Was it ALL a LIE?! Body Language Analyst REACTS to Dan Schneider's "Quiet on Set" Apology

watching the last two nights was very difficult. I faced my past behaviors. Some of which are embarrassing and which I regret. I definitely owe some people a pretty strong

apology

. What's going on? Everyone, welcome to the behavioral arts. My name is Spidey and I used. my degree in sociology and psychology my certifications in criminal interrogation and

body

language

analysis and over 10 years of experience as an award-winning mentalist teaching people behavioral analysis and practical psychology on stages and television shows around the world in a series Recent documentary titled Quiet On Set, The Dark Side of Children's Television, several child actors and adult employees spoke out against the atrocities that took place behind the scenes on some of the most popular children's television shows of the '90s.

The allegations They ranged from hostile work environments to inappropriate behavior and childish acts. sa for which numerous employees were arrested and charged one of the main themes of the documentary series was the inappropriate behaviors of Dan Schneider, creator, writer and showrunner of some of the biggest hits in the history of children's television and in response to the documentary. Dan Schneider did an interview where he talked about some of these accusations, but what do his

body

language

facial expressions and, most importantly, word choice reveal, and what really stood out to me about the way Dan Schneider communicates?

Before we watch these clips, I want to quickly talk about what the accusations were against Dan Schneider specifically for those who haven't seen the documentary, so the accusations can be broken down into three categories: The first is creating a hostile work environment. of people said that on set he was very impatient, very short-tempered, often threatened non-compliant employees, and was generally very unpleasant to work with. He would call people idiots, buffoons, stupid, fools, careless, careless and cowards for the team if you made a mistake even if it was a minor mistake Dan would be someone who would be willing to humiliate you or fire you on the spot the situation became very stressful in the set of Sam and Cat Nickelodeon launched an internal investigation the second category is not appropriate Behaviors on set specifically towards female employees, so there are many stories of him taking women who were too busy to give him massages away from what they were doing on set or how he made them shout inappropriate words even if they were uncomfortable. with it because she thought it was funny and there's even a case where a writer named Christy Straton was writing a story based on her own experience in the writers' room and Dan forced her to tell the story in an extremely compromising and embarrassing way and Dan was I just said, You know what would be funny if you leaned across the table and acted like you were being picked on and told that story about high school.

She said no at first and then he said, "Oh, come on, come on, it'll be so much fun." Just do it, it'll be a lot of fun, remember Dan asked you to act like I'd rather not, I'd rather not be me and finally the third category is that for several shows he wrote and directed content where children were put in? in very inappropriate and suggestive situations now, I guess the best way to tell you what that content is is to show it to you, but when I saw it in the docu-series it made me uncomfortable and I thought that should not have a platform that should not have aired, so I don't want to play them on my platform and I'm thinking specifically about things that he filmed with Ariana Grande where she was in her room and there were scenes where she was like milking a potato. or uh, pouring water on herself and she just did it in a very suggestive and inappropriate way and that's just one example, okay, that's what she said, let's dive into the interview, so here's Dan, how are you?

I'm fine, I'm fine, um. I really appreciate you reaching out and giving me the opportunity to talk to you about what we saw over the last two nights. I'm very glad you're here because I think this is important, we have a lot of things. To unravel, but before I dive into my list of topics I'd like to discuss, is there anything you'd like to start with? Absolutely watching the last two nights was very difficult for me to confront my past behaviors, some of which are embarrassing and I regret that and I definitely owe some people a pretty strong

apology

.

Let's talk about massages. Well, seeing the content yesterday was disturbing. That was wrong. It was wrong that I ever put anyone in that position. It was the wrong thing. I would never do it today. I'm ashamed I did it. So I apologize to anyone I put in that situation. Let's look at Dan's nonverbal communication to try to get a basis for his general mood at the beginning of this conversation. So, a couple of things first, you'll notice that he's not sitting comfortably in the chair, he's kind of leaning forward. Now the chair itself might have something to do with it.

I feel like in that chair, if you sat down, it would show. Too informal and unprofessional, so they have to sit forward, but that's not the only thing. You'll also notice that he's hunched forward a little, his feet are crossed over each other, so things are held together. and his hands are in a steeple-down position, so the steeple is this and it's generally a sign of confidence. We often see CEOs or people in positions of being able to talk to his hands like this, but yours is different than that, it's down here tucked between his legs. in the pelvic area, which is an area that we subconsciously protect a lot when we're feeling defensive and he doesn't deviate much every once in a while, his hand goes up and he gestures with something and it goes back down there.

