Brian Peck wasn’t only a dialogue coach to child actors on Nickelodeon’s “All That” within the late 90s and 2000s.
Show stars Giovonnie Samuels and Bryan Hearne, who each joined the sketch-comedy production as preteens during its seventh season in 2002, actually considered Peck, then age 42, a friend.
“We were extremely close,” Samuels, now 38, and Hearne, 35, told The Post in unison.
“We’d run lines with him on a regular basis. He signed my ‘All That’ yearbook,” said Samuels of Peck — who often appeared on camera as goofy stage-crasher “Pickle Boy,” awkwardly toting a tray of pickles.
“We were invited to his house for parties and things,” Samuels continued.
“We were all under this naive cloak of, ‘We’re a family, all of us hang around,’” she added. “‘That is normal. That is common that an adult would need to be friends with a toddler.“
But Peck’s abject chumminess with the tweens was apparently anything but normal.
“I used to be sleeping on the couch and I woke as much as him sexually assaulting me,” says “Drake & Josh” star Drake Bell, 37, in ID Channel’s forthcoming exposé, “Quiet On The Set.”
The four-part documentary, debuting Sunday and Monday, unveils the sexual, emotional and mental abuse Nick stars and staffers of the early aughts allegedly endured while working on productions mostly helmed by Dan Schneider, 58.
In a press release to The Post, Nickelodeon said: “Though we cannot corroborate or negate allegations of behaviors from productions many years ago, Nickelodeon as a matter of policy investigates all formal complaints as a part of our commitment to fostering a secure and skilled workplace environment freed from harassment or different kinds of inappropriate conduct.”
“Our highest priorities are the well-being and best interests not only of our employees, casts and crew, but of all children,“ added the spokesperson. “We have now adopted quite a few safeguards over time to assist ensure we reside as much as our own high standards and the expectations of our audience.”
Schneider, once revered because the network’s “golden boy,” served because the mastermind behind hit sitcoms comparable to “All That,” “Drake & Josh,” “iCarly,” “Sam & Cat,” “Zoey 101” and “Victorious.”
But after nearly twenty years of kid-television success, the screenwriter was dropped from Nickelodeon in March 2018 amid claims he created a “toxic” work environment on sets.
Neither Schneider nor Peck responded to The Post’s individual requests for comments.
Within the doc, Bell, who’s publicly disclosing the small print of the molestation for the primary time, reveals the “extensive” and “brutal” abuse he sustained by the hands of Peck.
“I froze and was in complete shock and had no idea what to do or easy methods to react,” Bell recalls. “I don’t know easy methods to get out of the situation. I used to be 15 on the time.”
He initially became an on-set student of Peck’s after being forged on “The Amanda Show,” a brainchild of Schneider’s starring Amanda Bynes, in 2000.
Owing to their shared interest in old Hollywood history, Peck‘s relationship with the teenager quickly escalated from buddy-buddy to alarming, says Bell’s dad and former manager, Joe.
“I began seeing Brian hanging around Drake an excessive amount of…it didn’t sit well with me,” says the concerned father within the doc. “He’d put his arm around his waist, put his hand up on his shoulder and run it down his arm.”
“This might occur routinely. It was just at all times uncomfortable.”
Bell says Peck ultimately “eviscerated” his relationship with Joe, leaving him — a then vulnerable adolescent — prey to the tutor’s perversions.
“Consider the more serious stuff that anyone could do to anyone as a sexual assault, and that’ll answer your query,” says Bell when asked to describe the repeat offenses.
“It was not a one time thing,” he adds. “It just became this secret that I had held onto.”
“I didn’t know easy methods to process it and that result in quite a lot of self-destruction and self-loathing,” Bell admits. “I’d try to escape with alcohol abuse, substance abuse. Anything to flee really.”
After suffering in silence for months, Bell finally exposed Peck as his abuser in 2003.
