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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 5, 2015 4:03:25 GMT
Saved by the Bell Season 4, Episode 15: “The Teacher’s Strike”
We open at The Max where Screech and Lisa randomly study for the Academic Bowl. Screech, being a complete moron, quizzes Lisa on the zip code of Northern Zimbabwe. Lisa’s justified in her puzzlement over the question since not only does Northern Zimbabwe not use the zip code system, an American invention and convention, but such an obscure question would never make it into an Academic Bowl. I guess that’s supposed to pass as a joke, but I can imagine being puzzled as a kid over how this is supposed to be funny.
Zack Morris and Slater, meanwhile, are sick of waiting for the conclusion to the Ryan and Lindsay breaking up story over at The New Class so they plan on going skiing Friday. Lisa’s all, “How are you going to get out of class Friday?” and Zack Morris tells her that he’s sure he’ll come up with some contrived way to ensure he finds out whether Ryan will stay pissed at Lindsay forever or not. Also, they say it’s winter break, but isn’t winter break over Christmas at most schools? If this is the case, why do they have to go to school? Did Mr. Belding decide that school shouldn’t let out at all anymore?
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Kelly didn’t get out of Zack Morris’s basement in time for this week’s episode so Jessie’s randomly working at The Max because the writers believe that you can just let anyone fill in at your job anytime you wish. Yeah, there’s no explanation given for why Kelly’s away. She’s just randomly not there. Also, Jessie believes t-shirts are sexist outfits. Yeah, they were that desperate to shoehorn in some quasi-feminism. She also thinks the zip code of Northern Zimbabwe is KR1 37X. It’s totally not and she’s totally an idiot.
Screech randomly mentions that the teachers are randomly renegotiating their contracts in the middle of the year because plot, which gives Zack Morris an idea for getting out of school.
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So welcome back Mr. Tuttle for his final appearance in the Saved by the Bell universe. Yeah, he was one of he few smart enough to stay away from the abomination that is The New Class. Here, he’s the head of the teacher’s union and uncharacteristically civil towards Mr. Belding as the latter gives the teacher’s union everything they asked for.
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Zack Morris and Slater come in, suddenly pretending to work for the newspaper because our gang are the only ones who do anything at Bayside. They tell Mr. Belding they’re doing an interview about the academic bowl and record Mr. Belding saying a bunch of shit that’s obviously going to be spliced and used out of context to piss off Mr. Tuttle by the next scene. At this point, no competent adult at Bayside should trust anything Zack Morris does and should assume the worst about his intentions. Fortunately for the plot, there are no competent adults in Peter Engel land.
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Since Mr. Tuttle is the jack-of-all-trades at Bayside, he’s also the academic adviser for the Academic Bowl, and his team consists of Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest. Yeah, you’re not going to convince me these are the three smartest students at Bayside. For one, Screech is a moron. Two: Lisa? REALLY!?!? Were they that desperate for a third person on the team they overlooked her obvious deficiencies of intelligence and put her on to round out the group?
Yeah, Screech is portrayed here as a savior to the team and answers questions even before Mr. Tuttle is done. I don’t know why this show likes to randomly portray Screech as a genius some times and an idiot at others, but it makes me hate him even more.
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Zack Morris and Slater come in to interview Mr. Tuttle about the Academic Bowl and randomly play back the spliced quotes from Mr. Belding, including one suggesting Mr. Tuttle should have been fired years ago. This pisses Mr. Tuttle off enough that he goes and tells some other teachers and they decide to strike. Uh, what are you going to strike about? That your boss is a jerk? He’s meeting all your demands. Strikes require a goal that will end the strike. You can’t just randomly strike because your boss is an ass.
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But this is Saved by the Bell logic, where nothing makes sense and anything goes, so it works, and the duo pat themselves on the back that such a patently ridiculous scheme worked.
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We cut to the next Monday and the trip being over. Not much to say here other than they didn’t discover the second part of the Ryan-Lindsay break-up and Screech went skiing in his underwear….for some reason. Yeah, they attempt to provide an explanation, and even that sounds ridiculous. The important thing is that Zack Morris and Slater randomly decide they want some more time off so they plan on sabotaging negotiations between Mr. Belding and Mr. Tuttle, because, at this point, they’re just acting like jack asses anyway.
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At Bayside, the duo convince Mr. Tuttle that the teacher’s need to demand respect and, since he’s easily manipulated, Mr. Tuttle agrees and tells Mr. Belding he’s going to continue the strike. How are you going to negotiate for respect? Demand that Mr. Belding wear a tube top and sing Aretha Franklin? Seriously, do the writers of this show have absolutely no fucking clue how unions work?
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Mr. Belding, dismayed, tells the gang that the strike could go on for the semester, which won’t be long since it’s supposed to be time for winter break, but which, crucial for this episode, means the Academic Bowl will be cancelled. This causes Screech to put on a face like he just ate a lemon. Either that or he’s doing another racist impression. With Screech, it’s hard to tell.
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Zack Morris and Slater go to the teacher’s union meeting that night in an attempt to settle the strike so people will stop hating them for doing stupid things. They offer the teachers stupid stuff like using Mr. Belding’s office as a teacher’s lounge and Mr. Belding parking with the teachers. This apparently equals respect in the eyes of the teachers and the strike is over, meaning this entire plot, the plot the episode is named after, has been a bunch of stupid time wasting that doesn’t effect the rest of the episode whatsoever.
There are three questions this scene does raise for me, though:
If this is a teacher’s union meeting, where are Miss Simpson and Mr. Dewey? We know they continue teaching in The New Class so where were they? This seems like a huge oversight on the part of the writers, but what do you expect from the idiots who thought Screech sexually harassing Lisa would make a great running gag? Why do the teachers not have a teachers’ lounge already? Is Mr. Belding using school board money for hookers and blow? Seriously, every school I’ve ever been in has a teachers’ lounge. It’s kind of a standard feature. Why is Bayside’s parking lot so far away from the school it requires a shuttle bus? They don’t have that many students. Maybe they make the students park at the airport and commute back to Bayside. In any case, let’s forget about this plot, because the writers sure did!
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At Academic Bowl practice, Screech comes in dressed in the Fourth Doctor’s scarf, which apparently indicates that he’s sick from being in his underwear on the ski trip. He suddenly faints and the others take him to the hospital.
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At Bayside, Jessie’s hella pissed that their star idiot is in the hospital with plot contrivance-itis and won’t be able to compete in the Academic Bowl. She blames it on Zack Morris and Slater since they personally made Screech be born the moron he constantly proves himself to be and Lisa suggests they might have to forfeit. vlcsnap-2015-06-07-19h10m13s82
This leads Valley’s team (of course it’s Valley competing against them…of course…) to come in and talk smack about Bayside being unable to beat them without a complete imbecile who is certifiably loony competing against them. Zack Morris tells them that this episode has to end somehow so he’ll compete against them in Screech’s place.
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The producers decided to get their money’s worth out of the hospital set from “The Surgery,” so the gang visit Screech in the hospital where Zack Morris tries to pump Screech for knowledge. The only intelligible thing he can get, though, is Screech’s stupid mnemonic for remembering the order of the planets from the sun, which makes no sense as it’s only uttering nonsense to the letter sounds. Um, I learned a better one in first grade: “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.” See, a mnemonic has to actually help you remember something, and this one has stuck in my head for twenty-seven years. It’s still very helpful. Well, except for the fact that Pluto’s no longer a planet. RIP, Pluto.
Well, since Bayside can’t win on their actual merits, they plan to do something they’re very good at: cheat! Slater pretends to be pissed at the rest of the gang and tells the Valley team that he found out the final category will be sports and that they should specifically study football. Why this helps Bayside isn’t clear in this scene as they don’t do a very good job of explaining any of this, but it seems to make enough sense to the Valley team that they go to study football.
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Skip ahead to the day of the Academic Bowl. I won’t bore you with a recap of most of this, but, suffice it to say, most of the questions are quite reasonable for what you’d expect from a high school academic bowl. At the final round, Valley leads Bayside, and the final category, indeed, is sports. I guess Slater must have been struck by lightning and been able to see the future It seems that Mr. Belding is cheating as well because he says Bayside gets to choose what sort of sport the questions will be on since Mr. Belding just happens to have prepared questions for every imaginable sport. Except curling. Nobody understands curling.
Zack Morris picks basketball since no nerds understand sports they haven’t studied in depth, and Bayside naturally gets all the sports questions, with Valley answering ridiculous football related answers. With the two schools tied, the tie breaker is to name the planets in order of their distance from the sun, and Zack Morris somehow remembers Screech’s ridiculous mnemonic, winning the competition for Bayside, because plot.
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And the moral of this episode, kids, is that cheaters win and liars don’t receive consequences for their actions. Also, R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means to Mr. Tuttle.
God, what a stupid episode.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 5, 2015 4:04:52 GMT
Saved by the Bell Season 4, Episode 16: “Slater’s Sister”
We open with Zack Morris looking surprised that the camera caught him talking on the phone. Who was he talking to? I have two guesses: either a phone sex line or Dionne Warwick’s Psychic Friends Network, who told him that his mystical powers would soon allow him to break the fourth wall. Oh, Saved by the Bell, you never cease to amaze me with how nonsensical you can be!
Anyway, Zack Morris lets us in on the plot of the week: that Bayside is holding a ’50s style Sock Hop! Geez, this season was really scraping the bottom of the barrel for plot ideas, weren’t they? I mean, at this point, it doesn’t even seem like they’re trying. It’s like watching Dustin Diamond’s career: it started out with such promise and then crashed and burned!
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Screech is an idiot like usual and didn’t bother to find out what sock hop is so he just hops around with no shoes on because HAHA IT’S A PUN SO IT’S SUPER FUNNY! GET IT? SOCK HOP! COME ON, GUYS! LAUGH! THEY SPENT ALL MORNING THINKING THAT ONE UP!