He doesn't have these big animated gestures but to compensate for that he is quite animated with his eyebrows, you will notice that very often they are up here, very often you emphasize with them, they dance a lot and eyebrows are something that I look for. a lot, especially in people who don't move much, but the starting point for him is that those eyebrows are constantly moving with things. At first, when they ask him how he is, we see his eyes scanning down a little as he he advances. I really appreciate you reaching out. And I think what's happening here is that he goes to this script that he has and he'll do it several times throughout the interview, where he kind of grows this thing that we felt was important for him to say this this way.

I mean, after all, he's a writer, so it makes sense that there were certain things that he said, okay, you have to say this this way. I think this is one of them. I appreciate you reaching out, so I think he wants to be on top of the viewer. knowing that Boogie walked up to him like Boogie decided to talk to him, he wasn't the one who walked up to Boogie and said, hey, listen, help me. I really need you to help me present a different narrative and he's sending this signal to Say, look, I still have people who are on my side and want to hear from me, so I think that's why I wanted to start.

I appreciate you reaching out. Notice how when he says I'm embarrassed, I did it back then, we see the face scrunching up so the nose wrinkles like this, the mouth wrinkles and the eyes squint like this, this is the universal expression of disgust anywhere. All over the world people recognize this as a feeling of disgust, we are trying to close everything because I don't want to experience this disgusting thing again. I'm ashamed I did it then. Now there's no way for me to look at that isolated moment and tell you if what he's feeling is genuine disgust or if it's someone who's very animated with his face using this as an illustrator to illustrate how disgusted he feels watching a Narrator do it. .

It's hard to tell the difference in a scenario like this, so let's zoom out and look at the context. The question I'm asking myself is about the timing of this, so if you were really embarrassed if you thought about this and how unacceptable it was and how apologetic you feel, why did you have to wait for this documentary to come out to express that I haven't seen any testimony or story? online from any employee of yours who was contacted at some point before this documentary and then said: listen, I've been thinking about the way I behaved on set, it was completely unacceptable and I'm really sorry, are you really upset by your behaviors, well let's move forward with one important question in mind: we're going to get a specific responsibility at some point and move away from these broader ambiguous apologies, so we'll watch more clips with that in mind, but before you do me a big favor hit the button subscription turn on those notifications for more behavioral analysis and practical psychology content Dan, tell me about the writers' room from what I saw, it's not right, no, no, and I don't mean to interrupt you, but if I can do it okay.

To the point, let me say that no writer should feel uncomfortable in the writers' room, and all the way, there are no excuses, most television writers, comedy writers have been in writers' rooms and they are aware that a lot of times inappropriate jokes are made and topics come up uh but the fact that I participated in that especially when I was leading the room um I'm embarrassed I shouldn't have done it um in the writers' room there's no doubt that sometimes those jokes went further. beyond what was acceptable and I said things that went too far or they made bad jokes that went too far and that was wrong and that was because you know I was an inexperienced producer, I was immature, it wouldn't happen today, but I'm really sorry it happened, right?

OK? Starting off with that question we have one of the best examples we've seen of the universal facial expression of contempt, so research has shown that virtually all over the world people recognize this expression as a feeling of contempt, self-righteousness, or looking down. down. on someone, so it's a wrinkle on one side of the face and sometimes it looks like this and sometimes it looks like this exactly how Boogie did it. The really interesting thing about this one is that we also have what we call looking a little, this is where it's like turning your head a little bit and looking at someone out of the corner of your eye and it's very consistent with contempt, we even see just a little bit of that. squinting to judge, so all these things together are a perfect example of feeling contempt and at the same time saying it's not right, then there is a judgment, there is a moral superiority, these behaviors are belittled, now this is where we see to Dan, the writer, to step out a little bit because he says no, no, and I'm going to interrupt you. and we see at the same time a gesture of stopping, the hand is raised like this and the orientation of the hand is not universal.

We see different orientations and communication in different parts of the world, but raising your hand like this almost anywhere in the world is a signal. denial, trying to stop someone or trying to get someone's attention, which are pretty much the same thing and this is Dan saying, no, no, this is important. I'm going to interrupt you because I really want to say that no writer should feel uncomfortable with this. It's important for me to chime in at this point, but the interesting thing about this is that it doesn't interrupt you at all. Boogie finished his question, he said, and then tell me about the writers' room because from what I saw, it's not right.

