If you grew up during the 90's, chances are that you tuned in to "Saved By the Bell" from time to time. Or, if you are like me, EVERY MORNING AND AFTERNOON. Seriously, that shit consumed my life for a while. And who wouldn't love it? It had gorgeous characters who were basically a PG rated version of "The Breakfast Club." And high school looked to be kickass. I would wish I was Zach Morris (because even at the age of nine I recognized that A.C. Slater had issues that he needed to deal with, which I will go into later), dream of Kelly Kapowski, and strive to avoid ever becoming Mr. Belding. I even remember a time in college when someone in my dorm bought the first few seasons on DVD, and a weekend was spent reliving my childhood through those 4-5 disc sets.
But I've noticed recently that MTV2 has started airing re-runs of "Saved By the Bell." Like any other 27 year-old that lacks a life, I quickly flipped the channel, changed into my "TV-watching pants" (hint: that means "no pants"), grabbed a .40 of malt liquor, and prepared to let the good times roll. Less than 4 hours later, I was drunk on shitty booze, I had killed the neighbor's dog with my bare hands, and was taking a hate-dump while crying. How could the makings of a great Thursday night quickly spiral into a bad Stephen King novel, you ask? Easy, it was the show. Something was very wrong. It wasn't the Bayside High I remember. It sucked, and the people who inhabited this school were the worst of mankind. It was like someone said "I'm going to make a torture porn, but without the sex, blood, or even death (unless you are counting Screech's chameleon) and set it in a 90s high school." I fear I've lost some of you. Let me break this down:
The Characters (Assholes, All of Them)
The character of Lisa Turtle was originally written to be a white, Jewish girl. Seriously. But I'm guessing that some drunk twentysomething ran into the writer's room screaming "I got it! We just pile on a bunch of different ethnic and racial stereotypes on this one character!" And the confetti fell from the sky and they all put on their white hoods and grabbed their gas cans to celebrate the idea. I kid, but it's not THAT much of a stretch. Lisa was the daughter of 2 surgeons (but America wasn't ready for a Middle-Eastern character yet), she was the gossip queen of Bayside, she was into fashion, wearing the latest trends, and she was stuck up. Oh, and guys couldn't stand her for more than one episode. Seriously, she never had a boyfriend/love interest for more than one episode.
Poor Lisa never had a chance though. She was relegated to a few minor functions from show to show- 1) making shitty comments to Screech, 2) starting fights between Kelly and Jessie, and 3) making the random fashion comment. She wasn't really allowed any character growth. Of course, Zach and Lisa had the one episode where they made out a few times, but like most other men in Lisa's life, this was forgotten as soon as the credits rolled. This was why I was so confused that she was "too good" for Screech. How can you continue to berate this poor bastard while never finding a better option? Ok, she had Jessie's brother in New York to turn to, I guess, but that pipe dream only lasted one episode as well, so what the hell? Get over yourself and your fashion and accept reality. Screech may be a dweeb, but he clearly has money.
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| Clearly. |
Jessie, on the other hand, left little to the imagination after her stint on "Saved By the Bell." As a daughter of divorced parents, we all saw the train wreck coming. Or at least we should have. It seems that she lives with her mother, although we never meet her (a disturbing trend for almost all of the characters of this show), but we DO know that her father runs the Marriott Desert Sands Hotel and eventually gets remarried. Obviously, the gang doesn't miss an opportunity to go that horror show and shenanigans ensue.
Jessie represents the "liberal" in the show. She is also the voice of feminism. But like most 90s takes on feminism, that is represented by an annoying amount of smarts, a need to promote feminism in areas that don't seem to even need such a statement, an eventual breakdown and addiction to caffeine pills (her drive to succeed is obviously trumped by her love of 80s songs, dancing, and emotional breakdowns), and her need to date the one person that represents the exact opposite of a feminist viewpoint. Oh, and she constantly fails in the areas she sets out to achieve (she scores low numbers on her SAT, she loses out to Screech for Valedictorian- but he feels bad and gives it to her, and she constantly jumps in and out of a valley girl complex that is never really explained). Also, she wrestles with a possible attraction to Zach, but they ultimately decide they are just friends (and win their loved ones back through the power of crappy rapping).
But the truly unforgivable action of Jessie is her eventual joining of the cheerleading squad. She states that it will look good on a college transcript. Who the hell thinks that? Who the hell has ever thought that?
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| Oh, Right. |
She gets accepted to Columbia University and disappears until Zach and Kelly's wedding. But we all know the real story. Obviously Columbia didn't work out, and Jessie was able to use her cheerleading skills to make money in Las Vegas, as a Showgirl. Rumor has it that the deleted scene where she is getting Eiffel-Towered by two Johns while "I'm So Excited" is playing in the background is a gem of modern film-making.
This one is almost too easy. He is the obvious nerd. Gifted with smarts, and not much else, Screech basically keeps from getting his ass kicked on a daily basis by being Zach's best friend. And by best friend, I mean doormat. He is constantly being roped into Zach's shenanigans (seriously, it's like a never-ending, unfunny Ferris Bueller sitcom), and constantly taking the fall for Zach. His soft spot for his best friend only ends when Zach kisses Lisa. And to be honest, if you didn't secretly hope that Screech would haul off and beat the piss out of Zach in that episode, you don't have a soul. But he never does. And that's really the aggravating thing about Screech. The guy builds a fully functional robot, and no one gives a damn. He even gets a girlfriend, who disappears without a trace or mention after 3 episodes (I secretly believe that Violet was Screech's first sex-bot, but America wasn't ready yet, so she was destroyed for the good of humanity.) He has a legion of nerds that follow him without question, and yet he still bends the knee to the altar of Zach. And this is just too big of a load of bullshit to take when I watch now. Because if the revolution would have ever happened at Bayside, this guy could lead the charge and become King. Or at the very least, he could have spent his 4 years (and 2 college years) around people who had the same interests as he did. Because that is truly what high school was about. Finding out what your interests were, and finding like-minded individuals. But us stupid-ass kids are watching this guy just shut up and follow.
