The Tale of Dirty Dan: Drake Bell, Episode 2
The mid-season slump.
In the aftermath of the Brian Peck case, life continued at pace for Drake Bell throughout the remainder of 2003. Or, at least, as much as it could, or even can for a rising young talent in the busy, bustling, and exceedingly seedy world of Hollywood. Then the case ended, the records were sealed and Drake’s identity was kept anonymous. Outside of a handful of Nickelodeon executives and Dan Schneider, no one knew the minor involved in Brian Peck’s arrest was Drake Bell. Though his personal life had been altered dramatically, and in one of the worst ways imaginable, Bell’s career continued practically unscathed. The sitcom, Drake and Josh, was soon to air on Nickelodeon and change the trajectory of his life once more upon debuting in 2004. Starring in this series would usher in years of steady work, success, and cultural relevancy that, quite frankly, Bell would not enjoy again. This was the peak of his career. It was the high-water mark. For Bell, it would never get better than that brief window of success between 2004 and 2008.
During this time, however, his output was relatively scant. Aside from appearing in small or cameo roles on other Nickelodeon programs, he would appear in only one movie during this time - 2005’s remake of the 60’s comedy film, Yours, Mine, and Ours, alongside fellow Drake and Josh cast mate and future iCarly star, Miranda Cosgrove.
Never seen it? Me neither. But I did see the Steve Martin-branded remake of Cheaper by the Dozen which has come out in 2003, which this film was quite obviously cashing in on the success of. When I was nine years old, I think that movie was tied with the seminal Eddie Movie Murphy1 (no, that is not a typo), Daddy Day Care, for being the best movie I’d seen up until that point. I remember watching this in theaters and thinking it was peak comedy. If 2005 was Bell’s high water mark, Cheaper by the Dozen was, in my ten-year-old-opinion, the high water mark of cinema. It was never going to get better than Steve Martin flying out a bounce house in slow motion and landing on the fat comic relief kid from Even Stevens.
Peak Kinder-Kino.
I digress.
Also in 2005, Drake Bell notched another W on his belt with the release of his first album, simply titled, Telegraph.
The album was released independently under the label headed by Michael Corcoran, who’s perhaps better known by the moniker Backhouse Mike. Mr. Backhouse is a bit of an interesting character in his own right. A studio musician by trade, Corcoran was picked up by Schneider early on into his production career and served as the Big Baker’s designated music man. If you ever wondered why every one of Schneider’s shows has a background score that sounds like harmonies taken from some forgotten 90’s power pop band, Corcoran’s the man responsible. He would collaborate with Bell to write and produce the theme songs to both Drake and Josh and, later, iCarly.
Later, Corcoran would also be pinched by Disney Channel to score a handful of their own sitcoms while continuing to be the Bakery’s in-house music aficionado. Perhaps most infamously, Mr. Backhouse would work on Victorious. Not only is the man somewhat reviled by the fandom surrounding that show for the extremely mixed quality of music throughout the show, but, while working on the program in 2012, a thirty-year old Corcoran would be introduced to a then-sixteen year old Liz Gillies.
They’d be married in 2020.
On one hand, if a mouldering relic of the 90’s alt rock scene like Mike can snag a girl like that, let that be yet another testament that there’s still hope for us all. On the other hand, while they did get married when she was twenty-seven, and they’re still married today, he outright admitted that he started dating her when she was sixteen… and he was thirty… which, no matter which way you want to slice it, is still when she was legally a minor, and… well…
I’m don’t think that one passes the smell check. I probably don’t need to elaborate why their relationship is a bit of a contentious one to many, especially old fans of Victorious.
This ain’t about Backhouse Mike, though.
Telegraph, being a limited, independent release, didn’t make many ripples in the industry, but with the professional critics that did give it a listen, the record received universal praise. I mean, I could only find two professional outlets that reviewed it, but hey - not bad, right? What’s that one Meatloaf song? Two Out Of Two Ain’t Bad? Something like that.
Either way, it does feature the Drake and Josh theme, which, I must repeat -
Goes hard, I’m afraid. Like, all nostalgia aside, it's actually just a solid song, and I like it more than I probably should. But we already discussed both Bell’s and my own affinity for the power pop genre here, so, rather than retread that discussion, just let me reiterate: this?
Musical perfection. I once read a comment on Reddit while researching the band that said something to the effect that the poster stopped recommending Jellyfish to friends because it felt cruel to tell people about such an awesome band that only ever put out a grand total of twenty something songs. I actually agree, but if I must suffer, so shall you all.
