Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide star Devon Werkheiser explains why Zoey 101 is being rebooted but not his Nickelodeon show. The series, which ran from 2004 to 2007, starred Werkheiser as the titular Ned Bidgy who frequently broke the fourth wall to teach the audience how to survive the trials and tribulations of middle school. Along with Ned, the series also followed the lives of Moze (Lindsey Shaw) and Cookie (Daniel Curtis Lee).
Werkheiser, Shaw, and Lee recently appeared on the Vulnerable podcast hosted by Christy Carlson Romano and discussed the possibility of a Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide reboot.
Asked why Nickelodeon is rebooting Zoey 101 but not Ned’s Declassified, Werkheiser revealed that he, along with creator Scott Fellows, pitched a great idea for a reboot centered around the characters as adults, though the network passively rejected it for the time being. Werkheiser suggested a possible reason for the rejection, as the network is biased against any non-Dan Schneider-created content. Read what Werkheiser said below:
Let’s be real. They favor Dan Schneider content. They always have. He created like half their universe. I get it. I don’t know because we pitched such a great pitch. I pitched the reboot with Scott Fellows the creator and Michelle Fellows his wife. A great pitch for us as adults. They don’t want it, or they don’t want it right now. It was so passive. It was like, “Great pitch. Not right now,” but also we were like, “We want to sell it. We’ll pay you. Just let us go sell it.” They’re like, “We’re gonna hold it and do nothing with it and thank you great pitch.” It just felt so passive.
Will Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide Be Rebooted?
The conversation about rebooting Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide comes at a time when many other Nickelodeon properties are being resurrected at Paramount+ as reboot shows or movies. This includes the iCarly revival series and the aforementioned Zoey 101 sequel movie which is officially titled Zoey 102. As Werkheiser mentions, both iCarly and Zoey 101 were created by Schneider, whom the Ned’s Declassified star says the network is showing a preference towards. Nickelodeon actually parted ways with Schneider in 2018, before he was later accused of misconduct which he has partly denied.
Despite a strong adult-focused pitch from Werkheiser and Fellows, it appears the network has no interest in rebooting Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide at the current time. Perhaps they will revisit the pitch later down the line as promised. In lieu of a reboot, the three stars Werkheiser, Shaw, and Lee have recently launched a Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide rewatch podcast to reminisce about their popular Nickelodeon series.
Source: Christy Carlson Romano