His story ended when he left college in his sophomore year to return to Bayside High. It was suggested that he took over for Belding as Principal. Not "became an engineer." Or "founded Apple." Just "sucked ass forever." Sure, he got a sex tape, but who the hell cares? In fact, scroll up and look at that picture again and try not to tell yourself that those girls are his high school students. Yeah, and you wonder why I was hate-dumping...
Oh man. Just placing that picture of Kelly in brings back memories. Kelly was my first crush. Kelly set the standard for me back in middle school and early high school. And she had it all. She was the head cheerleader, Prom Queen, volleyball captain, swim team captain, and softball team captain. She was a good student, but not too good. She spent some time in detention. And she was the love interest of Zach Morris.
But dammit, under the surface were some real issues. First off, she was obsessed with body image. And not in the "after-school" special way where we learn that everyone is beautiful, but the "I probably have a disorder" way. Remember the issue where she has the ONE pimple? One. Goddamned. Pimple. And she flips out. Because life is clearly over. Look, my face was a large pepperoni pizza for 2 years in high school. It happens. Get over it. Also, Zach was the most popular kid in the history of high schools. The guy could walk on water. And he wasn't enough for Kelly. Yeah, she falls for her manager at The Max and dumps Zach (because the manager of a fast food joint that serves only high school kids is husband material). It crushed me, ok? I immediately responded by flipping the bird to every girl in my class and experimenting with hard drugs, because why not at that point? It was clear that women were evil. But of course, this is Kelly "I get everything I want" Kapowski, so she eventually gets Zach back, and they go to the same community college. She even gets married to Zach, and they presumably live happily ever after. Or until she walks into a McDonalds by herself and falls for the shift leader.
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| "I can't help it. He makes $8 an hour." |
Now we are cooking with gas. Just look at this guy. The role of A.C. Slater was also originally meant for a white guy, but I'm assuming that the writers were still coming down off their coke high and immediately realized that at some point it would become evident that they needed one character to be able to speak broken Spanish to dishwashers in Malibu (no punchline here, that's seriously what happened), and it couldn't be some fucking cracker. But they were careful to keep A.C. as white as possible, so everything was good.
A.C. was an Army brat, transferring from place to place until he finally landed at Bayside. He immediately became the school's sports star in football and wrestling. He also battled with Zach for the heart of Kelly, until he lost and settled for the tall, loud one. He was a stud in sports and a dumbass in the classroom. And of course he coined the nickname "Preppy" for Zach which got under my skin even as a kid. I couldn't hear that every day without maybe tainting his piss sample before the big game with horse steroids. Who is the Preppy now, Ass Clown? But "Saved By the Bell" steered far clear of the one truth about A.C. that everyone seemed to know except him. A.C. was into dudes. And that's cool, but kinda sad that he never gets it. We all knew, and we didn't care. In fact, that kind of honesty would have been refreshing in this acid trip nightmare reality, but it never came to be.
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| Seems little has changed. |
If you didn't want to be this guy, you are lying to yourself. He was the ultimate badass. He flunked classes (when he went to class), he dated hot women, he had money, and he was liked by everyone. This show was telling us one thing- You will NEVER be this guy. You can be any other character, but fuck you, you get to look on at Zach in envy like everyone else. And I did. It worked so well that I overlooked his many shortcomings. I completely overlooked his objectification of women, his schemes, his douchebaggery, and the fact that he looked just a little too old for high school. And I rooted for this asshole. When Kelly broke his heart, I had his back. When A.C. and Zach traded blows in the hallway, I cheered on the white guy. And I was duped. We all were.
He left college, got in to Yale, and went on to marry his high school sweetheart. How can life get better? I just have a question for Zach Morris: Why California University instead of Yale? That makes no sense. But I have a theory. Count how many different girls Zach dates throughout high school and college. I stopped at 10 because fuck that guy. But I'm assuming that you can't do that dance for as long as he did and not have a few ummm "repercussions." I'm guessing (hoping) that during his first week at Yale, he received a call from one of his exes (probably Torrie, because she liked to party) with the news that he owed some child support. He had 2 choices, go to Yale and into eventual bankruptcy (he's rich, but not THAT rich), or transfer to "Moron University" for pennies on the dollar and keep his ex quiet. That or a terrible STD forced him to stay near home and his local doctors. Kelly has the same STD, so marriage was pretty much a given. This is how messed up Saved By the Bell has made me...it's not my fault.
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| "You should do an after-school special with me!" |
Here's the thing about the Zach Morris types of this world. You see them every day. They are the guys that sit in the same bar night after night, telling tales of the "glory days." They are the pricks that haven't grown up, still act like their shit doesn't stink at re-unions, and cry themselves to sleep at night because the world has moved on. But as kids, we were taught to fucking WORSHIP this guy. Think about how much you probably hated high school. Chances are you did because you went in with a completely different view of how it was going to be. Like this show taught you to think. Not one minute of this show was even close to reality. Well, one part, the end. And the disappointment.
At least my high school didn't leave the best of the students in a trail of dead bodies and strip pole grease.
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