Wooooow. Is that a face tattoo? What are those eyebrows? Are there any well adjusted child stars?

Sea Speed said:

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Are there any well adjusted child stars?

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Ron Howard has done exceedingly well

Petrino1 said:

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Speaking of Amanda Bynes. She posted this clip recently. She has gone off the deep end.

https://instagr.am/p/C4LZDhyrged

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The Dan Schneider story is crazy. For a comparison imagine if you had a foot fetish, and then somehow you convinced your employer to make their corporate logo a foot.

Oh wait.

Can someone give me the cliff notes? Did a quick wikipedia check, and all I saw was that he was difficult to work with and "verbally abusive", which can literally mean anything in this day. Hell, I can be accused of being verbally abusive if I snap at someone when under pressure at work. From what I saw, there are no accusations of sexual impropriety other than there were a lot of feet in his shows, and apparently Ariana Grande squeezed a potato...

From what i'm seeing, the big scandal is that he is an ass.

Again... help me here. I don't want to watch 4 hours of a documentary just telling me this guy's an ass and yells at people.

Haven't watched the documentary, I did read the "I am glad my mom is dead" book. Dan dude is going to take the brunt of the criticism, but there were a lot of adults/parents in the room that were happy to ride that gravy train.

Watched EP1 and did some googling. The guy may be a creep, he may have some fetishes, but he worked 20 years with kids at Nickelodeon and the most damning stuff they have is some cut videos that could be construed as sexual... that were signed off on by probably 50 other people at Nick?

EP1 had an adult male complaining that when he was a kid on the show he had to wear a leotard when playing a superhero character and that made him uncomfortable. And an adult female complaining that when she was a kid on the show they said at one point she was getting too fat.

I'd wager those two were compensated for this documentary.

Wow after watching the episode I was certainly not expecting this thread to turn into a Dan Schneider defense thread

Charlie Conway said:

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Wow after watching the episode I was certainly not expecting this thread to turn into a Dan Schneider defense thread

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In what way is this a defense thread? I personally asked if there was more than just him being mean. I already said I didn't watch it, so was asking what else is he accused of.

Being mean and a jerk is not a great scandal, let alone in Hollywood. When I saw this thread title, I was expecting to see something akin to Weinstein.

All I see are other posters voicing similar confusion as to why this is built up as so severe... and then nothing really severe of note.

Not defending it either, but the abuse that was filmed and broadcast on kids tv pales to what Jenna Maroney suffered from her mom.

I admittedly haven't done a complete deep dive, and I'm only starting EP2... but a guy being an ******* doesn't deserve a documentary insinuating that sexual stuff with children was going on by him or with his knowledge. It's a bit deplorable by the filmmakers.

They certainly made the part of episode 1 ive seen so far seem like there was gonna be some wild sexual assault or rape bombshells but if it is seriously just the dude was a price and liked feet, im not going to watch any further and it is pretty screwed up to trash someone like that.

My industry is littered with petty tyrants and it is just the nature of the best. Not everyone is Stuart smalley.

Really hope Stick Stickly comes out of this clean.

Macaulay Culkin had some pretty rough years, if i recall. He wasn't always as "grounded" as he appears to be now. For a while, I thought for sure he'd end up like all the other child stars.

From what I understand, Schneider thought it was funny or rebellious to insert sexualized words and scenes into his Nickelodeon shows. He loved getting stuff past the network's standards people.

And, some insiders say he was a little too close to some of his female stars, especially Amanda Bynes, considering their age at the time.

But I don't think anyone has ever accused him of sexual assault.

The main issue seems to be that he was known for making or breaking young actors and he was verbally abusive rather than protective of his stars. They were afraid to stand up for themselves the way an older actor might.

What happened to Drake Bell, however, was tragic. Brian Peck went to jail for that, and many in Hollywood wrote letters on Peck's behalf asking for leniency.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2022-08-31/dan-schneider-nickelodeon-allegations-jennette-mccurdy

I am wholly unfamiliar with the drake bell story.

AJ02 said:

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Macaulay Culkin had some pretty rough years, if i recall. He wasn't always as "grounded" as he appears to be now. For a while, I thought for sure he'd end up like all the other child stars.

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If I was the first guy to date Mila Kunis and she dumped me, I'd go off the rails too.

Sea Speed said:

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I am wholly unfamiliar with the drake bell story.

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Brian Peck was a dialogue coach who worked on several Nickelodeon shows. He got close to Bell through work, befriended him and eventually wound up sexually assaulting him. Bell was 15.

Peck served time (although his victim was unknown at the time). Bell revealed he was the John Doe for this documentary.

Watching and listening to Drake Bell tell his story was absolutely heartbreaking and disgusting.

Man, I used to think Amanda Bynes was sooo hot. Now...holy crap

I'm pretty torn on this situation because while the stuff Schneider was creepy and terrible and certainly worthy of catching a beating, he wasn't near as bad as the sexual predators.

That said, this is an incomplete story because it only tells the whole story of 2 of the 3 antagonists. The third being the attention starved, fame obsessed parents. Yeah, they interviewed 3 parents but none of the parents who knew what was going on and overlooked it. All 3 they interviewed seemed to be aware and defensive of their kids, and there were a lot of parents who were happy to sacrifice their kids for fame and fortune

Another issue I had was the idea of looking at these shows through the new, post #metoo, millennial sensitive lens. Admittedly there were some unacceptable innuendos (the Ariana Grande stuff was downright sick), but a lot of what they described has been going on on Nickelodeon for decades. The face shot for Jamie Lynn Spears has been being used for years. It's a sight- gag specific channel with physical comedy being in the forefront so i can't really act all that surprised. I feel like a lot of stuff they described is exacerbated by the hyper sensitive culture we are in.

And the third thing which was just completely cringe-worthy was the "racism" claims by the black cast members. They didn't describe a single racist incident and predictably leaned on racism to explain the normal happenings of the child actor life. This bothered me the most actually. You've got to take responsibility for your decisions.

Yeah, it sucks being fired after 2 seasons and having your dreams crushed and I'm sorry you had your dreams crushed and all that but it's not because your black. In fact if you remember there were 3 ladies in the first episode who got cut out (2 writers and 1 actor) after a short period. That's life in the NFL

Psychag said:

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Watching and listening to Drake Bell tell his story was absolutely heartbreaking and disgusting.

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His mom is garbage. It seemed like she sided with the predator just to spite her ex husband. "Mom didn't drive" was the excuse for Drake to stay overnights at the grown man's house.