Meanwhile, since Jessie’s locked in Zack Morris’s basement this week in addition to Kelly, Ginger fills in for Kelly at The Max, and the gang regale her with their order fifties barber shop quartet style. Well, it wold be that style if it the editors had done any work to make it sound like the words they’re singing are actually their voices. Ginger, being in a competition with Screech, Ox, and Tommy D for dumbest character in this franchise, thinks they’re good and that they ought to perform at the sock hop. Zack Morris says they will be performing, but not as their former band, Zack Attack, but as their new musical endeavor, the Five Aces.
Assuming they’re using “ace” as an adjective, that means they’re the Five “Very Goods.” If they’re talking about the playing cards, they’re all Screech level dumb at this point.
After Ginger leaves, Slater tell the gang that his sister, J.B., is home for a couple of weeks. Tori asks Slater how it is he’s been on this show four years and has never mentioned the fact he has a sister. The rest of the gang tell Tori not to be dumb because Slater totally talks about his sister all the time, just when the camera is turned off. She’s been at boarding school last year and spent the summer in Europe. She’s a tomboy, which Screech points out is like Tori, which is good because it gives someone an excuse to slap Screech upside the head.
I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. After all, Kelly, Jessie, and Mr. Belding all had siblings who developed bad cases of Chuck Cunningham syndrome after their only appearances on the show.
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At Bayside, Mr. Belding’s upset that he’s been signed up for a “male sensitivity seminar,” which means he has to sit around all weekend getting in touch with his emotional side, which is just stupid because everyone knows men don’t feel feelings! I wouldn’t even bother to mention this whole exchange except it does play a role in the plot later.
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And meet J.B. Slater, who’s become feminine and grown boobs and shit, which means Zack Morris now doesn’t recognize her and thinks she’s totally hot. After she has a brief opportunity to catch up with the gang, Slater takes J.B. along to wrestling practice.
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Since Zack Morris has a horrible boner he can’t seem to get rid of because of J.B., he decides to go along with her to Slater’s practice. He distracts her with sexy talk of growing up so that she misses seeing Slater throw men around in a singlet. They discover they’re each single, which I would assume will surprise Tori, and Zack Morris invites J.B. to The Max with him since wrestling practice is so fucking boring.
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The next day, Lisa’s wet over Zack Morris dating J.B. and is convinced Slater will be happy for them.
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Slater is less than thrilled with the news, though, and says that he can’t let Zack Morris go out with his sister because he’s a piece of shit who treats women as objects. Wow, he dated Jessie too long. He’s developed a mild case of quasi-feminism!
At The Max, Slater wants Screech to ask J.B. out first since he’s a repulsive insect, but Screech fucks it up, much like everything else in his life, giving Zack Morris the opportunity to asks J.B. to the movies. Since Tori is present and not upset at all, I can only assume this is an out of order episode from before they dated. If not, then she’s taking the news she’s being dumped for Slater’s sister very well. Either way, I’m really confused.
But, yeah, Slater decides he can’t allow Zack Morris and J.B. to go to the movies alone so he forces Tori into a double date.
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At the movies, the date goes about how you’d expect, with Slater doing everything in his power to get between Zack Morris and J.B., both literally and figuratively.
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Tori gets pissed that Slater’s paying more attention to his sister than her because it’s getting fucking creepy in an incestuous way at this point. Slater finally fakes chocking on a piece of popcorn and convinces the others to take him home.
At Bayside, Tori tells Lisa how much of a jack ass Slater acted on the date.
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Slater’s in a good mood despite Tori telling him off because he believes that, now that Zack Morris has been on one date with J.B., he’ll tire of her and move on. Okay, this entire episode is driving me crazy with how they’re characterizing Zack Morris. He’s an ass, but it’s not like he’s never been in a multi-episode relationship. In fact, we’ve seen him in three multi-episode relationships over the course of this series. He may be a horny little bastard hoping to lose his cursed virginity at times, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have actual relationships.
To hell with actual continuity, though. We’ve got an episode to force on like the contrivance it is, and, naturally, Zack Morris likes J.B. enough that he wants to ask her out again. That, and the little asshole is concerned about how Slater is after the choking incident that was obviously faked. Zack Morris asked J.B. to the sock hop because…that’s the only reason this episode has a sock hop!
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Mr. Belding did, indeed, get in touch with his feminine side at the seminar and now he is more than willing to admit to our male leads that he loves them. He loves them a lot! He’s so in touch with his feelings he wants to help them as well, so he says that, during gym class, the boys will be bonding over sharing how they really feel because we need a transparent way for Slater to get pissy at Zack Morris.
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I remember the more naive times when I thought “Running Zack” was the worst abomination of Native American cultural ideas I’d ever see in this series. Unfortunately, fourth season Saved by the Bell is here to prove me wrong. Yes, Mr. Belding with a bare skin on his head is here to lead a talking stick ceremony that starts with a primal scream, or Mr. Belding doing his impression of Captain Caveman. I’m not even fucking kidding. Why is it the writers of this show think Native Americans are somehow linked to The Flintstones? The talking stick ceremony is sacred to many Native American tribes, and using it so flippantly as just a means to therapy is very culturally insensitive. I almost expect Screech and Zack Morris to come out in their bad racist costumes again. What Screech does do at one point is use the talking stick to scratch his back. Die, Screech. Die a horrible painful death you idiot.
The assembled extras including Pete and Ox start talking about their deep seated emotional insecurities about the cliched roles they play at Bayside in the high school pyramid as if their high school peers would not use such insecurities to mercilessly make fun of them.
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Of course, we eventually get to the real point of this scene: Slater telling Zack Morris how he feels about him dating J.B. He says Zack Morris stabbed him in the back and abused his friendship by dating J.B. Um, no. He told you right after he decided to date J.B. and you acted like it was no big deal until you decided to have a hissy fit. The one at fault is you for dragging this fucking plot out for sixteen minutes. In any case, he says he’s not going to the sock hop because of them.
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That night, while on a date with J.B., Zack Morris keeps creepily seeing Slater’s face on the female Slater, no doubt the result of more pent up emotions he should have expressed during the cultural misappropriation of the talking stick ceremony. He tells J.B. they should date or go to the sock hop and takes her home.
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The writers didn’t feel like building the set for the Slater residence again or bringing back Major Slater, so hey just randomly have J.B. come in the next day during wrestling practice to tell off Slater. Seriously, are they not staying in the same house? That must have been an awkward night after Zack Morris dropped her off. She’s been holding it in all this time. In any case, J.B. tells Slater that he’s an asshole for trying to run his life and going along with this horribly cliched plot, and storms out leaving Slater feeling bad for his conduct.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time! Time for what you ask? Why, let’s ask Malcolm McDowell!
We’re going to the so’ ‘op, ladies and gentlemen!
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And at this wonderful celebration of what Saved by the Bell thinks the ’50s were like, we find Zack Morris dating the punch bowl while J.B. pays attention to the food. Guess she’s an emotional eater, in addition to dressing up like Betty Rubble.
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Speaking of bad dressing, Mr. Belding, for some reason, dresses as Squiggy from Laverene and Shirley, and wants to sing in the Five Aces in Slater’s place. The gang think this is way over the top in boundary crossing and decline his offer.
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Slater comes in and apologizes to Zack Morris and J.B. for acting so creepily jealous over his sister this episode and adding fuel to the fire of those fan fics that will claim Zack Morris and Slater should have been a couple. All the while, Mr. Belding stands around in the background with a self-satisfied look on his face as if he did something this episode other than co-opt religious rituals and dress like annoying sitcom characters. Zack Morris and J.B. share their only kiss as the audience loses their shit, ironically proving Slater right that Zack Morris would soon forget about his little sister.
vlcsnap-2015-06-13-21h47m24s61Our episode ends with the newly-reunited Five Aces performing, and they’re the most magical band ever since, in addition to singing with voices that’s dubbed worse than Milli Vanilli, they can now make the sounds of musical instruments that aren’t there, which is strange since they’ve previously established all the gang except Tori can play musical instruments, so why didn’t they bring in fucking musical instruments? Were they over their prop budget from those really sparkly strings dangling in the background behind them? In any case, our gang becomes, once again, the center of attention of the Bayside student body as the rest of the students wonder why they’re in the school district where you have to be up Zack Morris’s ass to be important in any way to the functioning of the school.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 5, 2015 4:05:01 GMT
Saved by the Bell Season 4, Episode 17: “The Senior Prom”
We open with Zack Morris doing what Zack Morris does best: reducing women to sexualized objects he hopes to lose his cursed virginity to! Oh, Zack Morris, no matter how many seasons this show lasted, you were never really going to change, were you?
No, it’s senior prom time and you might expect Zack Morris would be taking Tori since he’s been dating her much of the season. You would be wrong, though, because Kelly and Jessie are in this episode, which means Tori’s locked in Zack Morris’s basement and he’s administered the thing from Men in Black to make everyone forget Tori ever existed. Actually, Zack Morris is unsure who he’s going to take so he’s on the lookout for his conquest.
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Unfortunately for Mr. Belding, that won’t be him, no matter how much he may dream of it.
We find Jessie selling tickets to senior prom and nobody wants to buy them, said no high school ever. Yeah, that’s what we’re going with this episode. Get ready for a bumpy ride.
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Slater threatens to kill Pete if he doesn’t buy a ticket to the prom but Zack Morris convinces him not to because we need him around to be one of the few minor characters who crosses over into the Tori episodes in order to confuse us even more.
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Meanwhile, Screech is selling tickets for the school’s production of Oklahoma and people are practically mobbing him to buy them. Once again, said no high school ever. Did the writers of this show ever actually go to high school?
Turns out the drama club is selling tickets for 50 cents each, which wouldn’t even cover the royalty expenses but this is Saved by the Bell, where we don’t give a damn about what high school is really like. Screech was cast as the perfect role, though: as the back end of a cow. Yeah, I think he just kept playing that role well into The New Class.
