"The fact is many of the kids on these shows are put in the untenable position of becoming the breadwinner for their family and the pressure that comes along with that," the statement continues. "Add on top of that the difficulties of growing up and having to do so under the spotlight while working a demanding job, all as a child. Nobody understood that pressure better than Dan (Schneider) and that’s why he was their biggest champion."
"Dan (Schneider) has said himself that he was a tough boss to work for and if he could do things over again he would act differently," the statement concludes. "But let’s be clear, when Dan departed Nickelodeon a full investigation was done and again, what was found is that he was a challenging, tough, and at times inappropriate and demanding person to work for and with, nothing else."
Looking for gold, of course:
Sullivan calls the set “dysfunctional ... you could get away with more, like going overtime in ways that were pushing the envelope.”
The cast members say certain scenes were grueling, like one that involved pouring sugar and coffee into their mouths. “It was gross, it was weird,” Sullivan says. “The show was full of these uncomfortable sketches. I think Dan got a kick out of walking the line with that.”
Two cast members, Hearne and Samuels, describe the racial dynamics on set. Samuels says she was like the “token Black girl." Hearne says Schneider had a “closer relationship with some of the white kids,” and that he didn’t feel close to him “at all.”
...
The cast members say the “On Air Dares” segments of the show, seemingly modeled on the show “Fear Factor,” were “traumatic.”
The segments involved the show's cast sitting in vats of fish or worms. In one clip, a cast member has a scorpion placed in his mouth.
Hearne, at one point, recalls being covered in peanut butter, which was then licked off by dogs. “It was really uncomfortable. I didn’t like that,” he says.
“The thing that was most uncomfortable was having to watch your fellow cast mates be essentially tortured,” Hearne says.
...
Fabian says Bynes and Schneider were "very close on the Amanda Show."
"Very few people made Dan laugh, and Amanda did," he says.
Karyn Finley Thompson, who worked as an editor on "All That," says she and Schneider had a "close relationship." She recalls seeing Bynes massaging Schneider's shoulders.
The documentary also looks into how their relationship soured as Bynes got older.
Schneider and Bynes moved from Nickelodeon to The CW for "What I Like About You," co-created with Will Calhoun. He denies he was pushed out from the writers' room, according to a statement aired in the documentary.
But their relationship soured when Schneider involved himself in Bynes' failed effort to emancipate herself from her parents, the documentary alleges.
...
The documentary revisits some of the jokes on Nickelodeon shows and how they might have had inappropriate subtext, referencing adult content on kids’ TV.
For example, in “Victorious,” a young Ariana Grande tries to “juice a potato“ by moving her hands over a brown potato.
Frierson, the former “All That” cast member, remembers being cast as “Nose Boy.” For the costume, Frierson wore a large brown prosthetic nose on his face and shoulders, which seemed to resemble male genitals. During the punch line, he sneezed snot.
Honestly it's pretty funny reading this sort of reference in a Yahoo article and they are just talking around it without saying it.
Plus, lol:
The name of Penelope Taynt, a character on “The Amanda Show” who was Bynes’ alter ego, was a joke about the taint, a slang term for the part of the body between the anus and the genitals. Writers say Schneider asked them to “keep it a secret” from Nickelodeon executives.
Now here it gets funky - they really buried this deep down:
Kilgen and Stratton say Schneider would force pranks on the staff, pestering them to say random sentences out loud, like “I’m a slut.”
Stratton also says Schneider once challenged her to eat two pints of ice cream in 30 minutes for $300 dollars. Stratton agreed because she had “no money.” She completed the challenge, throwing up afterward, but then “the money didn’t come.”
The very worst:
Kilgen says Schneider got “worse and worse.” He played pornography on set and asked Kilgen to “massage him” several times in the writers’ room and the studio, Kilgen says.
Then, Kilgen recounts “the wrongest thing I’d seen happen to a woman in a professional environment, ever.”
The women say Schneider pressured Stratton into retelling a story, but acting like she “was being sodomized” while doing it.
“I think, ‘That poor girl and what she had to go through.’ I would not do it today, but I did it then," Stratton says.
Both eventually left the show. Kilgen filed complaints against the production company for gender discrimination, hostile work environment and harassment. In response, Nickelodeon did an internal investigation and settled. Kilgen says the experience had a “lasting impact on her career.”