Dan Schneider sails Nick Coms ship to the edge?

Dan Schneider sails Nick Coms ship to the edge?

I will begin this post admitting that I enjoyed Nickelodeon series since cable tv arrived to Peru. I was, back then, a little kid, and those were really funny sitcoms back then. Of course I can admit that ‘All That’ was stupid, full of Giant Hams, but still funny for kids. I am even following Nickelodeon now days and they still make me laugh a bit, but when you spent so much time of you life following the content of a channel, you get the eye and ability to recognize certain elements that classifies all the series by style and producer.

So let’s talk about Dan Schneider right now.

Good old Dan, making kids laugh since 1994 and reusing actors again and again. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad thing, since it’s a way to determine his next lead on the next new series and most of these kids are very talented actors (although they get a lot of marketing makeover over their images… hey, money has to flow and they are products, you know it’s true). You can certainly recognize a Dan Schneider production if it has:

A) Big large GIANT HAMS. And they sure chew the scenery (oh yeah, they do that literally too).

B) Abnormally large quantity of props in the set, considering that, in real life, NO TEEN HAS MONEY TO GET SCIENTIFIC IMPOSIBLE TECNOLOGY!! Now I think about it… dammit, I feel so poor about my life when watching sitcoms about rich kids… Because if that’s supposed to be “middle class” economical situations, then the depression in 2008 was all a joke, I guess.

C) When you have followed Nick Coms for a while and suddenly you say “Hey, That person was in ____ show”. Don’t believe me? Ask Kenan Thompson, Kel Mitchell, Drake Bell, Miranda Cosgrove, Victoria Justice, etc.

D) All the point plots are solved in a heartbeat by doing a goofy thing or something that in real life would have killed you. You know… mr. Producer forgot that his props are not supposed to be props in-universe.

So I’m not the first blogger touching this point, I know, but it doesn’t keep me from pointing out what are his recent issues in his works and, at the same time, rise some positive points to defend it a little. And although I technically am out of his target demographic, I can still sit down, watch it with my cousins and reference a good joke when the time gives it, but most of the little details in the script are what makes me roll eyes and slap my forehead. And it’s not a bad thing abusing of the props, large budget and visual effects, because it’s basically kids comedy, but at least the script has to make sense for everyone.

I, unfortunately, couldn’t get older material, and mostly skipped the productions from 1998 to 2004, so if I’m not mentioning Amanda Bynes’ show, What I like about you and Guys Like Us… I’m likely sure you won’t mind, since I didn’t heard of them before and neither you, I guess. So let’s go for the well known beginnings:

1. All That.

I know Nostalgia Critic already covered the Nick Coms of the 90s and it was mandatory to include All That and Kenan and Kel there, but I gues I can give it a shot.

I can remember when I followed the first cast. Lori Beth, Angelique, Alisa, Kenan, Kel, Josh and Katrina. See? I typed those by memory. Most of the sequences were sketches with jokes easy to follow, while others were parodies. Both of the examples were completed with abusive amounts of giant props.

Problem here? I guess there wasn’t a big general problem, but there was, as usual in Schneider, the excessive use of absurdly big props. We can understand that they were the core of some of the main sketches, like “Barry big pockets” or “Walter big ears” or… I don’t know, something with… big props… but the point is that it’s not funny when your jokes include mentioning the elephant in the room when everyone can see it. Because one of the things most people remember are lines like “I have cheese in my pants”, “My armpits are itchy”… something like that.

In defense of it, the writers worked very hard to give us new sketches every week that didn’t feel repetitive… or maybe there were more props… That kept making more ratings, more laughs and more money divided for the studios… and more props.

Then the cast was replaced by the fourth season and I stopped following it. I heard it lasted 10 seasons. But by the end of the third season of All That, Schneider came with the next topic on the list:

2. Kenan and Kel.

 

 

Ok, thanks for the correction here, Brittany.

 

Dan was only the executive producer for the series, but t was still under his wing. Thanks for the correction, althought I was called bitter, I guess.

 

 

 

I don’t blame them.

 

Dan’s cliché alert:

• “Chris’ mom’s feet dust”
• “Sofa” (that was the treasure in the vault… a sofa…)
• Weird fetishes with feet and orange juice
• Whining. Lots of whining.
• And list goes on.

Time skip to 2004.

3. Drake and Josh.

Forgetting that in the middle there were other three series, Laurel and Hardy are back again, but by the names of Drake and Josh. Again: Smart chubby and Laid back skinny. Difference? This time is San Diego, Skinny is Drake and is super popular and music talented, while chubby is Josh and he’s the clumsy butt-monkey one. And they are not only best friends. They are more than that… They are step-brothers. Come, on. I was thinking it and I know you too as well. Like Kenan and Kel, Both Drake and Josh are Tony Danza characters as well.

