Top 30 Dan Schneider Quotes

By the mid-’80s, I was an actor. I was never super-famous, but I was definitely on the map.

A lot of times people who write sitcoms for the 18 to 49 crowd think writing for kids is easy. It really isn’t. First of all, you’re very restricted in what you can do.

I think my shows can draw an audience of 12 million because I ask, ‘What can make a 7-year-old, a 17-year-old, a 30-year-old and a 77-year-old laugh?’

If there is anything I’ve learned about kids today – and I’m not saying this is good or bad – it’s that they all want to be stars.

I took a break to take care of a lot of stuff that I’d let go by the wayside for decades.

I try to make a great sitcom that would make my heroes proud of me.

It’s a huge high to be able to earn a nice living doing the thing I love most – making comedy.

Sometime in the early to mid-’90s, 8 P.M. television went away from family to being ‘Friends’ – and you really don’t want your 10-year-old watching ‘Friends.’

It’s fun to intentionally write bad dialogue. It’s not so fun when you do it, but didn’t mean to.

I don’t want to wake up at 60 and have to call the neighbor who’s 12 to help me with my computer.

I think the networks used to try to program for kids and family.

I liked television in the old days. I liked that everybody knew every episode of ‘The Brady Bunch,’ everybody knew every episode of ‘Cheers.’

Really, when people put together the highlight reels of the classic moments from ‘Friends,’ ‘Seinfeld,’ ‘Cheers,’ even ‘MASH,’ they’re full of broad slapstick comedy. Call it cheap or lowbrow, but it works and it works for people of all ages.

We work hard to make a good show and it’s exciting to be recognized by a third party.

I used to write sketches. I loved David Letterman in the ’80s. I used to write Top 10 lists for him, and I faxed them in anonymously. I’m sure they threw them away.

Even the kids who seem to have a lot of freedom, their lives are pretty controlled. So what I try to do on my shows is to have kids come out on top. They’re the smartest ones in the room. They’re the ones in charge.

What I loved about TV when I was a kid was that no matter where you came from or who you were – black, white, rich or poor – you knew the same shows. It was a common thing in our culture.

Nobody gives a damn that I was in ‘Head Of The Class,’ but when they know I was Ricky in ‘Better Off Dead,’ they’re like ‘Holy crap, man! You were Ricky.’ They go crazy.

I actually wrote an episode of ‘Head Of The Class.’

I realize we’re not curing diseases with ‘iCarly,’ and we’re not doing Shakespeare. It’s not an Academy Award-winning film, but it has definitely touched people universally.

Many shows in television have tried to do a Web element, and usually it’s dumb. ‘iCarly’ has set the bar in television and Internet. I don’t think there is better example. That may be the most significant thing about it.

With people all the way from 17 to 2… ‘iCarly’ often is the No. 1 show, not just on cable but all of television.

I have a rule: Kids get to be the star.

I’ve said from the start that I’m not going to write kiddie sitcoms.

I don’t think of myself as a guy who writes for kids, I really don’t. I try really hard to write a good, solid sitcom.

Over the years, I’ve grown and matured as a producer and leader.

I never interacted with actors in any way, texting or otherwise, that should make anyone uncomfortable.

Having been on the other side of the camera gives me such perspective on what I’m doing.

Casting is what I put at the top of the heap in importance to any show that I do.

By the time I was on TV, I was 19, but I played a kid, and they treated us like kids, so it’s almost like I was a kid actor. Basically we were considered props who spoke.