Kelly and Lisa join the group and start talking about prom dates. Lisa’s not sure who she’s going to the prom with yet but has given six maybes because she likes to string men along. Nobody’s asked Kelly yet, which may be the most unrealistic thing yet uttered in this episode. Screech says he’s not going to ask Lisa to the prom because there are so many girls at Bayside who find moronic idiots hot.
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Like this girl, who thinks Screech and his Old MacDonald get-up are repugnant. Oh, that’s not the only reason why.
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At The Max, Kelly waits on Matt Wilson, who starts giving her Zack Morris-like pick up lines which naturally gets her lady boner going. As usual, Kelly goes for the older guys since the actor playing Matt was only four months shy of turning twenty-one at the time of this episode. At least she’s getting younger than Jeff Hunter.
Slater has a date now and wonders when Zack Morris will get his. He says he’s narrowed his choice down to one when Kelly comes up and sends Zack Morris into a contrived trance.
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Zack Morris comes out of his trance long enough to nearly ask this girl to the dance, but backs out, claiming going out with her would interfere with the plot of this episode.
Back at Bayside, Zack Morris sees another girl to hone in on but Kelly distracts him with his newly revived crush. He runs away from this girl and tells Slater that he was spoiled by going steady with Kelly since none of the other girls have what she has. Stacey and Tori will be very comforted to hear that they didn’t measure up to the Kelly standard, I’m sure. Screech tries to hone in on the girl but she’s all, “I’d rather go with Tommy D!”
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In the hallway, Zack Morris decides to ask Kelly to the prom. He says she’s the only girl he ever cared about. Once again, I’m sure Stacey and Tori will be glad to hear they meant nothing to Zack Morris. She says she can’t because that would invalidate a lot of this plot, and because Matt Wilson asked her first.
Jessie comes out of Mr. Belding’s office hysterical because he’s going to cancel the prom since no one’s bought tickets, which is not true. We can assume that Zack Morris, Slater and his date, Kelly, Matt Wilson, Lisa, Jessie, and Screech have all bought tickets. That’s eight tickets, practically half the senior class judging by the extras we’ve seen! But Mr. Belding says that since no one at Bayside understands how a prom works, he’s going to cancel it because that’s a reasonable response.
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After a commercial break, the prom committee, joined by Zack Morris, convenes to find a way to salvage this incompetently run prom. Wait…Pete’s on the prom committee?!?! Then, I don’t know, WHY THE HELL DIDN’T HE BUY A TICKET! Jesus I hate that this show can’t remember what it does from one scene to the next.
Slater suggests they have it in the gym but Mr. Belding says Oklahoma is conveniently being held there. Zack Morris suggests that they change the theme of the prom to be a country square dance, which is the second worst idea for a prom I’ve ever heard in my life but, but at least it’s not Ryan’s stupid go to prom in your t-shirt idea. Everyone thinks it’s a great idea so we’re set for a prom that will surely make most of the students wonder how they got stuck with the school district that doesn’t understand throwing a prom.
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Zack Morris stops Matt in the hallway and tells him a bunch of bull shit about Kelly’s family to make him scared to take Kelly to the prom.
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Screech bugs one of the random girls again to go to the prom with him. She tells him to fuck off with his creepy ass while Lisa watches. Screech walks away dejected and the girl commiserates with Lisa since she think she has a sympathetic ear given how long Screech has been stalking Lisa. Lisa tells her to fuck the fucking fuck off because the producers have suddenly decided to make her sympathetic to Screech’s plot, something very out of character for a person to do with their stalker.
Jessie comes in The Max to announce that tickets are now selling like hot cakes since they changed the prom theme to something no one in their right mind would like, and that she now has a date. That leaves Zack Morris, Lisa, and Screech the only ones without dates, but Zack Morris says that’s soon to change.
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Matt picks that moment to come in and break off the prom date with Kelly. He must have just came to Bayside because he doesn’t know about Zack Morris’s bull shit. Zack Morris swoops in to be her white knight as Kelly marvels at how he’s always there when something bad happens. Oh, she will never learn either.
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Screech comes in dejected that no one will go to the prom with him, and Lisa decides the best way to resolve this plot that’s going way too long is to go with Screech herself because women enjoy going to the prom with creepy ass mother fuckers who have been stalking you since your middle school days in Indiana. I guess otherwise it would have meant bringing in another guest star since Lisa’s not allowed to date the same guy for more than one episode.
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Slater and Jessie go down to the boiler room looking for a ladder and lock themselves in, because the boiler room is a safe place to have a door that locks from the outside with no way to get out. How does Bayside not get sued constantly? They yell for help but, for once in the school’s history, there’s no extras in the corner where the vent is to hear their cries.
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Kelly says she’s glad how things worked out, but then Matt comes up surprised that Zack Morris is taking Kelly to the prom. Zack Morris shoos Matt away, but it’s too late: Kelly’s mind is in full gear and she’s figured out it’s another bullshit Zack Morris scheme. After four years of them, you’d think she’d be quicker on the uptake. She tells him to go to hell and to go to the prom by himself.
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At the prom, Mr. Belding emcees what will no doubt go down in history as the lamest prom ever until Ryan arrives three years from now. Seriously, this entire thing would make me not want to buy a ticket. Mr. Belding thanks Slater and Jessie for the prom decorations but no on thinks it’s odd they’re not at the prom they helped create. Even their dates don’t seem to be concerned they’re missing.
No, they’re still in the boiler room trying to open a vent so people can hear them yell for help. They’re going to die there, aren’t they? Slater has Jessie on his shoulders but loses his balance. They start fighting but then Slater comes up with what’s actually a good idea: to crank up the heat so someone will come down and see what’s going on, but not before the boiler randomly shoots a bunch of dust at the two of them.
Well, it would be a good idea if Bayside had competent faculty, but Mr. Belding assumes that the heat is just because of how many people are in the gym and he promises to turn up the air conditioning.
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Zack Morris tries to talk to Kelly, but they both get pulled into a…square dance…
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Being emceed by Screech, and it’s as bad as you think, with talk about shooting whales and Grandma in the kitchen and shit, and cats licking their fur in the litter box…
Why does anyone ever let Screech do anything?
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Pete cuts in before they can talk so Zack Morris says enough with this bull shit and takes Kelly outside to talk.
As they go, Barry Manilow’s song, “Mandy,” starts playing, because that was what all the hip teenagers were listening to in the early ’90s: Barry Manilow! I often doubt that the writers for this show were ever teenagers.
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Meanwhile, Slater and Jessie, confused by why they don’t have competent administrators at Bayside and in the midst of being hot, dirty, and locked in a boiler room, rekindle their love for each other thanks to “Mandy” and start dancing in the boiler room.
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Zack Morris tells Kelly he’s sorry he pulled another asshole scheme to get her and she says it’s okay because Matt has cooties and she really likes Zack Morris. She forgives him because the plot demands it, and they kiss as Slater and Jessie hear them through the vent.
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Finally, someone hears Slater and Jessie yelling through the vent. Zack Morris and Kelly retrieve Slater and Jessie and get them back to the prom in time for the last dance. The producers must have spent all their money on the stupid western props and on the Barry Manilow song because, while this one has a country feel, as far as I can tell, it’s another Saved by the Bell original. I guess we should just be faithful they’re not dancing to muzak really.
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And our episode ends with Zack Morris and Kelly slow dancing and talking about how they care for each other, despite the fact this won’t come up again until The College Years, because we have to wait and give the viewers another forced romance between Zack Morris and Kelly next year!
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 5, 2015 4:05:24 GMT
Saved by the Bell Season 4, Episode 18: “Video Yearbook”
There’s two things I hate about this season: the number of clip show episodes and the number of out of season episodes. The producers apparently had five out of season episodes just lying around and decided to randomly throw them out with no context despite how much that would confuse viewers during an already confusing season. We’ve seen one out of season episode already with “Love Machine” a few weeks ago. This episode starts a string of three of the other four, starting with “Video Yearbook,” an out of season episode from the second season. Yeah, as if you’re not already confused enough by the Tori paradox, now Zack Morris and Kelly and Slater and Jessie are dating again. Geez, they must really have rekindled their romance at the senior prom!
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We open at The Max where Screech is busy reading the classifieds hoping to find a psychic to tell him his future life won’t suck.
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Zack Morris informs us via monologue there’s only two things in life he truly needs: sex with Kelly and a car, and he’s working on the second one. Unfortunately, he’s given the task of looking for a car to Screech, who’s busy searching for $185,000 Ferraris that Zack Morris will only be able to afford once he’s on Franklin and Bash.
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Jessie’s on the war path because she hasn’t been able to come with a theme for this year’s yearbook and, apparently, last year’s was awful to the point people wouldn’t buy it. Continuing the tradition in Saved by the Bell not understanding that teenagers do certain things in high school not out of quality but out of tradition and obligation, like buy yearbooks, the producers seem to miss the point that this plot setup already makes no sense.
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But, never fear, Zack Morris is on the Yearbook Committee, which means there will be some bull shit answer given to the whole situation. It’s a good thing, too, because the Yearbook Committee seems to actually be a group of people all trying their best to be more idiotic than Screech. Also, Mr. Belding says Zack Morris has to participate if he wants credit for this committee. Why the hell would you get credit for a committee? Do they require extra curricular activities to graduate?
Zack Morris comes up with the idea of doing a video yearbook, which sounds dumb to me but everyone thinks it’s genius. They don’t want to miss class because all teenagers are at school for the sole purpose of academics, though, so Zack Morris offers to shoot the whole yearbook himself because he’s, unfortunately, the closest thing to a realistic teen in this episode and doesn’t want to go to class. Plus it will give the writers a great opportunity to have some wild Zack Morris hijinks.