You're welcome, by the way.
I Drake's album a listen myself, partially out of curiosity, partially out of journalistic integrity, and, I’ll admit - it’s… fine. Most of the tracks are generic pop rock than power pop, and even the numbers that fall into the latter character probably won’t ever end up on a Greatest Power Pop Songs compilation, but I can’t say any of it was bad. There were certainly tracks I liked more than others, but, overall, I didn’t skip anything.
Bell didn’t wait long to launch a follow-up. In 2006, only a year later, Bell - again, collaborating with Backhouse Mike - released his second album, It’s Only Time.
This time, Bell wouldn’t be releasing the album independently with only Mr. Backhouse’s rinky-dink production company to push it; he had the backing of an actual record label - Motown Records.
Yes - that Motown.
By this point, the label had been acquired by Universal, and there’s a lot of hand-wringing about whether the label was still truly the Motown that the legendary Berry Gordy built, but, given that it is the current incarnation of that same label, the argument can be made that Drake Bell is up there with The Jackson Five, Marvin Gaye, Lionel Ritchie, and Stevie Wonder as a legitimate Motown alumni.
Apparently, Motown was somewhat hesitant to release Bell’s album. It makes one wonder why, exactly, they signed him to begin with, but when you look at Motown’s output, it’s understandable why they’d have their reservations. Though Motown had long deviated and diversified from the distinct and iconic sound that made them one of America’s premier record labels, Bell’s brand of eclectic power pop was still incongruous with the majority of output at the time. For example, around roughly the same time, Universal Motown was involved in releasing this certified hood classic.
They were a bit cagey about releasing Bell’s album for another reason - Bell himself. Y’see, anyone with even a cursory knowledge of music knows that Motown is known best for producing and releasing albums made for a certain demographic, by a certain demographic. And Drake… well… I have a little trouble saying this, but, as you probably already guessed -
He’s from California.
Most of the Motown greats were from the American Midwest, South, and a smattering from the Northeast, but California? Artists from that neck of the woods were a bit foreign to them. Out of their wheelhouse, you know?
What did you think I was implying? That Motown was hesitant to back Bell because he’s white?
Pft. Don’t be ridiculous. Motown already had white artists on their label. Like Michael Bolton.
And it doesn’t get more aggressively Caucasian than Michael Bolton.
Regardless of their reluctance, Bell claimed it took playing one song for the executives for them to be convinced that they’d found their next hit-making cracker. Again, the album released to universal critical acclaim.
The sales figures, however… well, they were decent. Especially for a teeny-bopper star who was, at the time, making the most ripples in magazines published exclusively for teenage girls. The album released at 81 on the Billboard Top 200, which, while respectable, wasn’t enough to move the needle and convince the crowned heads of Motown that he was worth keeping in their stable.
However, this wasn’t the death sentence for Bell’s nascent career that it may seem to be.
You know how some bands that barely make a blip on the western charts inexplicably blow up in Japan and become massive celebrities in the Land of the Rising Sun? Like how American hair metal super-group Mr. Big had that one big hit in America but became a constant presence on the Japanese charts for decades, to the point that they’re probably better known as Big-san?
Well, that has nothing to do with Drake Bell. I just wanted to remind everyone that To Be With You is one of the best power ballads of all time2, and also the Big-San bit is both hilarious and true.
Despite the album’s relatively tepid sales in America, there was a market abroad that rapidly proved itself to be Big Fans of the Big Bell.
It’s Only Time would ultimately rise to Number 4 on the Top 100 Mexican charts, and would begin a love affair between Bell and our neighbors south of the border that continues to this day. Put a pin in that - it’ll be important later.
And, yes - I listened to It’s Only Time, too. While I thought Telegraph was passable, and I was expecting more of the same, I have to admit that I was surprised to find that I actually, sincerely liked this one. If Telegraph was mostly unoffensive, rather bland pop rock that was very of its time, It’s Only Time leans much more heavily into the quirky, eclectic power pop elements that made Jellyfish one of my favorite bands. Bell wears the influence of that band on his sleeve in this album, and it’s no surprise that their track Joining a Fan Club was a staple that he covered at almost all of live shows. One of the best examples of this is the track Up Periscope, which, no, is not inspired by the movie of the same name, but in my opinion, the real stand out track is one called Do What You Want. I can’t say that Bell is a master wordsmith or particularly robust lyricist, but he knows his way around a catchy hook, and I’m an embarrassingly easy mark for the Fountains of Wayne-esque harmonies that are a constant presence across the entire album. Put a bunch of fools in harmony going Aah Aah in the background or backing the main lyrics, and you've got me hooked. I just love that sound. Why? I cannot say.
