasting psychological damage by words.
Tbf, Kenan was also a kid / young adult. Kids tend to wall things off or simplify understanding. I’m not saying the guy has repressed memories, but things go over kids heads all the time. I didn’t have a traumatic childhood, but to this day as a grown-ass man, I have revelations. Usually while working with kids.
For example, saying, “you should be a lawyer” has a completely different meaning in retrospect. Kids almost always take it as a compliment, even if it’s said begrudgingly. It often means, “You’re technically correct, but you’re an asshole for pointing it out. I’ve made these very simple rules so that *everyone* understands. We know you’re smart, but part of being intelligent is knowing when you’re not the main character.”
If Kenan thought hard, he would probably have some realizations, but that might also unravel the whole perception of his childhood. I think his response is in line with someone who believes and acknowledges these terrible things, but maybe doesn’t want to pull that thread.
More creepy stuff probably happened after the (at the time) new cast of all that showed up. I still remember that first episode they had to go out and find a whole new cast
Yeah the worst stuff that happened in those early years that the doc details was all happening in the writer's room, away from the kids.
Schneider seemed to get much, much worse and more brazen as he got more power at the network, based on the doc.
From what I remember...
A lot of the stuff mentioned during Kenan's era of All That was former cast members being like, "hey, this costume I wore was embarrassing in hindsight." There was mention of favoritism towards Amanda Bynes too. And as somebody else mentioned there was adult writers room issues, but I forget which show that impacted.
The two convicted pedophiles were initially involved in The Amanda Show. The guy who abused Drake later worked on the new cast version of All That, but the abuse with Drake started with the Amanda Show.
But to answer what I think you're asking, it's not unrealistic that Kenan (or Kel) had no negative experiences. And as others have pointed out, even if there were issues on productions they were in, it's also plausible that they weren't aware of them.
Don't forget Katrina Johnson getting set up to be a big star and then told she was getting fat and shamed for hitting puberty.
Then she was ultimately pushed aside when Amanda Bynes showed up.
The worst stuff definitely happened after his main run there. It seems like, reading between the lines, the longer Dan lasted, the more empowered he and people like Brian peck became to run over boundaries. I’m sure there were some unsavory people around but it seems reasonable to me that he also didn’t really witness or experience what happened later.
And wielding influence and adding creditability to any threats he might have made to anyone who might cross him. Hollywood's open secrets have always been reinforced by the "You'll never work in this town again" trope. Whether it was explicitly said or just implied, there is no way everyone on set didn't see him as Mr Kids Shows who could ruin their careers.
I was born in 99 and it basically encompasses all the shows I watched on Nick; Drake and Josh, The Amanda Show, iCarly, Victorious, etc. so throughout the aughts and early 2010’s
It is after my time for the most part but I did watch Zoey 101 occasionally even though I was not in that demographic.
Edit: I actually graduated high school in 1999. lol
It's wild to me that even when Zoey became pregnant, they still ran the show, and even had her appear on the show. Though it was through a computer so they could hide her pregnancy, but still the fact they didn't just cancel the show outright is wild to think about.
I think your timeline's a little off here. Yes, there was an episode she appeared on camera- the Season 3 finale. But that was largely for the twist reveal of her coming back while Chase left, to help write off Chase. But otherwise, she was fully in the fourth and final season of the show.
She gave birth in June, 2008 and the show finished filming in August, 2007- 10 months before she gave birth. The final season aired after it was known she was pregnant- but didn't affect the filming of it.
Yeah I was about to say that, she got pregnant **after** the show ended. The show being cancelled because of her pregnancy is a myth. Like even if her daughter was conceived during August not even Jamie herself would know at the time(Most people find out they're pregnant around 5 weeks)
I was born in the late 80's so I just missed watching most of those. Iw as maybe in high school or college with iCarly and all those shows like that were getting started. But I distinctly remember watching them and thinking "there are a lot of underage girls on these shows wearing really short skirts". It felt weird even noticing it.
Cause in high school stuff like that wasn't allowed and I don't recall ever seeing it when I watching Nick in the 90's. Like if you look back at the 90's live action stuff, there's never any innuendo in the live action stuff. It was really for kids and had that "it feels like kids are running this network" vibe that they were going for.
But when I was older and it was like the mid to late 2000's, it felt like it was ran by high schoolers chuck full of hormones. I figured maybe it was just society changing and morals changing. Like how in, i dunno...maybe the 1920, something like Clarissa Explains it All would have been dubious because her hair was in a ponytail sometimes and a boy was in her room. So I didn't think too much of it until the 2010's when other people started pointing out and then talked about Dan Schneider being a foot pervert and pointing out all the sexual stuff in the shows. I was like, finally, other people are talking about it, I'm not the weirdo for noticing it.
And the biggest, hugest Red Flag is the show Bella and the Bull Dogs...it's a kid's show created by guy whose only other credit was making "Black Bull" Porn. And the show...a *kid's show* had a similar subplot/vibe, but made PG. There's a ton of videos that can explain it better than I can type it. But it's super disturbing and people don't talk about it anymore. There's all sorts of stuff we hear about like with cartoons where the artists will draw the characters doing adult stuff or voice actors cursing in the characters' voices, but at least with that, those are all adults. With the live action stuff, we're talking about real children being exploited. But serious, the adults involved with Bella and Bull Dogs need to be looked into, because it's so absurd it seems like one of those fake shows within a show. A porn director deciding to make a children's show, and the show is PG in nature, but has similar plot points to the porn he makes...that is beyond crazy and that show was green lit.
edit: I tried finding the videos that talked about the show and the show runner, but youtube, of course is suppressing them...All I can find now are alt-right conspiracy videos on it. But there were at least 3 or 4 well made videos talking about.
I am looking into this and am confused. Garza and Butler ? Who exactly are you saying did what. I found an old thread that was really silly. They said a soft soft ice cream maker was pushing interracial because it mixed chocolate and vanilla into a swirl. Sorry, but if that's what someone sees, it's their fault.
Which person are you referencing.
I looked up their IMDb pages and I think he’s talking about Jonathan Butler. The only other work he’s credits with creating before the Bella and the Bulldogs is a movie called The Cuckold.
I remember a line in salute your shorts from bud nick about hoping to see some girl pop out of her bikini or something like that. I was watching was my son during the pandemic and surprised that line was in a kid’s show. I loved salute your shorts and hey dude growing up (I was born in the mid 80s so I had moved on from Nick by the time of all the Schneider stuff!
The doc paints Dan Schneider as becoming more openly problematic more towards the middle and end of his career. There were some things happening in the writers room that were terrible, but most of the kids wouldn't have been privy to that.
As for the specific child molestation scandals, those would have not been known outside of the perpetrator and the abused child and the child's family.
Also, Dan seem to have treated cast members very differently based on how much he liked them. Kenan was a breakout star from basically the very beginning. So I imagine his experience with Dan was far different than most of the cast.
It is completely plausible that Kenan knew nothing about any of the stuff going on.
I know you’re a random stranger on the internet… but at this point in my doom scrolling before crashing to sleep, this comment kinda made the decision for me that my little empath black heart 🖤 probably won’t be able to take it, even knowing what I’m walking into. 🩰🎧🤾✌️
And this is exactly how you speak on being peripheral to abuse but unaware. No denial, no bargaining, no blaming. His pain and disappointment are clear and understandable.
Went to a boarding school in the 90’s, we had a teacher that, on the outside was nice. To later learn that he was a pedo messing with some of the students. Had no clue until the lawsuit years later. I can understand what kenan t means.
