Top 10 Nickelodeon Scandals You Completely Forgot About

Jason Biggs is most known for playing the main character in the “American Pie” series, a lewd comedy film franchise. Later, Biggs would be brought onboard to voice Leonardo in Nickelodeon’s adaptation of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. While his past work didn’t affect any Nickelodeon work opportunities, his penchant for posting offensive tweets definitely did. He reportedly knew that the network wasn’t happy with his controversial posts but refused to tone it down. Many phoned Nickelodeon to call for Biggs’ dismissal and, by season three of the show, that’s exactly what happened. The tweets, in case you were wondering, were about subjects like the Pope, women’s basketball, a plane crash, Paul Ryan’s wife, and a Bachelorette contestant who passed away, among other things.

In 2019, “Hair Love,” an independent animated short film was released to both critical and audience acclaim thanks to its heartwarming story and masterful execution. It even went on to win the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. Unfortunately, its stunning character designs were heavily replicated in a Nick cartoon that was set to air in 2020. “Made by Maddie” was the offending show, which followed the adventures of a young girl, Maddie, in New York. While the plot was completely different from “Hair Love”, the appearances of the daughter, father, mother, and even the cat, were nearly carbon copies of the short film’s characters. The production company denied the accusations; however, it was still pulled by Nickelodeon indefinitely and has yet to make it to air.

“Double Dare” was a children's game show where two teams would compete by tackling obstacle courses, and win prizes. The show was popular back in its day, although it had its fair share of controversies. Hilariously, one woman threatened to sue the show after host Marc Summers pied her in the face. Apparently, this incident meant she couldn’t be physically intimate with people anymore – yeah, we’re not really sure either – but the woman reportedly received $25,000 so a courtroom confrontation could be avoided. Another time, a child lied on his medical form and turned out to have bones too fragile for the obstacle course. When he went through it, he ended up breaking something like 17 bones in his body.

The show “iCarly” was surprisingly unsafe to work on, as Jennette McCurdy describes in her memoir, “I’m Glad My Mom Died”, mainly due to Dan Schneider’s inappropriate behavior and general misconduct. The show was so unsafe in fact that, back in 2011, a stuntwoman was seriously injured after being dropped from a highwire. The stunt woman, Katina Waters, was meant to be dropped slowly to the floor, but was let go without warning, fracturing both her legs. Waters sued Nickelodeon, MTV, and the show’s producer for the incident, and has since returned to the profession after recovering.

In 2013, “Slimed!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age” was published, which chronicles Nickelodeon’s history, featuring stories and interviews from staff. In it, Melanie Chartoff, the voice of Tommy’s mom in “Rugrats”, Didi Pickles, described how animators created crude, dominatrix-themed illustrations of her character and displayed them in the men’s bathroom. It made for quite the divide between the workspaces of writers and voice actors with that of the animators, who clearly engaged in more provocative humor. Welp, we’re never going to see this show the same way after that little piece of information.

“Figure It Out” is a panel game show that aired in the late ‘90s, which brought on children with unique skills as contestants. Their secret talent had to be guessed by a panel of Nickelodeon celebrities. In season 2, one episode featured a child taking in milk through their nose and letting it out through their eyes. As you might be thinking, this is a pretty bizarre talent, and one that was certainly tough to guess. More importantly, parents were worried their children would imitate the act after watching the episode and hurt themselves in the process. As a result, the episode only aired once before being banned altogether, and now remains lost to time.

“Invader Zim” is a rather dark children’s show as it follows an alien, Zim, who wants to enslave humanity. However, they really missed the mark with their fourth-ever episode, “Dark Harvest”. It stands out for taking its disturbing content to an extreme, featuring Zim consuming the organs of children in the hopes of appearing human. Unfortunately, the plot inspired a teenager to brutally eviscerate his neighbor in October of 2005. He was tried as an adult and given the maximum sentence possible for the crime, allowing him to be eligible for parole in 2030.

“Square Butts” was a Burger King commercial aired in 2009, which was a collaboration with SpongeBob SquarePants. A music video parodying Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”, it features the sandwich monarch and an entourage of square-bottomed dancers. The cartoon’s target audience is children and, naturally, parents were outraged at the advertisement. The creators responded by saying the ad was targeted at grown-ups, which is a bit perplexing, irrespective of the show’s adult fanbase. Making the claim even weaker is that the product being sold in the commercial was also entirely aimed at kids.

While many accusations have befallen Dan Schneider, he was far from the only unsettling individual involved in the big Nickelodeon scandal. Former production assistant Jason Handy was charged on several counts, including child sexual exploitation and sending sexually explicit emails to minors. Authorities found more than 10,000 indecent photos of minors in his possession, alongside a written confession of his crimes. Handy pleaded not guilty, but the court disagreed, and sentenced him to six years in prison. He was released in 2009 but resentenced in 2014 for further misdemeanors.

Growing up as a child actress was said to have been incredibly stressful for Amanda Bynes. Dan Schneider, a man long overdue for backlash and retribution, produced her breakout show, which - like all Schneider’s shows - brought harm upon its child actors. The industry took its toll on Bynes, and she took a step back from the limelight in 2010. Since then, any attention she’s received in the media has seldom been positive. Her journey reveals the dark truth about childhood stardom, especially on Nickelodeon where the egregious stories seem to be endless.




Which outrageous Nickelodeon scandal do you remember, but that everyone else has forgotten? Mention it in the comments section below.