The Tale of Dirty Dan - Drake Bell, Episode I

The Darkest Days of the Bakery.

Of all the personalities inherently intertwined with the story of Dan Schneider, among the various characters that populate the stage of this melodrama, there is perhaps none more polarizing and complicated than Drake Bell.

At least, in so much as his public reputation.

Dan Schneider, for a multitude of reasons, is roundly despised and, as I believe I’ve made clear, been painted as the unambiguous villain of his own story. As I’ve scoured the internet doing research for these articles, I’ve found comments across multiple websites in which people will downplay the severity of some of the allegations leveled against him, but I’ve found next to nobody who will actually defend him. Jeanette McCurdy, for a multitude of reasons, is regarded by the public as an unfairly maligned victim when she spoke out against Nickelodeon Studios, Schneider, and the toxic work environment they fostered. It’s hard not to see her as such when she was so vehemently disparaged in the immediate aftermath of her departure from the studio and the abjectly and absurdly vicious treatment she suffered at the hands of the entertainment media.

Drake Bell, on the other hand… his role in the story and his perception by the broader public changes frequently, and it changes dramatically. Whether he’s viewed as a beloved former child star, just another washed-up and disgraced has-been, a misunderstood and downtrodden victim, or a skeevy, seedy predator is subject to a myriad of factors. Right now, he’s enjoying something of a rehabilitation back into the good graces of the American public, but I wouldn’t be surprised if his rising fortunes have once again reversed by the time this article hits your inbox.

It’s fascinating to me that, when it comes to public perception, Drake Bell cannot bear all of these titles or stock personages at once. Really, I could say the same about Schneider himself, McCurdy, Alexa Nichols, Victoria Justice, or any other individual we’ve discussed up until this point. Ultimately, they’re all people, every bit as complicated, nuanced, and checkered as anyone else you’re liable to meet. To try and pin them all down into these rigid, singular, and shallow molds and cast them as virtuous and noble white hats or scheming, malicious black hats is to grossly oversimplify an almost incomprehensibly messy and complex overarching narrative into a straight-forward, uncomplicated, easy-to-digest story that demands little thought, introspection, or critical engagement on the part of the audience. Whether or not this is human nature or a symptom of a society and population oversaturated to the point of overdosing on mass media, where everything must be viewed through the lens of a televised, scripted, and staged spectacle, is a question for another time. Personally, I suspect it’s something of both. But the tendency for these stories to be watered down and whitewashed and, perhaps more importantly, render the people who lived through them into one-dimensional caricatures, must be addressed.

To simplify the narrative of Dan Schneider is to do a grave misjustice to the victims of his misdoings, and, in a way, strips them of both severity and the potential lessons that should be learned when studying it. To simplify the people who took part in it, however… well, that could be dangerous.

Jared Drake Bell was born as the youngest of four siblings on June 27th, 1986 in Newport Beach, California. Which, by the way - have you ever been? Gorgeous place. I enjoyed it immensely when I visited California, but that’s neither here nor there. Bell’s mother, apparently, was a professional billiards player. What’s the difference between billiards and pool? I can’t say, but I’m told there is one. Same with snooker.

I digress.

Bell’s father, Joe… well, I’m not sure what vocation he practiced, but given that Newport Beach is one of the most affluent cities in the entirety of the United States with a median household income of $140,000, I can only assume the guy was doing something that made serious cash. I’m not entirely certain what the average income is for a professional billiards player, but I can’t imagine it’s enough to put a family in that tax bracket.

When Bell was five, his parents separated. Whether or not one parent gained custody of the young Bell, I’m not sure, but it seems as if Joe was the more active parent in his life.

Now, I don’t know Joe Bell. Obviously. But, to me, it sounds as if he was the almost prototypical striver parent. Striver is a word that basically exists exclusively in my own head, so, allow me to elucidate.

When you were a child, did you ever have a friend, or perhaps just knew another kid who’s parents made them do… everything? That kid who dabbled in soccer, football, debate, violin, piano, painting, underwater basket weaving, Egyptian hieroglyphics, worm grunting, and maybe even a little interpretive dance on the side, all because their parents wanted them to? Yeah - that’s a tell-tale sign of a Striver parent at work. These are the types of parents who push their kids through a litany of various hobbies, activities, interests, and what not, burning through the list of everything a child could possibly do until their kid stumbles across that one they’ve been waiting for; the one their kid is really good at. Then, suddenly, that’s all that kid does. The dolphin taming, the Sumerian cuneiform translating, the water polo training - it all just stops, and suddenly, the kid that did everything is the kid who does one thing. They tend to do it well. And they tend to do it a lot.

