These Nickelodeon Actors' Careers Tanked After Their Shows

Nickelodeon has been around since the 1970s, but it really came into its own in the '90s. The decade saw the premiere of the first Nicktoons, like "Rugrats" and "The Angry Beavers," and it also saw the debut of many live-action comedy shows. The sketch comedy show "All That" kicked off the careers of stars like Amanda Bynes and Kenan Thompson, and the sitcom "Clarissa Explains It All" made a star out of Melissa Joan Hart, but not every Nick child star has had the same luck.

It's not easy being a child star in Hollywood, and not everyone is able to successfully make the transition into grown-up actor. Some have trouble getting roles, while others simply discover that acting isn't their passion after all. For every former Nickelodeon star who is a household name today, there's another who hasn't had a successful career since leaving the kids' network. Let's take a look at some Nickelodeon actors whose careers tanked after their shows ended.

"The Adventures of Pete & Pete" was one of Nickelodeon's earliest sitcoms, and it is still fondly remember today. The show starred Michael C. Maronna and Danny Tamberelli as Pete Wrigley and Pete Wrigley. Yes, they were two brothers with the same name. The show differentiated between the two by calling the older brother (Maronna) "Big Pete" and the little brother (Tamberelli) "Little Pete." 

Even if you didn't have Nickelodeon back when this show was on the air, you may have known Maronna from his role as Kevin McCallister's brother Jeff in the "Home Alone" movies. However, after "Pete & Pete" came to an end in 1996, Maronna seemed to disappear. He would pop up here and there, but he never had a role of "Pete & Pete" or even "Home Alone" caliber again. However, he has continued to work in the movie business anyway. 

Today, Maronna works as an electrician on movie sets, which may seem like a disappointing follow-up to acting, but he would disagree. Maronna told Rewind It Magazine in 2020, "I was always interested in the technical aspects of film production," and said that even when he was a kid he "kept asking questions of the gaffer." Clearly, he is working a job he always wanted to do.

Like a lot of Nickelodeon stars, Jamie Lynn Spears got her start on "All That," but she really became a top celebrity on the network with her starring role on the tween show "Zoey 101." Of course, she was also famous for being the little sister of pop superstar Britney Spears, which gave her quite a career boost.

Like her sister, Jamie Lynn quickly found success with her target audience, but eventually saw her image shattered by scandal. Around the time that "Zoey 101" was coming to an end, word got out that the 16-year-old star was pregnant. Naturally, many fans assumed that the show was quickly brought to an end due to her pregnancy, but this actually wasn't the case. The actress finally cleared it all up in a 2020 interview with Cosmopolitan, saying, "I didn't become pregnant until probably six months after we wrapped or something like that, but some of the episodes had not aired yet." After the news broke, she tried to retreat to Mississippi for a private life, but it sadly wasn't always so private, as the paparazzi followed her everywhere. After a long time away, Jamie Lynn Spears has finally gotten back in the acting game. She has a starring role on the Netflix drama "Sweet Magnolias," which she discussed in a 2020 interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

If you were on the internet at all in the early 2010s, you have seen the face and heard the voice of Lucas Cruikshank. You might not know it, but you have. That's because Lucas Cruikshank was the young YouTuber behind the (in)famous Fred Figglehorn character. Fred was a six-year-old boy who didn't understand how terrible his life was, and it felt like the squeaky-voiced character was everywhere for a time. Nickelodeon quickly caught wind of Figglemania and brought Cruikshank's character to TV — many times over.

Take a look at his IMDb, and you'll see all the times he played this character over the course of a few years. First, he appeared as himself on "iCarly." When that went well, he starred in "Fred: The Movie," "Fred: The Show," "Fred 2: Night of the Living Fred," and "Fred 3: Camp Fred." Nickelodeon was sitting on a high-pitched goldmine, but they soon learned that viewers had Fred fatigue. Not wanting to show Cruikshank the door, they cast him in "Marvin Marvin," a show about an alien with a thankfully normal voice. Cruikshank told Teen Vogue in 2013 that it was really refreshing to play a new character, but the critics didn't agree, and the show was canceled after just one season. Today, both "Marvin Marvin" and "Fred: The Show" are considered among the worst sitcoms in history. As for Cruikshank, he still uploads videos to his YouTube, but his Nickelodeon days are behind him.

The other Pete on "The Adventures of Pete & Pete," Danny Tamberelli became one of Nickelodeon's biggest stars of the '90s. When "Pete & Pete" ended, Tamberelli made the move to "All That" in 1997, where he became famous for his loud, over-the-top characters. Of course, anyone who watched Nickelodeon game shows in the '90s remembers Tamberelli from "Figure It Out," where panelists would try to guess a kid's talent, while often getting covered in green slime. Tamberelli was just as over-the-top on this show, and the show's "Secret Slime Action" would often target him specifically, as Tamberelli pointed out in a 2019 Newsday interview. In regards to being slimed, he said, "Well, it was fun the first hundred times, and then it was kinda fun the next hundred times, and then it was mildly fun the other thousand times it happened to me." In addition, Tamberelli admitted he would often throw the game just to make sure the kids won the prizes, unless they were "snooty about it."

After "All That" ended, Tamberelli put acting on the backburner, deciding to focus on college and his band, which he talked about in a 2012 Metro interview. He remains close with his former "Pete & Pete" co-star Michael C. Maronna, with whom he has a podcast, and his former "All That" and "Figure It Out" co-star Lori Beth Denberg, whom he has gone on tour with.

A lot of Nickelodeon sitcoms are simple, slice-of-life stories that don't get as weird as the cartoons on the network. However, "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide" was an exception, as the main character would talk directly to the audience, and there were plenty of wacky, over-the-top hijinks. At the center of this "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" for middle schoolers was the nice guy everyman Ned Bigby, played by Devon Werkheiser. 

Sadly, after the show ended in 2007, Werkheiser never had a role anywhere near as iconic as Ned. His IMDb is mostly filled with small roles in TV and movies, including a few episodes of "Greek," but like so many other child stars, Werkheiser simply found a new passion. He talked about his burgeoning music career in a 2020 interview with Conventional Relations, saying that he was signed to a recording contract "right after Ned's Declassified." Over the years, he has spent more and more time on his music, releasing an album and several EPs. He hasn't completely given up on acting, though, as he remains friends with his "Ned's Declassified" co-stars, and spoke in the interview about a possible reboot of the show for adults.

Although he made various TV and movie appearances throughout the '90s, Drake Bell first found real success on Nickelodeon's "The Amanda Show" in 1999. In fact, he and fellow co-star Josh Peck had such good chemistry on the sketch comedy show that they were soon cast in a sitcom of their own, titled "Drake & Josh." While Peck has had a somewhat successful career, including roles in the "Red Dawn" remake and the sitcom "Grandfathered," Bell has not had much success since his Nickelodeon days.

In 2009 and 2016, respectively, he was charged with driving under the influence, as reported by New York Daily News. In 2015, he tweeted about an injury that led him to believe he would never play guitar again. In August of 2020, Melissa Lingafelt took to TikTok to accuse Bell of physical and verbal abuse in time they lived together, which began when Lingafelt was just 16. She did not say how old Bell was at the time, and Variety did not mention it when they covered the allegations, but Lingafelt did make a reference to "the underage girls thing." The final nail in the coffin came in 2021, when Bell was "indicted on charges of attempted endangering children, a fourth-degree felony, and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles, a first-degree misdemeanor," according to News5 Cleveland. 

If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.