Counter-Currents
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I would be lying if I said I try to avoid pop culture, because it really doesn’t take much effort. When you are young, you pick stuff up from being around other young people, and if you are a parent, you pick stuff up from your kids. But I’m old and have no kids, and I find that if you don’t listen to the radio in the car and only watch Turner Classic Movies, it is actually quite easy to completely lose touch with pop culture. I’m perfectly happy having no idea who the latest singers and teen heartthrobs are.
I believe that there is such a thing as being too out of touch with pop culture, however, so if something comes along that everyone is talking about, I sometimes feel duty-bound to check it out and see why it is striking a chord. It’s basically the only reason why I ever watch a movie anymore, since I usually assume that all movies suck nowadays.
The new HBO documentary Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV was all over my Twitter/X feed last week, which is about the rise of the children’s programming network Nickelodeon that first began airing in the late 1970s, but which really began to take off in the 1990s. From what I could tell, the whole place was allegedly flooded with pedophiles or something like that. For me, it was more a matter of knowing that it was probably going to have a lot of Jews and pedophiles, and presumably Jewish pedophiles, and thus that I was probably going to be able to get an article out of it.
Quiet on Set is obvious nostalgia-bait for millennials and zoomers given that they would have been Nickelodeon’s target audience during the period of time it covers. The subject matter appealed to me only marginally, given that as a later Gen-Xer, by the time Nickelodeon hit its stride via its original programming in the 1990s, I was already too old for it. Clarissa Explains It All, a sort of proto-iCarley, came out when I was in high school. The show starred Melissa Joan Hart, arguably the first Nickelodeon star break into the mainstream. While Hart is about a year older than me, Clarissa Explains It All was clearly geared towards a middle school audience.
The only Nickelodeon show that made much of an impact on Generation X was the 1980s kids’ sketch-comedy show You Can’t Do That on Television, which wasn’t technically a Nickelodeon show, anyway, as it was made in Canada and then rebroadcast by the network in the United States. It nevertheless became its flagship show. Kids loved it due to its absurdist humor and goofiness, and parents hated it because its humor was extremely lowbrow, with frequent references to words such as “barf” and “boogers.” My own mom forbade me to watch it. In many ways, You Can’t Do That on Television served as a template for the Nickelodeon style. Whereas Disney made shows that kids and parents could watch and enjoy together, Nickelodeon specialized in making content that kids would like but that their parents wouldn’t get.
It wasn’t until decades later that I would learn that You Can’t Do That on Television was a blatant rip-off of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, which had aired from 1968 until 1973. I only realized this when a local station aired a Laugh-In marathon; after 15 minutes, I realized that it was You Can’t Do That on Television with grownups.
Quiet on Set’s bête noire is Dan Schneider. Gen X and older are more likely to know Schneider from the 1980s high-school sitcom Head of the Class, where he played the fat class clown Dennis Blunden, whose various cons and schemes invariably backfired in comedic ways. Schneider scored his first writing credits during his time on Head of the Class, and shortly after its cancellation he was hired by Nickelodeon as a writer and produce for a new kids’ sketch-comedy show called All That. All That was Nickelodeon’s first attempt to create their own version of You Can’t Do That on Television, except with Saturday Night Live rather than Laugh-In as its primary influence. It was immensely successful, and Schneider went on to produce a slew of other children’s shows for the network.
You can buy Spencer J. Quinn’s My Mirror Tells a Story here.
Quiet on Set features a series of interviews with the writers, actors, and staff from Schneider’s various Nickelodeon productions to talk about what a complete son-of-a-bitch Schneider was to work with. The main accusation against him is that he was unapologetically misogynistic. He openly declared women to be unfunny, he showed porn in the writers’ room, and he made female staff writers give him shoulder massages. In other words, typical Jew behavior. The film also features some of the black child actors who appeared on Schneider’s shows, who naturally claim that they were sidelined by Schneider because they are black.
This is where we run into a problem. First, I’m sure Dan Schneider is an asshole, and the film brings up a lot of valid criticisms. But who do they roll out to tell us about him? Female comedy writers and token black actors; in other words, affirmative action hires. The people who were hired simply for diversity reasons are upset that they were not treated as well as the people who got on the show by merit. One of the people they bring on is Alexa Nikolas, a former child star whose acting career peaked at age 13, and since then has established a long history of making unfounded claims against those around her. For example, Nikolas accused her ex-husband of rape after he stopped her alimony payments.