I can also only assume that It’s Only Time had been produced concurrently with Telegraph, as the gap between the two was brief and, around the end of 2005 and into 2006, when the album dropped, Drake wasn’t doing a whole lot of singing. Because his jaw was literally wired shut.
On December 29th of 2005, Drake and a friend would be taking a leisurely drive along the scenic Pacific Coast Highway on their way from Malibu to Los Angeles when their vehicle was struck in a head-on collision while stopped at a red light. According to Bell, the other driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. Drake’s friend reportedly walked out of the vehicle, suffering nothing more than light bruising and most likely a wicked headache.
Drake, on the other hand, well - he almost fucking died. Along with fractures in his neck and vertebrae, Bell’s jaw would be broken, and seven of his teeth would be knocked out upon impact. For a guy who’s entire reputation hinged on his good looks and singing, this, for obvious reasons, was not ideal. To repair the damage, he underwent extensive plastic surgery and had his jaw wired shut, as previously stated, which must have made continuing his career in both music and on screen awful difficult for a hot minute. While Bell did make a full recovery, I don’t need to explain why the guy might have been hitting the pain killers a bit hard in the aftermath.
Again - put a pin in that. It’ll come back later.
By 2007, Drake and Josh would come to a graceful and successful conclusion, and Drake would go on and seek gainful employment wherever he could get it. This necessitated taking roles in a handful of shitty movies that aren’t worth going into or talking about much aside from this one, in which he got the starring role.
Not really sure if that’s something I’d put on my resume, personally. I will say, though, we’re blessed that the trend of [Insert Genre Here] Movie is long dead and that this movie came out at the beginning of the Marvel Cinematic Universe rather than the current agonizingly protracted end of it.
He also released a DVD simply titled Drake Bell in Concert, which consisted of footage taken from his then-recent tour. While it failed to make an impact stateside, again, it did numbers in Mexico. This should be unsurprising as all of the footage was filmed during the five sold-out shows he performed at the Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City, which has a capacity of almost 10,000 and is widely considered one of the most premier music venues not just in Mexico, but the world. So, honestly? The guy was making serious waves. Just not in the country I think he was expecting.
It’s also worth noting that the cover is appropriately retro and psychedelic.
I dunno. I just kind of think it looks neat.
As the decade would draw to a close, Bell prepared to drop yet another album, much to the delight of Mexican nationals everywhere. For months leading up to the intended 2009 release, Drake would drop teaser tracks, samples, and other such minutiae to stir the pozole pot and build up some Latin hype for his new project.
Then, he lost the hard drive it was being recorded on. You know - as you do. But don’t worry! He found it again and, in 2020, released The Lost Album. Again - not really all that germane to the discussion, but I found it humorous all the same.
This brings us to the 2010’s. While the Oughties treated Drake (mostly) kindly, the following decade would be more of a mixed bag. Like, one filled with equal parts candy and thumb-tacks. While Drake would find steady and consistent work… well, let’s just say that playing the adult version of Timmy Turner in a series of low budget, direct-to-television, live action adaptations of animated Nickelodeon juggernaut, The Fairly Odd-Parents, was probably not the starring turn Bell expected to be making as he crept towards his thirties.
In the aftermath of Drake and Josh, his co-star Josh Peck would sever ties with Nickelodeon completely in an attempt to get the industry to take him seriously. Again - remember that for later. Drake, on the other hand, was happy to take whatever work Nickelodeon would throw his way. And Schneider, as well. Drake reappeared in the Bakeryverse as recently as 2018, the very same year Schneider was ousted from Nick, reprising his role as… well, Drake in an episode of the animated Henry Danger show that I can’t remember the name of. This resulted him bopping around the studio and turning up pretty regularly in their various series in the intervening years.
He also landed a consistent gig with Disney voicing Spider-Man, Peter Parker, whatever you want to call him, in a variety of animated Marvel television projects that I’m assuming were reasonably successful because there’s fucking dozens of them. If his credits are anything to go by, it looks as if he was taking a lot of voice acting roles for children’s animated series, as well as constantly popping up in other Bakeryverse programs to cameo as the Drake from Drake and Josh, I mean. On top of this, he was consistently finding employment starring in cheap, direct-to-video slop of all kinds. Here’s one that appears to be an animated sequel to The Nutty Professor in which, somehow, they managed to get a geriatric Jerry Lewis to reprise his role from the classic 1963 comedy. The best picture I could find of the cover was from someone’s busted-ass second-hand copy they were trying to ditch on eBay, which should really tell you everything you need to know about it.