I want to say that? I was going to say more there, he said, tell me about this at most, I could have added something like that, what do you think about that? But that's all, the question was practically asked. Dan told me about the writer's room from what I saw. It's not okay, no, no, and I don't mean to interrupt you, but if I can get right to the point, let me tell you that, also, there were moments within that question where he could have interrupted right when Boogie said, so talk to me . about the writer's room before moving on to the next part, that would have been a good opportunity to then interrupt him and go, let me interrupt you right there, what I did in that writer's room was unacceptable, he practically waited for me to finish. he finished his question and said, you know I'm going to interrupt you right there and this is Dan writing a script to communicate the urgency of how important it is for me to come in here and tell you, barnun, this is unacceptable, but it wasn't.

It was really a contrived sense of urgency and then I'm going to have a couple of problems that Dan and I are going to have to solve, so some of the language he uses and, again, this is a writer, so language is important, so he is saying inappropriate jokes, inappropriate topics and bad jokes, these are the words he uses to qualify his behaviors on set, but again let's think about what he was actually accused of, maybe some of the things were bad jokes or inappropriate topics, but we have a woman who talks about how you made her present something in a very explicit and compromising way that is embarrassing, that is hugely inappropriate, none of that is a joke, so this language really minimizes some of the things that he did if I was Christy Stratton and I listened to him.

I say this reduces my experience to an inappropriate joke. I think it would make things worsethings and he tries to minimize what he did and reduce it to that. I think it's an insult to anyone who was truly hurt by his actions. Another problem I have is with the word participated, it says participated in these activities now, although technically it might be the correct word participate usually means jump to something right, something is happening and I participate in what is already happening in most of these cases, he innovated, nothing was happening. he was the one who started it, so again participation is minimizing the language as if it were happening and I participated.

I was involved no no it wasn't happening you caused it in the end he says this all happened because he was an inexperienced producer so Dan. Personally, I have a question for you: at what point in the experience of a producer's journey do you learn that it is not acceptable to have a woman be present in a room full of people while she pretends to be Beed? That's something that comes out of Mark's three years of experience. The four-year-old says that you are an inexperienced producer that is why these things happened but inexperience as a producer does not justify any of these behaviors.

I would like to talk to those people because I hate that someone worked for me and didn't. Have fun, you know me, you've been on my sets, look, I've had some employees who have worked for me for 10 years, some 20+ years who would work with me again, but not all, there are still a significant number. That didn't have a very good time working for me, so my batting average isn't high enough in that area, and the way they wouldn't get the best out of me is that it would put the pressure on me to make 40 or even more. episodes per year I would let that pressure get to me, something a good boss should never do.

Were there specific things you were doing? I'm sure he was yelling at people. Sometimes I would be sarcastic when I could have given them a better answer. I wouldn't give people the time they needed. I would be in too much of a hurry to move on to the next thing I had to do. Good in terms of body language. Once again with Boogie we see an asymmetrical movement of the lips when Dan says, "You know." For me, you've worked with me and that cuts it and it has this kind of thing, it's not the same look as before, when we had that kind of side eye with a little bit of a squint and that critical judgment, you know, the mouth going really up. and causing that line on one side of the face is just a very slight movement, so could it be a bit of a quick snub?

But I think it's more than likely just a little smile, you know? He said we have worked together. He simply acknowledges it with a small smile so we have something that is very common in the handlers manual. I have a video on the channel where I talk about the techniques manipulators use to manipulate and how to counter them. I leave a link in the description, but one of the things I talk about is something I call ambiguous social proof, so we instinctively know that if a lot of people feel a certain way, it has more merit than if it's just my correct opinion, so which manipulators will often do.

Say something like, "Oh, everyone's been talking about how you've been nervous lately and you're obviously stressed about something as a way to make it seem more valid that it's not just coming from me, but from everyone." These people and Dan did that, here goes. You know, there are a lot of people who have worked with me for 10 or 20 years and would gladly work with me again, but there are two problems with that, first of all, we don't know who these people are. They are like letting these people come out and speak in your favor, you tell us this, it has no weight, we don't know who they are and the second problem with that is called ad populum logical fallacy, which is basically the idea of ​​saying that a lot of people are feel a certain way doesn't necessarily mean that's true, so, for example, saying that millions of people eat at McDonald's every year doesn't mean that McDonald's is necessarily good food, in the same vein that he says he's had employees who worked for him for 10 or 20 years and that they would work for him again is not a valid metric, it's like if someone at trial murdered someone and told us about all the people he didn't murder, all the people you He did not murder.

