Mayim Bialik, who landed her first acting gig when she was just 12, opened up about her experience watching Investigation Discovery’s explosive docuseries, Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.
While chatting with her former Blossom costar Jenna von Oÿ and Christy Carlson Romano, the Big Bang Theory actor, 48, reacted to the allegations against Dan Schneider, who has been accused of inappropriate and abusive behavior during his reign creating and producing Nickelodeon biggest shows from 1994 to 2019.
‘Women being berated in the writers’ room is something that was just like — I’m sorry — it was considered in — I mean, I hate to say it — it’s considered par for the course,’ Bialik recalled on her podcast, The Breakdown. ‘I will say I do not believe that happened in our writers’ room.’
The San Diego native, who most recently shared hosting duties of Jeopardy! with Ken Jennings, admitted they did ‘joke about’ thing they ‘all thought were okay’ but would now be seen as mortifying to laugh about.
Mayim Bialik, who landed her first acting gig when she was just 12, opened up about her experience watching Investigation Discovery’s explosive docuseries, Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV
The actress starred as a highly intelligent and spunky teenager on the sitcom, Blossom, for five seasons from 1990 to 1995 (pictured above in character on season one)
von Oÿ, best known for playing the role of Dorothy ‘Six’ LeMeure in the 1990 sitcom Blossom, said the claims in docuseries weren’t so different than what she ‘heard about other sets during’ their time.
In response to Drake Bell coming forward as a victim of ‘unspeakable’ childhood sexual abuse at the hands of former Nickelodeon dialogue coach Brian Peck, Bialik admitted to feeling ‘spared that kind of trauma.’
Still, she said it was upsetting to learn ‘that it was going on and that it was going on right under our noses.’
‘Not only was it going on, it was going on with people then being hired on other shows after being convicted,’ she noted. ‘This was so much a part of an acceptable way to run a business. That felt like the most devastating thing, and it wasn’t just happening at Nickelodeon.’
Romano, who rose to fame for her starring role as Ren Stevens in Even Stevens, said she ‘can understand the survivor’s guilt mindset of this’ subject.
‘That could have been any one of us, and we all kind of need to grieve together, I think at this point, and sort of come together to try to figure out what now,’ she reflected.
Later, Bialik, who did not go into specifics, explained viewers were watching an ‘entire culture.’
‘This is not what what happened because Nickelodeon this-that,’ she stated. ‘Of course, it touched me personally. Of course it did… but what it also reminded me of is how far we had to come to get to a place where people like Christy get to advocate and we know what she means when she says, the mental health of children on set matters.’
While chatting with her former Blossom costar Jenna von Oÿ and Christy Carlson Romano, the Big Bang Theory actor, 48, reacted to the allegations against Dan Schneider, who has been accused of inappropriate and abusive behavior during his reign creating and producing Nickelodeon biggest shows from 1994 to 2019
In response to Drake Bell coming forward as a victim of ‘unspeakable’ childhood sexual abuse at the hands of former Nickelodeon dialogue coach Brian Peck, Bialik admitted to feeling ‘spared that kind of trauma’
While speaking about Quiet on Set, Romano revealed she turned down an offer to work on the series and referred to the producers as ‘trauma terrorists.’
‘I think that it’s extremely triggering. I’ve made a choice for several reasons to opt out of watching that imagery. I know a lot of the details, I know a lot of the folks involved,’ Romano admitted.
‘I’ve chosen not to speak about this with anybody, including ID, who originally came to me looking to see if I’d be interested in a doc like this. I don’t know if it was this doc (Quiet on Set),’ she said.
von Oÿ, best known for playing the role of Dorothy ‘Six’ LeMeure in the 1990 sitcom Blossom, said the claims in docuseries weren’t so different than what she ‘heard about other sets during’ their time
‘But I was approached when I first started advocating three years ago for my own YouTube channel with my own experiences that I did in different and separate episodes, so to speak,’ she stated.
‘I started to be approached by many reality-show-type producers, and they were like, “Hey, how do we do this?” and I would combat them with saying, “Hey, guys, the only way we would do this is if we talk about how do we fix it?”‘ she admitted.
She added of the docuseries, ‘I felt like there’s no hope being inserted into the narrative.’
Romano added that producers of the series are, ‘people who don’t belong to our community. These are outsiders.’
‘And maybe they, maybe if they knew where to put money towards [fixing] a problem, they would, but again, a lot of this has been perceived in a way that’s — it’s outside baseball. It’s not inside baseball, it’s outside baseball. These are trauma tourists,’ she said of Quiet on Set producers.
Romano, who rose to fame for her starring role as Ren Stevens in Even Stevens, said she ‘can understand the survivor’s guilt mindset of this’ subject.
While speaking about Quiet on Set, Romano (seen above) revealed she turned down an offer to work on the series and referred to the producers as ‘trauma terrorists’
She added that another former child actor turned activist, Alyson Stoner, ‘is a fantastic advocate in this space, has really impinged upon me the importance of understanding trauma porn.’
‘I actually have a degree from Columbia in film, and you know, we know that the art of montage and the collision of images is going to incite a certain kind of emotion,’ she said.
‘That is what documentary filmmaking in social movements is meant to do. And so we’re so manipulated by media, and we have so many little cut-downs of misinformation and things being thrown, that the echo chambers, to me, are not helpful,’ Romano continued.
Romano rose to fame for her starring role as Ren Stevens in Even Stevens (seen in 2002 with the Even Stevens cast)
Quiet on Set was directed and produced by Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz, who previously worked together on Frontline and The New York Times Presents.
Romano made her Broadway debut in 1998 at just 14 in the musical Parade, and just two years later she was starring on Disney’s Even Stevens with Shia LaBeouf.
The show ran for three seasons from 2000 to 2003, and she would pull double duty by voicing the title character on Disney’s Kim Possible, which ran from 2002 to 2007.
She currently hosts the podcast Vulnerable where she interviews former child stars, and last year she launched a podcast company PodCo that features numerous rewatch podcasts.