Within the doc, the “Yours, Mine & Ours,” star notes that Schneider was totally unaware of Peck’s wrongdoings against him until his arrest. Bell even acknowledges Schneider as being “the one” Hollywood exec who was there for him throughout the legal fallout that ensued.
Following a court case in October 2004, during which Bell’s identity was protected under the “John Doe” pseudonym, Peck pleaded no contest to 2 charges of kid sexual abuse.
A complete of 41 A-listers, including James Marsden, Alan Thicke, Joanna Kearns and “Boy Meets World” stars Rider Strong and Will Friedle, allegedly issued written pleas to the presiding judge, requesting Peck receive probation reasonably than jail time.
Kearns has since recanted her support of Peck, per the doc. Strong and Friedle have, too, recently expressing remorse for standing with Peck on a podcast.
Representatives for Nickelodeon tell The Post, “Now that Drake Bell has disclosed his identity because the plaintiff within the 2004 case, we’re dismayed and saddened to learn of the trauma he has endured, and we commend and support the strength required to come back forward.”
Peck was ultimately handed a 16-month sentence behind bars, and was ordered to register as a sex offender.
Jason Handy, an ex-production assistant on Schneider’s shows, was also arrested for committing lewd acts with children under 14 after sending nude photos of himself to a teen extra on “The Amanda Show,” and kissing a 9-year-old girl who starred on “Cousin Skeeter.”
Hearne and Samuels tell The Post that recently learning Bell was Peck’s victim brought them each to tears.
“We cried,” said the twosome.
“It was absolutely devastating,” Samuels continued. “That [Bell was] going through all of that after which [had] to return to work the following day. I felt for him so hard.”
The Nick alums count themselves lucky to have narrowly escaped an analogous fate — although Hearne recalls an inappropriate encounter with Peck that sent his mother, Tracey Brown, spiraling.
“We took an image, [and Peck] bit me on the top and called me his little chocolate drop,” said the “Hardball” star. “My mom was completely weirded out and said something. She was very vocal.”
Hearne was ultimately fired after just one season of “All That.” But he believes his mom’s fierce protection shielded him from uncomfortable situations with each Peck and Schneider.
“There wasn’t quite a lot of conversation between him and me,” Hearne said of his relationship with Schneider. “There wasn’t a closeness. He was uncomfortable being his weird self around me [and] I felt good about that.
“I didn’t need to be near him.”
Those that were barely closer to Schneider, like ex-“All That” trouper Kyle Sullivan, says the show creator often pushed the bounds of inappropriateness to the intense in scripts.
“The show was filled with these uncomfortable sketches,” Sullivan says within the doc. “I feel like Dan got a kick out of walking a line with that.”
Former “The Amanda Show” author Christy Stratton says, “Working for Dan was like being in an abusive relationship.”
Within the doc, and ex-colleague Jenny Kilgen claim Schneider forced them to take part in degrading antics like screaming “I’m a slut,” or pretending to be victims of sodomy in the author’s room.
Others claim Schneider’s sexually suggestive directives in scripts — which included toe sucking, face squirting and crude breast jokes — along with his allegedly “volatile” mood swings, made the workplace traumatizing.
In a press release to documentary producers, Schneider says, “Every part that happened on the shows I ran was fastidiously scrutinized by dozens of involved adults.”
“Each day, on every set, they were at all times parents and caregivers and their friends watching us rehearse and film,” he added.
But Hearne and Samuels, who’re each parents to separate broods, are encouraging mothers and dads to be overly protective of their tots on this planet of kiddie entertainment.
“Parents, be present…don’t get caught up within the glitter [of Hollywood],” urged Samuels.
“If you’ve got that gut feeling — say something,” she continued.
“You’re going to guard your kid in the long term and that’s what you have to do.”
“Quiet On The Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV” premieres as a four-part series over two nights on ID Network. The primary part will air Sunday, March 17 at 9 p.m. ET, followed by the second part on Monday, March 18, at 9 p.m. ET.