Today's Blind Items - The Showrunner From Hell
This showrunner/creator had one big hit but it allowed him to create some pilots and at least one middling hit. At least one death I attribute to him. He cast her when she had just turned 13 or 14. She talked about him when she was using drugs but never when she was sober. She says that when he walked in for the casting for the soon to be hit network show that he asked her if she wanted the part. She said yes. He then told her lots of other girls wanted the part. He then coerced her into undressing saying that all the other girls had and she didn't have to but she wouldn't get the job. This ended up with her being sexually assaulted by him. She says he did so over 100 times during the run of the show.
She talked about how he took her with him when he was casting a show that didn't even last a season. One person cast in the show was a woman in her early 20's who has her own slate of horror stories about things that have happened to her. Anyway, she was told if she wanted the job she had to sleep with the then 14 year old girl while our showrunner watched. She did it. She was so disgusted by that and what happened to her a couple years later when she was a guest star on a very hit network show and raped by at the time an A list mostly television actor who in the past year has been accused of it again and a guest star on another very hit network show and raped by at the time an A- list mostly television actor on the show who has also been accused of similar behavior by other women that she left the business.
Going back to our teen, she then became the "older woman" so to speak when the showrunner took her along on the casting for a middling network show. The showrunner made our teen have sex with a girl who was maybe seven or eight at the time. Our teen doesn't know if the showrunner ever had sex with the girl and she isn't talking or hasn't yet. She left the business right after appearing on a show which was created solely for the purpose of casting as many children as possible in one show for adults to molest and that they did for years. That is another blind though.
As for our teen? She got pregnant by the showrunner and was fired for it. She was never allowed to reveal to her child who his real dad was.
She talked about how he took her with him when he was casting a show that didn't even last a season. One person cast in the show was a woman in her early 20's who has her own slate of horror stories about things that have happened to her. Anyway, she was told if she wanted the job she had to sleep with the then 14 year old girl while our showrunner watched. She did it. She was so disgusted by that and what happened to her a couple years later when she was a guest star on a very hit network show and raped by at the time an A list mostly television actor who in the past year has been accused of it again and a guest star on another very hit network show and raped by at the time an A- list mostly television actor on the show who has also been accused of similar behavior by other women that she left the business.
Going back to our teen, she then became the "older woman" so to speak when the showrunner took her along on the casting for a middling network show. The showrunner made our teen have sex with a girl who was maybe seven or eight at the time. Our teen doesn't know if the showrunner ever had sex with the girl and she isn't talking or hasn't yet. She left the business right after appearing on a show which was created solely for the purpose of casting as many children as possible in one show for adults to molest and that they did for years. That is another blind though.
As for our teen? She got pregnant by the showrunner and was fired for it. She was never allowed to reveal to her child who his real dad was.
Speechless.
ReplyDeleteI really hope this blind is BS.
ReplyDeleteDana Plato seems to have started Different Strokes when she was 14.
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DeleteIts not diffrent strokes, one creator didnt have any other shows with kids and the other produced cosby which was hardly middling
Did Dana have a baby with an unknown father?
DeleteThe last show sounds like Kids Incorporate or Rocky Road. Maybe we can work backwards from there.
ReplyDelete@Sara, Making It Work. - Yes, those blinds were from January I think. The way the one about Kids Incorporated was written made the guess easy but I think a few people guessed other shows. The comments section for that blind was both interesting & sad.
DeleteOh!! There was another one about a show from TBS back in the eighties. I don't know the name of it, we had cable at sporadic intervals when I was growing up.
Andrew Kreisberg
ReplyDeleteHunter Tylo Melrose Place
ReplyDeleteApril Lerman, fired from the first season of Charles in Charge? One of her last projects was a teen show called Parker Lewis Cant Lose.
ReplyDeleteI like this guess. She also guested on growing pains and the co creator of charles in charge was michael jacobs who has done a ton of middling kids shows including a pilot with brittany Murphy in 91
DeleteBernie Kukoff is credited as a "creator" of Diffrent Strokes. Only other show he's credited with creating is Rags to Riches which had tons of young girls.
ReplyDeleteAnd IIRC Dana Plato was fired for getting pregnant.
Great guess, @Sandybrook!
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ReplyDelete"Made" our teen have sex with a 7 year old girl? I would have walked away.
ReplyDeleteHorrible story. Sounds familiar, though...