Whether they like it or not.

We’ve all met kids who had parents like that. Hell, your parents might have been like that. The motivations for a parent to put their child through the juvenile ringer like this are, I imagine, as varied as the stars in the sky. Some, I assume, genuinely just want to foster greatness in their child, wherever their talents might lie. Others - and I’ve seen this first hand - wish to vicariously live out their own dreams through their child. This was the case with Jeanette McCurdy, who had the career of actor foisted upon her from a remarkably young age to fulfill her mother’s own personal desires to be a famous Hollywood star, despite McCurdy’s own disinterest in the field. There are more than a few, too, I’m sure, who simply want to set their child up for success in a certain field as a sort of future meal ticket. Insurance, if you will. That way, when they’re old, decrepit, and falling apart, they can rest easy knowing that Baby Billy, who grew up to be a star quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, will fit the bill.

Maybe. Hopefully. Possibly.

It’s a bit of a risk, since your child is under no obligation to provide for you once you get old - especially if you were a raging prick who forced them to be a competitive tap dancer when all they wanted to do was play some video games and big chill - but one that a lot of parents bank on nonetheless.

I’m not saying that it’s wrong to push your child one way or another, either. There’s no inherent sin to foster that kind of dedication to a hobby or art or sport in a child, especially if they’re good at, and, more importantly, if they like it. I’d go so far as to say I wish my parents had ridden my ass a little harder to stick with certain things. If my mom had forced me to go to piano lessons, why, I imagine I’d be the new Liszt or Chopin. Instead, here I am, writing extensively about sitcoms made for babies.

No, no - I’m not complaining. I’m just saying… what if?

The world will never know what it lost. And perhaps that’s for the best.

Like I said - I don’t know Joe Bell. I have no idea why it was he pushed Drake to do what he did. But, given that he has claimed to have put Drake through the gamut of pee-wee spots, hoping to find his calling in life with little success, it seems to me that he was eager to find some sort of fulfilling (and hopefully lucrative) passion for young Drake to pursue so he wouldn’t grow up to be a middling Substack blogger; truly, a horrifying fate to behold.

Either way, I’ll give the guy the benefit of the doubt and just assume he really, really wanted his son to be successful, as all good parents should, and since children by default rarely want to do anything productive - a lamentable condition that some of us never grow out of - he was only pushing his son out of paternal obligation.

Anyways, after subjecting his son to the childhood equivalent of the Twelve Labors of Hercules, Joe noticed that little Drake had a certain… precociousness to him. When he spoke to adults, he did so without the trepidation and reservation that so many young children display. In fact, he was quite brazen. Confident, in a word. He also noticed that, when Drake watched television, he’d often imitate and outright impersonate the characters he saw on screen. I have little doubt that, one day, a four year old Drake came up to his father after watching Star Wars once and said, Mm. Daddy. Grilled cheese I need, in a perfect replication of Frank Oz’s Yoda voice, and it was then that Joe knew exactly what his son’s path in life would be.

Drake describes his entry into the world of acting thusly:

I was five, and my dad kind of said, 'Hey, you wanna be an actor?' and I said, 'Sure,' that kind of thing, you know?

That seems like an awful strange thing to ask a five year old child, but, hey. To each their own. I mean, if someone asked me if I wanted to be an actor when I was five, I probably would have just said, Sure, too. Then again, I was also under the impression that I wanted to be a mad scientist when I was five, too, so I’m not sure how seriously committed to the bit I would have been.

So, after that glowing endorsement of, Sure, Joe started looking for acting gigs for Drake. Their first bite was, like many actors who would go on to have middling careers, a commercial gig. Specifically, Drake was cast in a commercial for Whirlpool laundry machines.

When I was 5 I did a commercial for Whirlpool sitting on a tree stump eating a popsicle that dripped all over my clothes. After that, I was like, "You know what? I think I'll just stick with this!"

Again - I know exactly where Drake is coming from, here. When I was five, I was also willing to do a lot of things for the promise of a popsicle, or perhaps some other sweet and succulent treat, up to and including murder. But that’s neither here nor there.

After that, Bell received a constant drip feed of small roles. His first role in television that wasn’t specifically made to hawk appliances was a bit role in a 1994 episode of Home Improvement.

After that, he appeared on Seinfeld, the movie Jerry Maguire, and, at thirteen, starred in a direct-to-video film called Dragonworld: The Legend Continues, which apparently is a sequel to a movie called - can you guess? - Dragonworld, which, interestingly, was an attempt by B-movie horror auteurs at Full Moon Studios.