It matters what you did, it matters, it's the same here, all these other people who it turns out you're not inappropriate with, it doesn't matter, the ones who matter are the ones you were inappropriate with, then talk about how the pressure got to him and how he he was yelling at people, he was sarcastic, uh, he was in too much of a hurry and again, this is minimized through a mission because if that was really the only thing, if you were Snappy, you know if you were in too much of a hurry, you were a little bit sarcastic with the people there wouldn't be a documentary about your behaviors we've all worked in environments where we had co-workers who were sarcastic little Snappy you know, too much of a rush didn't give people time no one is making documentaries about these individuals, so by not saying which one it was the real problem and just saying yeah, this is, you know, this is what it was.

I was snappy and sarcastic, it really downplays people's experience, all these jokes that you're talking about, um, that the show covered. For the past two nights, every single one of those jokes was written for a kid audience because kids thought they were funny and only funny. Well, now we have some adults looking at them 20 years later through their glasses and they're looking at them and they're saying, oh, you know, I don't think that's appropriate for a children's show and I don't have a problem with that, if that's how Someone sit down, let's remove those jokes from the show just like I would have done 20 years ago or 25 years ago I removed it I want my shows to be popular I want everyone to like them The more people like the shows, the happier I am, so If there's something on a show that needs to be cut because it's bothering someone, let's cut it out, so I think it's great for you to say with your work if it shows, you have no problem today cut it cut it well a couple of quick things about that segment first we see that at some point there was a hand gesture towards the face and this is something that is built into the training of behavior

analyst

s: every time that hand reaches out to touch the face, we are paying attention for many reasons.

There is research that shows that when we are stressed or stressed, the blood flow to the face actually changes and this could cause itching of the face, so very often in a set of behaviors we look for this sudden touch of the face. Another reason for this is that since we are little we say something that we are not supposed to say. We say if it is a secret or a bad word, we have the reflex that an h arises and we try to withdraw those words and block the mouth. Now, as kids, we do these kinds of very obvious things, but as adults we get a little better. on that so we can have our hand over here like this over here or get close to the face like this and we've seen some amazing examples on the channel of someone who said something they weren't supposed to say and we saw those hands reflexively shoot up but to Sometimes a scratch on the face is just a scratch on the face and in that moment as he talks we see it happen once and that's it, it's not like his hand goes up and spends a lot of time here, it doesn't. starts to happen a lot of times it's just a scratch on the face, it could be stress, but I usually tend not to pay too much attention to these isolated, one-off gestures when he says you know if some of this stuff is inappropriate.

Just cut to it, we see a surprised expression with Boogie as his head drops and his eyebrows go up like this. Now normally his mouth opens at that too, but he's definitely showing surprise on top of his face and this could be because he knows Dan. reputation that, like him, you run a very strict ship and wouldn't do anything if other people said so, so there might be surprise associated with that, but watch what you say after that, it's important for you to say that I know that if there are inappropriate things, we could delete them now, this comment and other similar comments have received quite a bit of criticism from Boogie online because he is on Dan's side, you are saying, oh, that's really cool of you to do that. and there are several moments in the interview where he does this where he's kind of on Dan's side and not constantly on the attack.

Now let's make something very clear in terms of questioning or interview technique that is 100% the right approach if you want someone to open up and tell the truth if you get into confrontation just constantly attacking what you did is disgusting you need to apologize for it to whom do you are you going to apologize? The person will shut down if they feel attacked, but when you connect with them human to human, they open up to someone infinitely more now. I'm not suggesting that this is the reason Boogie did it, that he knows that if he's a little on his side and leaves, it's really nice of you to say that and be a little nice. for his part, he will make Dan open up more.

I'm not saying that's why he did it, but I think people are on the attack like, oh, you should have been a lot more aggressive, I need to relax for a second because this approach for any reason is what's going to make Dan express himself and We'll find out more about how he feels toward this rather than shutting down, but I personally think the reason Boogie is a little more on Dan's side is because Boogie is actually a little more on Dan's side. Listen to this interview on Dan's YouTube channel. Well, he could have commented on the docuseries, but he didn't.