ReplyDeleteOmg sickening
ReplyDeleteOh, Kukoff also created Thea, a middling show with kids. He was only a writer on Cosby, not creator.
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ReplyDelete+1 Sandybrook, +1 Sara, it fits the best so far.
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ReplyDelete"Tyler Lambert once aspired to follow his famous mother, "Diff'rent Strokes" actress Dana Plato, into show business. Instead, like her, he took a detour into drugs and eventual suicide."
ReplyDeletehttp://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/dana-platos-son-tyler-lambert-commits-suicide-mom/story?id=10629167
@Cray That entire article is a nightmare. And it only gets worse knowing what all was still to come when it was published.
DeleteI can’t help but wonder if kiddo found out the real story behind his birth from the rumor mill and that was his trigger.
Creator and Showrunner are not the same thing though. A creator can just get a credit. A show runner legit is on set overseeing the writing staff. Dana Plato DID die so we have to find someone you can credit with at least one death according to the blind.
ReplyDeleteDana Plato - Dead Actress
ReplyDeleteShowrunner - Bernie Kukoff
1st Show - Diffrent Strokes
2nd Show - Rags to Riches
8 YO Girl - Heidi Ziegler
Show created solely for the purpose of casting as many children as possible: Just the Ten of Us
@pkelly491 - Dana wasn't on Rags to Riches. Was she initially hired then fired before production?
DeleteJamie Lynne Spears? She got pregnant super young on her show and everyone thought it could be that shady Nic producer dude's baby but she said it was that other guys. She hasn't done anything since that show that I'm aware of.
ReplyDeleteThis!
DeleteActually, Drexell's Class was actually the last show that Ziegler did. Another one with a whole handful of kids.
ReplyDeleteThis is so tragic and awful. What a bunch of sick fuqs the industry has. My gut says Jaime Lynn Spears & Dan Schneider... I can’t remember the name of the show exactly, but it had “Zoey...” in the title.
ReplyDeleteIf i had a ton of money, i'd vigilante these people.
ReplyDeleteNot Schneider, he's had multiple hit show: All That, Zoey 101, Drake & Josh, iCarly etc.
ReplyDeleteIt cant be Plato "She left the business right after appearing on a show which was created solely for the purpose of casting as many children as possible in one show for adults to molest and that they did for years"
ReplyDeleteaccording to IMDB she did plenty of B-movies before she died.
Sticking with April Lerman. And piggybacking on trinity's guess of producer Michael Jacobs- associated death Brittany Murphy.
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ReplyDelete@Donna, it was the 7yr old that left after starring on a show created for molesting.
ReplyDeleteLooks like Kreisbergs career is already over after being called out by over a dozen girls and a few boys. So it wouldn’t be much of a blind if it was him.
ReplyDeleteMajor key here - "who HIS real dad was". The child of the teen is/was a male. This fits for Dana Plato
ReplyDelete@Sarah-ok-I rushed through that part cause it made me sick!
ReplyDeleteSo I like my guess with your guess-although Plato could work.
@Donnamarie,it is the eight year old that didn't work again, and Dana is the 14year old that was fired when she later became pregnant. She was never able to tell her son who his father was because she was dead. He may never have known as he died by suicide herself. It is well known she was harassed by people calling into Howard Stern's show the day before she died. Howard did defend her,but I'm sure he knows it could have been handled better.
ReplyDeleteI think this goes back to the Rocky Road blind. If we assume his sources are connected (or even the same person), it may be easier to work backwards from there. Wasn’t it assumed that Devin Odessa was one of his subjects/sources? Maybe this person was connected to her. I’m not saying it’s necessarily her, but maybe it’s someone who ran in the same circles or was connected through work...
ReplyDeleteJust my two cents 🤷♀️
I don't know who this is, but I just can't understand why fame would be so important to someone that they would do these things. I don't mean the kids...they don't fully understand. I mean the adult women who did these things...can this really be true??
ReplyDelete"Our teen doesn't know if the showrunner ever had sex with the girl"
ReplyDeleteHmm...can't be Plato, she's deceased and this is written present tense.
Kukoff was also a writer and producer of those shows. But Strokes, Rags, Thea he was creator as well.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure who the 7/8 yo is, since it appears to have happened on a middling show (ie not Rags, that's the one that didn't last a season). Nobody on Thea seems to fit, but maybe it was an uncredited guest bit, or a different show he was affiliated witb.
@SDaly, Evonne
ReplyDeleteChalk that up to Enty's bad editing and grammar. The teen was already referenced in the first paragraph as having died.