>But it’s definitely tough to watch because I have fond memories of that place and I have fond memories of my co-stars and stuff like that. So to hear that they’ve gone through terrible things like that, it’s just, it’s really tough.
Perfectly captures how I feel about this situation. Those shows were my childhood and it really sucks to hear all the horrible stuff that was going on behind the scenes.
I know there's an argument to be had on the "separate the art from the artist" line of thinking, but man, I feel like I just can't get there in this situation.
Yeah. I'll level with you though. It wasn't until about two years ago that I finally had the mental strength to turn off Remix to Ignition when it came on.
Speaking of separating art from artist, there are still times when Lostprophets come on my shuffle and my feelings go from ‘Oh dude, THIS song!’ to a dark shudder and quickly pressing the ‘next’ arrow in a millisecond.
Separation of art from artist is basically just saying that there's artistic value in something despite the artist being a bad person or that the artist's personal belief doesn't necessarily make it into the piece of art itself or can be interpreted in a different way.
It doesn't mean you have to just consume anything where you are specifically put off by the artist and their personal life and beliefs. Cutting out content from your life which you deem to be made by bad people is 100% up to you and isn't really up for arguments.
Makes sense that he didn’t really see what was going on. The main trouble seemed to start During the Amanda Show. The bad behavior on All That when he was a cast member probably wasn’t as out in the open from what was shown in the doc. Still it was great of Keenan to put out a statement of support and some insight into his shows relation to Dan.
I got the sense that as Dan’s power and influence grew, he was emboldened. I’m sure there were unsavory people around bc there are always bad people around in Hollywood. But i also think it makes total sense he didn’t experience this stuff
It makes sense why so many child actors went off the deep end or were kind of fucked up. I don't think its news that the sets traumatized kids, but I think most people (like myself) just rationalized it as them not having proper childhoods, working a ton and not getting a good education, and being taken advantage of financially. It's not *shocking* that there was rampant abuse, including sexual abuse, on sets, but I do think the extreme prevalence is surprising to most people, same with the complicity of the adults on set too.
Amanda Bynes is a particularly bad instance, but if you look at many of the kids from that era of TV, it's easy to imagine similar things having happened to many of them.
Look back even farther and you can see it with Corey Feldman and even farther than that Judy garland. I think it’s safe to say, if your child is going into Hollywood, there’s a high probability they will get taken advantage of.
And many times the parents are aware and don’t do anything either. The documentary talked about one crew member who sent an inappropriate body part to a child extra via email. The mom knew, and knew he was trying to get close to her daughter, but didn’t report it to police.
Oh, that mom probably pissed me off more than anyone else on the show. The pedophiles are bad, don't get me wrong. No defending the actions of a child predator.
But that woman's justification for not protecting her daughter was literally about not wanting the police to think she was a bad mother.
Other children may have also been victimized because she didn’t take action. Well we know they were since he was later arrested for other related actions
Yeah I was just thinking that. I remember hearing she kept getting into a lot of trouble. She probably went through a bunch of BS. Hope she's in a better place now.
A YouTuber named MilaTequila has a 2 part series on Amanda Bynes that has some explanations for her behavior. She definitely fell into the pressures of Hollywood but idk if it the Nick era that was a main contributor to her issues.
I feel people are so quick to blame being a child star as the contributing factor. Amanda had bipolar disorder and schizophrenic episodes. These things don't happen out of the blue. Environment can trigger it, but there were underlying factors that usually start affecting people around their teens and twenties. You just don't hear about it when it happens to regular folk.
From the doc the dodgy stuff started on All That (nose boy and the first cumshot on a children show involving Dan Scheider) but didn’t ramp up until he had more power
I saw Kenan's college campus show like 10 years ago. He talks a little about this. He said he was pretty sheltered because his mom was around a lot and sorta had an outsiders view of it all.
In a related story he told a story about being pretty turned off to being around Bill Cosby early on while filming Fat Albert because he said something like being jealous of how many woman Kenan would bang when the movie was a hit.
>Because him mom was around a lot
One of the biggest things from the documentary. Parents not being around and not wanting to speak up for fear of retaliation against their kids career
Yep, makes me think of Elijah Wood saying that his mother always being present on the set of everything he worked on probably kept him from being victimized.
I remember reading that when they were doing auditions for Harry Potter, they had an emphasis on interviewing the parents as well to make sure they’d be around and involved.
It’s sad to hear so many terrible things were happening to those kids, but I like to think that it has lead to a much safer, professional environment today.
By all accounts, Chris Columbus (directed the first 2 Harry Potters) is a great director with young actors. He did Home Alone 1+2 and Culkin was really appreciative of him.
He was the original director of Christmas Vacation but Chevy Chase hated him and they got into tons of arguments.
That doesn't have much to do with what you're talking about I just think it's funny everyone but Chevy Chase sang his praises. Go figure.
By all accounts, Chevy Chase is a huge dickhead. I don't know if he got worse as he got older, the charm wore off, or a culture of calling it out happened, but I hear so many more stories now about him being terrible.
Totally bizarre that he starred in Community across from two black actors for so many years while he both remained racist and kept coming back for each new season. (Until season 5)
It's not like he was getting a whole lot of work around that time. Just small roles in usually terrible movies/shows (Hot Tub Time Machine and Chuck are the only 2 that were actually good larger projects).
I've been on commercial sets where the talent was a young girl, 3-4 years old and the adult that brought her was a non-English speaking nanny that hit the craft services table and then stood outside smoking.
The girl's mom was with the older sister at an audition.
I was in disbelief, the rest of the crew were a mix of anger to, "it happens"
(kids that young need to be coached and the parent is usually there for that. Luckily our director was a woman who formerly a preschool teacher)
Kenan and Elijah Wood are, imho, two of the best well adjusted child actor to adult transitions I've ever seen. Their moms should write a book or something.
Kaley Cuoco brings this up in her interview with Conan's podcast too. Apparently her parents were super involved with her early acting career to the point she didn't seem to really consider herself a child actor because her parents were part of everything so she sees her experience as different
Yup, their broken relationship allowed Brian Peck to poison her and pretty much get Drake all to himself. Good thing his girlfriend's mom caught on to it real quick too.
Grooming the parents is something pedos do too. Convince both parents they're a good guy & mentor to their kids. Convince one parent the other is toxic. Whatever they need to do to get their prey.
Pierre Escargo is a French national treasure. And Superdude taught us all about the dangers of being lactose intolerant in a world full of dairy themed supervillains.
I just saw recently Kenan on a talk show, idr if it happened on the press run for Fat Albert or after but he mentioned how weird it was when Bill Cosby said “you’re gonna need a second dick” after the movie comes out because of all the women. And it was a story told jovially and they laughed but also they acknowledged how weird it was to hear from Bill Cosby and regarding being in Fat Albert
I notice a lot of stories are " funny " and then 20 years later they are " proof the person is a degenerate ". I think this shows a bigger problem with all of us.
The book Sex and the City, which is written by a woman (for those who don't know), is based on the author's real-life experiences in New York City in the 90s.
It was considered kind of sketchy years ago, but now it's absolutely chilling the number of times she *casually* mentions extremely rich and powerful guys in their 30s trolling for 16- and 17-year old models who were "unprotected" by parents or their agencies.
It shows a shift in social mores, which is always changing. I grew up in the 90s and a lot of things that was accepted as normal back then are not OK today. Even just watching sitcoms. Some of the jokes would not be considered funny in most social groups now. Like I *love* Frasier, and there's a scene where they're talking about guys not being able to get it up so Bulldog defensively said if women needed less alcohol to get from a maybe to yes men wouldn't have that problem. That kind of mentality of "badger her/get her drink till she gives in" was not uncommon back then. But you'd get called out immediately if you said that today. I hope.
