Here’s Why Marc Summers’ ‘Quiet on Set’ Appearance Was So Brief

If you were wondering why one of the most memorable members of the Nickelodeon crew only spent a matter of seconds speaking on Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV‘, well, we finally have an answer.

Marc Summers, who is known for hosting beloved competition series like Double Dare and What Would You Do? for Nickelodeon in the late ’80s and early ’90s, has a blink-and-you’d-miss-it appearance in the show, and the reason is — according to his latest interview — he walked off after feeling “ambushed.”

Appearing on Elvis Duran and the Morning Show (via Variety), Summers revealed that he didn’t know what kind of docuseries he was participating in when he first agreed to do it.

“I got called by these folks saying they wanted to do a documentary on Nickelodeon, and so I said, ‘Sure.’ And I went there, and they asked me what I thought of Nick, and the first 10 or 12 seconds, from what I understand of this documentary, are me saying all these wonderful things,” Summers said. “But they did a bait-and-switch on me. They ambushed me. They never told me what this documentary was about. And so they showed me a video of something that I couldn’t believe was on Nickelodeon, and I said, ‘Whoa, let’s stop the tape right here, what are we doing?’ And they said, ‘Well, we’re doing this thing, do you this guy and all of this kind of stuff.’ And I left.”

The docuseries details several then-young actors’ and other staffers’ experiences being subjected to sexual and racial discrimination and inappropriate environments, particularly in Dan Schneider‘s orbit as producer. The series also features deeply disturbing revelations of sexual abuse from former Nickelodeon child stars, including Drake Bell, whose acting coach was later convicted of the same.

Summers said that after walking out of the show, he was initially told he wouldn’t appear in the docuseries at all before being updated that he would, with the caveat being, “but only the first part of it because you talked about the positive stuff about Nickelodeon.”

However, when the series premiered, Summers was surprised to see another portion of him included: “What they didn’t tell me, and what they lied to me about, was the fact that they put in that other thing where they had the camera on me when they ambushed me… So now we get into a whole situation about who’s unethical?” he said.

In Episode 1, “Rising Stars, Rising Questions,” Summers is briefly shown watching a phone clip. It’s montaged with some questionable scenes from Ariana Grande’s appearances on Schneider’s shows, and he ponders aloud, “That was shown on Nickelodeon?!”

It was the inclusion of that which made Summers angry, as he said, “They made it seem like I knew those people, right?” Summers cryptically added that he was expecting a call on the matter. Summers also added that he wouldn’t be an appropriate interview subject since he wasn’t around during the Dan Schneider era, saying, “I never met Dan Schneider. When we got done doing Double Dare, and we had run our run, those people came afterward and took over our studios. Never met the man. Have no idea about any of those things. I mean, I know Kenan [Thompson] from Kenan & Kel, ’cause we’ve done stuff together. But as far as anything that happened on that show with any of those people, I never met any of them. I didn’t know anybody.”

Quiet on Set: Breaking the Silence, Premiere, April 7, 8/7c, ID