He was very selective about who can interview him. He is someone he worked with before and had pleasant experiences with. with him and maybe even before they agreed to do this there was some kind of conversation where it was agreed that Boogie wouldn't be on the attack during all of this and that he would present himself in a more friendly way. I don't know the details. about what happened, but I think it's a happy coincidence that Boogie isn't on the offensive during this whole thing. Well, back to Dan when he says that every one of those jokes was written for a child audience.

First we see that he has this strength. eye contact looking directly at Boogie, his hand moving forward as he makes a very abrupt gesture like this and spits out the word children's audience, so he makes this very clear: this was written for a children's audience. There are a few moments in this interview where he almost spits something out. This is one of them, to him it is very clear that that is what it was, it was written for children because it is funny for children and he says that now adults complain about it, the point is that it was for children with comedy , comedy for children. in mind and adults look for inappropriate things in the part that children find funny in their sketches and you are right, there are elements in this that are funny to a child, that is not the part that no one has a problem with, for example, if Arana a big man if he spilled water on his head a child would laugh oh my God I'm hot spilling water on his head like this on top of his head water bottle like this a child would laugh oh my God what a fool she poured water all over her head, She doesn't have to be lying suggestively with the camera on her, expressing it a certain way, gesturing a certain way, so it's not what kids find funny that's a problem, but the way it's packaged. but this topic for me opened up a lot of thoughts and reflections about where that line is, because a lot of children's movies and shows have jokes intended for adults, but where is that line drawn?

So, for example, my mind goes to a lot. from animated films like for example the main example of inoui when the main character Linguini tells Colette that he has a rat in his hat and that tells him how to cook, he says I have a rash and she says: you have a rash and he She says no, I have a little one and she looks down really quickly, so it's clearly a joke for adults, but I laugh and I don't find it inappropriate. I have a rra, are you in a hurry, no, no, I have this. tiny, uh, tiny, on the other hand, many of the scenes I saw in this Nickelodeon material I found extremely inappropriate and I think they shouldn't be there, but what is that line?

I think it comes down to two things. I think the first one is one. it's talked about, it's these things that are said and it's so subtle that a child wouldn't understand it at all and it's an appropriate conversation for two adults to have, there's nothing inappropriate about it, it's just not a joke, a child would understand Certainly, you don't put anyone in a compromising physical situation by doing something that just seems wrong and uncomfortable, and then the second distinction for me is the intention that the joke and more jokes like this are clearly intended to be a joke. for an adult, a little wink to the adult. with these other things that were happening with Dan Schneider's content, what the hell is the intention if you intended for that to have very adult implications?

If so, that's horrible. If not, why does it look like this? It could easily not have looked like that. I think shady intent is a big distinction, but let me know in the comments because I'm curious what people think, where you think that line is, if any of this is acceptable, none of that.that's acceptable and what makes the difference between what's Okay, and you're like, oh, that's really fun as an adult and we're like, oh, wait, no, that shouldn't be there. What is that line? The notion that he had the power to simply produce whatever he wanted and have it is completely false.

Well, there were many levels of scrutiny. Well, we had Executives in Los Angeles, we had Executives in New York, so two coasts, two coasts of approval, yes and no, and by the way, approval at every stage, really and I'm talking about wardrobe. I'm talking about makeup, sound sets, dialogue, jokes, everything now, when you say approval, obviously that's a hierarchy, not your colleagues or the people in the room, okay, no, it's not my col no, these are my bosses , bosses and then their bosses and then their bosses, and they approve all this, okay, and we are also filming it in front. from all kinds of adults and caregivers and the set teacher and the families, everyone is watching it and if someone had said something, hey, we don't like it, that's not appropriate, then they would have cut it, now I'm going to do it.

I'm going to back up a little bit because the show portrayed you this way where you were just the guy who did what he wanted and people were afraid to confront you about things, so tell me, just do me a favor, say that was the guy. If so, what would you do? They have been the best way to accept if no one on the set if all the dozens and dozens of adults that were on the set if they didn't say anything if my bosses said if they insisted that you have to make a change here you have to cut that I had to do it, I had no choice, so there is a part of that segment that really stood out to me as someone who has studied interrogations and has conducted interviews professionally, so in interrogation and interview rooms when we ask a question and an answer is provided, we we asked if he answered my question and he answers my whole question, so notice how here he is saying that he had bosses above him that could have said something and they would have cut him off, but there were even people on set that he knows. adult staff members parents and they might have said something and he says we would have cut it off so Boogie backs off and says okay but wait in the show there are people who said you were unapproachable and you know they wouldn't do it.

