Why Nickelodeon host Marc Summers walked out of ‘Quiet on Set’ interview
ID’s new doc “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV” exposes the alleged toxic environment child actors endured at Nickelodeon in the late ’90s and early 2000s — but Marc Summers didn’t know that when he agreed to an interview.
The famed network host — who famously led “Double Dare” and “What Would You Do?” — revealed that he felt entrapped by the documentary’s producers when he appeared on the series.
“They ambushed me,” the 72-year-old said on Friday’s edition of z100’s Elvis Duran and the Morning Show. “[They] did a bait and switch on me.”
Summers claimed that execs never relayed to him “what this documentary was really about.”
“And so they showed me a video of something that I couldn’t believe was on Nickelodeon. And I said, ‘Well, let’s stop the tape right here. What are we doing?'” he recalled.
The “History IQ” host walked off the “Quiet” set after he was told that the doc would dive into details about allegations against Nickelodeon head honcho Dan Schneider and former voice coach Brian Peck, who was accused of allegedly abusing actor Drake Bell.
“I left. So I got a phone call about six weeks ago saying you’re totally out of the show. And I went, ‘Great.’ Then they called me about four weeks ago and said, ‘Well, you’re in it, but you’re only in the first part of it because you talked about the positive stuff of Nickelodeon,'” he explained.
“What they didn’t tell me — and they lied to me about — was the fact that they put in that other thing where they had the camera on me when they ambushed me. And so, now we get into a whole situation about who’s unethical.”
The segment that the producers referred to was apparently one that Summers didn’t know that ever aired on the network. The documentary showed a snippet of him viewing a clip on his phone, asking, “Did that air on Nickelodeon?”
The series featured scenes from a plethora of Schneider’s shows, such as “Zoey 101,” “Sam & Cat” and “Victorious” that had several seemingly suggestive scenes that didn’t appear to actually be suitable for children in hindsight.
The TV personality then claimed that he never met Schneider, saying that “Double Dare” ended before the Nick show creator was hired. “Double Dare” aired from 1986 until 1993 on the network.
“Those people came in after and took over our studios. I never met the man, I have no idea about any of those things,” he said.
“I mean, I know Kenan [Thompson] from ‘Kenan and Kel,’ because we’ve done stuff together. But as far as anything that happened on that show with any of those people, I never met any of them. I didn’t know anybody. But it made it seem like I knew those people,” Summers claimed.
A bonus episode of the five-part “Quiet on Set” documentary will be released on Sunday, April 7, on Max and Investigation Discovery.