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It’s time to shoot the video yearbook with Screech as cameraman and first up is Slater, who’s suddenly camera shy despite the fact he’s never shown a propensity towards this sort of nervousness before but, hey, it’s perfect for an unfunny gag that it sounds like even the audience was struggling to laugh at.
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Kelly is her usual bubbly, perky self and even tells the camera she loves it, mistaking it for Zack Morris.
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And Lisa is her usual shallow, one dimensional fashion-boy crazy stereotype that the producers bring out when they have no clue what else to do with her. Oh, Lisa, this is why you can’t get a boyfriend that lasts longer than an episode!
In the midst, Zack Morris wants to have a date with Kelly but her car is unavailable so Zack Morris’s parents would have to drive them. Zack Morris doesn’t quite fancy double dating with his parents so he gets the idea to use the interviews from the video yearbook to create a dating video to sell to every lonely guy in L.A. because nothing could possibly go wrong with this idea!
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In Zack Morris’s room, Zack Morris and Screech watch the results of the interviews, including this girl who must know Punky Brewster because she wants boys to buy her lots of expensive stuff since she’s shallow that way.
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And this girl who wants to be a rock star and might be interested in BDSM. You’re delightfully frightful. I think I’ll call you “Scary Spice.”
Zack Morris tells Screech to use the best looking girls, add some music, and plaster their phone numbers at the bottom of the screen. Nothing could go wrong with allowing Screech to be in charge of this project!
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So the two sell the videos to Bayside students. Either that or they opened up a sleazy strip bar. In any case, they plan on selling the tape at more high schools until they have enough money to buy the car, including “Uni High School,” because, in the Saved by the Bell universe there’s apparently a University High School. Oh, wacky adopting of random words.
The next day at Bayside, Scary Spice talks about how she smashed her phone after so many boys called her because that’s a reasonable response. You’re going to grow up to be Lorena Bobbitt, aren’t you?
And now it’s time for the unexpected return of our favorite game here at Saved by the Bell Reviewed: “Where’s Scott Wolf?” Yes, I thought we were done seeing ‘ole Scott after the third season, but he decided to grace us with his presence once more! So let’s see if you can spot him in this next scene at The Max!
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Oh, there he is, in the background behind Slater and Jessie! Oh, Scott, it’s so great to see your smiling face taking orders again! Let’s hope there will be a next episode of this great and immortal game!
In any case, Slater and Jessie fight over Jessie getting so many calls the night before. She says guys were calling her all night looking for dates and they argue over whether she’s become a slut or not.
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Zack Morris and Screech come in to video scenes of The Max for the yearbook, but Zack Morris is horrified to find out that, not only has Screech included Jessie in the dating tape, but he’s also included Kelly and Lisa. Zack Morris dodges questions about the yearbook to drag Screech out by his ear and kill him for being an idiot.
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Zack Morris tells Screech he must be the dumbest human being on Earth, probably the truest statement ever uttered on this show. Screech asks what that makes Zack Morris since he hired him, also true. After all, why would you trust Screech with anything that could potentially get you in trouble, much less not even watch the results before you sell it to horny teenagers of L.A. For all he knew, Screech might have just put his sex tape on there. In any case, they watch the video.
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They see this profile from Jessie which, no doubt, was intended to be the opening scene for Showgirls. Screech basically took the interviews, dubbed himself talking over the girls to make it sound like they were being sexual and shit, and put their phone numbers over it. You know, if the guys of L.A. are dumb enough (or horny enough) to believe Screech’s voice is the girls’ voices, we might have a bigger dumbassery problem than just Screech.
Zack Morris turns off the tape just as the rest of the gang comes in wanting to see the yearbook. He knocks the two tapes off mixing them up and hands them a tape, not really taking much time or notice that both tapes are unlabeled and that there’s a 50/50 chance he handed them the wrong tape. Plus, he conveniently takes Screech to go figure out a way to fix this idiocy. In the hallway, they meet Mr. Belding who also wants a preview. He sends Mr. Belding the gang’s way. Geez, I wonder what’s about to happen…
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Why, the rest of the gang and Mr. Belding discover Zack Morris’s plot! How surprising! Slater wants to kill him while Mr. Belding expels him, but Kelly has a different idea: let’s, once again, employ the entire student body and disrupt the school day just to get revenge on Zack Morris! Great idea!
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The plot starts in the locker room with Slater pissed off over so many guys looking at Jessie and says that, if he catches who made the tape, he’ll turn them into a reasonable facsimile of a losing boxer’s face. He proceeds to rip a locker door off its hinges and storms out as Screech is convinced he’s going to die. PLEASE! PLEASE! KILL HIM!
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In the hallway, Jessie and Lisa jump in the scheme. Lisa says her father took her phone away while Jessie says she and Slater broke up and he’s punching any guy who even looks at Jessie.
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At that moment, Moose and Ollie come around with injuries supposedly inflicted by Zack Morris. Every other guy in school also suddenly has Slater injuries because the entire student body suddenly wants revenge on Zack Morris.
In Mr. Belding’s office, Mr. Belding even has injuries because assault of a school employee wouldn’t be grounds for, I don’t know, ARREST! He says Slater’s out of control!
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Kelly comes in with her new boyfriend, Vince Montana, because Saved by the Bell loves naming sleazy guys after states in ways that make them sound like Miami Vice snitches. Right, Johnny Dakota?
Kelly says she’s breaking up with Zack Morris for Vince Montana and that she’s suddenly went all bad girl and shit. Since she’s now wearing a bra in place of a shirt. Slater comes in, ready to punch Zack Morris for supposedly looking at Jessie.
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With things spiraling out of control, Zack Morris warps the laws of time and space and gets the hell out of there, meaning Slater unintentionally punches Mr. Belding for real. So…he was really going to punch Zack Morris? Also, did no one notice that Zack Morris just mysteriously disappeared? There’s only one explanation: Zack Morris is a witch!
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So Zack Morris invites everyone to view a tape he gave Screech. He says he’s figured out that everyone knows about the dating video. He tells everyone he’s sorry for hurting them. Kelly was right to dump him because he doesn’t deserve to have her as his girlfriend, but Vince doesn’t either. He apologizes to Jessie and Mr. Belding for betraying their trust on the yearbook and tells them he finished it. He also says he’s using sales from the dating video to buy a video yearbook for everyone in school. And he’s going away to military school so they never have to see him again. Also, Zack Morris several times directly addresses Screech during the yearbook, meaning he either really is psychic or Screech is just that idiotically predictable.
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In the midst of it all, Zack Morris comes in dressed in drag to watch everyone’s reactions to his apologies. Why, I don’t know, because there was absolutely no reason for drag in this episode since there were a thousand other ways Zack Morris could have spied on the meeting, and it contributes nothing. I guess Mark-Paul just likes dressing in women’s clothing. Unlike in “Screech’s Woman,” the drag fools no one since they all took their smart pills today and everyone instantly recognizes the really ugly woman as Zack Morris. They don’t let on, though, and when the tape announces Zack Morris is leaving, they all start jumping for joy, although they should really only jump for joy if it was Screech leaving.
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This reaction upsets Zack Morris. He jumps up and rips off the wig, revealing himself and asking what they want out of him more than his apologies. After his rant, they all yell, “Gotcha!” and our episode ends with everything going back to normal because I guess Zack Morris has learned his lesson for good this time and will never be involved with another bull shit scheme again.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 5, 2015 4:06:23 GMT
Saved by the Bell Season 4, Episode 19: “Screech’s Birthday”
For this week’s out of season episode, we’re going all the way back to season one when Screech created artificial life and no one seemed to think anything of it! Yes, that’s right, Kevin the Robot is back and he’s just as pointless to the plot and good for a cheap laugh as ever!
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So Screech, who evidently doesn’t shave with a razor yet, is pissed off about something or other, and Kevin lets Zack Morris know that Screech is mad that the whole gang forgot about his birthday. Screech is pissed Kevin told Zack Morris because he was hoping to just go along passive aggressive for a while.
At Bayside, the girls all practice stereotypical accents for the “drama festival,” including Lisa with a southern accent, Jessie as Joan of Arc with a French accent, and Kelly as Eliza Doolittle with a British accent. They do realize a drama festival will have an actual play and isn’t just about spouting whatever random gibberish comes to mind, right? They all sound horrible anyway like black face for foreign people, or regional in the case of Lisa.
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Slater tangles with Neil, the hall monitor, who’s harassing the gang for loitering in the halls even though other students can be clearly seen doing the same thing in the background. Kelly uses her British accent on Neil and gets +10 attack, rebuffing Neil and sending him flying away.
Zack Morris and Screech come in and Screech uses his passive aggressiveness on them as well.
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At The Max, the gang decide they need to do something really special to make up for forgetting Screech’s birthday. Zack Morris decides they’re going to throw Screech a surprise party, but not just any surprise party. It will be a surprise party during school in Mr. Belding’s office. The rest of the gang have the reaction you’d expect, spitting water in whatever direction they hope the writer of this episode is. Zack Morris convinces them, though, that they have to do something daring to show Screech they really care.
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So we’ve got about forty seconds to waste so, since it’s a first season episode, let’s bring in Saved by the Bell‘s worst time-waster, Max, to do something stupidly magic that the gang will think is amazing. Today, it’s making a birthday cake for Screech using his magic cookbook. Is this like the book from The Never-Ending Story?
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And, waalaa! Forty seconds successfully wasted on a non-gag that even the Saved by the Bell audience, the world’s most easily impressed group of people, didn’t think was funny. Thanks for that, Max. Come back in another four years, or not.
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Slater says they still have another issue to take care of: Neil, the hall monitor most likely to try and steal your milk money! Zack Morris has a plan, though: record lots of things Neil says so they can play them back later out of context since adults on this show can’t tell the difference between an actual person’s voice and a late ’80s recording.
