Former Child Actors Say They Felt ‘Intimidated’ by Nickelodeon Showrunner
Giovonnie Samuels, a child actor hired for three seasons of Nickelodeon’s All That in the early 2000s, dreamed of becoming a TV star. As she filmed her intro dance to TLC’s “All That” for the show’s title sequence, those aspirations became real. She lived out her dreams again as she interviewed Tony Hawk — who taught her how to kickflip — for Stacey Chit, a mock talk-show segment.
Samuels worked alongside Dan Schneider, a Nickelodeon showrunner and hitmaker, who had joined All That as a writer in 1993. Samuels’ first impression of Schneider was a joker who wanted things done his way. Although she didn’t speak with him much, his presence over the young cast members spoke volumes.
More from Rolling Stone
Sex Jokes, Massage Requests, and Humiliation: A Timeline of Nickelodeon's Dark History
Nickelodeon Showrunner Dan Schneider Apologizes for 'Rude' Behavior, Following Docuseries
Ariana Grande Says She Feels a 'Joyful, Human Connection' After Album's Success
“I was intimidated because I understood that Dan had the power to make anybody a star,” Samuels, now 37, tells Rolling Stone. “I wanted to make sure I did my job so that he would not only see me, give me that validation, but to push my career forward.”
As the brainchild behind The Amanda Show, starring Amanda Bynes, Drake & Josh, Zoey 101, iCarly, and Victorious, Schneider’s prank-based, tween-angst comedies helped him reach Nickelodeon stardom in his early thirties. Recognized as the “Norman Lear of children’s television” by the New York Times and the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Kids Choice Awards in 2014, he ushered in a golden age for the slime-covered network.
In Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV — a four-part Investigation Discovery docuseries premiering March 17 and 18 — viewers see a different side to the kid-friendly shows associated with the Nickelodeon powerhouse. The series examines what former Nickelodeon crew members, child actors, and parents describe as a “toxic” work environment marked by allegations of sexual abuse, misogynistic and racially charged comments, and sexual innuendos baked into kids programming. Rolling Stone spoke with several All That child actors about the pressures of performing at the kids network in Schneider-affiliated shows. (Schneider is not interviewed in the docuseries, though written responses sent in through representatives appear onscreen throughout the show.)
At Nickelodeon, parents stood at the sidelines as kids took center stage: tackling slapstick skits, getting slimed, or completing Fear-Factor-like dares. Although Samuels, who joined All That in 2000, says she was elated to be on the show, she says she was unprepared for the challenges of playing the “token” Black kid. As an actress on Nickelodeon, for example, she had to specially request a Black hairstylist for her natural hair and find the appropriate language to stand up for herself.
“You knew you shouldn’t say anything because you’re going to get labeled as difficult, and that’s the last thing that you want to do, especially starting out in your career as an actor, especially as a Black woman,” she says.
Bryan Hearne, who appeared on All That from 2001 to 2003, fondly remembers meeting musical guests like Tyrese and Usher and battling his fellow cast members in foosball. But he soon found that some on-screen performances played off racist stereotypes. During one All That skit where Hearne played a girl scout selling cookies, his mother Tracey Brown felt they “set up the scene like he was selling drugs,” she says in the docuseries. In another sketch, where Hearne zips into a skin tone bodysuit as ‘lil fetus,’ he says someone joked that his skin suit should’ve been “charcoal” colored. At 35, he says the off-color joke still sticks with him.
“I’m a butt of a joke at this moment, I could joke back, but I don’t know how,” Hearne tells Rolling Stone. “So you just go home and try and process it and you don’t say anything to your mom today because you know that she’ll burn the set down.”
Other cast members say scenes included adult content inappropriate for a children’s audience. In the docuseries, All That cast member Leon Frierson describes starring as “Captain Big Nose,” who had phallic-shaped shoulder pads. On The Amanda Show, Schneider developed the character Penelope Taynt, which referred to the perineum, or the space between the anus and genitalia.
About a decade later, online clips from Victorious revealed future pop sensation Ariana Grande yelling, “I’m thirsty,” while lying upside down and pouring water down her neck. In another video, she attempts to juice a potato with both hands.
Other Schneider offshoots felt referential to porn, according to colleagues interviewed in Quiet on Set. Zoey 101’s Alexa Nikolas recalls an episode where goo is splattered onto Jamie Lynn Spears’, the show’s protagonist, face. “We heard the boys saying it’s a cumshot,” Nikolas says in the docuseries.
Co-director Mary Robertson vividly remembers watching Nikolas swell with emotion as she recounted the Spears incident on camera. It raises the question, Robertson says, about how adult content was so often weaved into the tween comedies. “None of that is to imply that all parties are guilty,” Robertson tells Rolling Stone. “It is meaningful to interrogate power and who’s the ultimate decision maker and the space that may or may not exist to question that decision maker.”