Looks like a hoot and a half, doesn't it? It's a Canadian production, I think, which only validates my theory that those wacky Canucks really will just make any old shit.
While none of it seems like particularly dignified work, I can't begrudge Drake for the hustle. The money you get playing a man-child Timmy Turner spends as good as the money one might receive for starring in an Oscar-nominated film.
In this midst of this, Bell was still one busy bee when it came to his musical career. After losing… well, The Lost Album, he went right back to work with his third studio album, titled Ready Steady Go! in 2014. The album was a departure from the largely power pop sound of his first two albums and was a more eclectic mix of genres with an emphasis on rockabilly, which is a name and style of music I’ve never been able to take all that seriously. Again, the shift is heralded by a new look for Bell, which included a greased pompadour and a lot of colorful suits that give him the appearance of an unctuous used car salesman.
Since I see his change in direction as a betrayal of the best genre that, up until that point, he was solidly championing, I cannot forgive his switch, but I also understand why he, as most musicians ultimately would, want to experiment with different sounds. It also makes sense when you realize that the album was produced by Brian Setzer of Stray Cats fame, who, so far as I’m aware, the only artist that self-describes as rockabilly to ever actually bleed into the mainstream. Except for that one Elvis fella. You know. The one with the devilish hip swingin’ and an undying love for peanut butter-banana-marshmallow fluff sandwiches.
You might have heard of him once or twice.
It’s worth noting that, after being shown the door from Motown, Drake moved to Surfdog Records, which has long been the Stray Cats and Brian Setzer’s label.
Bell claims that Setzer was one of his most prominent influences and also one of his personal favorite musicians, so, good for him. But just remember, Drake… you can grease up your hair, coat your arms in shitty scratcher tats, and do your best Elvis Uh-huh-huh’s, but… remember where you came from. Remember who you left behind.
Because I will.
Oh, and if it wasn’t already hard enough to take Drake’s rockabilly era seriously, one of the more popular tracks on the album - Bitchcraft, a name which also betrays his intention to move away from the lighter, bubblegum-colored tint of his original music to something more thematically akin to a Tennessee truck stop bathroom - was remixed by French electro-swing outfit, Caravan Palace.
It’s, ah… well, it’s not their best work. Personally, I don’t know if they’ll top that one song with the animated music videos of furries violently killing each other at a night club.
And, look. I’ll level with you, here. Electro-swing is not a dirty word to me. I like electro-swing… mostly. But it is, objectively, one of the most embarrassing genres of music that’s made almost exclusively for circa-2013 Redditors who unironically thought slapping a fedora on their heads somehow mitigated the terminal driplessness of their usual fit of the over-sized, sweat-stained Legend of Zelda t-shirt and cargo shorts and gave them some class. Really, the music is good in spite of that.
This is all to say that I thought The Lost Album was actually better. But I'm not here to give you an album review, and this publication isn't looking to swipe the crown the now defunct Pitchfork left in the gutter.
Unfortunately for Bell, despite another crop of glowing reviews, the album continued the trend of his previous releases by only moving middling numbers. Having actually listened to his music, I think it’s a shame that the American music scene only ever seems to have room for a handful of dominant genres - all of which suck - at once, which basically crowds out anything that’s even somewhat decent and guarantees it will go undiscovered.
It’s difficult not to feel a little bad for the guy. He’s not untalented, especially as a musician. I can speak less to his chops as an actor, but I also can’t imagine that he might not have flourished if he managed to secure roles that weren’t so… so… you know.
Like that. Let’s just say if you’re dubbing foreign animated films with professional failure Pauly Shore, something went wrong. Entirely. I would think he would have been better served ditching his acting career entirely to pursue music full-time, but, as we’ll see, I don’t think he was in a position to be turning down income of any sort, regardless of where it came from.
Especially because in 2014, Drake Bell declared bankruptcy. So, one can only assume that starring in these films didn’t really pay all that well. At least, not enough to cover the mortgage on his two-million dollar plus mansion in Los Feliz, which was foreclosed on that year.
Ouch.