Despite the ugly picture that Quiet on Set paints of him, Schneider still has quite a large number of defenders in it, not least of whom is sexual assault victim Drake Bell, who is featured prominently. I don’t doubt that Schneider is a jerk, a pervert, and a narcissist, but I didn’t see much evidence that he is any more those things than the average Jew. It is also worth noting that Schneider has never been accused of inappropriate behavior with children. His primary detractors are the adult women he worked with.
Something else that Schneider has been accused of is bringing risqué humor and subliminal sexual imagery into children’s programming. One such example is a character in one sketch, played by Amanda Bynes in the Schneider production The Amanda Show, who was called “Penelope Taynt.” “Taint” refers to the skin located between a man’s scrotum and his anus. There were also scenes in another Schneider production for Nickelodeon, Victorious, where he had cast member and future pop star Ariana Grande squeezing a very phallic-looking potato and having her pour water all over herself in a creepily sensuous manner.
Since the documentary aired, Schneider has stated that he did not have complete creative control over his shows and that everything, from the wardrobe to the scripts, had to go through a phalanx of executives on both coasts before getting the green light. Thus, while one is free to dislike some of the jokes, it is unfair scapegoat him. I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt here. One of the reasons why movies are superior to television is that TV is made by committees. There are no auteurs in television. Even the South Park guys, who have been granted unprecedented creative freedom, still occasionally get vetoed by the suits. Although Quiet on theSet does tell one story about Schneider misleading an executive who had raised questions about the Penelope Taint sketch, with Schneider feigning ignorance of the word’s darker meaning.
Aside from Dan Schneider, Quiet on Set profiles two child sex predators who worked on Schneider’s shows. The first is Jason Michael Handy, who was a production assistant for Nickelodeon. Everyone who knew Handy claimed that he was the nicest guy in the world. In my experience, that is always a red flag. The proof that someone is a sociopath isn’t that there seems to be something “off” about him, but rather that he comes off as a little too perfect — like someone who always seem to be in a good mood. No one is in a good mood all of the time, and if someone looks as if he is, he’s putting on an act. There’s a website called Lovefraud which supports those who have been in relationships with sociopaths, and if you read people’s testimonials there, a reoccurring theme is that the guy seemed “so perfect” when they first met.
Handy’s modus operandi was that he would go after the child extras. Some sketches required large groups of children, who would be brought in as extras. Handy would befriend the kids and their parents, who were thrilled to gain a friend who had connections in the industry. He would then exchange e-mails with the child, which would start out innocently and then get progressively more sexual, all the while making vague promises about being able to get them into the regular casts of the shows he worked on. Eventually, Handy was arrested, and he’s currently in a federal prison.
The other pedophile is the Jew Brian Peck, who as a dialogue coach was quite a bit higher up the ladder than Handy was. Former Drake & Josh child star Drake Bell tells the story of how he was groomed and then sexually assaulted by Peck over the course of several years. Bell’s own father was initially his manager, and he identified Peck as a pedophile right away. He did his best to keep his son’s contact with Peck to the absolute minimum. Peck then got in Drake Bell’s ear and began telling him that his dad was ripping him off and that he was going to be a hinderance on his career. Peck succeeded in persuading Drake to drop his dad as his manager and to go live with his mom. She, by contrast, was easily bamboozled by Peck’s promises, and because she lived an hour away from the Nickelodeon studios, he convinced her to let Drake stay overnight at his house in order to spare her the commute. This is when the assaults began. Drake got a girlfriend after he turned 15, and his girlfriend’s mom figured out what was going on.
The most striking thing in the film is the fact that after Brian Peck was finally arrested for being a pedophile, the entertainment industry rallied around him. Dozens of Hollywood bigwigs, including a slew of A-list actors, wrote letters to the judge asking for leniency. In the end, all he got was a measly 16 months behind bars. What’s even crazier is that after he got out of prison, he managed to land another job on another children’s show, this time on the Disney Channel.
