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The nostalgia of our favorite kids shows quickly fades once we learn what the young actors in them endured, oftentimes giving up their childhoods so we could relish ours. Nearly two years after the hard revelations from Jennette McCurdy’s “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” one documentary seeks to shed light on the lesser-known side of children’s television.
On Tuesday, Investigation Discovery shared a preview of its forthcoming four-part docuseries “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV,” as HuffPost’s Jazmin Tolliver reported. The preview suggests that Drake Bell, a former star of the beloved Nickelodeon series “Drake & Josh,” will discuss how Brian Peck allegedly abused him when he was a child actor.
“Drake Bell will be sharing publicly, for the first time, the story of the abuse he suffered at the hands of Brian Peck, his former dialogue coach who was convicted in 2004 for his crimes against Drake and ordered to register as a sex offender,” Warner Bros. Discovery said in a press release. (Bell’s lawyer didn’t immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.)
But Bell isn’t the sole focus of “Quiet on Set.” According to a synopsis, the docuseries “pulls back the curtain on an empire, built by creator Dan Schneider, that had an undeniable grip on popular culture” and “uncovers the toxic and dangerous culture behind some of the most iconic children’s shows of the late 1990s and early 2000s.”
Meanwhile, former Disney Channel star Alyson Stoner (who appeared in one episode of “Drake & Josh”) has long been advocating for legal protections for child actors. Stoner, who uses they/them pronouns, danced in Missy Elliott’s “Work It” music video and starred in “Cheaper by the Dozen,” as well as the “Step Up” franchise. They are also known for their roles in “Camp Rock,”…
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