I guess Full Moon Studios was attempting to branch out and court a more family friendly image at the time by making something outside of the mold of their usual output, like The Evil Bong and Demonic Toys. If Dragonworld’s poster in anything to go by, though, I have a sneaking suspicion that it was legitimately more terrifying than anything else they’ve ever put out.

Just look at that thing. I don’t want it anywhere near my heart for fear it would eat it like a scotch egg with a plate of lightly seasoned dragon fries. I don’t know what happens in this movie, but if me and my friends met a dragon that looked like that, we would have beat it to death with hammers, I’ll tell you that much.

Though Bell has never been as critical of the art of acting as Jeanette McCurdy, I think it’s debatable whether or not he’s continued to pursue it for genuine love of the craft - or mayhaps his father’s insistence - or if it just pays the bills. I say that because it was around this time, Bell found what I’d argue is his true passion - music. We’ll touch on Bell’s musical career in a bit, but at the age of twelve, he came into possession of his first guitar. Bell claims to have long been infatuated with the rock scene from a young age, especially punk rock. Given that Southern California was basically the mecca for that scene in the 90’s, it’s not surprise that he was spoiled when it came to catching local shows. It was also around this time that Bell nabbed a small role in a movie called Chasing Destiny. The movie was released in 2001 and is so irrelevant that it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, so that should tell you how worthwhile tracking it down to watch probably is. It was on set that Bell received his first formal guitar lesson from one of the featured stars in the movie.

Christopher Lloyd… was in the movie, but it wasn’t him. Which, I just have to say - has Christopher Lloyd ever said no to any film role? Like, ever? I swear, that guy pops up in the most malodorous pieces of straight-to-video trash you can imagine. I know a man’s gotta eat, but, dude. C’mon. You were Doc Brown. Have some standards.

Anyways, Bell struck up a bit of a friendship with one of Lloyd’s co-stars, who was the one who taught him the esoteric ways of the guitar. Who was this mentor?

Don’t recognize him? Wait a tick. I can find a better picture of him.

Yeah - Roger fucking Daltrey of The Who. I know Pete Townsend was the lead guitarist of the band, but that’s still like getting guitar lessons from Paul McCartney; he may not have been the lead guitarist for The Beatles, but he’s still rock royalty, and, having seen The Who perform before, I can safely say the guy still knows his way around a guitar better than most.

By this time, Bell had already established himself as a fixture on The Amanda Show, and it wouldn’t be long before 2004 would roll around and his ascending star would be cemented in his leading spot in the sitcom that bore his name, Drake and Josh. Given that I’ve gone in depth into both The Amanda Show and Drake and Josh here and here, respectively, I think it behooves us to move ahead slightly in Bell’s story. The only thing I’ll note here is that, during this time, Drake Bell would become acquainted with a man named Brian Peck.

And I’m warning you now - if you’re squeamish or have a low tolerance for anything regarding the mistreatment and abuse of children and minors, it’s time to close this article, walk away, and rejoin us in the next part. You will not be comfortable with what’s to follow.

Peck was one of many no-name actors in Hollywood that had managed to parlay a failed acting career - his biggest claim to fame being a bit part in the seminal zombie flick, Return of the Living Dead - into work behind the scenes on a myriad of shows and movies. In Peck’s case, he became a dialogue coach, which is a production position that’s more broad than the name would imply. Ostensibly, a dialogue coach is meant to help actors perfect accents, speech patterns, so on and so forth, but their roles behind the scenes can often include practicing dialogue with actors, assisting writers in writing characters, and are sometimes even hired by aspiring actors for assistance with audition preparation. Almost every source I’ve read calls it a very important role. Whether it was through work or personal connections, Peck managed to foster relationships with very powerful friends, including director Brian Singer. And if you know anything about Brian Singer, you can probably already guess where this is going.

Notably, Peck worked on the set of the popular Disney sitcom, Boy Meets World, and later Growing Pains, before being hired by Nickelodeon to assist with All That. This would be when Peck and Schneider crossed paths for the first time.

It’s likely that Peck was a studio hire that found his way onto Schneider’s crew. But Schneider, as I’ve explained before, was very selective about who he kept in his crew, and part of his formula for success was keeping a tight group of the same professionals under his purview, bringing them with him from show to show. I do not know if Schneider and Peck were friends. I do not know if Schneider and Peck even liked each other. It’s entirely possible that Schneider didn’t care for Peck as a person, but kept him around simply because he was good at his job. In a way, I’m not sure if it mattered. The point is, Peck became a fixture in Schneider’s burgeoning production crew at Schneider’s Bakery. He worked on every one of Schneider's shows in the beginning.