I have mixed feelings about Schneider after watching both Quiet on Set and the reactions to it. Before getting #MeToo’d in 2018, which caused Nickelodeon to part ways with him, he had produced many kids’ shows, each one more successful than the last. I don’t think you can do that without having some kind of talent. It’s annoying to see genuinely talented people taken down by scandal, even if they deserve it. I wanted to see more of Frank Underwood on House of Cards, for example, but I couldn’t because Kevin Spacey hit on a kid in the early 1980s. Nevertheless, I would guess that this documentary will probably end up helping Dan Schneider more than it hurts him.
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12 comments
A lot of people in the entertainment industry seem to be sexual deviants. Roman Polanski is a good example and several of his acting friends have rallied to his defense. Most movies aren’t any good. Me and a few friends watch TCM and have similar views on pop culture.
I, too, had next to no interest in this but gave it a tepid look-see and was shocked. What was cute and cuddly “aw shucks” Ray Romano doing in there? Answer: in a glory hole sketch where he fellates a pickle. And that was nothing! John Wayne Gacy’s good friend and convicted kid rapist -who received FORTY-ONE letters of support from entertainment industry big shots as noted- is still working in the biz. Did Gacy give him a character reference? I always looooathed Hollywood. Turns out I didn’t loathe it enough. I stand corrected.
You can’t call yourself a Gen Xer if you didn’t watch this show on Nickelodeon
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can't_Do_That_on_Television
editing this to say that I hadn’t finished reading the article and saw your reference to the show after posting it.
when I was 12 years old, for some reason Christine was my idealized teenage girl
I watched it all the time as well, and had the biggest crush on both Christine (who everyone called Moose for some reason) and Lisa, both of whom had a great girl next door look. I heard when I got older that Alanis Morrisette used to be on there, but I honestly don’t remember seeing her.
Haha Lisa, I forgot her, and my search engine reminded me why (not so cute to me in retrospect to be honest).
I think with Christine, (yeah Moose) it was the freckles and the crystal blue eyes, while presenting in a way that an early pubescent was attracted to… (yes girl next door, yet tomboyish while still clearly girly)
At that age, one of my favorite things to do was walk with my guy friends down to the creek near our neighborhood and catch tadpoles or minnows or just explore. I can remember half a dozen girls who’d randomly show up (just like Christine) who weren’t afraid to get muddy but who at the same time were experimenting with lip gloss and nail polish.
I hope that reminiscing about that awkward age doesn’t sound pedo. I just remember it very clearly… the innocence slowly being tainted by hormones. The age when you still wanted to just be best friends with a particular girl but you also had a funny feeling that hit whenever she brushed by you with her hair. That show kind of encapsulated that for kids growing up in the late 70s and 80s.
don’t worry, there is nothing pedo about remembering what kind of girls you found attractive way back as an adolescent
Thinking back to Moose what probably I found attractive about her is that she resembled the girls in my school and not a Hollywood version of what a teen girl should be Pretty but not unapproachably gorgeous and a bit chubby-very much like the girls in my school Her mannerisms were also similar to the girls in my school
All-in-all, she was the epitome of eighties Canadian girlhood (You Cant Do That On TV was a Canadian show by the way-you Americans probably thought it was from the US because it was shown on Nickelodeon but you saw it delayed by several seasons-the producer Roger Price was a UK expatriate He created the Tomorrow People back in Britain)
yeah Moose- the love of my life back then
Travis LeBlanc writes about himself and about pretty much all of American Conservative/Reactionary politics, religion since World War II:
“But I’m old and have no kids, and I find that if you don’t listen to the radio in the car and only watch Turner Classic Movies, it is actually quite easy to completely lose touch with pop culture. I’m perfectly happy having no idea who the latest singers and teen heartthrobs are.”
I respond:
Sigh. The Anti White Cult Marxists, Js, Homo, Scientologists, Globalists know this – and always work to monopolize the arts, actors, The Workers, pop musicians now the most popular musician is Taylor Swift, once it was Madonna, Miley Cyrus – they know that getting the youth, getting the children is a sure path to political, cultural control and these #*$&@ anti White cult marxist are perfectly happy to concede the only opposition to their horrible programs the great replacement, race mixing miscegenation, the Death of the West are Conservative old people nostalgic for some imaginary past that was never as good as they remember.
