Dan Schneider. The man who formed and shaped childhoods over the years, the creator of iconic shows like iCarly and Drake and Josh, and the notorious Hollywood creep.
Dan Schneider started his show career in the 1980s as an actor in Making The Grade, Better Off Dead, The Big Picture, and several others. He then decided to try his hand at producing later in the decade. From then on, he went on to make and act in many productions. Some of which became cultural phenomena. For example, he uplifted Arianna Grande and helped her reach stardom.
He found huge success in show business, but it didn’t take a trained eye to see how strange some aspects of his shows were. For example, the infamous Sam & Cat foot competition hosted on Twitter in 2013. Fans were asked to write on the bottom of their feet and post it onto the social media website. While this alone was very strange, Sam & Cat is a show targeted at kids, and most of the pictures in that Twitter thread were of children.
As disturbing as that is, that’s unfortunately not all of the strange, sexual themes in Schneider’s work. In fact, a lot of different foot-centered episodes aired on different shows that he produced. Ranging from having plots revolving around touching, washing, and other strange things. Mind you, the actors in these shows were young teenagers and kids. Nickelodeon has now cut ties with Dan Schnieder as of March 2018 and for obviously good reasons.
Hollywood in general has issues with creepy producers and has had them for a very long time. An unsettling case connected to Schnieder is on fellow Nickelodeon producer, Brain Peck. Peck has worked very closely with Schnieder on many projects and went to jail for sexually assaulting a minor while working on The Amanda Show. The victim’s identity remains anonymous to protect them and their career.
In the surge of child-centered media in the early 2000s, many chances arose for these creeps to gain control and make a lot of money while doing what they loved best. Interacting with children. And these men haven’t exactly been regulated either. Brian Peck was able to return to Hollywood after his incarceration and played a “sex-ed teacher” in a Disney horror production set in a high school. Even while Peck might have not interacted with the young actors directly, the fact that he was able to return to making media for children is disturbing.
As of now, no proven accusations have been made against Dan Schnieder, but the sheer number of allegations from anonymous sources and the strange behavior the producer made his young actors show on screen is enough for serious questioning. Certainly enough for executives at Nickelodeon to let Dan Schnieder go. Not without a pretty penny of seven million dollars in his pocket though.
All over the internet there has been talk of Dan Schnieder. He came into contact with a lot of children. He and Brian Peck hosted summer camps at a pool while parents were in casting calls. And that potentially led to many anonymous victims that didn’t make the acting cut. Anonymous confessions are vampant on sites such as Twitter and Reddit, and they aren’t outlandish. Despite the lack of viable evidence against him, Schnieder is still regarded as a huge creep. You wouldn’t be in the minority if you were to say that you wouldn’t want him working with kids again, no matter how entertaining the end product is.
Children are the most vulnerable people in the world. They often get mishandled and taken advantage of, especially in show business. Regulations are set in place to try to keep them safe, but they are regularly bypassed and not enforced. In the end, it is safe to say that- looking past the nostalgia- most of Schnieder’s work had very creepy undertones, and it’s a good thing that he isn’t producing anymore.