In a previous article, I wrote the following:

As the director, the show-runner, the executive producer, the all-around general authority on these various programs, he had a duty and a responsibility to the children under his employ to make sure that they were safe, and the working environment that they were in was safe as well.

And he often didn’t.

This, unfortunately, is one of the instances I was referring to.

While working on The Amanda Show, Brian Peck met Drake Bell.

This should have never happened. In a sane world, Peck would have never been allowed on set. He wouldn’t have been let within five hundred yards of Nickelodeon Studios. Frankly, Peck shouldn’t be allowed out of a jail cell - and that’s being charitable on my part.

Peck was openly, proudly homosexual. That's not the problem; the issue was - and is- that he was a pedophile. A self-professed one, if you can believe it. People in the industry knew this. I doubt he was screaming his proclivity for minors from the rooftops, but, at the same time, it apparently was not much of a secret. The fact that someone can actually make that claim and go about not just living their life unmolested, but thrive and be granted constant access to children in private as part of their career… words fail to capture the magnitude of just how fundamentally wrong that is.

But Peck had friends, as I've said. Powerful friends. Friends that made sure he got work. And friends that are squarely responsible for ensuring that what happened next happened, and for that, every single person who ever - and I mean ever - vouched for the man, defended him, or did anything to continue his continued presence anywhere outside of a federal prison, should be held accountable to the fullest extent.

Here’s another fun story about Brian Peck, provided by Kyle Sullivan, a former All That alum who worked with Peck on that program. He recounted a story in which he and other All That cast and crew went to Peck’s house for a cookout, where he found that Peck had a shrine to the Planet of the Apes films in his garage. What exactly that entails, I’m not sure, but I kind of want to see pictures. In the midst of this shrine, however, Sullivan noticed a painting that seemed a little… out of place. When he asked Peck why he happened to have a painting of a clown holding balloons in the middle of a bunch of pictures of ape-men from a Sci-Fi movie, Peck took the painting off the wall and showed Sullivan what was written on the back.

“Brian, I hope you enjoy the painting. Best wishes. Your friend, John Wayne Gacy.”

Yeah. Yeah.

That fucking John Wayne Gacy. You know - the infamous birthday clown who murdered at least thirty-three young men and boys and stands as one of the most notorious serial killers in American history.

Peck then showed Sullivan a collection of letters and photos he kept in his bed stand, all of which were sent to him by Gacy while he was in prison as, apparently, the two were penpals.

Again - how this guy was ever legally allowed to even look at children go down as one of the great mysteries of the universe.

Peck took an instant liking to Bell. Whenever he could find ways to justify spending time with Bell, he would. While Joe Bell was, at the time, Drake’s manager, he soon found himself in a position where he believed himself to be out of his depth, as his son’s surging fame was well beyond what he could rightly handle without hampering. Peck generously offered his services.

The aforementioned Kyle Sullivan said the following about Peck;

All the parents loved him too. Everyone trusted Brian.

Everyone, apparently, save Joe Bell. Joe Bell claims to have had misgivings about Peck from very early on. Why he ultimately consented to give Peck that authority over his son while being leery of him, I’m unsure. Perhaps it was a choice that rested with Drake. Given that Drake’s mother had majority custody over him by this time, I’m not sure how much input Joe had on the situation. I can’t say, and the answers to those questions are not revealed.

Now, it would most likely be disingenuous to say that everyone on set, or under Schneider’s employ, knew Peck’s personal proclivities. I’d reckon most of them probably didn’t. There’s a significant chance that Schneider himself was unaware. Like I said - I can find no solid sources on the matter of just how Peck’s self-profession of his sick desires went, but the fact that some people knew means to me that everyone should have known. Maybe I'm crazy, but if someone tells you that they have the hots for minors, that seems like something you should probably warn people about. I can’t help but think that someone on set or in the crew - at least one - had at the very least heard something about Peck before. And why the fuck they didn’t tell Joe Bell, or anyone else who didn’t know, for that matter, is beyond me.

But, as I said - Joe Bell already had his reservations about Peck. In an interview for the documentary series, Quiet on Set, Joe revealed that Peck was always, as he said, within eye distance of his son, and was spending far more time with him than he was comfortable with. I’ll let his words speak for themselves.

“Unfortunately, I started seeing Brian start to just hang around Drake too much and it didn't sit well with me. Drake would be in the dressing room or something and in would pop Brian and just touch Drake. Then he’d maybe walk over to Drake and be feeding him some lines or whatever and put his arm around his waist, put his hand up on his shoulder and kind of run it down his arm, things like that. And this would happen routinely. It was just always uncomfortable.”