Plus, there was the little brat Megan, played by Miranda Cosgrove, who has super advanced gadgets for the sole purpose of taking over the world. No, just kidding, she just wants to make her brothers’ lives miserable… or ending them. For Dan Schneider it’s the same.

The plus points for this is that Drake and Josh seemed to take the production out of the box they were for a while by then, and we got to see less the giant props humor (which doesn’t mean the trend died yet), besides the series served as a launcher for the careers of Drake Bell and Miranda Cosgrove. Besides, the plot of the situations felt more real in comparison with Kenan and Kel. Their problems were more about what teenagers more likely face, like dates, curfews, getting a car… I won’t forget that there were silly moments too, typical Schneider.

Here are the problems that bugged me for the rest of the series:

-Drake became more stupid each season while Josh was getting saner but his status as the butt-monkey got worse. It just made the plot of some episodes very annoying about how Josh became more of a soccer ball rather than a character.

-Megan never learned a lesson and all her “pranks” were actually killer death traps. No, seriously. There’s one episode were Megan cut the floor of their room in the third floor and they fell through until they reached the garage. Seriously, Dan? You missed the mark about this character, she’s better as a villain in a horror film.

-Speaking of Megan again… You noticed all the gadgets she uses during the entire series? How old was she when the series started? About 9 or 10? If the moron parents never found out Megan had her own secret lab in her room (I guess Dexter might be proud), how the hell the little brat afforded all that equipment? How much money parents give their kids in America as alimony? I’m really curious about the economy in Dan Schneider’s happy universe.

-Mean Boss Helen, owner of the cinema theater where Josh works. The woman is obnoxious, has lots of money, treats Josh like garbage while she has the hots for Drake, who doesn’t even work in her cinema. Speaking again of Josh, the human kicking can…

4. Zoey 101

Another example of “Adults are only there because where else they would be”. Because all the action centers on teens in a boarding school… which feels more like a college campus but with kids. The story centers on Mary Sue Zoey, played by Jamie Lynn Spears… or more easy to remember, Britney Spears’ little sister, who is part of the first generation of girls in the academy, since before them, the school was a boys only institute. There we have Dogged nice guy Chase, who drools for Zoey since day 1, black-best-bud-comic-relief Michael, tomboy-I-will-kick-you-in-the-nuts Dana, Attention deficit boy obsessed Nicole, Scientific geek cuckoo lander Quinn and Douchebag Logan… And I think there was a tagalong kid… Oh yeah, Dustin, Zoey’s little brother.

Interesting production notes: Rumors say that Not-Britney and her co-stars weren’t getting along so well, to the point that the girl playing Nicole quit production after the second season. Previously Dana’s actress left production too and was replaced by Hot actress wannabe Lola, played by Victoria Justice, and so Quinn got promoted to the main cast. The series ended with all the characters dating someone. Zoey and Chase got together, Logan became less douchebag and hook up with nerdy Quinn… and that’s it. More gossips tell us that the series had to end since Little Spears got pregnant. Did we mention she was underage still? That of course made Nickelodeon questionable for making “glam” teenage pregnancy, so the series had to end soon in a tv-special movie.

Zoey 101 was pretty generic as a teen comedy, but it was remarkable to mention that it was the only production of Schneider that didn’t use canned laughs.

But here comes the annoy-list:

-Again with the impossible scientific research. Quinn has a new “Quinnventions” (I didn’t make that up) every episode… but they are far too ridiculous to be believed. Carnivorous bacteria? Robots with laser guns? Radioactive material stuffed in jars? The girl knows how to make surgery?? I don’t even have to explain that because I can’t.

-Another character detail is that Logan is a rich douchebag because his father is a tv producer (of Nickelodeon, I guess), and his allowance is of aprox. $1000 per month. That’s not the weird part. The weird part is that Logan spends it on spy cameras to hide in the girls lounge, 5 lobsters in a dinner, a complete entertaining equipment for his room, go carts (?)… I won’t get any further.

-Mary Sue, I mean Zoey. The girl is perfect, nice with everyone, has a guy drooling for her and is the trend setter feminist activist of the campus, because any of the other girls there get any good ideas besides Zoey. I could not hate this girl anymore.

-The adults are useless. The Dean is more busy in buying toys than taking care of the school, the counselor  of the girls room is drug ravioli addicted, there are no parents around, the teachers are idiots… I could go on, but we have another two series, and these are the sprinkles in the silliness sundaes.

5. iCarly

Since Dan Schneider saw some kind of potential in Miranda Cosgrove, she became the new lead in the new series “iCarly” once Drake and Josh was over. The series premise was based on kids who decide to be Internet comedians. The concept is not bad, reflect the trend of the new youtube comedians and the characters are somehow likable… if the series only were anything close to actually funny. Because believe me. The actual iCarly webcasts are attempts to make All That again, because the videos apparently rely on large props and pointing the obvious again.