Yet, Drake remained undeterred. Doggedly, he continued to pursue his musical aspirations. The road, however, would only get more difficult from here.
In December of 2015, a year after the release of his third album and shortly following the debut of his then-latest cinematic treasure - the American dub of a Peruvian-Argentine animated film titled, A Mouse Tale -
Bell’s victory lap for starring in the hottest animated film of the year would be cut short when he was arrested for driving under the influence in Glendale, California. He posted his own bond of $20,000 and pleaded not guilty. Then he pleaded guilty when the case went to court. Given that this was not actually his first incident being caught boozin’ and cruisin’ (though, the first time it happened in 2010, he was let go with a slap on the wrist and a firm Don’t do it again), he was sentenced to a staggering… four days in jail.
And because he was just so darn charming - wouldn’t ya know it? - they let the goober out after a day! Why, if I knew it was that easy to get off the hook for drunk driving, I’d do it more often. He did also have four years probation, though, I’m not sure how strict it really was, since he immediately jetted down south of the border to perform for his devoted Mexican fans.
Despite walking away with very little consequences, this incident marked a turning point in Drake’s public perception. When mugshots like this are released -
The public reaction is often rather scathing. Everyone starts jumping on the dogpile, looking to kick the fallen icon while they’re down. After years of toiling in made-for-television Nickelodeon movies and only snagging starring roles in low budget foreign animated kid’s fare, the DUI charge and the crusty mugshot made it undeniable Drake Bell was a certified has-been. A hack. Washed-up. He was, as the kids like to say these days, cooked. He was just one of an innumerable count of failed child stars that had descended into legal turmoil, substance abuse, and while his career had not flamed out as spectacularly as others, defining it as successful would have seemed like a gross overstatement.
And yes - substance abuse was a growing issue for Bell. Not only had his alcohol intake been something of a problem for years, by this point, but lingering chronic pain from his car accident had introduced him to the world of opioid painkillers. Bell has since claimed that much of his substance issues stems from lingering trauma from the abuse he suffered at the hands of Brian Peck, and that both prescription drugs, alcohol, and other illicit substances had become easy ways to cope. This, unfortunately, is not uncommon. I also can’t help but think that mounting scrutiny from the public did little to boost his morale or improve his mental state.
Strangely, much of Drake’s struggles with his perception seem inherently intertwined to that of his former co-star, Josh Peck3.
While Drake continued to fester in mediocrity and controversy, Peck had managed to carve out a niche for himself in big budget Hollywood films and cable television.
One of his first post-Drake and Josh roles was starring in a film called The Whackness, which debuted at Sundance Film Festival and received critical acclaim. In 2015, he’d be tapped to star in his own Fox sitcom, Grandfathered alongside leading man, John Stamos. Though the show was positively reviewed, much like Drake’s albums, it didn’t make enough waves to pick up a second season. He also landed consistent voice acting roles in the animated Ice Age movies, which I imagine probably landed him a nice paycheck at regular intervals. Even as recently as 2023, he appeared in the critically-acclaimed Oppenheimer. Though he rarely scored starring roles, the films and shows he was cast in were much more respectable titles and work. The guy was a lot more picky than Drake when it came to accepting roles, and I can’t help but think the latter would have been better served following his erstwhile co-star’s lead. Perhaps if he had, he wouldn’t have been starring in films like…
Yeah. Like I said - Drake was not really in a good place at the time. I don’t think the paycheck from Arlo the Burping Pig was going to buy back that mansion in Los Feliz.
Peck had also successfully parlayed his modest but persistent presence in big name movies into a career as an online influencer, first and foremost coming to prominence on the bite-sized video platform, Vine, before it’s untimely shuttering once it was acquired by Twitter. Even today, he still boasts a staggering ten-plus million followers on TikTok, hosts in own podcast, and regularly collaborates with other large internet influencers like David Dobrik, and rubs shoulders with bigger names in television like his one-time co-star John Stamos on the regular.
His presence on the platform had endeared him to the internet-going public as a charismatic, good-natured goofball with an indefatigably upbeat attitude - a stark contrast to his former co-star, now mired in controversy. Though the two appeared at Drake and Josh reunion events sporadically throughout the 2010’s, the two’s personal relationship could generously be described as questionable. The two put on a good face for the public. There was really no indication of any ill-will between the two. Drake, for his part, insisted the two were still friends and interacted frequently in private. Josh, on the other hand, was much more lukewarm about Drake. Again, he would act chummy when a camera was around, but he spoke much less about Drake than Drake spoke about him. And when he did, he usually didn’t say much. The public perception was that the two were still close, but, if one were to read between the lines, it was pretty obvious that Josh was trying to divorce his public image from that of Drake’s.