He criticizes you and see what happens. He just goes back and answers the first question again, so he says again that my bosses could have said something and we would have cut it, so he brings up this whole element of someone on set could have done it. I said something, it doesn't answer Boogie's question, well a lot of people said, you know, make me funny, a lot of people said they couldn't approach you about this, he doesn't address that, he knows it too because he admitted it in another place. he wasn't approachable, he was irritable, he was sarcastic, you know that, so you know he was running a tight ship, you also know that at that time he was producing things that were very successful, so no one dared to criticize him, so I like him. that Boogie called him about it and said, wait a minute, you're saying people might have approached you, but that's not necessarily true and this is where, more than my experience as an interviewer, my experience as an entertainer on television came in. in action. quite a bit because I've spent a lot of time on TVs as a consultant and performer and I've seen how a lot of these things work, so some of what he says is correct, as long as something is produced, something is written. it has to go on the Nickelodeon network and some people there have to watch it and accept, this is how they're going to film this is the set this is what they're going to wear this what they're saying What it's about, okay, great, it does it It seems like you have to send the script with every detail, how it will be filmed, the shot and someone is sitting there and reading it page by page, in my experience that is not often the case, but let's assume. is, suppose someone is reading word for word what the topic wrote with this content is not what is written is not the script.

I keep going back to the Ariana Grande example, right, if a network executive, even if you look at the specific script, which again I don't think they do, but let's say they do and they say that Ariana now pours water on her head, there's no problem, you keep moving, that's not the problem, the problem is the way it was filmed, framed and blown up in the way he delivered those lines that were directed. for someone and even if you didn't say it when you start do it that way something should pop in your head wherever you go uh Ariana, can we get you to sit up straight and pour it over your head and maybe laugh a little? a little bit more, just direct it a little bit differently because you'll see what we're all seeing.

My second problem with this position is that sharing blame is not a denial, if in an interrogation room you ask someone if you murdered this victim and they say yes, no. I did it, but there were other people there and they all could have stopped me, but they were all there, they were all just watching, that doesn't make you any less guilty, it's the same here, as an adult, you saw this scene. You saw the way it was going to play out, you're trying to fake it like there was approval from above, but those network executives didn't see it the way you were filming it, so you're passing this on. it was like it was a shared decision that everyone was okay with this, but even if that's the case, okay, yeah, let's hear who they are, let's chat with them too, whoever was involved in making that scene publicly available You should answer us why the hell.

It was done that way now we also saw the series highlight two former writers viewers two women who talked about a salary discrepancy I know that salaries are not shared tell me about that part well you are right I have nothing to do I have never made a deal with paid writers , and of all the writers I've been in a writers' room with, I never knew how much most of them got paid, yeah, but we saw these two women who were writers. for you, you share a salary, how does that happen? It's very simple, there is a common practice in television when hiring writers, if you have a spot for a new writer, sometimes you will go to two writers and say hello to them, if you have two new writers for your first job.

They are willing to share a salary they both can have the job they have the opportunity to say yes, that sounds good or no no, thank you in this case it was two writers. I did another show where that team was made with two male writers. and they divided the salary. I did another show where there was a male and female writer and they split the salary, so these are all first-time writers, all first-time writers looking for their first job. If you look at his response here, there's a very different vibe response to his behavior if you compare it to almost every other part of this interview his tone everywhere was much higher he was up here and here he's calmer he's slower he's explaining this with much more confidence but in the first part he does something that The interrogators pay a lot of attention to and is called non-specific denial.

They ask him about two specific women who alleged that he was very aware of the salary they received and he says: "I have never done a writer's contract and all the writers I have been in the writers' room with I never knew how much they were paid. most, so he's talking about this broad scenario as if in most cases he didn't know how much they were paid now, nothing is absolute, but Usually, with a more confident denial, someone would say: Listen I had no idea. of what either of those two women were paid. They ask him about a very specific scenario, but he is giving a very non-specific denial.

I think he is probably saying this all to distance himself from that decision and say that in the. Most of the time I don't know what they're doing, that's not part of my job, but because we don't have that specific denial and he's dancing around and saying, you know, I didn't make the deal and I don't know how much they pay most of them. I think he knew very well how much they were paid, but at least their salary was divided and it kind of confirms that because he continues. Say this is a common practice and I've worked on shows where it was two men and another show where it was a man and a woman so all of a sudden this guy who never makes the deals and doesn't know how many people he gets paid all of a sudden, He's like a sage when it comes to all these other cases where this kind of thing happened, so in the first part it's convenient for him to distance himself from the knowledge of who gets paid and I don't.