I can certainly say that iCarly is overrated, but what can we do? It’s the new trend, especially since Hannah Montana ended and there’s no strong competition on air by now, but still it doesn’t explain the quantity of silliness in the script.

Some examples of the ridiculous:

-To get this short, I’ll sum up the main characters in this single bullet: Carly is another Zoey, Sam is ridiculously strong and bully, Freddy starts as a momma’s boy dogged nice guy techno geek (adding more to the profile: His mother planted a track chip in his head!!) and Spencer is an idiot, which it’s already a miracle that he’s still alive (actually that miracle is that his Mary Sue sister has to take care of him instead).

– iCarly isn’t even funny. As I mentioned lines above, the sketches are actually All That all over again. The main core I guess are the off-camera situations, but still it has to be justified that in-universe their videos are competing with Fred Figglehorn in views (which production mentions as the direct inspiration), which brings me to:

-Episode iMeet Fred. Quick summary to understand my point: Freddy one day says that Fred’s videos aren’t funny, Fred turns his fans to hate iCarly for the comments and everyone starts bullying on Freddie, so Carly and Sam make him apologize to Fred… when he then confesses that the fight was a plan to make more views for both parties, and Freddy changes his opinion only because Sam beats him up with a Tennis racket. Talk about social pressure against your liberty to have an opinion… until you get beat up by a tennis racket. Morals? What’s that?

-And the fandom gets screwed. Fans finally got Sam/Freddy to happen. What happens next is another fail in Schneider’s work: NEVER TOUCH STEADY RELATIONSHIPS FOR YOUR PLOTS BECAUSE YOU SUCK AT IT, Schneider. Lovey-dobby and quarrel at the drop of a hat. That’s his dynamics for all the series and it only makes the followers to get diabetes.

By this point, I got to say that the writing staff for his newest series is decaying each time, because there’s no episode that ends graciously.  They open ok, develops more-so-fine and then fall flat on the face. And here it is the fine example of this:

6. Victorious

A bit fact before touching it. There was another show in Nickelodeon that got canceled in the gap. Taina was from another creator, Maria Perez-Brown, that was aired in 2001 until it’s cancelation by the end of the second season. The series centered on Taina Morales, who attends a Preforming Arts Highschool and her clique are the Clueless main cast (same structure: black best friend, two best buds and the rich brat obnoxious girl) and she follows her dream of being he next JLo pop star. I have to admit I liked the series, but it felt very much like Clueless. One good point was that Taina’s latin heritage was brought into the plot and made sense in context about roots and family traditions in contrast of the new generation born in America, reflected in Taina.

Victorious, on the other hand, is centered in a latina girl Tori Vega (Victoria Justice got her series too when she proved she could sing AND act) after she performs a song in replacement of her spoiled obnoxious brat of a sister and is offered the chance to study at Hollywood Arts, a prestigious Performing Arts Highschool. Totally original, huh?

One good thing that has Victorious is that the music is good. Damn good. The cast is very talented and musically gifted, there are great dancers, good vocals (ok, I know it’s autotuned and playback, but it’s still good recording) and has very nice settings.

But, again, we must remember Dan Schneider is producing it. Oh dear.

-Tori at least avoids the Mary Sue mold by one single detail: She’s selfish and tries very hard to look Perfect Sue. Maybe that would sound annoying but it makes her more believable of a character.

-The other characters are a full scale of ranges. We have very generic (Beck), ditzy gal (Cat), dork (Robbie), black best bud (Andre), sadistic bitch (Jade) and Annoying Attention Whore (Trina). All of them are unique, but the writing makes all of them indigestible by moments. There’s nothing wrong with having characters with defects, but the plot has to make them work outside Schneider’s box of props.

-Again with the props. I know they’re in a Performing Arts Academy, but it doesn’t justify the budget in costumes, props and scenery a school is willing to invest in.

-Most of the situations are rather unusual (like that one where Tori and co. goes to another country and get arrested for a shoe slipping and causing an accident), but what takes the cake, again, is the moralities dissonances. I mean… They never seem to learn a lesson, just take care of the current plot (sorta… I guess the audience must assume everything went back to normal) and acting next chapter like nothing happened, because Trina keeps being a brat and Jade keeps being a bitch.

-Every single episode flails with only the closing of it. Most of them end up not solving the problem at all or the characters just walking away and never mentioning it again. It just makes the viewer feel awkward about it.

After this, I don’t plan on bash Dan Schneider’s production, because that’s his style, but at least he could think about the message he’s giving to the kids watching the shows, because I wouldn’t be surprised if little girls learn that domestic abuse is ok if it’s only females beating up males, or that scams can be solved by singing, or dropping props to it. I still can find them funny if I remember they are just fiction, I guess there are going to be rage inducing chapters for a while, but I can only hope they will be less.