According to a spokesperson for Schneider, all costumes, storylines, makeup, and dialogue were approved by network executives on both coasts, a standards and practices team reviewed the scripts, and programming executives gave the thumbs up for all episodes.
“Everything that happened on the shows Dan ran was carefully scrutinized by dozens of involved adults, and approved by the network,” the spokesperson tells Rolling Stone. “If there was an actual problem with the scenes that some people, now years later, are ‘sexualizing’, they would be taken down, but they are not, they are aired constantly all over the world today still, enjoyed by both kids and parents.”
Problems within Schneider-affiliated shows persisted beyond what viewers saw on camera. Some of Schneider’s former colleagues describe him as someone who tolerated very little and expected employees to work overtime. Former The Amanda Show writers Christy Stratton and Jenny Kilgen were asked to split a single writer’s salary while men were paid their full wages, they allege in the docuseries.
“That was my first Hollywood job,” Hearne says. “I had been working in New York all previously before that, so to get to that set, and see how it was run, I was like, ‘Oh, this must be how it is in Hollywood. If you piss that guy off, he’s gonna call you an idiot.’”
Schneider often overstepped the boundaries of his colleagues, Kilgen and Stratton allege, requesting frequent massages and leaving misogynistic comments in the writers room. (According to a Schneider spokesperson, Schneider “deeply regrets” asking for neck massages, adding although they happened in public settings, they were “highly inappropriate and would never happen again.”)
Kilgen recounted a moment in the writers room, where Schneider allegedly asked Stratton to lean over the table and pretend to be “sodomized” as she recounted a high school sketch idea. (Stratton declined to discuss the occurrence in the docuseries.) And in Season Two of The Amanda Show, Kilgen alleges Schneider asked if she used to do “phone sex” during a pitch meeting.
“Unfortunately, writers’ rooms were often off-color places, especially more than 20 years ago,” wrote a Schneider spokesperson. “Dan is extremely sorry if his behavior contributed to that environment and he has grown a lot since then. That behavior is clearly wrong and not for the workplace, and certainly he would never act that way again.”
In 2000, Kilgen filed a lawsuit against The Amanda Show production company alleging gender discrimination and a hostile work environment, which was later settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
As one lawsuit was closed, other court cases arose. Brian Peck, a dialogue coach who worked on All That and The Amanda Show, was arrested in August 2003 on 11 charges, including lewd acts with a child at his home residence two years prior, according to a Los Angeles police press release. While on Nickelodeon, Drake & Josh star Drake Bell developed a close relationship with Peck: Bell celebrated his 15th birthday at the coach’s Los Angeles home and often spent the night after auditions. Around this time, Bell alleges in Quiet on Set, that 41-year-old Peck began “sexually assaulting” him.
“Anytime I had an audition or needed to work on dialogue or anything, I somehow ended up back at Brian’s house,” Bell says. “And it just got worse and worse and worse.”
(In 2004, Peck pleaded no contest to two charges of child sexual abuse, was sentenced to 16 months in jail, and ordered to register as a sex offender.)
Quiet on Set co-director Emma Schwartz sent a letter to Bell in 2023, as she dug into the child actor industry, which began a months-long conversation and eventually led to his decision to come forward about his alleged sexual abuse.
“He’s told me that he feels like a certain weight has lifted,” Schwartz says of Bell to Rolling Stone. “He’s been holding this back for so long and that hopefully in sharing it, he can continue to heal and to let people know that sharing is not as scary as it might seem. It can, in fact, help you walk forward.”
By 2018, Nickelodeon executives and Schneider decided to end their partnership. The iCarly reboot would continue on without him, and the face of the network retreated from the public eye.
“Dan expected and asked a lot from his teams,” wrote his spokesperson. “They worked long hours and consistently made successful shows. In the challenges of production, Dan could get frustrated at times, and he understands why some employees found that intimidating or stressful.
“In a career spanning 30-plus years, Dan worked with thousands of people, many of whom still tell him how much they enjoyed and appreciated working on his shows,” the spokesperson wrote. “But he also knows some people did not have a positive experience, and he is truly sorry for that.”
After starring in All That, Samuels landed roles on That’s So Raven, The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, and most recently acted in an episode of the Disney reboot Raven’s Home. She’s also launching The Tokens podcast, which aims to speak with other child actors and their on-camera experiences. As for Hearne, who after All That starred in episodes of Everybody Hates Chris and Law & Order, plans to steer his one, four, and 11-year-old away from the child actor industry.
“Our hope is that we see a 180 from the industry,” Hearne says. “I want change. I want children to be treated better. I want parents to be included in their children’s lives.”
Best of Rolling Stone