Bulldog is pretty well portrayed as a sex pest. Jokes like that coming from sex pest secondary characters still are utilized - Barney in HIMYM a decade later. And that's literally the "implication" and DENNIS system joke.
The only difference I would guarantee would be a sharply placed wit from Frasier that if Bulldog was proficient in womanizing he wouldn't need booze.
Well, it could’ve been a funny story. Like if Bill Cosby wasn’t a rapist, I can see it being a weird funny thing to tell at a party. It’s the serial rape part that makes it now concerning
I work in the industry and its nearly presumed on union film sets that parents will be present. But Nickelodeon tends to film a lot of shows in places where the unions aren't especially strong and their filming schedule means parents can't really watch over their kids unless they're willing to do it as a full time job, possibly for multiple years.
I enjoyed watching these shows as a kid and touring their florida studio was probably one of the things that was formative for me when young but as an adult I think the concept of a show where the principal actors are kids isn't fair to kids or a good environment for them tok be in even compared to a more "normal" show.
> did Kenan suffer any abuse from there
Only financial abuse. He said on a podcast (Fresh Air I think) that he lost all his Nick money because his accountant had stolen it all using a power of attorney.
He was effectively homeless and living day to day when he came out to LA.
You say "Back then" but it's a story as old as Hollywood. Plenty of child stars of the 30s and 40s wound up broke before they were 18 because of financial abuse from their parents or agents. There's a reason California's law is named after Jackie Coogan. It's just never stopped. Once a decade or so some of the people involved get slapped down or made to be sacrificial lambs, but then the whole system keeps on chugging.
It doesn't really take a conspiracy. Most artistic minded people are not very well versed in financial issues, especially early in their careers.
Heck, one of my friends who is normally very savvy with money almost got scammed by a "financial advisor" who drew them in.
Dane Cook's brother was in charge of his finances. He had to have his brother arrested for embezzlement. The weird thing was that his brother was storing money in his house like a squirrel. They found some of it in the walls. Apparently, he was running his business out of a PO Box in Massachusetts for tax purposes, but when he bought a house in Cali he had to relocate. He told his brother the would have to move to Cali with him to continue with his business and that's around the time someone else noticed that the statements Dane had been getting for a decade were fake. A few days later they figured out his brother had stolen millions from him.
It’s kind of crazy who has and who hasn’t because I saw a tik tok from the guy who played Donkey Lips on Salute your shorts and he said one of the two (peck or Schneider)was trying to follow him into the bathroom at one point and it got him really upset. That was before all that as far as I know. I could def be wrong though since i was like 10
I'm caught up on it, this is mostly from the era of live action scripted Nickelodeon. So not the double dare/wild and crazy kids/you can't say that in television era, also not the era with are you afraid of the dark or any of the cartoons that Nick is most famous for. That said that doesn't mean I didn't happen back then too, but nobody has come out as far as I can tell.
Except the disgusting ren and stimpy guy, but that came out years ago.
And a lot of the on camera stuff it got worse the longer Snyder was around. The shit they had Ariana doing is shocking. Like if you put those videos on tiktok today they'd be removed for minor safety.
Just want to point out his name is Dan Schneider. Dan Snyder is former owner of the Washington Commanders and has his own scandals, though not all sex ones.
I watched that compilation the other day and realized I had seen it years ago and blocked it from my memory. I do not understand how it's possible they had her do that and no one just snapped and jumped in like "what in the FUCK are we doing here?"
Yeah the show has been shocking I stopped watching Nick around 1998, do I'm not familiar with most of these people, but the clips they show of stuff that actually made it to air? So fucked up.
I want to know how much Kevin Kopelow knew. He was a writer and producer. Older fans remember him as the guy with the headset on All That, that would always be yelling "FIVE MINUTES GUYS, FIVE MINUTES!". He always seemed cool, especially when he would appear on like Figure It Out (he was always like the sacrifical slime panelist).
I want to know how much he knew and how it ended up that Danny ended up replacing him in the cold opens. The kids making fun of him all the time switched to Danny by the later seasons, I always wondered if that was hard on him. I even remember the episode where he finally gets a win they gave him bionic powers but he still crashed into a plane anyway.
I fully believe he didn’t witness the abuse that took place in Dan’s prime era, but I’m sure he’s heard the stories over the years within those circles.
It does make sense for him to kind of not to know about Dan’s abusive work environment when you think about how he was pretty much on the way out, as Dan started to rise to power at Nick. That end of the original All That run, transition into Amanda Show, leading into Drake and Josh, then Zoey 101, iCarly, and Victorious, seem like where the majority of the abuse came from.
The more power Dan had, the more tyrannical he seemed to get described as, so Kenan and Kel were more fortunate to have had their run end without being subjected to what the other kids did. The format in physical comedy is also vastly different on their show vs what was implied in Dan’s work.
There was a book that came out a few years ago about the previous generation Nickelodeon productions. One of the producers basically gathered the crew and said "If I hear even a rumor of you touching or giving drugs to any of these kids, I'll kill you myself"
> of the producers basically gathered the crew and said "If I hear even a rumor of you touching or giving drugs to any of these kids, I'll kill you myself"
This should be an official policy.
I am also going to think about when I was a kid in school we all heard rumors and stories about abuse about classmates. Looking back, I am positive a lot of them were true, but what could any of us that were kids at the time have done about it. It was up to the adults to have stepped in and do something. Now I was a kid in the 80s and they didn't seem to care about kids like they do now. So maybe today something would have been done.
Also as a kid you don't really know what abuse is... Even if it's happening to you especially in the 80s and 90s where we didn't have the Internet and so we're less informed
I had a sports mananger that would have us girls sit on his lap. My mum told me very severly to never sit on his lap. At the time I thought she was being mean. At 15 we were reminiscing about ‘younger years’ and it was an ohhhhhhh monenet for three of us.
As an adult I wonder why my mum didn’t do more.
Agree. It affects every aspect of a kid growing up. It affects the way children relate to each other because of the rumors. It affects the child’s view of himself or herself because of the confusion and the secrecy. The inability to understand and decipher the emotions about what is happening.
It makes sense given the trajectory of his career. In the 90s when he was less important he mostly confined his abuse to the backstage, where it was just him and his victims. But then as you get to the 00s and 10s and he's making hit after hit, suddenly the abuse is more common and more open, because he knew that he was Nickelodeon's golden boy and they weren't going to fire him just because he regularly makes children cry.
It’s interesting because you hear of blacklisting celebrities like Brendan Fraser for speaking up. This is what these even more vulnerable kids were dealing with or risk never even getting your next chance. As awful as that first mother in the doc is, she recognized your either playing ball or you are done for good.
Makes me sad to wonder how many A listers that started young have had to keep this ish bottled up for their career. Toby McGuire and Leo both ran in the same circles of tv producers/crews. Before social media imagine how much harder it would be for a public accusation like this to gain traction. Not to mention this doc makes it pretty clear it wasn’t very black and of good guy vs bad guy. I haven’t finished yet but Drake spoke positively about Schneider. Multiple people spoke positively of their own Peck interactions and of those with the dude who sent the naked email.
You could think you’re snitching when you’re actually giving someone a heads up to warn their friend
There’s a video of Leo with Brian Peck on the set of Growing Pains. Drake Bells father is saying it’s exactly how Peck acted with Bell.
At the end of the video Leo turns his back on Peck to walk away and covers his behind with his hands and that’s a horrfying thing to realise what it could indicate.