But asking the American public to scrutinize anything they see in the media is a tall task. So, most people were content to believe that they were nothing short of a paragon of philios behind closed doors.
Who was telling the truth? Drake, who said they were friends? Or Josh, who was reluctant to say two words about Drake? It’s difficult to say. We’ll take a closer look at to why soon enough, but, for now, we have to pause on the day of June 17th, 2017 - the day Josh Peck married his long-time girlfriend, Paige O’Brien.
The marriage, as most celebrity engagements do, made headlines about the stunning venue, the fashion, the entertainment, yadda yadda yadda. But the most interest this particular nuptial agreement between two minor Hollywood figures engendered came from the star-studded guest list. More accurately, it was controversy about who wasn’t on it.
The invite to Josh’s wedding apparently never made it to Drake’s mailbox. Probably because he wasn’t on the guest list to begin with. Former fans of Drake and Josh, and the general milieu of gossip-mongers in the tabloids, were quick to pick up on this.
Drake made his feelings at being stiffed for an invite clear on Twitter when he posted the following;
And people were fucking pissed about this. On one hand, while the public outrage felt overstated, I understand why people would be disappointed to see that Drake and Josh were not on the best of terms. The Millennial generation is awful strange about their nostalgia. I’d go so far as to say that no other generation is as steeped in and trapped by the makings of their youth, and, to that generation, Drake Bell and Josh Peck were effectively their Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Abbott and Costello, or Laurel and Hardy. The chemistry the two had performing together was genuinely something special, especially for actors that were as young as they were. Watching Drake and Josh, it was not hard to buy the conceit that they were actually best friends. The realization that Drake and Josh were not actually the pair of best buds they remembered from their youth was just one in a long list of sad epiphanies of the cold reality of an impassive, uncaring, and often unsatisfying world. I myself remember thinking at the time, Oh, that’s unfortunate, but I also remember thinking that the entire schtick of Drake getting on social media and whining about being not invited to Josh’s wedding… well, it just rubbed me the wrong way.
Now, I’ve got a pretty low tolerance for individuals throwing pity parties on social media. This, like most posts of that genre, reeks of self-indulgent fishing for sympathy. It puts a bad taste in my mouth. But in Drake’s case, I think it was something more… calculated than a simple public pity party.
First and foremost - if Drake had beef with Josh, he didn’t need to be airing it on social media. That’s just petty, juvenile bullshit, in my opinion. If he really took such umbrage at being left off the guest list for Josh’s wedding, he could have just messaged him privately. Which he did, apparently. Peck claims that, the day of the wedding, Drake sent him several messages cussing him out - a claim that Drake has wholly refuted.
Peck said the following in an interview with Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports;
Peck also made the following statement on the nature of his relationship with Drake post-Drake and Josh.
He also said this on the matter of Drake’s tweets, which I find important;
In this case, I have to agree with Josh. By my estimation, if he and Drake were friends behind the scenes, then wouldn’t Drake know that Josh was getting married? If one of my close friends, or even just a casual acquaintance of mine, got married tomorrow, I feel like I would’ve known it was happening and the fact that I wasn’t invited would probably not blindside me.
But that’s about where Josh’s account begins to fall apart. Further in the interview with Portnoy, Peck claims that he wasn’t angry that the public was attacking him for denying Drake the invitation to his wedding he was apparently so deserving was - he was angry that people were attacking his wife. There were even accusations that, for whatever reason, his newly wedded wife had some axe to grind with Drake, or had it out for him because… I dunno. That’s just what people were saying at the time. Josh, incensed by the online harassment against his wife, tells this story about the first time he encountered Drake at an event several months after the wedding fiasco.
This is… hm.
Well, it’s a bit of a thorny little anecdote from Josh, here. For one, it sounds a lot like… posturing, to me. It also just sounds like it isn’t, y’know - true. At the very least, it sounds like a highly exaggerated retelling of events. Partially because this interview with Dave Portnoy was conducted in 2022, a full four years after the incident took place. Partially because Josh’s own claims here are, to cop some modern parlance from the kids - extremely sus4.
At the time that this confrontation occured, in 2017, the very night of this award show, Josh had posted this.
Here’s a video that Josh posted of the event.