Joe Bell claims that when he did raise concerns with production staff, he was always rebuffed, being told things such as, Oh, that’s just the way Brian is. Even more egregiously, Joe Bell made the following claims, which, honestly, I don’t doubt for a second.

“Maybe you’re just homophobic and you just don’t understand that he’s a touchy-feely guy.”

Basically, any time he did try to do anything, he was shut down. The fact that Peck used his homosexuality to mask his dark deeds makes the events to come even more sickening.

Peck was not unaware of Joe’s leery gaze, either. He began to tell Drake that his father was deleterious to his success. That he’d hold him back. Keep him from achieving what he was capable of achieving. Just dead-weight that needed to be cast aside so Drake could progress on his march to stardom. This, Drake claims, drove a significant wedge between him and his father. Worse still, Peck began to convince Drake’s mother of the same. In court, Drake’s mother, Robin, testified that Peck reported to her that Joe Bell was mishandling the income Drake was receiving for his acting work and taking it for himself. Given that the two were divorced and, apparently, not on very good terms, this only further ostracized Joe Bell from any potential allies. Peck’s back-biting behavior and Drake’s own statement that, It was like an army against my dad, leads me to believe that Peck was busy doing everything he could to paint Joe Bell in a bad light to everyone at Schneider’s Bakery.

As things progressed, Bell began to spend more and more time with Peck alone off of set. He would routinely take Bell to auditions, some of which were very far from either his mother or father’s homes. Those nights, he would be forced to sleep at Peck’s house. By this point, mild sexual abuse had already begun. But, one night, when Drake was fifteen, it would escalate to another level while he slept on Peck’s couch to a level I cannot in good conscious explain the details of. Suffice to say, what happened should have resulted in Peck’s head being put in one of these.

Peck, Bell claims, was extremely apologetic the next morning, and swore to him that it would never happen again.

I probably don’t need to tell you that was a blatant lie. Because it did happen again. And it got worse. Bell hasn’t elaborated on the finer details, and he really doesn’t need to, but he has described the abuse as brutal. He says the following in the Quiet on Set Documentary;

Why don’t you think of the worst stuff that someone could do to somebody as a sexual assault, and then I’ll answer your question. I don’t know how else to put it.

Now, I feel like this needs to be addressed as I saw plenty of comments that read something along the lines of, Bro, he was fifteen. Why didn’t he just stop? If Peck was already messing with him why did he even go along with it? Why didn’t he tell someone?
Now, I know you, my beloved audience, are quite intelligent individuals, so, when I say this, know that I’m not addressing you, per say, but to those who do wonder such things about this case… well, the fact of the matter is that, when it comes to sexual abuse, there’s often a myriad of reasons that the victim can’t just walk away or tell someone. That’s what makes sexual abuse so particularly insidious. Part of it is due to the intense shame and embarrassment that the victim often feels even having to admit they’ve been abused on a base level. Part of it is fear of their abuser. In Bell’s case, Peck had ingrained himself so deeply into his life and career that I have no doubt he felt as if he had no recourse but to just put up, shut up, and suffer for the sake of his future. It doesn’t help that Peck had friends in high places that seemingly had a way of brushing the concerns of others under the rug - I reckon that Bell was probably convinced that even if he did say something, no one would take him seriously, and, more worryingly, he’d only succeed in making Peck angry. Bell even says that he was afraid that speaking out against Peck or asking for help would lead to the end of his career, due to the outsized influence Peck had with so many people in positions of power.

With all this in mind, I almost think the guillotine is too kind for the likes of Peck. It was designed to be a manner of execution that was quick, painless, and merciful, after all, which are not luxuries I think Peck deserves to be afforded.

Ultimately, Peck’s abuse would be uncovered by, of all people, the mother of Bell’s then girlfriend, who’s identity is unknown. According to Bell, she could see that something was visibly wrong with him, and more or less forced him to attend a therapy session as he refused to divulge anything to her or anyone else. During the course of these therapy sessions, Bell began to realize exactly how manipulative, calculating, and thorough Peck had been in co-opting his entire life, isolating him from those who had his best interest in mind, and keeping him trapped in a cycle of abuse.

It all came apart when Drake and Josh began. When Drake and Josh’s first pilot was aired, the actor who played the boys’ father dropped out of the program, necessitating a recast. Peck, again, stepped forward, hoping to be cast as Bell’s father on the show. Bell describes his reaction to this information thusly;

“I was like, ‘That is not going to happen, you’re not coming anywhere near this show.'”

Afterwards, Bell phoned his mother and admitted what Peck had been doing to him. Bell’s mother promptly phoned the police. The Los Angeles Police Department began what Bell called a brutal investigation, in which he was made to recount the abuse he’d suffered again and again for evidence. He was even made to call Peck and, somehow, wheedle a confession out of him while the police tapped the line.