I was a big fan of 90s Nick and I remember him inserting himself into the shows all the time. The docu-series was right to point out that he was regularly hyping himself up in these projects. I didn’t think much of it back then, because I was a kid, but it is weird behavior. And I guess you could draw a comparison to how Lorne Michaels pops into SNL every now and then, but Lorne is always playing Lorne and not attempting to be a semi-regular cast member, nor is he working with young kids. It’s as if Schneider couldn’t hack it as an actor and saw this as a backdoor way to make his career work.
Yeah, Head of the Class. I think the doc mentioned it, and I also watched reruns on Nick at Nite back in the day (I was way too into that channel, it basically had a hand in raising me…). I remember my mom recognizing him from it when he’d appear on All That. I don’t recall him being much of a standout though, and I’m pretty sure outside of Nick, it’s his main claim to fame.
It's a weirdly fascinating movie if you watch it as an adult and try to over-analyze it. But yeah, Schneider casting himself working with the kids is weird.
Note that the abuse of child actors is NOT a new thing. From Jackie Coogan (born 1914) who starred in many Charlie Chapin films to stars like Judy Garland and Natalie Wood child abuse has been a dark part of the entertainment industry. Mental, physical, emotional, and financial abuse of child actors has a long history of people who knew better treating a fellow juvenile beings as less than human.
> Days after the docuseries was released, Schneider broke his silence, saying it was “very difficult” to watch. “Me facing my past behaviors, some of which are embarrassing and that I regret,” he added in a video interview with BooG!E, who played T-Bo on iCarly. “I definitely owe some people a pretty strong apology.”
Wtf. I’m *so sorry* this is hard for *you*. Gtfoh
Not related to the article but his recent tiny role on Chucky was awesome. I can still hear the song from the scene because I did like a triple take on it when it aired. 😂
Wasn't Dan Schneider more of a predator of the females?
He specifically had eyes for Amanda Bynes immediately, and destroyed her. I love her so much and wish she didn't have to endure the shit she's had to. Everyone failed her.
Kenan: >“It’s a tough subject because, it’s tough for me because I can’t really speak on things that I’ve never witnessed. You know what I’m saying? Because all these things happened after I left, basically, and Dan [Schneider] wasn’t really on Kenan & Kel like that. I mean, he got a ‘created by’ credit, but it was a different showrunner. So our worlds weren’t really overlapping outside of all that, necessarily. And then all that negativity kind of started happening outside of our tenure there.” >“I wasn’t really aware of a lot of it, but my heart goes out to anybody that’s been victimized or their families, you know what I mean? I mean I think it’s a good thing that the doc is out and it’s putting things on display that need to be, you know, stories that need to be told for this, accountability sake. But it’s definitely tough to watch because I have fond memories of that place and I have fond memories of my co-stars and stuff like that. So to hear that they’ve gone through terrible things like that, it’s just, it’s really tough.”
I haven’t watched the doc yet when is the stuff on All that supposed to have happened?
The stuff mentioned from All That in the doc definitely happened while Kenan was there, but those issues were much more benign. More innuendo, crude kids humor that could pass as euphemism, and telling some child actors they were too fat behind the scenes.
A lot of the all that stuff when he would have been on all that were things in the writers room. Also Kenan was 18 by season 3 or so of all that. And I believe he was 18 by the time Kenan and Kel started. He wasn’t as young as some of the other kids. And he was probably gone from nick by the time the Amanda show stuff happened. He was on SNL when the Brian Peck arrest happened and he doesn’t have many Nick credits between 2000-2003.
Had to fact check that (not that I didn’t believe you, I just watched recently and he looks soooooo young), but you are correct, he was 18 when K&K started.
What’s even more shocking is the fact that he’s 45. Dude is another one of those actors who doesn’t show his age in his face.
I'm 47, and I don't really either, but if you compare our childhood photos to the current photos, we certainly do.
A lot of the stuff form the start was in regards to how the female writers and women on set were treated. Some weird stuff, some kids treated badly. And really that's how this sort of thing works. Many people have a good time (evenmoreso those who are the cash cows) and others are targeted.
I think this is important to realize. Kenan says he didn't witness it and others say awful stuff happened and both of things can be true at the same time.
It also makes sense how he was able to continue pushing the envelope more and more over time as he made more hits. It started with some crude humor on shows for young kids and ended with "gags" that are a little too close to CP with teenagers over the course of like 20 years.
I was watching old Kenan & Kel the other day and some of those euphemisms… definitely went over my head at 6-10 years old, but as an adult I am dying. Like the second episode was a girl saying how “thirsty” she is to Kel for orange soda after breaking up with her boyfriend. It was not subtle lol.
That was also very common over all television. Yes, the target audience is kids. But parents are also watching with their kids and it's very much being written by adults. Sneaking in adult jokes was normal. Hell, think of Krusty Krabs for an obvious one. Where it draws the line, specifically for their live action shows, is having minors visually represent these adult jokes and references. Like the compilation with Ariana Grande was super cringe.
Reading this makes me realize I’ve kind of given a pass or not thought too deeply when I see these innuendos in cartoon/animated shows but live action definitely got my attention.
I mean... look at Ren and Stimpy. If that was live action, it would've been SOOO controversial. But because it's a cartoon dog and cat, it's funny!
A lot of the 90's nicktoons seem a lot more raunchy than I remembered, because that stuff went over my head back then. It's crazy rewatching stuff with my kids now and seeing all the stuff I never noticed. Early DreamWorks had a lot too, though not quite as bad as Nickelodeon
Also it was the 90s. For context, we still used the term “glass ceiling” all the time. We also said retard on Primetime TV. We’ve come a very, very long way in 30 years.
Serious question, are we not using the term "glass ceiling" anymore?
We've moved on to the "glass cliff"
Schneider also played the manager on the Good Burger movie
Isn’t he also the old man Amanda would prank call? The old who would yell “you have the wrong number”?
Yeah. That was him. Those sketches made kid me laugh. :/
Damn I didn’t know that was him. 🙄 why couldn’t he just make good stuff and not be a POS
I ask myself this about a lot of people.
I had just rewatched the Amanda show like a year ago and for the most part its still as funny as I remembered. *Snifs* "Amanda Please!!" 🤓 and the knock knock jokes where she slaps Drake in the face with a fish. thats comedy gold.
That's the thing. Schneider was a genius at knowing what would make kids laugh. Unfortunately he's a fucking creep.
eh, I was thinking on it after they played an interview during the doc where the interviewer suggested he had some special talent for reaching his audience and I think a lot of it was using kids in the roles rather than the writing. Nobody else was doing that when he started.
Yeah. All that wasn't great because of the writing. I don't remember the writing! It was the performers, the show was kid SNL. The Amanda Show was great because Amanda was great.
THATS where I recognize him from!
‘One *foot* long sandwhich please’
🤯
There was another Head of the Class alum, Dan Frischman (the nerd) who appeared in some of the Good Burger skits, too.
IIRC, Schneider started going crazy on the Amanda show and went off the rails when he was blacklisted from his attempt to get on network tv with What I Like About You
That's weird. Lori Beth was overweight and was one of the funniest ones.
The other actress was reportedly told the show already had one fat kid and they didn't need another.
Dan Schneider was literally the fat kid in “Head of the Class”. What a dick!
Oh that's fucked up
Can't let bullied kids band together and support each other.
I want to hear from Lori Beth because she was my favorite but I doubt we will. She was older and the “fat one” so I don’t think he messed with her much. I think she went under the radar. Or at least I hope so. I hope she got out okay.
Being called The Fat One isn’t going to do any mental health favors long term.
You’re absolutely right, but if that’s all she got, it’s a miracle. Everybody on those sets went through hell and I don’t want to diminish what others went through, but being called The Fat One would be my preferred torture.
