Quotes from Dan Schneider

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

My shows are meant to be entertaining, not educational.

I was 21 and thinking, 'When this 'Head Of The Class' boat ride ends, I don't want to fade off into the sunset. I want to keep working. I want to be involved in the entertainment business.'

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

I think so much of kids' television, kids' entertainment, is done by adults from a looking-back point of view. If we come up with a really great joke that will make me laugh hard and would make my friends laugh, we pitch it aside.

I think the most important thing I do as head writer of 'Kenan & Kel' and 'All That' is make sure any jokes we do, any situations we approach are from a kid's point of view.

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.

I create a world where kids rule. If you think about it, kids are always being told what to do, what to say, when to do it - they're very controlled... I give them an escape, where the kids are in charge.

When I was a kid, my favorite show was 'Happy Days.' If I could have heard a recording of the cast of Happy Days just sitting around having fun, talking about the show in a party atmosphere, I'd have lost my mind.

My friends and family would say I'm in an arrested mental state of development.

I'm never going to write fart jokes, because I feel like I have a responsibility to the audience to give them good stuff. I should be able to come up with something funnier than any third-grade boy could think of.

Publicity ultimately means bigger ratings.

We try to cast very real kids who have raw talent.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Kids spend seven hours a day in school, and they have their homework at night. I'm not there to moralize or to teach them right from wrong. We're there to provide something that is really fun, that's a diversion.

That's the goal with TV, to make something that everybody likes and that gets remembered forever.

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.

I had a great relationship with my parents, but there's something about hanging out with your older sibling that just has a whole new level of cool for a kid.

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

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