“I said, ‘I’m really struggling with this stuff now. I’m so torn up, I’m so broken, I’m so emotionally distressed right now. Why did this happen?’ He just started a full-on confession. He kept asking me over and over again, he was like, ‘Are we being recorded?'”

On August 19th, 2003, a forty-three year old Peck was arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department’s Sexually Exploited Child Unit for eleven counts of lewd conduct with a minor. At the time, Drake Bell’s name was not stated, and his identity kept anonymous. The records would be sealed and, even at the time, no one save Schneider and a handful of Nickelodeon executives were privy to who the minor in Peck’s arrest was. It would not be until 2024, during an interview in the Quiet on Set documentary, that Drake Bell would reveal the minor involved in the case to be himself.

After Peck’s arrest, Schneider called Bell and asked if it had anything to do with him. Bell says that he was spending so much time with Peck that Schneider would have had to have suspicions that it had something to do with him. He says that Schneider was supportive, but, at the same time, I have to wonder why, exactly, Schneider would not have picked up on any trouble before. But, Schneider did tell Bell that he was there for him, and anything he needed from him, he only needed to ask for it - a promise that, to most’s surprise, he would follow through on in a way few would expect.

The case made very little headlines outside of the insular and incestuous industry bubble of Hollywood. During the trial, over forty one individuals wrote character statements for Peck that defended his character. These individuals included Growing Pains star and game show host Alan Thicke (also responsible for siring the loathsome Robin Thicke who in turn inflicted the trash song Blurred Lines which, ironically, gives off very skeezy, very questionable vibes about uncertain consent), actor James Mardsen (who just so happened to star in the X-Men movies, directed by known associate of Peck, Brian Singer), and Boy Meets World star, Will Friedle. Actor Taran Killam - a future Saturday Night Live alum who also acted as a character witness in Peck’s defense - said on a podcast appearance with Will Friedle;

"We used to call him the Forrest Gump of Hollywood, because he knew everybody."

Jason Marsden, in his testimony, said the following on Peck’s behalf.

"I've known Brian for 14 years and never once did I ever see any sign of him being capable of something like this. I have lived at his house for months and shared hotel rooms with him and never once did he ever make me feel compromised or uncomfortable in any way."

More sickening, Rich Correll - a writer who had worked on all of Schneider’s shows up until that point - said the following;

"Many times I've seen him perform above and beyond the call of duty and it would be my pleasure to not only work with him again, but also to recommend him for any future work.”

Put a pin in that. It’ll be important in a minute.

If you’re interested in reading more character witness statements from some very recognizable names, you can find more here. The overarching theme of all of them is that they all testify that Peck is an honorable man, and many of them claim that he must have been tempted by Drake into doing what he did, or that Drake, somehow, lured Peck into sexually assaulting him, which is just… forgive me if I’m more crass than normal for a moment, but fuck me, I cannot properly articulate how much I despise these people. This is the kind of stuff that can make one’s teeth curl. It is, in a word, heinous.

Friedle and associate Rider Strong both recanted their support and, along with another Growing Paints star who testified on behalf of Peck, Joanna Kerns, who later stated;

"Knowing what I know now, I never would have written.”

Friedle, in particular, has been particularly adamant in his admission of guilt in his part within this sordid story.

Like many actors who couldn’t cut the mustard in the long run, he’s now the host of multiple mediocre podcasts that I can’t imagine most people listen to, as podcasting space has truly has become the last refuge of the most aggressively mediocre. The truism of Everyone can run a podcast, but not everyone should, holds more valid now than ever. In one in particular podcast called Pod Meets World, in which he cashes in on the nostalgia of his role in the highly popular Disney Channel teen sitcom Boy Meets World by discussing an almost forty-year old sitcom to death, he described himself as a victim of Peck’s manipulation. He claims that, after the arrest, Peck called him, crying, and says that he was -

“Instantly spinning it to where it wasn’t his fault, it was clearly the fault of his victim.” At first, Friedle believed him. “My instinct initially was, ‘My friend, this can’t be. It’s gotta be the other person’s fault.’ The story makes complete sense the way that he’s saying it.”

The aforementioned Rider Strong - another Boy Meets World actor who joined Friedle on his podcast to discuss their relationship with Peck - added the following;

“He didn’t say that nothing had happened. So by the time we heard about this case and knew anything about it, it was always in the context of, ‘I did this thing, I am guilty. I am going to take whatever punishment the government determines, but I’m a victim of jailbait. There was this hot guy! I just did this thing and he’s underage.’ And we bought that storyline. I never heard about the other things because, back then, you couldn’t Google to find out what people were being charged with. So in retrospect, he was making a plea deal and admitting one thing — which is all he admitted to us — but it looks like he was being charged with a series of crimes, which we did not know.”

