Marc Summers, former host of Nickelodeon’s Double Dare, is sharing an experience he had during an interview for ID’s Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Children’s TV docuseries. During an interview on Elvis Duran and the Morning Show, Summers told the hosts he agreed to do an interview about Nickelodeon, but was not told that it involved a docuseries that was set to uncover the toxic culture behind children’s shows at the network in the late 1990s and 2000s.
“They asked me what I thought of Nick, and the first 10 to 12 seconds, from what I understand, in this documentary is me saying all these wonderful things. But they did a bait and switch on me,” Summers said in a preview of the interview, set to air on Friday. “They ambushed me. They never told me 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?’”
Summers said when he was told the documentary was going to detail producer Dan Schneider’s behavior and the sexual abuse Drake Bell suffered at the hands of Brian Peck, he walked out.
“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,'” Summers said. “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.”
Summers also said he had never met Schneider. His show, Double Dare, had ended before Schneider arrived at 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 says. “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.”
Deadline has reached to Quiet on Set producers for comment. We will update this post if/when they respond.
A fifth episode of Quiet on Set premieres Sunday, April 7 8/7c on ID. The episode titled “Breaking the Silence” will feature former Nickelodeon child stars from the early 2000s, including Drake Bell. Summers’ entire interview air live on Elvis Duran and the Morning Show‘s YouTube channel Friday at 8:45 am ET.