My guess is Melinda Naud for the 20 something
ReplyDeleteI hate to be judgy but how many rapes does it take someone to realize they need help, they need to get out of the business, they need to report these creeps to the police so it does not happen to other girls. By the 4th rape I am losing my empathy.
ReplyDeleteThey use coersion. To the rapist this is permission from the victim.
Delete@Jen Ty - sexually abused children believe this is normal. It is also possible the victim was being abused at home and on the set. Some of them are tortured so of course they will keep silent in order to live.
DeleteThis blind has some of the worst grammar and run on sentences ever, even for Enty. He goes back and forth with the past tense and current tense in the same sentence. That is why some here think the teen is alive. I think he meant she didn't tell anyone if she knew the seven year old was abused later,and she never went public.
ReplyDeleteIf it is Plato he has more than one death on his conscience since HIS son by Dana committed suicide as well. Tragic. I am eager to hear about Joss Whedon and his casting couch. Know first hand ala a run in he was not having affairs but pulling that 'you do something for me' crap. Will stories break? He was the top guess for a blind about exiting his latest movie because of lingering allegations.
ReplyDeleteIf fat Kim in North Kores actually managed to lob a small nuclear missile at the US and it hit Hollywood, these days would it really be worth having a retaliatory strike? I mean, surely a sternly worded letter would suffice. If that. There are cess pits with life that has more decency than that place.
ReplyDeleteCan't help but agree 100%
DeleteIf Just the 10 of us factors in somehow, remember that Jamie Lunar starred on that show and was recently in the news for blowing a 14 year old boy.
ReplyDelete+1 Lonely Bastard
ReplyDeleteSandybrook nailed it.....
ReplyDeleteSounds like Dana. Even as a kid, I knew something was happening to Dana when I would watch Diffrent Strokes. Sad eyes on that girl.
ReplyDeleteBoth Dana and Erin Moran stay on my heart, all the time. Never forgotten. ++
This reads like it might be more of a setup for the coming BI. Getting a little backstory to put the next one on perspective.
ReplyDeleteMelinda Naud?
ReplyDeleteYes, I think Melinda Naud for the 20 year-old as well.
ReplyDeleteMelinda Naud was also on Happy Days so Scott Baio as one of the rapists.
ReplyDelete20-something = Melinda Naud
ReplyDeleteat the time A list mostly TV actor = Tom Wopat (The Dukes Of Hazzard)
at the time A- list mostly TV actor = Scott Baio
Yep! Melinda Naud works
ReplyDeleteThis Melinda Naud article is interesting, regarding suing for paternity. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailynews.com/2016/01/02/paternity-suit-against-actor-wayne-rogers-to-continue-despite-his-death/amp/
ReplyDelete"She left the business right after appearing on a show which was created solely for the purpose of casting as many children as possible in one show for adults to molest and that they did for years. That is another blind though."
ReplyDeleteThis can only be Kids Incorporated, referencing the other blind(s). Drexell's Class didn't last "years". I don't know if Heidi Ziegler was ever on Kids Incorporated and it's just not mentioned on imdb, or if the 8 year old is someone different.
I deleted an earlier guess about the 20-something actress. I had the timeline wrong.
ReplyDeleteDana Plato
Bernie Kukoff
Melinda Naud (great guess folks)
The 7/8 year old would likely have been from Detective School, Tucker's Witch or TJ Hooker.
Heidi Ziegler doesn't work for this particular blind, even though she worked with him and I'm sure has lots of stories. Timeline doesn't add up.
I am so very tired & disgusted reading about these m-effing perverts. Enty, reveal the fuckers that are committing these atrocities, or cease & desist from posting every day. Pick one day to focus on the trash please. Thanks bub. Love & bacon❤
ReplyDelete@Sarah TJ Hooker? What's the linkage there?
ReplyDeleteJenny Beck was on TJ hooker and then went on to a 3 season show called Guns of Paradise about an uncle raising his sisters kids....
ReplyDeleteMeant to add that she looks to have been about 8 or 9 on when on TJ
DeleteIt could be *interesting if some of these guys started showing up hanging from overpasses on the 405...
ReplyDelete+1000, Southern Man!
DeleteNot as much for the older teens, but for the 8 year old. Where the hell were the parents?
ReplyDelete@atoukzug
ReplyDeleteHe worked on a couple episodes of TJ Hooker but it doesn't fit.