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Oh, hi, Mr. Dewey! Good to see you one more time, and just in case to play the idiot for this scene! And, here’s something interesting: Mr. Dewey identifies himself as vice-principal in this episode. That’s…something that’s never hinted at again, before this episode or since. Also, if he’s vice-principal, why does he teach algebra? Administrators don’t normally teach a subject since they’re paid to, I don’t know, administer! Strange…
Basically, while Mr. Dewey has his back turned working a problem, Zack Morris plays back the recording of Neil, making Mr. Dewey think that Neil’s insulting him. Going off the rule of all adults are stupid unless it’s relevant to the plot, this makes Mr. Dewey strip Neil of being hall monitor and he’s sent to detention.
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Zack Morris convinces Mr. Dewey the next hall monitor should be Screech because they should all have a taste of what we’re in for during six seasons of The New Class…
In the hallway, naturally, no one listens to a word Screech says, as it should be, and part of Zack Morris’s plan has come together now that they own the halls. It’s time to get Mr. Belding out of his office!
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This involves the girls calling Mr. Belding with their bad accents and convincing him that a student with multi-personalities is lost at the mall and needs his help. Once again, all adults are stupid unless it’s relevant to the plot, so Mr. Belding not only believes them but rushes over to try and help out. I hope all this is going to start making sense in a minute. I have a feeling it won’t.
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Mr. Dewey finds Screech, once again. run over by a bunch of students who don’t give a crap what Screech says and does, so Mr. Dewey give a pep talk to Screech, or at least the best semblance of a pep talk Mr. Dewey can give. He tells Screech that, to be tough, he has to think tough and that he has to come up with someone to channel his inner tough guy with.
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This leads into a dream sequence where some random guy tries to force Lisa to go on a date with him.
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But, never fear, it’s RoboScreech, the world’s most incompetent hall monitor and human being, to save the day by lightly hitting him in the chest until he falls down.
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Oh, no! Before he can celebrate, Neil wants a duel so he can get his hall monitor job back, but, by utilizing the power of special effects that look like they belong on a commercial bumper during one of those “the more you know…” segments…
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Screech is successfully able to turn Neil into a pile of ungrinded coffee beans. Now Screech can secretly switch your cup of name brand coffee with some Neil brand goodness!
Screech comes away with a new sense of power as Mr. Dewey gives him the power to send all rule breakers to detention.
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Lucky for the gang, Mr. Belding doesn’t lock his office when he’s not at school because the gang apparently live in Mayberry where crime is nonexistent, so Zack Morris and Slater are easily able to get in and decorate. Kelly and Lisa have gone to The Max to get the cake…even though we already saw Max magically make a cake for them earlier, but we needed an excuse for them to be away and stress out Zack Morris, and Jessie’s off to get paper plates and utensils.
But they aren’t back before the scene cut, so Zack Morris is worried they won’t be able to pull off the party. Slater runs off to find them and randomly meets Screech in the hallway because…hall monitors don’t go to class? I don’t know; none of this makes any sense. He says he sent Jessie to detention for not having a hall pass and he’s sending Slater for not having one as well.
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Screech calls in his deputy, Kevin the sentient life made in Screech’s basement, and goes off to commit some more time wasting.
After a commercial break, Kelly and Lisa finally get back with cake and ice cream. Now both Slater and Jessie are missing, though, so Kelly and Lisa go to look for them. They’re soon intercepted by Screech who sends them both to detention despite the fact that Lisa tries to use her feminine wiles on him. This time, Zack Morris observes it so he prepares to go into backup plan.
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So, if detention is happening right now, that means school’s out so why did everyone have to have a hall pass? This is all hurting my brain! It’s like they just threw shit together and called it an episode! AGH!!!
Mr. Dewey’s finally recovered from the adults are stupid syndrome and doesn’t believe any of the gangs’ excuses to get out of detention…but he does apparently want to see Slater wrestle shirtless…
I need an adult.
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Then, Zack Morris gets on the intercom pretending to be Mr. Belding’s new secretary, and calls Slater, Kelly, Jessie, Lisa, and Screech to Mr. Belding’s office. Mr. Dewey, not apparently knowing who works there at any given time excuses them to the office.
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And he demonstrates his tai kawn do skills for everyone else. Oh, Mr. Dewey, how we’ve missed your Ben Stein-like qualities of lethargy! vlcsnap-2015-06-19-19h18m26s78
The gang don’t have much time since Mr. Belding’s about to get back so they use Zack Morris’s ability to bend time and space to quickly setup for Screech’s party. He comes into the party and apologizes for being a jackass since they did something so stupid for him. They party for about a minute and then bend the rules of time and space again to get Mr. Belding’s office back in order.
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And our episode ends with Screech overwhelmed by this stupid idea for a party. Oh, first season Saved by the Bell. How little sense you made! Not that anything after made any more sense, but you know what I mean!
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 5, 2015 4:09:50 GMT
Saved by the Bell Season 4, Episode 20: “Snow White and the Seven Dorks”
Well, this week we’re back on the good ‘ole second season of Saved by the Bell, and what better way to mark our return than a random close-up of a Shakespeare statue. No, it has nothing to do with anything the rest of the episode. It’s just one of those random times the camera person got bored and decided to start filming random stuff on set. There are times I think the crew of Saved by the Bell went to the Ed Wood School of Film-making.
Anyway, the episode proper starts with Zack Morris declaring that, in addition to all the other random activities the gang takes on in their thousand hour days, they’re also a part of the drama class, something Zack Morris excels at since he can almost always con his way out of anything despite the fact even Mother Teresa and the Dalai Llama wouldn’t trust his scheming ways.
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And meet Mr. Bainbridge, our drama teacher, who’s actually quite sane, at least for being a member of Bayside’s faculty. The most insane thing he does this episode is thinking that Screech’s idea for putting on a production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is a good idea, mainly because it’s in the public domain and the producers of Saved by the Bell won’t have to pay any royalties since they blew their royalty money already this season. But they can’t just do any old version of Snow White; no, they are going to do a rap version because when I thought of what was missing from Saved by the Bell, my first thought was our gang rapping about tiny people and poison apples.
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So we go directly to the try outs, which was confusing because, for a brief moment, having no clue what was going on, I thought they had skipped to practicing the play. Luckily it’s not or we’d miss out on seeing Screech take advantage of the situation to not only sexually harass Lisa while rapping horribly but to also shake his hips in the semblance of what I assume Dustin Diamond thought looked like dancing.
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Next up is Kelly, who’s auditioning for the wicked queen, and she raps her lines with the charisma of Ben Stein watching The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. She doesn’t want to try out for the role since she wants Snow White, which means I have to question why she’s auditioning if she doesn’t want to, but Mr. Bainbridge insists that she imagine some petty high school insecurity in order to channel the wicked queen, and she improves. Well, she improves as much as an actress on this show can.
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Jessie, meanwhile, complains backstage about quasi-feminist bullshit on how sexist Snow White is. How dare a nineteenth century character be less enlightened than a woman who thinks t-shirts are sexist and once overdosed on caffeine pill! Well, Zack Morris tells her just change the lines since none of the crew are going to bother checking whether they did or not anyhow.
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Jessie auditions with Screech and a grab bag of background characters as the “Seven Dorks” and raps about Snow White being liberated and shit, very believable for a nineteenth century Grimm Brothers fairy tale. Mr. Bainbridge, despite initially looking like he doesn’t know what to make of this mess, complements Jessie on her performance. He really shouldn’t encourage her. Seriously.
Last up is Zack Morris, who auditions for the role of the prince. There’s really not much to say other than the rapping is really beginning to annoy me, but the audience loses their shit over his audition, making me think the last play they saw was a peep show at their local adult bookstore.
And it’s a good thing Mr. Bainbridge is quick to make up his mind on the roles because that means we can fast forward directly to casting. Kelly’s the wicked queen, Lisa is the mirror on the wall, Screech is dork number five, Zack Morris is the prince, and Jessie is the super-enlightened Snow White. There’s no accounting for taste since none of these people should be acting. Ever.
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Zack Morris doesn’t want to be in the play anymore, though, as he says that the only reason he tried out was he couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else kissing Kelly. Well, aren’t you just the little shit wasting everyone’s time like that? Jessie butters him up about being the best and shit and how they once were “Mr. and Mrs. Skunk” in an elementary school production, they’re just the next Lucy and Desi waiting to be born!
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So Zack Morris agrees and we go directly to the kissing scene because that’s all this episode really gives a shit about. Unfortunately, Mr. Bainbridge doesn’t buy their kiss as much as the audience so he tells them to try it again with more feeling tomorrow. After everyone else leaves, they get right to it.
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And, by getting right to it, I mean they stick their tongues down each others’ throats. Lisa comes in to retrieve something in the meantime and catches them in full-on make out mode. She quietly sneaks out and the two break their kiss, realizing they liked it a lot more than they’re supposed to because they both got boners and, after all, kissing should be a purely theoretical enterprise except when you’re magically in a relationship! No enjoying anything!
Oh, I see. It’s finally happened. With this episode, Zack Morris has officially gone after every female in the main cast. Jessie was last because she would have, in real life, ran Zack Morris off with her propensity for whining.
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At Kelly’s house, Kelly and Lisa practice their lines, but Jessie’s really distracted, so, when Kelly leaves the room, Lisa takes advantage of the situation to tell Jessie she knows that Jessie’s a big hoe bag. Jessie swears Lisa to secrecy but then blurts out the whole thing to Kelly in guilt upon her return and rushes out, leaving Kelly to wonder what the fuck just happened.
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At Bayside, Jessie’s mobbed by her seven dorks who want to practice their scene with her. She rebuffs them until it becomes a convenient plot point for her to get away from Slater, because nothing says not feeling guilty like getting a gaggle of background characters to carry you away.
And now, it’s time to play our favorite game here at Saved by the Bell Reviewed: “Where’s Scott Wolf?” Yes, it’s that magical time when we guess where our future Party of Five and Everwood star will show up as a background character on one of his first acting gigs! So, where is Scott Wolf this week?