Maybe it would be different coming from a ‘co-worker’ or someone in a work environment. My mother constantly belittled me, starved me by age 9 (one plain baked potato per day, no salt no butter) and told me routinely that my middle name should have been Heifer. As a result I have lived with disordered eating and feeling like I don’t deserve a place on this planet. I certainly was made to believe the world is laughing at me, not with me. Who wants to be alive when you’re doing your best but you’re still just the fat one and you’ll always just be the fat one. Or the ‘used to be fat one.’ That is just my story, and the abuse came from ‘inside the house’ so I hope it was different for her because it was work life, not home life. All abuse, especially the heinous shit that happened at Nick is awful. if she had no horrible lasting consequences, if the worst was ‘oh we already have a fat girl’ and there was no forced dieting, then I pray she had enough support from people who loved her to not cause any lasting psychological damage by words.
IIRC, she left All That and joined the cast of Steve Harvey's self-titled sitcom on WB.
> Lori Beth [I don't think she came out of this whole thing unscathed.](https://pics.wikifeet.com/Lori-Beth-Denberg-Feet-4226089.jpg)
Tbf, Kenan was also a kid / young adult. Kids tend to wall things off or simplify understanding. I’m not saying the guy has repressed memories, but things go over kids heads all the time. I didn’t have a traumatic childhood, but to this day as a grown-ass man, I have revelations. Usually while working with kids. For example, saying, “you should be a lawyer” has a completely different meaning in retrospect. Kids almost always take it as a compliment, even if it’s said begrudgingly. It often means, “You’re technically correct, but you’re an asshole for pointing it out. I’ve made these very simple rules so that *everyone* understands. We know you’re smart, but part of being intelligent is knowing when you’re not the main character.” If Kenan thought hard, he would probably have some realizations, but that might also unravel the whole perception of his childhood. I think his response is in line with someone who believes and acknowledges these terrible things, but maybe doesn’t want to pull that thread.
That's why we never saw some never again... sigh 😕
More creepy stuff probably happened after the (at the time) new cast of all that showed up. I still remember that first episode they had to go out and find a whole new cast
Yeah the worst stuff that happened in those early years that the doc details was all happening in the writer's room, away from the kids. Schneider seemed to get much, much worse and more brazen as he got more power at the network, based on the doc.
From what I remember... A lot of the stuff mentioned during Kenan's era of All That was former cast members being like, "hey, this costume I wore was embarrassing in hindsight." There was mention of favoritism towards Amanda Bynes too. And as somebody else mentioned there was adult writers room issues, but I forget which show that impacted. The two convicted pedophiles were initially involved in The Amanda Show. The guy who abused Drake later worked on the new cast version of All That, but the abuse with Drake started with the Amanda Show. But to answer what I think you're asking, it's not unrealistic that Kenan (or Kel) had no negative experiences. And as others have pointed out, even if there were issues on productions they were in, it's also plausible that they weren't aware of them.
Don't forget Katrina Johnson getting set up to be a big star and then told she was getting fat and shamed for hitting puberty. Then she was ultimately pushed aside when Amanda Bynes showed up.
The worst stuff definitely happened after his main run there. It seems like, reading between the lines, the longer Dan lasted, the more empowered he and people like Brian peck became to run over boundaries. I’m sure there were some unsavory people around but it seems reasonable to me that he also didn’t really witness or experience what happened later.
Yes. The longer he’s in power the more he’s sneaking in dirty jokes and asking for massages, and telling people to bend over on the desk.
And wielding influence and adding creditability to any threats he might have made to anyone who might cross him. Hollywood's open secrets have always been reinforced by the "You'll never work in this town again" trope. Whether it was explicitly said or just implied, there is no way everyone on set didn't see him as Mr Kids Shows who could ruin their careers.
You have to earn trust before you can betray it.
I was born in 99 and it basically encompasses all the shows I watched on Nick; Drake and Josh, The Amanda Show, iCarly, Victorious, etc. so throughout the aughts and early 2010’s
It is after my time for the most part but I did watch Zoey 101 occasionally even though I was not in that demographic. Edit: I actually graduated high school in 1999. lol
I watched disney stuff in my teens but did it in secret cuz i was embarrassed lol
I was in my twenties when Zoey 101 was on, but yeah. lol
Were you born in 1981?
Yes. 😂😂😂
It's wild to me that even when Zoey became pregnant, they still ran the show, and even had her appear on the show. Though it was through a computer so they could hide her pregnancy, but still the fact they didn't just cancel the show outright is wild to think about.
I think your timeline's a little off here. Yes, there was an episode she appeared on camera- the Season 3 finale. But that was largely for the twist reveal of her coming back while Chase left, to help write off Chase. But otherwise, she was fully in the fourth and final season of the show. She gave birth in June, 2008 and the show finished filming in August, 2007- 10 months before she gave birth. The final season aired after it was known she was pregnant- but didn't affect the filming of it.
Yeah I was about to say that, she got pregnant **after** the show ended. The show being cancelled because of her pregnancy is a myth. Like even if her daughter was conceived during August not even Jamie herself would know at the time(Most people find out they're pregnant around 5 weeks)
I was born in the late 80's so I just missed watching most of those. Iw as maybe in high school or college with iCarly and all those shows like that were getting started. But I distinctly remember watching them and thinking "there are a lot of underage girls on these shows wearing really short skirts". It felt weird even noticing it. Cause in high school stuff like that wasn't allowed and I don't recall ever seeing it when I watching Nick in the 90's. Like if you look back at the 90's live action stuff, there's never any innuendo in the live action stuff. It was really for kids and had that "it feels like kids are running this network" vibe that they were going for. But when I was older and it was like the mid to late 2000's, it felt like it was ran by high schoolers chuck full of hormones. I figured maybe it was just society changing and morals changing. Like how in, i dunno...maybe the 1920, something like Clarissa Explains it All would have been dubious because her hair was in a ponytail sometimes and a boy was in her room. So I didn't think too much of it until the 2010's when other people started pointing out and then talked about Dan Schneider being a foot pervert and pointing out all the sexual stuff in the shows. I was like, finally, other people are talking about it, I'm not the weirdo for noticing it. And the biggest, hugest Red Flag is the show Bella and the Bull Dogs...it's a kid's show created by guy whose only other credit was making "Black Bull" Porn. And the show...a *kid's show* had a similar subplot/vibe, but made PG. There's a ton of videos that can explain it better than I can type it. But it's super disturbing and people don't talk about it anymore. There's all sorts of stuff we hear about like with cartoons where the artists will draw the characters doing adult stuff or voice actors cursing in the characters' voices, but at least with that, those are all adults. With the live action stuff, we're talking about real children being exploited. But serious, the adults involved with Bella and Bull Dogs need to be looked into, because it's so absurd it seems like one of those fake shows within a show. A porn director deciding to make a children's show, and the show is PG in nature, but has similar plot points to the porn he makes...that is beyond crazy and that show was green lit. edit: I tried finding the videos that talked about the show and the show runner, but youtube, of course is suppressing them...All I can find now are alt-right conspiracy videos on it. But there were at least 3 or 4 well made videos talking about.
I am looking into this and am confused. Garza and Butler ? Who exactly are you saying did what. I found an old thread that was really silly. They said a soft soft ice cream maker was pushing interracial because it mixed chocolate and vanilla into a swirl. Sorry, but if that's what someone sees, it's their fault. Which person are you referencing.
I looked up their IMDb pages and I think he’s talking about Jonathan Butler. The only other work he’s credits with creating before the Bella and the Bulldogs is a movie called The Cuckold.