I don't know how much they get paid and suddenly it's like, oh, it's a totally common practice, it's happening in this scenario, it's happening in this other scenario, so there's a discrepancy in your level of knowledge about how people get paid. the writers. Brian Peek was not hired by you, no. I didn't hire Brian P, this was a Tolen Robbins production, yeah, and when Drake and I talked and he told me what had happened, I was more devastated by that than anything that's happened to me in my career so far. and I told him I'm here for you, what do you need?

Drake mentioned on the show we watched last night and then I heard that he went to court when this guy was on trial, Peck, and when Drake walked in he saw 50 people sitting on the side of the court. Many of them are pretty famous, of course, Drake was devastated by what happened. I don't know if people know this, but Drake's mother, a lovely woman who I still keep in touch with to this day, came to me at that time and said. Dan, I'm not good with words like you, could you help me with my speech to the judge?

I said, of course, and I did it, and he ended up going to prison and doing his time, and yeah, that was probably the darkest part of it all. my career and here's the kicker I really don't understand after he got out of prison and as far as I know he was a registered sex offender. He was cast in a Disney Channel show. I'm going to make an assumption about the people who watched both the documentary and this interview, so in the documentary we saw a point where this topic was being discussed and Drake Bell, but especially his father, burst into tears and I guess anyone who watched that documentary and this interview was much more affected and moved when Drake and his father specifically broke down crying than Dan was at this moment and I'll tell you why there are emotions that we are genetically programmed to show, for example, anger is really good , with anger, the eyes open, the nostrils dilate. we have this look of lowering our eyebrows and clenching our jaw and the reason this is a display of emotion is because of that clenching.

We think sociologists believe that the reason we clench our jaw is because back in the day when we were in a situation where a confrontation was coming, we were baring our teeth like I was using these things to bite you, so that part went away, but that grip is still part of anger, so we show anger as a way to send a message, but sadness is not an emotion. That genetically we show sadness is a weakness and in most cases, when it comes, we have the reflex most of the time to do these things to contain it, so if you look at Drake and his father Joe in the documentary, when that comes sadness, we see Many common things happen in which they try to hold back tears.

It's so funny how they both have this thing where they look up and to the right like that, for a second they try to tune out the emotion. They both go to the same place, but we also see some eye blocking where we close our eyes to take a moment, we see that bump on the chin, which is very common, lift the bottom lip up like this and it's us just trying to try to keep it there for a second, so in many of these behaviors you know that they need a minute to not let the sadness kick in.

The other thing that we see in them that is very common with sadness is a slow entrance and exit, so Slowly we see those tears coming out of the voice, the voice starts to break, they have these moments and then you see the emotion hit and then they slowly recover from it to get back to normal, that's usually the way an emotion like that works. I don't dive into it or dive into it, so look, I'm not one to invalidate someone's emotions, especially when we see a little second where it seems pretty genuine the way that voice cracks and comes out. one moment.

Secondly, all I'm going to say is that I've rarely seen him come in so quickly and disappear so quickly without those attempts to just not let it hit him in the first place, so I think it was short-lived, but I think for him It was kind of accepted as, oh, I'll get points for this if I give up for a second, but then it wasn't that long, so I came out of this a little bit more. effortless, so I'm not saying it's the fakest thing I've ever seen in my life, but I think it was this moment that was played for a brief second and then he stepped out of line that really piqued my curiosity when he said that. when he found out what happened to Drake Bell, it was more devastating to him than anything that had ever happened in his career, yes that's a fact, what happened to Drake Bell is infinitely more devastating thanWhatever has happened to his career, it's almost like he's using that to try to get some sympathy, but dude, nothing that bad has happened to you.

What happened to Drake B? Of course, he is more devastating. What do you want? A cookie. Of course, he's more devastating than anything that's ever happened to you in your career. Listen. for those who haven't seen the documentary the stories Drake Bell tells about what he experienced with this character I don't even want to say his name it's horrible it's absolutely disgusting to some extent I don't know how to put it This is the right way but to some extent I wish that they would have separated that story much more effectively from the Dan Schneider stuff because once you get to that part and you hear what he went through, it almost casts a cloud over everything else and you're like, that's just disgusting and here and Dad knows this because what he's doing here, is he accepting the fact that in the documentary there was, in quotes, a villain worse than him?