Look at Conservative GOP political leaders in our/my time:
Ronald Reagan in his second Presidential term – “The Gipper” was old, out of it, pretty much Senile running on fumes, just remembering that “The Russians were our supposed enemy” telling Russian Leader Gorbachev “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that (Berlin) Wall” (I’m screaming at the TV set, No you senile old fool, ask this still sane, non senile White Russian leader to help build us the Wall between the 3rd world migrant invaders.
Or else it’s old and out of it White folks still lamenting the changes of the mid 1960s when sex, drugs and rock and roll supposedly destroyed their idealized “Leave it to Beaver”, “Father knows best” 1950s world.
The reality is that youth is always rebellious, always interested in yes Sex, not content to bow their heads, agree with the old people in the room with them, put on a suit and go to some boring old people’s church on Sunday, “Support the Troops, wave the flag” don’ t ask any questions about these endless Neo Conservative (J*w) wars that never seem to accomplish anything, don’t “notice” the 300 LBS elephant pooping in our living rooms or the filthy pervert J*w TV set given prominent position in pretty much all remaining White living rooms.
Nope. This isn’t the right way to go.
The great leaders in White or related history, religion where young men in the prime of their life, not old and out of it Conservative Old men living in the past.
Somewhere out there now – there are some tough, smart, idealistic young White men who can lead us, fight this ZOG, BLM, Homo beast – it’s up to us to find them/him.
The last man against time as Savitri Devi wrote. This young, strong man might come from some Christian tradition or something else – like the Vishnu Kalki tradition, but he sure as hell ain’t gonna be some old and out of it White man content to just watch Turner Classic Movie Channels on his living room couch and not even acknowledge the real world we live in now year 2024 by the Christian calendar (what year is it in the Roman calendar)?
I say:
Let’s make nostalgia a thing of the past.
But modern pop culture is so soul-crushing to consume. What is the value of being “in touch with pop culture” if the cost is that I have to allow myself to be spiritually raped by Jews over and over? I would be an alcoholic in no time.
Plus, there is too much pop culture being produced to keep up with all of it. It used to be that there were 3 networks and a handful of must-see shows a week. Then it became 4 networks. Then every cable channel started making original content and some of that became “must see”. Then the multiple streaming services with original content…
Then in music, you see the tendency of everything to split into smaller and smaller subgenres and then subgenres within subgenres. In the 80s, you could say “I like alternative music” and that could refer to a diverse array of bands like REM, Cocteau Twins, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Depeche Mode, or the Pixies but nowadays, those bands would now all be considered separate genres.
The reason why black music is dominant is because it has wide appeal whereas the best white music is all very niche. Some of the best shoegaze ever is being made right now but most people have no idea.
There is no way for anyone to “keep up with pop culture” the way you could 30 years ago. There will always be people talking about shows, movies, and music you’ve never heard of.
If something comes along that seems to capture the zeitgeist and everyone is talking about it, I will usually check it out but no, I’m not going to follow trends. It’s too much work and it hurts my heart.
I think the white youth would do well to watch more Turner Classic Movies just so that they can have a picture of what a white world looked like. Most kids these days have never seen one.
“I think the white youth would do well to watch more Turner Classic Movies just so that they can have a picture of what a white world looked like. Most kids these days have never seen one.” – Travis LeBlanc
I couldn’t agree more with your comment. Soul-crushing modern content — I would say, soul-destroying — is demoralizing, degrading, and debasing. The difference in pre-1950s books, even more especially in 18th Century books, shows in the obviously higher intelligence level of the writers, the eloquent use of language, and the innate moral confidence in the messaging.
The thrillingly civilized presentation of ordinary life on display in old black-and white movies is food for the White soul.
I think youthful rebeliousness, whilst it may be a strong tendency in some people, is largely engendered by cultural propaganda. Perhaps I just can’t remember such influences from my youth but so captured are the the institutions today that it is taught in schools. On a recent visit to a posh ‘grade’ school I noticed the legend “future global changemakers” on the classroom door as I left. And that’s only what they are happy to let visitors see. No doubt it is far worse in America.
Ferg-face was great on Clarissa Explains It All.
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