Nickelodeon was home to many of the shows that those of us born in the late 90s and early 2000s grew up watching. Their shows include Zoey 101, The Amanda Show, iCarly, Drake and Josh, and Sam and Kat among other popular series. The documentary Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV was recently released as four episodes on MAX, examining the kinds of experiences the Nickelodeon child actors went through at the hands of producers and directors of their shows.
It was crazy to realize the actors that I watched while growing up, were putting on a face of happiness for their shows and the public. One of the popular actors who took part in the documentary was Drake Bell. He was on The Amanda Show and Drake and Josh and he talked about the horrifying abuse he was forced to go through at the hands of Jason Handy, one of the adults whom he worked with closely. Drake Bell was good at hiding his abuse because even when he spoke out, nobody knew it was him who got abused, and as a viewer, it was difficult to watch.
Watching the first four episodes of this documentary made me think a lot about child performers, especially the “popular” or “money-making” actors. Legally, a parent has to be present with a child on set at all times and even that didn’t stop kids from getting abused. There were a lot of inappropriate jokes integrated into these kid TV shows and we grew up watching that, which is also disturbing. The documentary mentioned how shows that were created/directed by Dan Schneider often mimicked adult shows. There was a Nickelodeon game show that was similar to Fear Factor, where they would make the children go through things like getting a bucket of worms dumped on them and other similar activities.
A couple of my friends also watched this documentary, and we all finished it with a different perspective on what child actors have and possibly still go through at the hands of network executives, directors and producers. My friend Nick said, “It was a sick documentary, and not in a good way.” I think the show revealed so much of the truth that it doesn’t even let you watch the shows the same way again.
My friend Liz shared the same sentiments as me, saying “It was really sad to watch.” I also asked my friend Chris what he thought of the documentary, and he expressed his discontent with knowing “what was actually going on right in front of our faces the whole time.” Similar feeling seem to be shared by everyone who watched the documentary.
A fifth and final episode was released on April 7 via MAX, after press time. I think it’s important that there is a light being shined on what child actors have gone through and hopefully, this is a wake-up call for both parents – to keep an even closer eye on their children – and network companies- to start paying attention to what kind of people they are hiring.