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Why, he’s a waiter at The Max behind Slater! Well, since there are no more out of season episodes from the second or third season, we probably won’t be seeing Scott Wolf again unless it’s in a clip episode. As such, this probably really is the final installment of “Where’s Scott Wolf?” Goodbye, Scott Wolf, and godspeed your journey into marginally better television.
So Slater thinks someone else may be after Jessie and asks Zack Morris about it. Zack Morris stammers and stutters, which is only slightly less suspicious than if he was wearing a sign that said, “I kissed Jessie and I liked it!” Slater says he’s going to randomly join the play so he can keep an eye on Jessie like a psycho stalker and destroy any guy who goes after her.
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Well, and it’s really nice of Mr. Bainbridge to accommodate the random whims of Bayside’s student body because he allows Slater into the play as an eighth dork. The Grimm Brothers must be rolling in their graves at this point. This abomination to a classic fairy tale makes Jessie faint and, when it comes time for the kiss between Zack Morris and Jessie, neither can go through with it. When Lisa lets slip that maybe they like each other, they both run out, shocked by just how contrived this plot really is.
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Since Mr. Belding needed a couple scenes, this suddenly becomes serious enough for the principal to handle. Zack Morris and Jessie both quit the play off camera (thanks for telling and not showing, guys…Ed Wood School of Film-making) and they tell him they might like each other but it would cause problems with Slater and Kelly if they do. Mr. Belding, the guy who has gotten pissed off about kissing in school on more than one occasion, tells them the only way they can find out for sure is to kiss again and see if they feel any of those things people commonly call “emotions.” I guess I should at least be thankful Mr. Belding doesn’t want them to just sit there and go at it in his office.
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In the hallway, Slater and Kelly ponder whether there’s something going on between Zack Morris and Jessie. They decide that it’s preposterous to believe such a thing. After all, Jessie outright telling Kelly that she kissed Zack Morris and Lisa blurting out shit and both of them acting suspicious means nothing at all since it wouldn’t be convenient to the plot for them to figure it out now. No, they decide Zack Morris and Jessie are acting weird because they’re scared of Slater and Kelly being jealous, so they go off to tell them that they’re enlightened and understanding in what may be the most obvious set-up for a reveal ever.
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So Zack Morris and Jessie get right to it and try the kissing. They don’t get erections this time, which must mean they don’t like each other since asexuality doesn’t exist in the Saved by the Bell universe. They’re so happy they decide to kiss again in celebration…
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…just in time for Slater and Kelly to catch them. Slater and Kelly break up with Jessie and Zack Morris.
It’s time for the play, and, after a scene where Mr. Belding just talks about random shit, Zack Morris and Jessie reveal they have a plan to win back Slater and Kelly, who are still visibly pissed. vlcsnap-2015-07-04-14h51m00s008
It’s nice to see the play takes place in a Vanilla Ice music video, as Kelly threatens to break Lisa’s bones if she says anything nice about Jessie, even in character.
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And Kelly wants to stuff an apple down Jessie’s throat since she’s no doubt had parts of Zack Morris down there.
Mr. Bainbridge wonders what the hell they’re doing and Mr. Belding tells him he has no idea either. Yeah, you’re the one that was practically begging Zack Morris and Jessie to make out in your office, or did you forget about your inappropriate boundaries with students?
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It’s almost time for the kissing scene, but Zack Morris has a different idea. See, he decides to hell with pleasing the audience and changes the script mid-play.
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Slater’s kiss is the one that wakens Jessie…vlcsnap-2015-07-04-14h53m04s938
…while the prince is in love with the queen. That constitutes incest I do believe. Also, the background nerds are way too excited about this turn of events that will no doubt convince everyone unfortunate enough to have bought a ticket to this spectacle to demand their money back.
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And our episode ends with everything going back to normal as there’s nothing better to save a relationship than completely sabotaging a school play in front of students, parents, and faculty who you’ll be asking to write letters of reference for college on your behalf in just a couple years.
Firsts: School play.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 5, 2015 4:10:26 GMT
Saved by the Bell Season 4, Episode 21: “Earthquake”
We’re taking a couple weeks off from our out of season episode marathon to delve back into the Tori-verse! And what better way to jump back in than with Mr. Belding trying his hardest to huff and puff and blow Zack Morris’s house down! No, actually he’s practicing his breathing exercises. See, he managed to go the entire season without mentioning that Mrs. Belding is pregnant and he’s practicing breathing exercises for when she goes into labor. I would say that the fact we haven’t heard, twenty-one episodes into the season, that Mrs. Belding is pregnant is an example of professionalism on the part of Mr. Belding but, with his history of boundary crossing with his students, it’s more likely just another case of writers not feeling the need to foreshadow anything.
Based on what Mr. Belding tells Zack Morris, the baby is due on the 15th, which is two weeks away, despite the fact that it’s only a week away if you pay attention to the boxes Zack Morris checks off on his calendar.
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Naturally, Zack Morris being a sociopath, he’s found a way to profit off Mr. Belding’s impending fatherhood: by holding a baby pool! Of course, he checks off the 15th and both days around it for himself, and quickly starts ripping off the other students. Screech gets upset because he wasn’t given first choice, but, because he’s an idiot, Zack Morris is able to placate him by giving him today, tomorrow, and last week for half price. This is the man the parents of The New Class trust to take their children to ski lodges and for three months on boats.
Slater and Lisa remind Zack Morris he has a physics midterm in two minutes. He’s panicked because, in the hysteria of, yet again, tying up Jessie and Kelly and putting them in his basement this week, he forgot to study.
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Our physics teacher, Mr. Heimlich (yeah, like the anti-choking method…clever guys) is basically a Looney Tunes-like parody of Germans complete with the random breaking into German. The only problem is this person couldn’t convince anyone he’s German as he sounds like an American trying to do an approximation, which is exactly what he is. He’s also another one of those teachers who delights in making his tests incredibly hard because I guess he gets off on it? He’s quite literally the worst part of this episode and he’s only in this scene, though, so let’s not get too side-tracked.
Just as Mr. Heimlich is about to hand out the exams, an earthquake goes off. Lucky Tori’s never heard such an alarm before so Slater can actually explain what’s going on: an earthquake drill!
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Zack Morris wastes no time in getting two girls under the desk with him for some hanky panky! Guess he’s not dating Tori or Kelly anymore. Oh, Zack Morris, your love interests are so hard to keep up with! Zack Morris then reminds Mr. Heimlich that he needs to lead them outside to safety, which I’m pretty sure is the absolute worst thing you can do following an earthquake considering the risk of aftershock. He does it anyway, though, much to Zack Morris’s delight, which gives him an extra day to study for the mid-term.
In the hallway, Mr. Belding finds all the students wandering around. Yeah, he apparently somehow didn’t know there was going to be an earthquake drill today, which I’m pretty sure wouldn’t happen, and passed out doing his breathing exercises so he missed both the drill and the end of the day. Oh, Mr. Belding.
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Meanwhile, Lisa’s getting put off by Tori’s constant questions about earthquakes. Seems she’s never heard of these magical phenomenon and now she’s suddenly paranoid about them. Gee, I hope this doesn’t play into the episode in just a few minutes! vlcsnap-2015-07-09-14h29m30s98
At The Max, Tori’s reluctant to remove her motorcycle helmet, suddenly paranoid about the possibility of an earthquake. She even checks the structural integrity of several of The Max’s beams. It’s a good thing she didn’t tug too hard; I’m pretty sure one of those beams looks like it was ready to just fall down.
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Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Belding come in. Zack Morris and Slater automatically assume Mr. Belding’s there because Zack Morris is in trouble despite the fact we see Mr. Belding in The Max all the time. Of course, he’s there because Mrs. Belding had pregnancy cravings. Screech, being the moron he is, can’t help but start fat shaming Mrs. Belding, leading even Zack Morris to slap him upside the head for being an insensitive ass.
Lisa asks Mrs. Belding if she’s had a baby shower yet and she remarks that almost everyone she knows has given her a shower. This makes a light bulb go off in Zack Morris’s head by saying the gang were planning a baby shower for her during seventh period. Naturally, this is to get out of the midterm since Zack Morris is a sociopath and doesn’t do anything just to be nice to people. Zack Morris tells Mr. Belding they’re too afraid to ask Mr. Heimlich to get out of class but Mr. Belding tells them that he sees absolutely nothing odd about a spontaneous baby shower the next day and he’ll make sure they’re excused from class.
Mrs. Belding suddenly starts feelings pains in her stomach.
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Mr. Belding, assuming it’s the baby’s coming, shows exactly how good of a father he’s going to be to this new baby by grabbing Lisa and running to the car to go to the hospital. Oh, Mr. Belding. It’s a good thing that baby has two parents or it would die! Good thing it was just an upset stomach from bad Max food or else she’d be giving birth in a cheesy restaurant best known for once being owned by a guy that kept chickens in his pants.
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The next day at the baby shower, it looks like the gang actually got the baby a bunch of nice presents. Slater hands Mrs. Belding a present and it’s a Bayside football jersey the baby won’t be able to wear until its old enough to go to Bayside. Um…thoughtful? Screech fails at life and doesn’t understand what baby showers are so he gets the baby a shower cap, shampoo, and soap on a rope. Tori gets Mr. Belding a coach baseball cap. As usual, Tori’s probably the most thoughtful of the group in these episodes because she doesn’t have five years of Zack Morris stained on her soul. We also get what at first seems like a throwaway line about Tori helping her sister birth a baby last year.