Does that picture or this video seem like something someone would record moments after apparently swaggering up to someone like Tony Soprano and threatening them? I mean, Tony Soprano was bipolar and could wave a gun in your face and tell you he was gonna burn your house down and immediately switch to being your best friend, but I have to suspect that Josh Peck, despite being an actor - one of the most infamously favored careers of the mentally unwell - is not the unhinged sociopath that the fictional mobster was.
My suspicions are only exacerbated by comments made by Drake’s wife, Jennifer Von Schmeling, on twitter regarding the fateful night. I’ll let her comments speak for themselves.
And he is.
Let’s revisit this line that Josh dropped on Portnoy again.
Even discounting the 2017 VMA encounter, this is blatantly, entirely untrue.
Here’s a screenshot of Drake when he guest-starred on a 2016 episode of Peck’s sitcom, Grandfathered, of which Peck enthusiastically told the press he was excited to work with his old co-star again. This, mind you, was filmed a year before Peck’s wedding.
Here’s a picture of them together at a club in 2012.
I can’t find the pictures, because Google Images is worthless and Google Search even worse, but video content I watched for research purposes had more pictures of the two spotted sporadically across the 2010’s, turning up together at Christmas parties, night clubs, and other such events.
Hell, after the 2017 interview and the VMA encounter, the two patched things up for a while and Drake became a regular presence in Josh’s online content. The two appeared in multiple videos and collaborations together.
Now, none of this has to mean they’re friends. Not by any means. But, at the same time… well, I ain’t too good at math, but if Josh claimed in 2022 to not have had any contact with Drake for ten years after wrapping their sitcom together… someone check me on this, but according to my calculations, the difference between 2022 and 2017 is not ten. But I could have been using my abacus wrong. It didn’t come with an instruction manual.
Whether my functional inability to comprehend arithmetic is once again rearing its ugly head or not is regardless. It’s quantifiably untrue that Drake Bell and Josh Peck had no contact between the end of Drake and Josh and 2022.
That in turn begs the question - why would Josh lie? More importantly, why would he make such a series of astoundingly bold lies that fly in the face of evidence that is relatively easy to hunt down?
Now, here, we have to rewind a bit - back to 2007, near the end of Drake and Josh.
During the filming of Drake and Josh, it was clear that Drake was the star, and Josh was the co-star. It was the stark juxtaposition of the cool, good-looking Cali-bro who played the guitar and collected chicks like they were Pokemon cards against the fat, awkward, consistently put-upon dork. Josh, as I explained in the previous article covering the show, was never comfortable with that arrangement. When Drake won Favorite Television Actor at the Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards three years in a row, and Josh was just there to stand behind him and smile, one can only imagine that it must have been difficult for him to not feel some small mote of resentment. At that time, as I again mentioned earlier, Drake was living his best life. He was at his peak.
At the time, unbeknownst to the public, Josh had developed a substance abuse issue of his own after turning to alcohol in order to, as he described it, fit in with others in Hollywood and ease his own securities that, even as he lost weight, wasn’t good enough. By the time Drake and Josh wrapped, Josh had developed a reputation for being erratic and unreliable on set due to his drinking. Remember how I said he cut ties with Nickelodeon Studios because he wanted to find more serious, respectable work? Well, it was also because Nickelodeon was cagey about keeping him on payroll because of his issues. Most studios were hesitant to hire him. So, he kicked the habit. He’s been sober since 2008 - only a year after Drake and Josh ended.
Drake has claimed that these private struggles were never revealed to him - a claim which only seems to cement the fact that the two were never all that close to begin with. Drake, it seemed, thought everything was going swimmingly. In fact, after Drake and Josh wrapped, he said that he had every intention of continuing the two-man comedy act with Josh and parlaying their success into, as he called it, becoming the Abbott and Costello for a new generation. Both he and Josh, after all, originally bonded over their love of old comedy films, especially the great and classic double-acts of the genre.
I don’t need to tell you that Josh had no interest in playing second banana to Drake for the rest of his career.
Let’s get back to 2017 - the MTV Music Awards. The picture of Drake and Josh hugging one another and the video of them palling around in the aftermath of the wedding drama was all the public was aware of. The scathing interview with Dave Portnoy was still four years away. To outsiders looking in, it appeared that the two had smoothed things over.
Again, to those on the outside, it looked as if the two had put aside whatever differences they had and, for all intents and purposes, friends.
In 2019, that would change once more. Josh reached out to Drake with a pitch for a sequel to Drake and Josh. He sent over a script that he had written - a script titled, Josh and Drake.