According to Friedle, Drake’s mother addressed Peck and his witnesses during the court proceedings with the following comment;

"Look at all the famous people you brought with you. And it doesn't change what you did to my kid."

Frankly, her restraint here is pretty commendable, because I would have said a whole lot more. Drake, for his part, addressed the crowd thusly;

“I looked at all of them and I just said, ‘How dare you?’ I said, ‘You will forever have the memory of sitting in this courtroom and defending this person. And I will forever have the memory of the person you’re defending violating me and doing unspeakable acts and crimes and that’s what I will remember.’”

It was at this point Friedle claims he began to have second thoughts about what he was doing. He says;

“I just sat there wanting to die. It was like, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ It was horrifying all the way around.”

To which I say, hey - too little, too late, bud. You signed the affadavit. You stepped up to bat for Brian Peck. That shit will and should stain your name for the rest of your life.

I don’t actually doubt that Friedle and Strong are sincere when they say that they were manipulated by a man they had known for years and trusted deeply. I think most of us, at one point or another, vouched for someone we shouldn’t have vouched for. In some of those cases, we probably should have known better than to vouch for them, too, but we still did it. Lord knows I’ve bet poorly on some metaphorical horses that ended up metaphorically biting my metaphorical hand or metaphorically shitting on my metaphorical lawn.

But… well, let’s revisit Strong’s account again, shall we? I’ll bold the pertinent line. This is what Peck supposedly told him.

‘I did this thing, I am guilty. I am going to take whatever punishment the government determines, but I’m a victim of jailbait. There was this hot guy! I just did this thing and he’s underage.’

How - seriously, fucking how do you support someone who said something like that? How can you honestly, genuinely hear someone say something like that and come away thinking they’re the good guy? If anyone - fucking anyone - came to me and begged for my support because they were fucking jailbaited, I’d be hard pressed not to put them in the ground myself. They knew that Peck had been sexually involved with a minor. I cannot stress that enough. They can dress it up any way they want, they can say they were manipulated, or that they trusted him, they could make the claim the guy cured them of leprosy or gave them ten billion dollars in Leprechaun gold, but the simple fact of the matter is that they knew that Peck had been sexually involved with a minor. He told them. That fact and that fact alone means that they were abjectly, objectively, and quantifiably knowingly supporting a criminal sex offender.

So, frankly, I don’t think I’m being uncharitable when I say that these two hacks - and anyone else who’s coming out of the woodwork to spin apologia for their part in defending Peck - don’t deserve a shred of sympathy, and their remorse is about as valuable as a piece of used toilet paper.

A pox upon your podcast.

So, Peck was able to draw up forty one character witnesses to testify on his behalf before a judge and in front of Bell and his family. Bell, on the other hand, had his parents. Only one other adult testified on his behalf.

Just one.

Dan Schneider himself.

I believe I’ve made it pretty clear my feelings on the guy. It’s easy to be cynical and say that he was only doing it to cover his own ass. I’m not entirely unconvinced that isn’t the case. It’s not hard to write off his own recollection of the events, in which he apparently broke down into tears while recounting the events. However, I do think that this piece of evidence - the fact that out of everyone in his own cast and crew, that he was the sole person who stood in Drake Bell’s corner during the trial - is evidence that he may get more aspersions than he deserves. It’s part of the reason that, frankly, I do not actually believe Schneider himself ever acted sexually untowards with any of his minor cast. I’ve said it before - he’s a bit of a creep. But there's a vast gulf in difference between being a skeeze and what Peck did. One's unethical. One’s unethical but also should be punishable by firing squad.

He’s got a laundry list of sins trailing behind him. But I don’t actually believe that he personally did anything untowards with any minors. And I think he deserves some modicum of credit for going to bat for Drake Bell against Brian Peck.

It’s the least he could do - I would still argue that, given his responsibility over the cast, crew, and set, much of the blame is on his shoulders. Let’s not mince words here; he failed to keep Drake Bell and potentially every other minor on set safe by having Brian Peck there. Brian Peck should have never been allowed on set, let alone be employed with either Schneider’s Bakery or Nickelodeon Studios. It’s difficult to say whether or not Schneider had an inkling of Peck’s deviancy, and, if he did, he was grossly negligent in not firing him the moment he discovered it. If he didn’t, I can’t say that it was his responsibility to suss it out, but I also think, as I already said, anyone on set who did know most certainly had a responsibility to tell Schneider. How much of the blame does Schneider burden? It’s a fool’s errand to try and divvy up the responsibility in numerical percentages, but I think it’s safe to say that he’s not exempt from a heap of criticism for not doing more.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Sad as it is, what happened, happened.