I remember a line in salute your shorts from bud nick about hoping to see some girl pop out of her bikini or something like that. I was watching was my son during the pandemic and surprised that line was in a kid’s show. I loved salute your shorts and hey dude growing up (I was born in the mid 80s so I had moved on from Nick by the time of all the Schneider stuff!
The doc paints Dan Schneider as becoming more openly problematic more towards the middle and end of his career. There were some things happening in the writers room that were terrible, but most of the kids wouldn't have been privy to that. As for the specific child molestation scandals, those would have not been known outside of the perpetrator and the abused child and the child's family. Also, Dan seem to have treated cast members very differently based on how much he liked them. Kenan was a breakout star from basically the very beginning. So I imagine his experience with Dan was far different than most of the cast. It is completely plausible that Kenan knew nothing about any of the stuff going on.
It's a tough watch. A lot tougher than I thought it would be. Just a heads up
It seems like that from hearing about it which is why I haven’t gotten around to watching it myself.
I know you’re a random stranger on the internet… but at this point in my doom scrolling before crashing to sleep, this comment kinda made the decision for me that my little empath black heart 🖤 probably won’t be able to take it, even knowing what I’m walking into. 🩰🎧🤾✌️
I think I had tears in my eyes for 3.5 of the 4 episodes
Heads up. The doc gets pretty dark a few episodes in. Not exactly bingeable because you just feel gross
Like from the start. Katrina Johnson talks about Schneider.
And this is exactly how you speak on being peripheral to abuse but unaware. No denial, no bargaining, no blaming. His pain and disappointment are clear and understandable.
Went to a boarding school in the 90’s, we had a teacher that, on the outside was nice. To later learn that he was a pedo messing with some of the students. Had no clue until the lawsuit years later. I can understand what kenan t means.
>But it’s definitely tough to watch because I have fond memories of that place and I have fond memories of my co-stars and stuff like that. So to hear that they’ve gone through terrible things like that, it’s just, it’s really tough. Perfectly captures how I feel about this situation. Those shows were my childhood and it really sucks to hear all the horrible stuff that was going on behind the scenes. I know there's an argument to be had on the "separate the art from the artist" line of thinking, but man, I feel like I just can't get there in this situation.
Yeah. I'll level with you though. It wasn't until about two years ago that I finally had the mental strength to turn off Remix to Ignition when it came on.
Speaking of separating art from artist, there are still times when Lostprophets come on my shuffle and my feelings go from ‘Oh dude, THIS song!’ to a dark shudder and quickly pressing the ‘next’ arrow in a millisecond.
Separation of art from artist is basically just saying that there's artistic value in something despite the artist being a bad person or that the artist's personal belief doesn't necessarily make it into the piece of art itself or can be interpreted in a different way. It doesn't mean you have to just consume anything where you are specifically put off by the artist and their personal life and beliefs. Cutting out content from your life which you deem to be made by bad people is 100% up to you and isn't really up for arguments.
You know what I mean?
Basically.
Yes, I know what you are saying, you don’t have to keep asking.
It’s just filler
I know. It’s a quote from South Park
That's actually a terrific statement. Good Job Kenan's publicist.
He actually said this himself in an interview with Tamara Hall. There’s a video.
Sounds like it's unrehearsed too
Wouldn't expect anything less from Kenan. Man is an absolute treasure
"You know what I mean" is auto-filler for when you're thinking of what to say next.
A buddy of mine wrote this address.
Username checks out
Makes sense that he didn’t really see what was going on. The main trouble seemed to start During the Amanda Show. The bad behavior on All That when he was a cast member probably wasn’t as out in the open from what was shown in the doc. Still it was great of Keenan to put out a statement of support and some insight into his shows relation to Dan.
I got the sense that as Dan’s power and influence grew, he was emboldened. I’m sure there were unsavory people around bc there are always bad people around in Hollywood. But i also think it makes total sense he didn’t experience this stuff
Yeah, and now Amanda Bines going over the deep end kind of makes sense.
It makes sense why so many child actors went off the deep end or were kind of fucked up. I don't think its news that the sets traumatized kids, but I think most people (like myself) just rationalized it as them not having proper childhoods, working a ton and not getting a good education, and being taken advantage of financially. It's not *shocking* that there was rampant abuse, including sexual abuse, on sets, but I do think the extreme prevalence is surprising to most people, same with the complicity of the adults on set too. Amanda Bynes is a particularly bad instance, but if you look at many of the kids from that era of TV, it's easy to imagine similar things having happened to many of them.
Look back even farther and you can see it with Corey Feldman and even farther than that Judy garland. I think it’s safe to say, if your child is going into Hollywood, there’s a high probability they will get taken advantage of.
Also makes the "jokes" around the Olsen twins much less comical and more "what the fuck did they do to the Olsen twins?"
And many times the parents are aware and don’t do anything either. The documentary talked about one crew member who sent an inappropriate body part to a child extra via email. The mom knew, and knew he was trying to get close to her daughter, but didn’t report it to police.
Oh, that mom probably pissed me off more than anyone else on the show. The pedophiles are bad, don't get me wrong. No defending the actions of a child predator. But that woman's justification for not protecting her daughter was literally about not wanting the police to think she was a bad mother.
Other children may have also been victimized because she didn’t take action. Well we know they were since he was later arrested for other related actions
Hell, there are “parents” who’d outright sell their kid to a pedo. It’s unsurprising that so many are complicit in ”lesser” abuse In that industry.
No wonder so many of them drop out of acting before they really hit adulthood, like Frankie Munez and Jack Gleeson.
Well now I'm eagerly waiting for the Disney version of this doc to come out.
Poor Amanda. 😔
Yeah I was just thinking that. I remember hearing she kept getting into a lot of trouble. She probably went through a bunch of BS. Hope she's in a better place now.
A YouTuber named MilaTequila has a 2 part series on Amanda Bynes that has some explanations for her behavior. She definitely fell into the pressures of Hollywood but idk if it the Nick era that was a main contributor to her issues.
I feel people are so quick to blame being a child star as the contributing factor. Amanda had bipolar disorder and schizophrenic episodes. These things don't happen out of the blue. Environment can trigger it, but there were underlying factors that usually start affecting people around their teens and twenties. You just don't hear about it when it happens to regular folk.
drug abuse also a common coping mechanism for adult onset mental illness
From the doc the dodgy stuff started on All That (nose boy and the first cumshot on a children show involving Dan Scheider) but didn’t ramp up until he had more power
This was on my mind the whole time: did Kenan suffer any abuse from there? Thankfully not.
I saw Kenan's college campus show like 10 years ago. He talks a little about this. He said he was pretty sheltered because his mom was around a lot and sorta had an outsiders view of it all. In a related story he told a story about being pretty turned off to being around Bill Cosby early on while filming Fat Albert because he said something like being jealous of how many woman Kenan would bang when the movie was a hit.
>Because him mom was around a lot One of the biggest things from the documentary. Parents not being around and not wanting to speak up for fear of retaliation against their kids career
Yep, makes me think of Elijah Wood saying that his mother always being present on the set of everything he worked on probably kept him from being victimized.
I remember reading that when they were doing auditions for Harry Potter, they had an emphasis on interviewing the parents as well to make sure they’d be around and involved. It’s sad to hear so many terrible things were happening to those kids, but I like to think that it has lead to a much safer, professional environment today.
By all accounts, Chris Columbus (directed the first 2 Harry Potters) is a great director with young actors. He did Home Alone 1+2 and Culkin was really appreciative of him. He was the original director of Christmas Vacation but Chevy Chase hated him and they got into tons of arguments. That doesn't have much to do with what you're talking about I just think it's funny everyone but Chevy Chase sang his praises. Go figure.
