Ariana Mehmeti, Staff Writer
The first four episodes of Quiet on Set were surrounded by the early 90s and 2000s kids’ TV shows and the horrid things that happened behind the scenes. There were things such as child predators on set, sexual innuendos made for children, and discrimination against black crew and cast members.
In the fifth episode of Quiet On Set, they speak about the impact of the documentary’s first four episodes and how the public reacted to all of the hidden secrets about children’s TV. They also dive in deeper, getting interviews from certain individuals who were in the documentary such as Drake and Josh actor, Drake Bell, and All That actors Giovonnie Samuels, Bryan Hearne, and Shane Lyons.
The first segment of the episode followed the interviewer, interviewing Drake Bell a month after the four episodes of the documentary had been released. The interviewer asked Bell if the decision to participate in the documentary was a difficult choice. Drake Bell told the interviewer, “The choice to participate was a really hard decision to make because I have been approached before and I wasn’t ready so I said no. But when the people from the documentary reached out to me, and when I started speaking to Emma, she really took her time and was really sensitive and made me able to feel like I could open up to her and felt like, maybe this is the time to tell my story.” Drake then discusses with the interviewer that during the time that Brian Peck was arrested, there was no media coverage whatsoever of the charges that went down.
Drake told the interviewer that he believed that the reason Brian Peck was still hired to work on many other kids shows while being a registered sex offender, was because there was no media coverage of the situation.
It was interesting to see the effect the documentary had on the actors who wrote letters in support of Brian Peck. It was intriguing how fast they switched up knowing that those records are public now. Especially with the two actors Rider Strong and Will Friedle, who discussed the documentary on their podcast saying how bad they felt when they saw Drake in the courtroom many years ago, how stupid they felt writing letters of support to Brian Peck, and how they were, “on the wrong side of the law”. Drake told this interviewer that Will had multiple chances to apologize to him, or mention the situation, but did not bat an eye.
I find it quite surprising how many actors or people in the acting industry, did not personally apologize to Bell even after the documentary was released.
After Drake Bell’s segment, the episode maneuvered to the second segment, in which the interviewer spoke with former child actors from All That, Giovonnie Samuels and Bryan Hearne. Samuels and Hearne were the only two black actors that were on the set of All That who both expressed that Dan Schneider was discriminating against them by the certain roles they would play and the way he would treat the black child actors. These actors also expressed that Schnieder would force them to do scenes they did not want to do.
Schnider had also released a statement in recent weeks stating that the kids on the show did not need to do any of the dares or pranks that whatever they thought was too scary or too
much for them would be off the table and they wouldn’t have to do it. Giovonnie Samuels and Bryan Hearne responded to this video by telling the interviewing, “Dan is an actor and he will always be an actor first, he knows what to do, and what to say. He’s acting.”
Schnider then said he never discriminated and always had a main black character in the cast of every one of his shows and mentioned that Kenan and Kel became famous as well. Samuels and Hearne told the interviewer, “Did you see how when they talked about us being overlooked by him, he overlooked us in his answer?”
It was interesting to see this view of Quiet On Set and the way it was formatted as well, even though the documentary was already raw and real, the last episode was truly as uncut as it is going to get. Episode 5 of Quiet On Set is streaming on MAX now.
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