At the end of the trial, Peck was sentenced to sixteen months in prison; an extremely light sentence, in my opinion. Truthfully, I believe he should have been under the prison. Upon his release, he was made to register as a sex offender with no possibility of ever being moved off the registry.

Schneider said the following on the matter. If, by chance, you happen to be standing up for some reason, I recommend you sit down; the last bit is quite jarring.

“Here’s the kicker that I really don’t get: After he got out of prison and — to my knowledge — a registered sex offender, he was hired on a Disney Channel show. I don’t understand that.”

Yeah. That, uh… that certainly is a kicker, of some sort, right there.

Like a firm kick square in the family jewels delivered by a steel-toed boot laced up to the knee on Harrison Butker going for a last-minute field goal to win the game on Super Bowl Sunday and, brother - he’s gettin’ paid to eat.

If you can believe it, only scant months after being released from prison, while being a registered sex offender, Peck was, indeed, picked up by Disney Channel to work on the 2005 sitcom, The Suite Life of Zach and Cody. You know; the show about two fucking twelve year old boys. Which Peck would have access to.

If your blood is boiling, good. It should be.

You might be asking yourself, as most sane folks would, Now, just how in the Sam Hill does a fucking self-professed pedophile with a sex offense charge and a jail sentence behind him get work on a show with children right after he gets out of prison?

Well, for one, like protects like. Let’s not beat around the bush, here; Hollywood is full of people like Peck. We all know this. And they look out for one another. This isn’t to say that they aren’t opportunistic, duplicitous cretins on the fast track to Hell who will throw one another to the baying hounds when it behooves them, but, whenever they possibly can, they get each other out of scrapes. They have a vested interest in keeping each other above board.

But the more specific answer is that The Suite Life of Zach and Cody was directed by… wait for it… the husband and wife team of writers and directors, Beth and Rich Correll. You know - the guy who said he would ‘it would be my pleasure to not only work with him again,but also to recommend him for any future work.’

So, apparently, he wasn’t fucking exaggerating, there. Oh, and his wife, Beth, also testified on Peck’s behalf. Lovely people, aren’t they?

According to Variety magazine, this was what they had to say on the matter when approached by the Quiet on Set documentary crew.

They told the producers of the documentary that they had “no input or involvement in the casting” of Peck and that when they asked him about the case, “Mr Peck. simply replied that ‘the problem had been resolved.’”

I have no real evidence of this, but in my heart of hearts, but I just can’t help but think that, ah… well, to put it simply -

Really, the only comment I can make was best put by the late, great, and inimitable Norm McDonald.

If there’s any silver lining to this particularly odious dark cloud, it’s that Brian Peck’s time at Disney was not extensive. Any amount of time was too long, of course, but it’s better that it was brief rather than protracted.

For what it’s worth, Disney Channel executives apparently were unaware of Peck’s conviction, which, ah… well… given that background checks are pretty fucking standard procedure when it comes to getting, oh, just about any fucking job, I have my doubts that they were unaware so much as they were willfully ignorant until some good Samaritan (or Samaritans) raised enough of an issue that they couldn’t feign ignorance anymore. I also can’t help but think that the Contemptuous Corrells were running defense for the guy the entire time. Whatever the case may be, Peck was fired from the show, the voice lines he contributed removed because yes, they even had him acting on the program, and his name stripped from the credits. An insider, when asked by Variety magazine, made the claim that Peck was never on set and never had any interaction with the child stars, to which I just… they really think we’re that stupid, huh?

So, you might be wondering - where is Brian Peck now? I wish I could tell you that he’s pushing daisies, at the moment. At the very least, I wish I could tell you that he’s currently rotting away in a jail cell somewhere. Naturally, as their is precious little justice in this world, such is not the case. Details of his activities post-Disney are scarce, but it is known that he’s still working in Hollywood, albeit at a much diminished rate. His last credited role was in 2018, though I’m certain he’s still lurking about sets across Southern California more than anyone should be comfortable with. The fact he isn’t in a jail cell or in the dirt is, in a single word, unconscionable.

There really isn’t much more I can say other than this is not the end this story deserves. But it is the end of the story of Brian Peck. At least, so far as the Bakeryverse is concerned.

But it isn’t the end of Drake Bell’s story.

I wish I could tell you that one, too, has a happy ending.

But it doesn’t. And we’ll talk more about that… next time.