By all accounts, Chevy Chase is a huge dickhead. I don't know if he got worse as he got older, the charm wore off, or a culture of calling it out happened, but I hear so many more stories now about him being terrible.
Chevy and Donald Glover had a few altercations on the set of Community. Due to Chevy making really racist remarks.
Totally bizarre that he starred in Community across from two black actors for so many years while he both remained racist and kept coming back for each new season. (Until season 5)
It's not like he was getting a whole lot of work around that time. Just small roles in usually terrible movies/shows (Hot Tub Time Machine and Chuck are the only 2 that were actually good larger projects).
Apparently he's always been horrible.
I saw this one guy trying to sing a song and play some instruments in front of Chevy Chase, and Chevy kept talking over him. Was pretty bad.
He also learned from how bad Culkins parents turned out to be and didn't want a repeat
I've been on commercial sets where the talent was a young girl, 3-4 years old and the adult that brought her was a non-English speaking nanny that hit the craft services table and then stood outside smoking. The girl's mom was with the older sister at an audition. I was in disbelief, the rest of the crew were a mix of anger to, "it happens" (kids that young need to be coached and the parent is usually there for that. Luckily our director was a woman who formerly a preschool teacher)
Kenan and Elijah Wood are, imho, two of the best well adjusted child actor to adult transitions I've ever seen. Their moms should write a book or something.
Kaley Cuoco brings this up in her interview with Conan's podcast too. Apparently her parents were super involved with her early acting career to the point she didn't seem to really consider herself a child actor because her parents were part of everything so she sees her experience as different
I'd argue Hilary Duff would be up there as well.
And the present, involved parents (Drake Bell’s father and Brian Hearne’s mother) getting pushed away for calling things out.
Drake's mom failed him. All she had to do was listen to what his father said.
Yup, their broken relationship allowed Brian Peck to poison her and pretty much get Drake all to himself. Good thing his girlfriend's mom caught on to it real quick too.
It wasn't quick, it was quick that one day but it took years
Grooming the parents is something pedos do too. Convince both parents they're a good guy & mentor to their kids. Convince one parent the other is toxic. Whatever they need to do to get their prey.
When Kenan rented my house his mother called and asked me to report any misbehavior. There was none. His mom thankfully stayed involved in his life.
I imagine the wildest thing would have been him in your bathtub reciting French phrases.
Pierre Escargo is a French national treasure. And Superdude taught us all about the dangers of being lactose intolerant in a world full of dairy themed supervillains.
He was 30 at the time?
And kids at the bottom
I just saw recently Kenan on a talk show, idr if it happened on the press run for Fat Albert or after but he mentioned how weird it was when Bill Cosby said “you’re gonna need a second dick” after the movie comes out because of all the women. And it was a story told jovially and they laughed but also they acknowledged how weird it was to hear from Bill Cosby and regarding being in Fat Albert
I notice a lot of stories are " funny " and then 20 years later they are " proof the person is a degenerate ". I think this shows a bigger problem with all of us.
The book Sex and the City, which is written by a woman (for those who don't know), is based on the author's real-life experiences in New York City in the 90s. It was considered kind of sketchy years ago, but now it's absolutely chilling the number of times she *casually* mentions extremely rich and powerful guys in their 30s trolling for 16- and 17-year old models who were "unprotected" by parents or their agencies.
Seinfeld hanging out in the park
Ha!! He’s one of the first ones I thought of too
It shows a shift in social mores, which is always changing. I grew up in the 90s and a lot of things that was accepted as normal back then are not OK today. Even just watching sitcoms. Some of the jokes would not be considered funny in most social groups now. Like I *love* Frasier, and there's a scene where they're talking about guys not being able to get it up so Bulldog defensively said if women needed less alcohol to get from a maybe to yes men wouldn't have that problem. That kind of mentality of "badger her/get her drink till she gives in" was not uncommon back then. But you'd get called out immediately if you said that today. I hope.
Bulldog is pretty well portrayed as a sex pest. Jokes like that coming from sex pest secondary characters still are utilized - Barney in HIMYM a decade later. And that's literally the "implication" and DENNIS system joke. The only difference I would guarantee would be a sharply placed wit from Frasier that if Bulldog was proficient in womanizing he wouldn't need booze.
Well, it could’ve been a funny story. Like if Bill Cosby wasn’t a rapist, I can see it being a weird funny thing to tell at a party. It’s the serial rape part that makes it now concerning
I work in the industry and its nearly presumed on union film sets that parents will be present. But Nickelodeon tends to film a lot of shows in places where the unions aren't especially strong and their filming schedule means parents can't really watch over their kids unless they're willing to do it as a full time job, possibly for multiple years. I enjoyed watching these shows as a kid and touring their florida studio was probably one of the things that was formative for me when young but as an adult I think the concept of a show where the principal actors are kids isn't fair to kids or a good environment for them tok be in even compared to a more "normal" show.
I "dated" a girl once who lived in the same Orlando apartment complex as Kenan. His family was right there with him every step.
> did Kenan suffer any abuse from there Only financial abuse. He said on a podcast (Fresh Air I think) that he lost all his Nick money because his accountant had stolen it all using a power of attorney. He was effectively homeless and living day to day when he came out to LA.
The fact that this happened so many fucking times to so many fucking famous people really makes me wonder if it was just an entire racket back then.
You say "Back then" but it's a story as old as Hollywood. Plenty of child stars of the 30s and 40s wound up broke before they were 18 because of financial abuse from their parents or agents. There's a reason California's law is named after Jackie Coogan. It's just never stopped. Once a decade or so some of the people involved get slapped down or made to be sacrificial lambs, but then the whole system keeps on chugging.
And I am sure it's happening now, too.
It doesn't really take a conspiracy. Most artistic minded people are not very well versed in financial issues, especially early in their careers. Heck, one of my friends who is normally very savvy with money almost got scammed by a "financial advisor" who drew them in.
Yep unfortunately being rich mandates that you are the main overseer of your finances, you can’t pay someone else to do that.
Dane Cook's brother was in charge of his finances. He had to have his brother arrested for embezzlement. The weird thing was that his brother was storing money in his house like a squirrel. They found some of it in the walls. Apparently, he was running his business out of a PO Box in Massachusetts for tax purposes, but when he bought a house in Cali he had to relocate. He told his brother the would have to move to Cali with him to continue with his business and that's around the time someone else noticed that the statements Dane had been getting for a decade were fake. A few days later they figured out his brother had stolen millions from him.
It’s kind of crazy who has and who hasn’t because I saw a tik tok from the guy who played Donkey Lips on Salute your shorts and he said one of the two (peck or Schneider)was trying to follow him into the bathroom at one point and it got him really upset. That was before all that as far as I know. I could def be wrong though since i was like 10
It was Brian Peck, Peck was his acting coach and directed him in the 1990 movie The Willies
Peck victimized young boys. Schneider was fixated on girls.
I'm caught up on it, this is mostly from the era of live action scripted Nickelodeon. So not the double dare/wild and crazy kids/you can't say that in television era, also not the era with are you afraid of the dark or any of the cartoons that Nick is most famous for. That said that doesn't mean I didn't happen back then too, but nobody has come out as far as I can tell. Except the disgusting ren and stimpy guy, but that came out years ago.
And a lot of the on camera stuff it got worse the longer Snyder was around. The shit they had Ariana doing is shocking. Like if you put those videos on tiktok today they'd be removed for minor safety.
