$900,000 over four years, half of it kept. That is Josh Peck’s tally for Drake and Josh, and he says it came with no leverage and no residuals.
Peck gave the figures on the Financial Tea with Mrs. Dow Jones podcast, according to Variety. The cast started at $3,000 an episode on The Amanda Show. Over the 60 episodes of Drake and Josh, the average rate rose to about $15,000. “Between agent, manager, and taxes, we cleared half of that,” Peck said. With four years of steady work factored in, he put the annual take-home at roughly $125,000.
The show paid nothing after it ended. Peck said that was standard for kids’ television then.
One buyer
The host asked about bargaining power. She raised the Friends cast, who negotiated as a group, and the Gilmore Girls cast, who she said did not and were paid less for it.
Peck said the Drake and Josh cast never had that option. “It was a different time and I think it was… there was only one sort of place to do it, right?” he said. Nickelodeon was essentially the only outlet for young performers at that level. No rival network or streaming service existed to take the work to, so they accepted the terms.
What the money taught him
Peck grew up with a single mother and described his family as shifting between lower-middle-class and broke. Becoming the household’s main earner as a teenager left him anxious about money for good. Even after his income grew, he stayed fixated on small expenses.
Three people helped him build better habits, he said: his mother, his accountant and his Big Brothers Big Sisters mentor, Dan. The advice was to put money into low-cost index funds and avoid high-risk bets. Peck did not buy a home until his mid-30s. He kept a cushion instead, in case work dried up.
The career since
Peck started as a child stand-up comedian in New York. He debuted in the film Snow Day in 2000 and joined The Amanda Show the same year, where he first worked with Drake Bell. Critics noticed him in the 2004 drama Mean Creek. He later voiced Eddie in the Ice Age films from 2006 to 2016 and Casey Jones in Nickelodeon’s animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from 2012 to 2017.
His other credits include The Wackness, Red Dawn, the Fox series Grandfathered with John Stamos, Turner & Hooch on Disney+, Hulu’s How I Met Your Father and a supporting part in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
Peck, now 39, hosts Good Guy’s Podcast and still takes acting and brand work. He turns some of it down to stay available for his family.