In the script, Josh would have grown up to be a wealthy and successful real-estate agent in the Los Angeles area. Drake would have grown up to be a failed musician who’s only popular in - can you guess?
Mexico.
Drake said the following in an interview regarding the script;
"We're supposed to be playing ourselves. Like, he totally parodied my actual life..."
To which his wife, who was also part of the interview, made the following interjection;
According to those who read the script, it was to be a very adult, very mature, and darkly comedic take on the material. If you ever watched Drake and Josh, you probably remember their catchphrase -
Well, the first line of Josh and Drake would have supposedly been Josh telling Drake, Go hug yourself, fuckhead.
The story would follow Drake stumbling into trouble while performing at a the quincinera of a Mexican drug cartel kingpin’s daughter and inadvertently dragging Josh into the mix. Apparently, even Nickelodeon sitcoms are not safe from dark, gritty, mature reboot syndrome.
Needless to say, Drake did not much appreciate his own unorthodox musical career and, really, his entire character, being lampooned the way that it was. Worse, he saw the depictions of Mexico and the people who live there being portrayed as offensively stereotypical, and worried participating may damage his reputation with his Latino fanbase, which, believe it or not, was now at an all-time high. By this point, Drake had begun to go by the moniker Drake Campana5, had begun to live part time in Mexico, added Spanish subtitles to all the content he put out on social media, and record extensively in Spanish. Don’t believe me? Here’s a song that he released a week ago as of this writing.
It sucks. But it goes to show that he was and is really banking on his Mexican stardom to buoy his sinking fortunes.
Needless to say, I think he was most likely correct in his assumption that starring in a program in which Mexicans were depicted as stock-standard stereotypes of goofy sombrero wearing bumpkins or violent thugs would not have done anything to boost his appeal to what had become his main audience.
His then-wife, Janet Von Schmeling, said the following:
It’s worth noting that despite having the name of a 15th century German count, Von Schmeling herself is from the South American, Spanish-speaking country of Paraguay.
More astutely, Drake didn’t see how opening the show with Go hug yourself, fuckhead, would please old fans. Again, I have to agree that taking the show in such a dark, cynical direction would have most likely come off as a middle finger to the fans more than anything else.
Drake claimed that he was open to doing the show, but only if the story was changed dramatically. Not for the sake of his own pride - supposedly - but mostly for the sake of not disrespecting La Raza.
Josh refused to make any concessions.
But I don’t think that’s why Josh decided to put as much distance as he could between himself and Drake as he possibly could, up to and including spinning extraordinary tales of acting like a New Jersey mafioso and pushing around his former co-star.
Perhaps something might have come of the Josh and Drake pitch over time, but as 2020 dawned, Drake’s already tenuous grip on control of his life would slip away entirely, and what little was already together would fall apart further. And it wouldn’t just be his recently resuscitated relationship with Josh Peck that would slip away with it. With a middling music career, a miserable acting resume, two DUIs, and a bankruptcy behind him, as well as struggling to reignite a spark of his former success, I’m sure that Drake was under the impression that he was at his lowest point. The nadir. It couldn’t get any worse for him.
Unfortunately, he was about to find out just how much more distance he had left to fall.
A fall that we’ll discuss… next time.
Eddie Movie Murphy was a term my friends and I came up during our self-styled film buff years to describe the string of Eddie Murphy star vehicles from the 2000’s that ranged from so bad it’s almost funny to so bad it’s bad; a pantheon of certified cinematic masterpieces that includes Meet Dave, Norbit, and The Haunted Mansion, among others.
This probably shouldn’t need to be stated, but for the sake of being as blatant and easy to digest as possible, I must add that there is no relationship between Brian Peck and Josh Peck.
Sus. Adjective. A corruption and shortening of the word suspect, used to describe suspicious, conspicuous, or dubious behavior or statements.
Campana is the Spanish word for Bell. But I reckon you could have figured that out yourself.
Isn't most kids entertainment really Arlo the Burping Pig deep down?
Wake up babe Yakubian Ape just posted.
Two things:
1. In a last ditch effort to crawl his way out of debt around 2013 Drake Bell also participated in a diving reality TV competition called Splash- I only remember that nugget of information because my sister was a diver growing up and she thought it was funny.
2. It’s also a common Mandela Effect about how one of the lyrics in the Drake and Josh theme song is actually “it’s gonna take some time to realign”, not “it’s gonna take some time to realize.”