After a 2022 exposé about disturbing conduct in front of and behind the cameras on some of Nickelodeon’s biggest hits, filmmakers Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz decided to explore the facts in an investigative docuseries.
“We thought that these were really meaningful questions because the content that was created on these sets was then distributed to children all around the world,” says Robertson. “And children are impressionable … what they absorb shapes their sense of normality, and their cultural standards and mores generally.”
Robertson and Schwartz talk about working with Kate Taylor, author of the Business Insider exposé, to uncover what happened at Nickelodeon on star producer Dan Schneider’s watch. They ended up with a five-part series, Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV. The directors also discuss their approach to former child star Drake Bell, who revealed that at the age of 15, he was a victim of former Nickelodeon dialogue coach and child predator Brian Peck.