The bell rings signalling the end of school. Mr. Belding says that Mr. Heimlich will give the gang their make-up test on Monday, which is two days away according to Screech despite the fact that we clearly saw Zack Morris marking off Tuesday as today when he was assigning the day to Screech for the baby pool. Consistency shouldn’t be this hard people! Slater and Lisa run off to swim practice…since I guess Slater’s on the swim team now? Screech helps Mr. Belding take the presents down to his car but they have to stop off at his office first to get the keys. Zack Morris and Tori say they’ll help Mrs. Belding down the never-before mentioned faculty elevator that Zack Morris has acquired keys for because he’s Zack Morris. Tori sees that the jersey’s been left behind so she randomly picks it up, which I’m sure won’t have any bearing on the plot in a minute.
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Zack Morris, Tori, and Mrs. Belding make it to the faculty elevator and get in. Quite literally, just as the doors close, the unthinkable happens in an episode titled, “Earthquake”…an earthquake occurs! I know! I didn’t see it coming either but there it is!
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In the hallway, chaos erupts as people scream and do their best impression of 1960s Star Trek special effects while Lisa keeps calm and gets people into a doorway.
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Luckily for the audience Slater was in the locker room changing when his shirt was trapped under falling lockers! If not, he wouldn’t be able to run around barechested the rest of the episode and give them something to scream about every few minutes.
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Mr. Belding’s in his office with Screech.
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And Zack Morris, Tori, and Mrs. Belding are stuck in the elevator. Just as fate and contrivance would have it, Mrs. Belding goes into labor right at that very moment! Also, Tori has a meltdown over the earthquake to the point I’m wondering if we’re about to see a repeat of Charlie Sheen’s “Winning” video.
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Mr. Belding discovers that the lock is jammed on his office door so he can’t get out to see if Mrs. Belding is alright. Showing that Mr. Belding’s been completely oblivious to Screech’s idiocy from the start, he trusts Screech to try and get them out of there…
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…but all Screech can do is play with a hippopotamus puppet and do weird voices. Mr. Belding starts screaming for help and thinking to himself that he needs to remember never to hire Screech as his administrative assistant.
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In the hallway, Lisa gives Slater her jacket to wear so the audience won’t hyperventilate over the tingly feelings they’re getting in their downstairs regions. They hear Mr. Belding and Screech yelling for help. Slater, showing how he could possibly beat Chuck Norris in a cage match, kicks open Mr. Belding’s door, and they rush to the elevator to check on Mrs. Belding. So Slater’s powerful enough to kick open a door but not to life a locker and get his shirt?
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Meanwhile, Tori’s still having her meltdown. Zack Morris tells Tori to snap the fuck out of her fit of crazy and help Mrs. Belding. She instantly snaps into action (so much for her actually working through her fear) and tells Zack Morris to give Mrs. Belding something to focus on. He pulls out a picture for her to look at while Tori gets her started on breathing.
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Everyone arrives at the elevator and finds out that Mrs. Belding is in labor. Mr. Belding sends Pete to find a working phone to call 9-1-1 so that everyone whose name is in the opening credits can stay behind to stare at the elevator doors.
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Mrs. Belding starts pushing and breathing alternating. Zack Morris says he sees the head coming and, from outside the elevator, we start to hear crying.
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It’s a good thing that, at that very moment, the power randomly came back on. LA must have the most efficient power crews post-earthquake ever! The elevator doors open and Mr. Belding is introduced to his new son, wrapped in the jersey Slater gave them. It’s weird, though. We know from his three appearances on The New Class that Mr. Belding named his son Little Zack after Zack Morris. I would have thought they would have mentioned this since it would have been a touching moment for Mr. Belding to show his gratitude to Zack Morris for helping his son come into the world.
In any case, despite how much crap I gave this episode, it’s actually not bad and may be one of the best of the season. For how much of a bad reputation the Tori episodes have, I’m thoroughly impressed.
Firsts: Mrs. Becky Belding, Little Zack Belding.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 5, 2015 4:11:38 GMT
Saved by the Bell Season 4, Episode 22: “Best Summer of My Life”
We open in Zack Morris’s room, where he’s apparently playing guitar with a tennis racket. He tells us that his mom felt like he exhausted himself working so much over the summer so she insisted he take a day off from school because apparently he came back and went directly to school from Palm Desert.
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The rest of the episode is basically Zack Morris remembering how awesome the Malibu Sands and Palm Desert episodes were, and that’s really about it. Screech, Slater, and Lisa are each sent by Mr. Belding to see how Zack Morris is and each one remembers more stuff about the summer arc. It’s going to be a short review, maybe the shortest I’ve done to date, and, for that, I apologize, but what more can I do? If you want to remember whether the Malibu Sands and Palm Desert episodes were awesome or not, I recommend you go back to season three and watch them (or read my reviews) and don’t watch this stupid excuse for an episode that has about as much thought behind it as Kirk Cameron’s insane ramblings about creationism.
This may be the strangest clip episode to date as it focuses on these specific episodes and doesn’t even recap them very well. There’s no mention about the conflict surrounding Zack Morris and Stacey getting together, nothing about the gang’s conflict with Mr. Carosi, and, strange enough, nothing about Jessie’s father’s wedding. They even falsely imply Zack Morris and Kelly got back together and didn’t just have a subplot filling fling to give everyone’s hopes up. The ending isn’t even original; it’s just the same ending scene from the Malibu Sands episodes of the gang walking arm in arm along the beach after Stacey leaves! No original footage! Also, no Hawaii, but we’ll talk more about that later. I’m not even sure what the purpose of this episod is. Were they releasing the summer episodes on VHS and they needed an episode to promote them and remind people how amazingly terrific they were? My god, if they loved the Malibu Sands episodes so much, why didn’t they just marry them?
In any case, I will make one remark about continuity. This episode is supposed to take place on the first day of school. Of course, this is horse shit since “The Fight” took place on the first day of school. I’m just going to assume that this episode is a hallucination on the part of Zack Morris the night before the first day of school and that the producers weren’t dumb enough to have made this episode just to pad the season out to twenty-six episodes.
And our episode ends with your reviewer having sat through a half-hour cheer leading episode on how awesome everyone’s summer was but his own as he goes to get a beer and drown his sorrow.
If you were disappointed by a short review this week, I promise you that I more than make up for it next week…
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 5, 2015 4:12:10 GMT
Saved by the Bell Season 4, Episode 23: “Slater’s Friend”
We’re back to season one for the final out of season episode of the series, and we open in speech class with Coach Rizzo substituting as the speech teacher. It’s not clear why Coach Rizzo is the only one available to do this but I have to assume Bayside’s having one of their many financial shortfalls that come from investing in too many junk stocks.
Zack Morris tells us in monologue that their class assignment this week is titled, “My Best Friend.” I’m sure he’ll talk about his left hand. Also, it’s strange going back to these season one episodes since Zack Morris’s voice hasn’t deepened yet and I have to remind myself he was only a budding sociopath back then.
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First up is Slater, who talks all about a friend who’s been around the world with him, he’s never had to say goodbye to, and will never leave him nor forsake him. While it would be easy to assume that he’s found Jesus and has been attending ex-gay summer camp, he has a different sort of best friend.
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A plastic chameleon he’s named “Artie.” Yes, a fucking plastic chameleon. Slater’s friend, the namesake of this god damned fucking episode, is a plastic chameleon. Oh, they’ll insist it’s real the entire episode but that is plastic I tell you! The audience thinks this is a touching moment, thus proving they’ve always been easily impressed.
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At The Max, everyone’s practically pissing themselves over Slater’s chameleon. Well, except for Lisa, who’s a feminine girl so she’s afraid of icky things and shit. Also, hope you caught Max walking by on the left side of this screen shot because it’s the last time you’ll ever see him. This is his sole apperance in this episode: walking by and gawking that someone else has brought an unsanitary animal into his restaurant. It’s a wonder the health department isn’t all over this place.
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Slater even shows the gang how he can put a plastic chameleon in his hand and make its head touch his nose. They don’t even try to make it look like the thing did it on its own. They even show Slater adjusting it and it nearly falls off Mario Lopez’s hand at one point, but doing another take would cost too much money so fuck that shit! Screech is amazed by this non-trick, though, and wants to know how it’s done. Okay, so Screech was already showing signs of the idiot he’d later become as early as the first season.
Slater says he got Artie when his dad was stationed in the Philipines. Since then, they’ve been through fourteen schools together. FOURTEEN? Geez, that’s more than one school for ever year you’ve been a student, Slater! Your dad’s commanding officers must fucking hate him to transfer him that often!
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Slater decides our episode needs some conflict so he asks Screech if he’ll watch Artie while he’s in San Diego this weekend. We never do find out why he’s going to San Diego but it’s a convenient excuse to push along the plot.
Kelly reminds Jessie that they’re meeting that night so Jessie can help Kelly with her speech but Jessie has to back out because her mother is a quasi-feminist crusader who’s making Jessie chain herself to a gas pump or some shit that night. I’m assuming that this entire family just has more issues than National Geographic. Sensing an opportunity to lose his cursed virginity, Zack Morris invites Kelly over to his house that night instead for some hot “studying,” which is naturally code for “fucking until we’re inevitably interrupted by the plot.”
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In Zack Morris’s room, Zack Morris destracts himself from his boner by showing us the cardboard cutout of Kelly from “King of the Hill” again. Jesus, Zack Morris was one creepy ass motherfucker creating cardboard cutouts of girls without their knowledge.
There’s a knock on his door and Zack Morris assumes it’s Kelly but, instead, Screech walks in and tells Zack Morris he needs to leave Artie there tonight because his animals are hungry for plastic. Kelly comes in as they’re talking and Zack Morris kicks Screech out so he can have happy fun time with Kelly.
Kelly wants to make baby faces at Artie but Zack Morris, sensing his opportunity for fucking is passing him by, suggests she put Artie down so they can practice their “speech.”
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Kelly puts Artie down under a desk lamp but, before Zack Morris can get very far, Jessie comes barging in through Zack Morris’s window and declares she’s Peter Pan! No, actually, she couldn’t make it to the protest so she’s free to help Kelly practice her “speech,” leaving Zack Morris once again to relieve his own frustration.
