“All That” and “Kenan & Kel” actor Kel Mitchell revealed on the “Baby, This is Keke Palmer” podcast that Dan Schneider allegedly yelled at him in a closet on set once when he was 18 or 19 years old. Mitchell’s story is the latest misconduct allegation made by a former Nickelodeon actor against Schneider. The recent Investigation Discovery documentary series “Quiet on Set” included several other actors alleging mistreatment by Schneider during his tenure at Nickelodeon.
“The vibe of the show started to change a little bit,” Mitchell said when Schneider took over “All That” from original co-creator Brian Robbins, who “started to do ‘Varsity Blues’ and all these different movies and the production team started to blow up, so they left.
“They left us with the head writer, Dan Schneider. So he’s writing, and me and him kind of bump heads a little bit,” Mitchell continued. “I remember me and Dan had a big argument on set. He was like, ‘Let’s go over here to this room right here, in this closet.’ He closed the door and he just took off, you know, just yelling all this wild stuff.”
“Being an adult at this point, I had a decision to make, you know what I mean? I was just like, okay, either we [are] going to fight or either I’m going to leave,” the actor added. “And so that’s what I did. I left the situation.”
Variety has reached out to Schneider’s representative for comment.
Mitchell was an original cast member on “All That,” which debuted on the network in 1994. He starred on the sketch comedy series for five seasons while also headlining Nickelodeon’s “Kenan & Ke” alongside Kenan Thompson starting in 1996 and spinning off the popular “All That” sketch “Good Burger” into its own 1997 movie.
Thompson previously reacted to the allegations made against Schneider in “Quiet on Set” by saying “my heart goes out” to all the former child actors and teen stars who were affected by his alleged inappropriate behavior.
“It’s a tough subject. It’s tough for me because I can’t really speak on things that I never witnessed,” Thompson said at the time. “All these things happened after I left, basically. Dan [Schneider] wasn’t really on ‘Kenan & Kel’ like that. He got a ‘Created by’ credit, but it was a different showrunner. All that negativity kind of started happening outside of our tenure [at Nickelodeon]. I wasn’t really aware of a lot of it, but my heart goes out to anyone that’s been victimized, or their families.”
“It’s a good thing that the doc is out and it’s putting things on display that need to be, stories that need to be told for accountability’s sake. But it’s definitely tough to watch because I have fond memories of that place,” Thompson continued. “I have fond memories of my co-stars. To hear that they’ve gone through terrible things like that, it’s really tough.”
In a later interview with Variety, Thompson said he felt “so guilty” for saying he had fond memories of Nickelodeon amid the abuse allegations aimed at one of the network’s former top creatives.
“I feel so guilty saying that. All those things started happening after our tenure, because, I guess, no one would even dare. It wasn’t that kind of environment. There was no dictatorship about it all,” Thompson stressed. “We were all building something and, when you’re building something, I don’t think anybody’s cocky enough to be pulling things behind the curtain.”
Watch Mitchell’s full appearance on the “Baby, This is Keke Palmer” podcast in the video below.