There was a guy who did unspeakable things to a kid, so by highlighting how bad that is and how Drake's mom came to him for help, it's kind of making himself look like the hero of that situation, which is terribly horrible and in doing so he tries to minimize the things he did, so yeah, look, most of us will watch that docu-series and hear about that monster. and two other monsters like him and we think to ourselves that these people belong in the worst depths of hell, but that does not speak to the accusations against Dan Schneider, this is not a contest, it is not a competition, so it is a terrible fact .

What happened with Dan and his employees should be talked about without comparing it to this other horrible thing. Is there anything we haven't discussed? If you could go back and navigate the journey differently, what would it look like? Things I would do differently. One that I think would be really important is when you hire young mining actors to work in television. I would suggest we have a licensed therapist there to oversee that process for the specific reason of making sure. that those kids really wanted to do this job that they really wanted to be on television maybe they should even be informed about what that means what it will mean if you are famous what that will mean on social media what it will mean within your family, let them find out and that way if a kid doesn't want to appear on a tv show they can opt out so this was a confusing experience for me because at first when he said all shows that have kids should do it. have licensed therapists, I was like yes, yes, they absolutely should do that and then he said why does he think that should happen.

I said no, that's not why I think there should be therapists, the reason sets should have therapists is that if a kid is given a line or he's in a scene or she's dressed in a costume that makes her feel a certain way if there is a staff member that behaves towards them in a certain way there should be someone they trust and can talk to that's why there should be a therapist on set she is saying that There should be a therapist that before the child films the project they can go talk to this therapist and understand what fame is like and what the life of a famous person is like, opt out if that's not the case. sounds like something they want to do, this guy made a living writing kids tv shows and doesn't seem to know anything about kids.

Do you really think there is a scenario where they audition and thousands of kids show up who are dying to be TV stars? gets chosen celebrates this is what they've been waiting for years shows up on set sits down with a therapist leaves a session and says yeah, you know what? Now that it was explained to me that way, I don't want to be. I don't want to be a star anymore, that would have happened in 0% of cases. Also, my other question is they ask you what you would do differently, right? If you were accused of having a therapist on set who would talk to kids to find out if they really want to be stars, it would help you be less rude to your staff.

Would it help you do fewer inappropriate and suggestive things in staff meetings? will help you write a lot less extremely inappropriate content, what part of the things we're discussing would this solve, so this to me sounds like he once heard someone say that sets should have a therapist and he was like, oh yeah, I would. I will do. I get points for bringing that up, but he doesn't understand why there should be a therapist at setx, there should be a therapist, so after the kids are in a compromising situation or feel something about something, they could go talk about it.

Anyway, listen, I know there was a lot of statement analysis in this case, mainly because his body language was pretty steady, there were a couple of little things here and there, but there was a lot more value in the words he was choosing and again like writer's words They are important to this man and there were things that were presented in a certain way. I think a lot of language is blame sharing. I think a lot of what he is doing here is minimizing by using choice words and ways of representing things that minimize the bad.

It was and I think there were also a lot of red herrings like, oh, my boss approved it, or he wasn't an experienced producer, yeah, but that doesn't explain anything, so you have to downplay a lot of it, I think a part of him does understand. . how bad these things were because we're getting hints of that here and there and maybe maybe if he went back to work he would be very careful with those behaviors, but I don't think it's because he wouldn't feel like it. It's because of how hard he was slapped and how now people have spoken out against it, that's the feeling I get.

I also have the feeling that behind closed doors his attitude is much better. What happened, happened, so let's get over it. and doesn't fully understand the repercussions of the way he behaved. I think he sees that it was bad and appropriate, but he doesn't see it as a big deal. I think the most important thing that stuck with me is why. Is your moment? Why did you have to wait for this to come out to start feeling so bad about it and you like finding all of this so unacceptable? Why didn't you take steps to make amends before this documentary came out?

Part of me says yes, it's easy to feel bad about things once you've been called out in front of the entire world, but let me know what you think anyway. I know there will be a lot of opinions on this and I always love it. the respectful conversations we have in the comments do you think he understands how bad this was and do you think he really feels bad about it and what would you need what would you need to see to go well? I think he really feels bad about that. Let me know these things in the comments and I'll see you next time.