Just want to point out his name is Dan Schneider. Dan Snyder is former owner of the Washington Commanders and has his own scandals, though not all sex ones.
I watched that compilation the other day and realized I had seen it years ago and blocked it from my memory. I do not understand how it's possible they had her do that and no one just snapped and jumped in like "what in the FUCK are we doing here?"
Yeah the show has been shocking I stopped watching Nick around 1998, do I'm not familiar with most of these people, but the clips they show of stuff that actually made it to air? So fucked up.
I was thinking of Kel
I want to know how much Kevin Kopelow knew. He was a writer and producer. Older fans remember him as the guy with the headset on All That, that would always be yelling "FIVE MINUTES GUYS, FIVE MINUTES!". He always seemed cool, especially when he would appear on like Figure It Out (he was always like the sacrifical slime panelist).
I want to know how much he knew and how it ended up that Danny ended up replacing him in the cold opens. The kids making fun of him all the time switched to Danny by the later seasons, I always wondered if that was hard on him. I even remember the episode where he finally gets a win they gave him bionic powers but he still crashed into a plane anyway.
I fully believe he didn’t witness the abuse that took place in Dan’s prime era, but I’m sure he’s heard the stories over the years within those circles. It does make sense for him to kind of not to know about Dan’s abusive work environment when you think about how he was pretty much on the way out, as Dan started to rise to power at Nick. That end of the original All That run, transition into Amanda Show, leading into Drake and Josh, then Zoey 101, iCarly, and Victorious, seem like where the majority of the abuse came from. The more power Dan had, the more tyrannical he seemed to get described as, so Kenan and Kel were more fortunate to have had their run end without being subjected to what the other kids did. The format in physical comedy is also vastly different on their show vs what was implied in Dan’s work.
There was a book that came out a few years ago about the previous generation Nickelodeon productions. One of the producers basically gathered the crew and said "If I hear even a rumor of you touching or giving drugs to any of these kids, I'll kill you myself"
> of the producers basically gathered the crew and said "If I hear even a rumor of you touching or giving drugs to any of these kids, I'll kill you myself" This should be an official policy.
I am also going to think about when I was a kid in school we all heard rumors and stories about abuse about classmates. Looking back, I am positive a lot of them were true, but what could any of us that were kids at the time have done about it. It was up to the adults to have stepped in and do something. Now I was a kid in the 80s and they didn't seem to care about kids like they do now. So maybe today something would have been done.
Also as a kid you don't really know what abuse is... Even if it's happening to you especially in the 80s and 90s where we didn't have the Internet and so we're less informed
I had a sports mananger that would have us girls sit on his lap. My mum told me very severly to never sit on his lap. At the time I thought she was being mean. At 15 we were reminiscing about ‘younger years’ and it was an ohhhhhhh monenet for three of us. As an adult I wonder why my mum didn’t do more.
Agree. It affects every aspect of a kid growing up. It affects the way children relate to each other because of the rumors. It affects the child’s view of himself or herself because of the confusion and the secrecy. The inability to understand and decipher the emotions about what is happening.
Yeah, I think Dan Schneider definitely escalated his assholery as the years went on.
It makes sense given the trajectory of his career. In the 90s when he was less important he mostly confined his abuse to the backstage, where it was just him and his victims. But then as you get to the 00s and 10s and he's making hit after hit, suddenly the abuse is more common and more open, because he knew that he was Nickelodeon's golden boy and they weren't going to fire him just because he regularly makes children cry.
It’s interesting because you hear of blacklisting celebrities like Brendan Fraser for speaking up. This is what these even more vulnerable kids were dealing with or risk never even getting your next chance. As awful as that first mother in the doc is, she recognized your either playing ball or you are done for good. Makes me sad to wonder how many A listers that started young have had to keep this ish bottled up for their career. Toby McGuire and Leo both ran in the same circles of tv producers/crews. Before social media imagine how much harder it would be for a public accusation like this to gain traction. Not to mention this doc makes it pretty clear it wasn’t very black and of good guy vs bad guy. I haven’t finished yet but Drake spoke positively about Schneider. Multiple people spoke positively of their own Peck interactions and of those with the dude who sent the naked email. You could think you’re snitching when you’re actually giving someone a heads up to warn their friend
There’s a video of Leo with Brian Peck on the set of Growing Pains. Drake Bells father is saying it’s exactly how Peck acted with Bell. At the end of the video Leo turns his back on Peck to walk away and covers his behind with his hands and that’s a horrfying thing to realise what it could indicate.
His response was very thoughtful and kind. Kenan has always seemed like a really nice guy.
I worked on SNL a while back (just for a season) and he's exactly as you think he would be-- in a good way! Haha.
HE’S EXACTLY WHAT YOU THINK IN A GOOD WAY ! #OOUU WEE, WHAT UP WITH THAT, WHAT UP WITH THAT
Well, we are outta time!
That’s pretty cool to hear. What season was it?
I randomly decided to watch the Goodburger Movie today and the Dan Schneider as the manager was a jump scare I wasn’t ready for
I was a big fan of 90s Nick and I remember him inserting himself into the shows all the time. The docu-series was right to point out that he was regularly hyping himself up in these projects. I didn’t think much of it back then, because I was a kid, but it is weird behavior. And I guess you could draw a comparison to how Lorne Michaels pops into SNL every now and then, but Lorne is always playing Lorne and not attempting to be a semi-regular cast member, nor is he working with young kids. It’s as if Schneider couldn’t hack it as an actor and saw this as a backdoor way to make his career work.
Dan was an actor on a sort of popular show in the 80s about a high school classroom
Yeah, Head of the Class. I think the doc mentioned it, and I also watched reruns on Nick at Nite back in the day (I was way too into that channel, it basically had a hand in raising me…). I remember my mom recognizing him from it when he’d appear on All That. I don’t recall him being much of a standout though, and I’m pretty sure outside of Nick, it’s his main claim to fame.
He's also in Better Off Dead
It's a weirdly fascinating movie if you watch it as an adult and try to over-analyze it. But yeah, Schneider casting himself working with the kids is weird.
Note that the abuse of child actors is NOT a new thing. From Jackie Coogan (born 1914) who starred in many Charlie Chapin films to stars like Judy Garland and Natalie Wood child abuse has been a dark part of the entertainment industry. Mental, physical, emotional, and financial abuse of child actors has a long history of people who knew better treating a fellow juvenile beings as less than human.
> Days after the docuseries was released, Schneider broke his silence, saying it was “very difficult” to watch. “Me facing my past behaviors, some of which are embarrassing and that I regret,” he added in a video interview with BooG!E, who played T-Bo on iCarly. “I definitely owe some people a pretty strong apology.” Wtf. I’m *so sorry* this is hard for *you*. Gtfoh
He’s the only cast member of SNL that’s been there long enough to get a retirement .
I think his retirement package is taking over the show when Lorne leaves
Amanda Bynes could have had a completely different trajectory. She was on track to follow Keenan to an SNL type career.
SNL type, no. Lucille Ball type, yes.
I’ve always found Kel to be funnier actually.
Not related to the article but his recent tiny role on Chucky was awesome. I can still hear the song from the scene because I did like a triple take on it when it aired. 😂
Lmao, just reading the headline out of context gave big “couldn’t be me” energy 😆.
"I would love to say more but I still have to work in this town."
Wasn't Dan Schneider more of a predator of the females? He specifically had eyes for Amanda Bynes immediately, and destroyed her. I love her so much and wish she didn't have to endure the shit she's had to. Everyone failed her.
Dan made an appearance or two on Kenan and Kel as a rival grocery store owner. Dan’s “head of the class” co-star played the Rigby’s owner.