Quiet on Set: How the Filmmakers Finally Exposed the Dark Side of Nickelodeon
A few years ago, filmmaker Mary Robertson says she and her team started to notice a spate of videos online. They were compilation videos made by amateurs on social media, featuring clips from shows that aired on the kids channel, Nickelodeon, in the 2000s.
The clips featured then-teenagers like Ariana Grande and Jamie Lynn Spears engaging in acts that appeared to be of an “arguably sexual” manner, Robertson, the founder of the production studio Maxine Productions, tells me. In one, Grande pours water on herself while laying upside down in a bed. In another, Spears is squirted in the face by, let’s just say, a viscous liquid. The clips had aired without a fuss at the time, but now that people were seeing them online, they were beginning to reexamine them.
“[They] were saying, did I grow up watching all this sexual innuendo but didn’t know it because I was a kid?” Robertson says. “And if that’s the case, how much of this was actually on these shows that I was consuming so regularly? What adults shaped this? What adults said no to it? What adults said yes to it? If these videos were made, what does that suggest about other improper, uncomfortable, and potentially illegal behavior behind the scenes?”
So, Robertson and her colleague, journalist and documentary filmmaker Emma Schwartz, began digging. The result is Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, a four-part documentary series that premiered on Investigation Discovery last month and immediately went viral. The allegations uncovered by Robertson and Schwartz include a heartbreaking interview with former Drake and Josh star Drake Bell, who revealed for the first time that he had been the victim of child sexual abuse at the hands of actor Brian Peck, who worked alongside Bell on popular kids shows like The Amanda Show. Other revelations include allegations of emotional abuse and sexual harassment against Dan Schneider, a Nickelodeon mainstay who worked on or created several shows for the network including All That, The Amanda Show, and Drake and Josh.
People online and in the media are now calling for more accountability for those who perpetrated the alleged abuse and more generally, for better protections for child actors. In response to the series’ popularity, the filmmakers gathered some of those who spoke out for the series for a new episode, which premiered on Sunday, April 7. Hosted by veteran journalist Soledad O’Brien, the episode features new interviews with participants like Bell, who credited Robertson and Schwartz with making him feel comfortable enough to finally share his story. Although, Bell said, it “boggles” his mind that the dark side of Nickelodeon had not been interrogated by the public sooner.
Ahead of the new episode’s premiere, Robertson and Schwartz spoke to Glamour about the power of interrogating pop culture and what they think needs to be done to protect children in the entertainment industry.
As you mentioned, these rumors surrounding Nickelodeon were circulating for years prior to Quiet on Set. What made you want to dig deeper?
Mary Robertson: There were questions swirling around the videos, which featured footage that was recorded on some of the sets that Dan Schneider presided over….and those felt like important questions to interrogate. Important because they concern children, and important because that which was created on those sets ended up being transmitted to the world and consumed by millions of children and adults, and it would influence their sense of what normal was. It would influence their set of standards.
Why do you think it took so long for someone in the mainstream media to actually sit down and investigate this?
MR: It’s helpful to take on these questions with the support of an incredible institution like Investigation Discovery, and with skilled investigative journalists. I think there is some sort of reticence or reluctance for serious institutions to take on questions that might sound like conspiracy, especially when it relates to popular culture. So we’re so grateful that we had the support of Investigation Discovery and the incredible investigative journalists at Business Insider [who partnered on the documentary] and Maxine.
Timing matters too. We owe a debt of gratitude to Jennette McCurdy who wrote a memoir [2022’s I’m Glad My Mom Died] that was incredibly popular and widely and positively received, and I think indicated to a lot of the contributors in our project that there was someone out there who had an experience that was maybe evocative of their own. She was being received positively, so maybe they too would be received positively.
I’d imagine that it was challenging, at first, to convince those who had traumatic experiences working at Nickelodeon that now was the time to speak out. How did you do it?
Emma Schwartz: Very quickly we started hearing from people, even people who weren’t necessarily ready to talk, who said, “I’m really glad that you’re digging in. There’s so much here to unearth.”
I think what you see in Quiet on Set is that there were so many people who had been holding back challenging, dark, traumatic experiences for years, if not decades. They felt that by sharing their story, they could shed light not just on their own experiences, but about this industry writ large, in hopes that by doing so other people wouldn’t have to walk down that path. It has really resonated with people in the industry and people are speaking out further about their own experiences and even calling for changes across the industry.
Drake Bell said that ultimately it was the relationship he built with the two of you that made him feel comfortable sharing his story. How did that relationship come to be?
ES: I wrote a letter to him reaching out to see if the door was open to having a conversation. He responded, and we began a back and forth. He was definitely very, very reluctant, but I think he was also at a period in his own life where he was trying to sort of face his trauma head on for the first time. Over time we began to talk and we met. And I think that combination built enough trust that he felt he was at a place where he was ready to share and that he was trusting of us to help tell that story. But I will say, it’s been a journey and continues to be one. I don’t think he went home from the interview and said, “This is the best decision and everything is perfect.”
It’s up and down every single day when you’ve dealt with trauma and questions of how you’re going to be received… Drake’s account has been met with a lot of shock and compassion and devastation, and he has made other survivors of child sex abuse feel less alone and probably influenced a lot of lives positively by sharing his account.
What do you think is the most important lesson that the public can learn from this story?
MR: In the broadest possible sense, it’s really meaningful to interrogate power structures and to look at who has agency in given environments and the ways in which those in power are maintaining their hold on power. That’s a set of questions that’s broadly applicable to the culture when it comes to child acting and children working in entertainment. A lot of what we’re hearing is a call for federal legislation. There’s just a patchwork of state laws in place. There is no federal legislation that really protects children working in entertainment. I’ll just leave it at that.
ES: For a lot of the participants, some of their motivation in wanting to speak was hoping that it would enable change. I know some of the participants were very concerned that there’s not a requirement that adults on set go through background checks. You can end up with a situation where a registered sex offender is working on a kids TV set or with children in the future…
And these days, it’s not just about sets. People get their content online or on social media, and there’s kids who are influencers or their parents bring them in as influencers. That’s a whole other universe and space, which perhaps could learn from some of the lessons and experiences that people in Quiet on Set discuss about how children are protected when they’re put in these sort of adult environments in an entertainment space.
Do you plan to pursue this story more?
ER: We’re not done with the story. We’re passionate about continuing the reporting, continuing the lines of investigation.. I hope that the success of the project creates an opportunity for folks to create similar work that’s investigative and looks deeply at popular culture.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