I think the 7/8 yr old is TANYA FENMORE, who guest starred on Tucker's Witch, where Kukoff was a regular producer.
She did a lot of 80s shows, the molesty one was probably The Torkelsons.
Imdb doesn't have an age for her, but there's a picture of her with Staci Keanan and they look roughly the same age. So it fits.
The way the molested kids moved around between projects shows a larger pattern of a referral network that swapped the kids around between abusers like trading cards.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, this screams RICO on so many levels. Not only the people who were involved, but those who knew and looked the other way or facilitated the practice.
And shame on people like the Academy for pretending it's not happening. But then again, how many awards would they have to rescind?
14 yo’s who are victims of molestation cannot make decisions in any reliable way.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a shame most of these monsters have one foot in the grave. The younger ones, like Feldman, Baio and Sheen are most likely victims themselves.
ReplyDeleteThis BI seems to be Plato, but what’s confusing is that her son took the name of her husband Lambert. If the kid’s father was a producer, wouldn’t she have given him her name Plato. Is the birth certificate public record?
ReplyDeleteThe article I read said she was with Lambert at the time she got pregnant.
DeletePublic record doesn't nessesarily equal truth!!!
Delete+1000 @atoukzug
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly how it works! Seems pretty clear based on different blinds, that they pass around the kids who put up with it.
And that recent blind about tfe awards shows molesters.... I think any kid with a Young Artist Award probably had to be molested to get it. These people are sick.
Let's stop rationalizing, shall we?
ReplyDelete"This actor went thru the same as a child." Do you repeat everything that happened to you as a child, or Do You Have A Choice???
If something happens to victimize you, there's a choice. Break the cycle, or continue.
There are young women in the industry now, who are clearly afraid to speak up. As long as that continues, the cycle will continue.
Our so called 'family TV' today, is "Fuller House".... with Jodie Sweetin in a bunny leotard, making devil horns on her head; and lots and lots of pizza.
When are we going to break the cycle?
~~~
It's not on the victims. It's on the people/adults who know, and do nothing. There's always someone who knows, always. And it's on us, for being adults, who day how awful all of this is, but do nothing. If only all the prolifers, we're as against pedophilia, as they are about abortion. If they protested outside of the homes and jobs of pedos. If they supported tough on pedo polititions. They could make such a difference. That crazy crowd is driven!
Delete"Our teen doesn't know if the showrunner ever had sex with the girl and she isn't talking or hasn't yet." This implies she's still alive.
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ReplyDeleteI'm so angry reading this. Beyond sick, if true. Beyond sick, if made up in someone's imagination. And for God's sake, learn to use punctuation! These enterns need to learn to write.
ReplyDeleteIt was,a big deal when Dana married Manny Lambert and was pregnant. Weekly stories about her and her life in the National Enquirer and then her mom died.
ReplyDeleteShe left her husband for that dirt tag druggie. I was listening to Stern whenthe ruthless calls began. He really should have controlled the calls better and been more emphatic . I did not know her son died! How sad! Good guess Sandy b!
Whoever the young victim was should step forward with massive lawsuit. He could be in SE Asia doing the same to innocent young souls
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking the TV show just made for molesting kids was more the ABC Afterschool Special or CBS Schoolbreak Special.
ReplyDeleteI feel for these people I really do and I believe every single molestation, rape, murder, cover up story.
ReplyDeleteWtf type of Stolk-Holmesque shit is Hollywood???
I think the only reason Harvey went down is because he crossed the wrong person and then was set up because whoever did it knew what would come out after the floodgates were opened.
I think its a,way for Netflix to become the New hollywood..driving out those who...charge studios extensive over head...
Delete@ardleigh, ugh, those shows probably sound like menu items to the pedos.
ReplyDeleteI worked on Diff'rent Strokes from day one until the end. Problem with this story is that Bernie Kukoff only created the show and never worked on it. So I don't see how he could have done that "100 times" to Dana. He wasn't there on set. Unless this happened on her free time, but... c'mon.
ReplyDeleteIt says: She left the business right after appearing on a show which was created solely for the purpose of casting as many children as possible in one show for adults to molest and that they did for years. (I dont know why but Saved to the Bell pops into my mind for that show)
ReplyDeleteThe problem is Dana Plato didnt appear on any tv series after diffrent strokes.
@court b It's up to the victims to speak. They have the facts, anything else is hearsay
ReplyDelete