Dan Schneider
The king of kids' comedy in the Turn of the Millennium.
Dan Schneider is probably best known to adults as Dennis Bluden on the old ABC sitcom Head of the Class. But to millions of children (and kids-at-heart), he is the creator, writer and producer of several of the most well-known and loved Kid Coms. His work portfolio almost entirely is comprised of Nickelodeon's premier shows.
His production company is Schneider's Bakery and he loves to put various Easter Eggs among his various shows, such as a Schneider's Bakery can be seen in the stock location footage of the movie theatre in Drake and Josh. His shows tend to use a similar way of talking, a variation on Buffy-Speak by finding obscure, unusual or sometimes made-up words to use.
Shows created and/or produced
- Guys Like Us
- All That
- The Amanda Show: He also had a minor role as a frequent prank phone call victim of Amanda Bynes.
- Kenan and Kel
- What I Like About You
- Drake and Josh
- Zoey 101
- iCarly - Currently airing
- Victorious - Currently airing
Movies produced and written:
He has a blog, which is here.
This producer and his works contain examples of:
- Adults Are Useless - Adults in his shows are typically incredibly Naive, Pushovers, Overly Underhanded, or just Utter Morons.
- Buffy-Speak - frequently.
- Butt Monkey - Quite a few appear in his works.
- Cold Opening: On almost every show he produces (Zoey 101 and Kenan and Kel are the exceptions)
- Comedic Sociopathy: By and towards his main characters. The main offenders are Megan from Drake and Josh and Sam Puckett from iCarly. Said recipients are Drake and Josh and Freddie Benson respectively.
- Common Crossover - Some of the fake brands appear across all shows, such as Daka shoes, Pearpods (an Ersatz of Apple products), Wahoo Punch, and Blix.
- Crap Saccharine World: Very common in the Schneider-verse world, especially in his sitcoms. Guest characters who interact with the main protagonists have high chances of being full of Unfortunate Implications.
- Crazy Homeless People - Allegedly due to Executive Meddling, he can't directly make fun of bums so he usually uses Hobos as jokes.
- He actually has an explanation for this here (read question #18).
- Disproportionate Retribution: Very common, especially on iCarly
- Foot Focus - A common thread through all his shows.
- Getting Crap Past the Radar - The reason why so many adults watch his shows. (Well, one reason.) Some of the stuff he and the writers put in the shows makes you wonder if Nickelodeon even has a radar.
- It's more likely that he's been given a great deal of creative freedom due to the popularity of his works, considering his earlier shows didn't try to sneak nearly as much stuff past the radar.
- There's still a decent amount of radar-y stuff in those early shows though. Some of the All That and The Amanda Show sketches probably wouldn't have made it to air today.
- It's more likely that he's been given a great deal of creative freedom due to the popularity of his works, considering his earlier shows didn't try to sneak nearly as much stuff past the radar.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck - There's a lot of strange euphemisms for swears in his works, the most used ones are "skunkbag," "chiz," "jank," and "suckish."
- Happy Ending: He averts this in most episodes of his shows, to add to the comedic effect. Sometimes results in No Ending.
- Jerkass - Wouldn't be a Dan Schneider show without a couple.
- Karma Houdini - There usually are a few Jerkass characters in his works that receive absolutely no sort of comeuppance or consequences for their behaviors and actions; the most Egregious example is Megan, the Villain Sue of Drake and Josh who was a borderline sociopath not to mention very well liked by the writers and despised by the fanbase.
- One unknown troper put it best when referring to iCarly. To paraphrase: "This is a Dan Schneider show, meaning that students/teachers will regularly get away with stuff that would get them a stern talking to at best and expelled/fired/arrested at worst."
- Laugh Track. Averted Trope for Zoey 101, due to it being a single camera work shot on location. Played very straight with every other show he's made.
- Large Ham: You're gonna see a lot of characters like this in his works. Josh, Chase, Michael, Freddie, Robbie, Trina...the list goes on and on.
- My Friends and Zoidberg: Wisconsin.
- Old Media Playing Catch Up:
- The send-up of the Filipino Michael Jackson "Thriller" Prison Dance scene in the Victorious special Locked Up, with the original being at least four years old and probably pre-dating iCarly!
- iCarly itself, which came years after people had already been doing webshows and the rise of YouTube.
- Production Posse: Dan Schneider has a tendency to re-use actors that he likes. Amanda Bynes has been Amanda and Holly Tyler, Victoria Justice has been Lola Martinez, Shelby Marx, and Tori Vega, Miranda Cosgrove has been Megan Parker, Paige Howard, and Carly Shay, Jerry Trainor has been Crazy Steve and Spencer Shay, and Drake and Josh have been in The Amanda Show and Drake and Josh.
- Also, Daniella Monet has been Rebecca Martin, popular girl, and Trina Vega, Jennette McCurdy was Trisha Kirby and Sam Puckett, and Allison Scagliotti was Mindy and the girl who stole Zoey's backpack idea.
- He also has a stable of writers and directors, some of whom have been with him since the beginning.
- Recursive Canon: Events in Victorious, iCarly, Zoey 101 indicate that Drake and Josh is a fictional TV show in the shared universe of the other 2 shows.
- Or that the Drew and Jerry Show Within a Show from Drake and Josh is a fictional TV show in the shared universe of the other 3 shows.
- Rule of Funny
- Recycled Script: Several cases since Drake and Josh where an episode has been a direct lift of an earlier episode in another series.
- Also has a massive tendency to repeat jokes. One example being the "three legged cat" joke.
- Sadist Teacher: Occasionally.
- Shared Universe: Officially canonized in "iStart a Fan War" of iCarly.
- Ship Tease: And how.
- Most notably in iCarly.
- Spiritual Successor: Pretty much all of his shows after All That were based off of another:
- All That spawned Kenan and Kel, The Amanda Show and Zoey 101. The Amanda Show was treated as an actual show being put on for the audience, much like All That, and both referred to each other.
- The Amanda Show spawned What I Like About You and Drake and Josh
- Drake and Josh spawned iCarly
- Zoey 101 spawned Victorious
- Also, the idea of an older sibling taking care of a younger sibling introduced in Guys Like Us inspired the premises of both What I Like About You and iCarly.
- Throw It In: If a blooper is funny enough, he'll throw it in the final cut of the show.
- The Verse: See the Nick Verse.
- Teasing Creator: After becoming aware of fandom and the almost exclusive Shipping focus when he joined the online community for iCarly he then turned what was a relatively non-explosive online community into a Sam/Freddie vs Carly/Freddie Ship War that rivalled anything Nickelodeon had ever seen including Kaatang/Zutara. The usual method was inserting lines into his blogs referencing whatever pairing was not the focus of the episode.
- Has now started teasing the Jade/Tori (Jori) shippers on Victorious.
- Totally Radical: All over the place. Even the Gosh Dang It to Heck euphemisms have shades of it.
- Whole-Plot Reference:
- The Breakfast Club send-up for Victorious.
- The bathtub plot in iToe Fatcakes is inspired from an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show.