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I guess two days have suddenly passed because we’re back at Bayside, where Zack Morris can’t get Artie to move. Screech declares that Artie is dead and…good lord, it’s a plastic fucking chameleon! They don’t die! Kellie and Jessie each blame themselves for Artie’s death, Kelly for placing him under a desk lamp and Jessie for leaving the window open so he could get cold. So he either died of heat or cold…or why not both in this crazy, fucked up universe. Also, Jessie says this all happened last night, meaning the gang had a one day weekend and Slater was only gone to San Diego for one day!
Slater comes around to pick up his plastic chameleon and Zack Morris throws it in his locker before Slater can see. He tells Slater he left Artie at home. Slater wants to ditch class so they can go get Artie since Slater hasn’t been able to make love to him the whole one day weekend, but Zack Morris, instead, says he’ll get Artie at lunch and meet Slater at The Max.
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Zack Morris and Screech find a pet store that sells chameleons and buy one for Slater. Unfortunately, the girls have the same idea and Slater quickly realizes, with two chameleons, that something’s up. Now either there are a lot of pet shops immediately around Bayside and The Max that sell chameleons or Zack Morris and Screech managed to walk completely around the girls and not even realize it. Either way, something stupid happened here.
In any case, Slater just assumes Zack Morris lost Artie somewhere in his room so he says he’ll come by after wrestling practice and help Zack Morris look for him. Slater leaves and the gang realize Slater’s eventually going to find out everyone’s just patronizing him about his stupid plastic chameleon.
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This naturally leads into a shared dream sequence where Mr. Belding, playing one of the cops from Reno 911, bring the gang in for booking as suspects in the death of Artie.
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His main witness is Slater dressed in a modified Godzilla costume, and this has to be one of the creepiest things we’ve seen Slater do on this show. He randomly flicks his tongue in and out of his mouth trying to imitate what Artie would do if he wasn’t made of plastic but it really looks like he’s auditioning for a porno. He also speaks with a voice that makes him sound like a cross between James Gandolfini and the Cobra Commander. Oh, to be a G.I. Joe right now so I could put an end to this awful scene!
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The gang imagine each of their individual fates for their role in killing Artie, including Screech getting solitary confinement for life dressed as the Monopoly man.
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Jessie gets put on ice in a bathing suit since she made Artie cold.
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And since he died from being both too cold and too hot, Kelly’s put in a frying pan with some eggs. Does that mean she’s the bacon? I wonder if that’s what Zack Morris secretly wanted to do to her all through the first season!
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Lisa just hated Artie so she has to wear polyester or some shit. Strange but Zack Morris doesn’t get a punishment of any type for his role in this stupid situation; just a strongly worded rebuttal. Yay for Zack Morris getting off yet again…
Unlike most dream sequences, we don’t go back to The Max but, instead, to Zack Morris’s room.
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Slater goes through all of Zack Morris’s belongings looking for Artie and finds the cardboard cutout of Kelly. Okay, now I know Slater’s completely insane. No one could find something like this and not want to use it against a guy they don’t particularly like who he’s soon to find out killed his imaginary lizard. Someone knows about the cardboard cutout and they don’t warn Kelly of stalker-like behavior occurring.
The rest of the gang come in and Zack Morris finally tells Slater the truth about Artie: that he was never alive to begin with. Slater acts like he takes the news of his insanity in stride but the way he says, “stupid chameleon” and the fact seven minutes are left in the episode just let you know he’s not completely over this situation yet.
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Back at Bayside, it’s Kelly’s turn to give her speech about her German Shepherd Freddie. Slater deals with his grief by making random outbursts and sexual harassment during Kelly’s speech. He pisses Coach Rizzo off, who sends him to Mr. Belding’s office so Mr. Belding can actually have a role in this episode besides the minor role in the dream sequence.
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In Mr. Belding’s office, Slater won’t tell Mr. Belding what’s wrong and they have a stand-off about Slater’s behavior. Zack Morris and Screech barge in and tell Mr. Belding about Slater’s fake plastic chameleon.
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This leads to one of the most unintentionally hilarious scenes since “Jessie’s Song” as Mr. Belding and Slater bond over the death of a damn fucking fake plastic chameleon. I swear, it was hard not to laugh as Slater processed his emotions with Mr. Belding. Season one Saved by the Bell was really bad when it came to serious situations. I mean, not “Jessie’s Song” and “Pipe Dreams” bad but still…
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And how else could we end this whole damned episode then with a funeral as suggested by Mr. Belding. Zack Morris naturally acts as the officiant because why the hell not. Lisa and Coach Rizzo give testimonies.
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Jessie and Screech provide musical accompaniment in the form of a stupid song Screech wrote about Artie and it’s quite obvious this isn’t really Elizabeth Berkley singing. It sounds nothing fucking like her, in any fucking world!
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Slater gives a final tribute to his fallen friend and says he’s discovered he has six friends who may just be as good of friends to him a fake fucking chameleon. Oh, and two faculty members at his school with really bad boundary issues.
vlcsnap-2015-07-25-16h19m54s341And our episode ends with Slater feeling better as Mr. Belding reflects that he still has three more years to get it on with Slater.
All of this over a fake plastic fucking chameleon. Fucking hell.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 5, 2015 4:13:01 GMT
Saved by the Bell Season 4, Episode 24: “School Song”
Our final look at the Tori-verse opens with a triumphant entry to The Max by Zack Morris. Ah, to be Zack Morris this close to graduation! He’s majorly psyched and says no one at Bayside will ever be able to compare to him, no matter how often the producers try to replace him with douche bags and fake Swiss people!
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As the gang are the only seniors in the world who matter, it’s their job to come up with a class gift. Zack Morris ants to kiss every girl in school, which I’m pretty sure he’s already done at some point, but, hey, a second time to be sure couldn’t hurt! Last year’s senior class gave Bayside a VCR so Lisa wants to make sure they give the school something that will last just as long, like a laser disc player!
Slater says that Zack Morris is graduating, therefore that’s a good enough present. Zack Morris doesn’t understand what’s so funny and the gang lets him know in no uncertain terms that he’s the biggest goof off the school has ever had.
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In glee club practice, the gang think their school song sucks ass because it’s an actual school song and stuff. Lisa suggests the senior class gift be to write a new school song .
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Mr. Belding, meeting with the senior class gift committee, thinks it’s a good idea to update their school song and agrees to the project. When Zack Morris comes in late, Mr. Belding makes fun of Zack Morris like everyone else does this episode. The background characters join in and Zack Morris suddenly feels like a jack ass for the first time in five years.
Zack Morris overhears Mr. Belding tell the rest of the gang that Bayside will always be grateful for the composers of their school song, and this naturally gives him an idea to write the song alone that I’m sure won’t backfire at all.
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Since our gang are still the only seniors that matter, the five of them are writing the school song themselves. Also, Slater apparently knows how to play the piano…for some reason. Yeah, that’s been a huge part of Slater’s character over the past four years: piano playing.
Zack Morris puts his plan into action by sowing strife among the gang, telling Slater that Lisa’s changes to the song suck ass after she reveals she knows how to play piano as well, telling Lisa that Slater’s just jealous of her awesome new piano skills, making Tori blow up in a fit of, “I can’t work under these conditions,” and telling Screech the truth: that no one gives a shit what he thinks. The gang all storm out and Zack Morris thinks he now has the opportunity to write his own song as he sits down and plays the piano. Jesus, does Bayside have a graduation requirement that every senior must know how to play the piano?
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In the hallway, though, Zack Morris discovers that everyone else stole his idea and have decided to write their own sucky ass school song. And they all decide to sing perform their stupid songs at the same time in the hallway just to piss Mr. Belding the fuck off. Mr. Belding tells them that Bayside can only have one sucky ass school song so they’ll have to have a contest to decide what song will be THE new sucky ass song. Zack Morris suggest they all play over the intercom Friday and let the senior class vote on the winner, which I’m sure will net a favorable result for a Beastie Boys song.
Before the contest, we see that Zack Morris has rigged the piano to play out of tune on one particular note…
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…and Slater and Tori’s song just happens to use that note frequently. As with most schemes on this show, it’s a good thing for Zack Morris that several factors went off exactly as planned or it couldn’t have worked, as with most Saved by the Bell schemes. This naturally means that no one likes the song because no one in this school has the ability to distinguish between an instrumental mistake and the essence of the song. Oh, and it must really be a graduation requirement for all seniors to play the piano because now Tori knows how as well. I’m sure if Kelly and Jessie weren’t locked in Zack Morris’s basement, they’d be playing piano along with the others.
It’s also a good thing that no other song in the contest need to use that note or else people might think something was up.
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Next up is Screech playing “Home on the Range” with new lyrics about Bayside. Zack Morris decides he doesn’t need to do anything to beat Screech because Screech sucks ass and couldn’t possibly get people to think anything he does is good, right six seasons of The New Class?
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The final song is a rock ballad by Zack Morris, or at least what Saved by the Bell thinks rock sounds like since I’m pretty sure the opening chords are a direct rip off of Chuck Berry. So, once again, Saved by the Bell is in touch with what was cool forty years before it aired.
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Of course, it’s such a hit it starts a spontaneous dance party in the middle of the hallway and everyone’s going bat shit crazy over it. Well, except for that one guy sitting on the steps who looks like he just wants to collect his check for being an extra and get the fuck out of there. Also, how long is Bayside’s passing period? I’m pretty sure that chaos would result from giving students this much free time in the hallways.
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When the results of voting are tallied, though, Zack Morris and Screech each receive 132 votes, meaning we need a run-off to draw this plot out even further. Turns out the nerds at Bayside only aspire to be as incompetent as Screech and voted for his stupid plagiarism. Mr. Belding says Zack Morris and Screech will each perform their song with the glee club at a school assembly next week.
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Zack Morris decides he has to find a way to get the nerd vote, and the best way is to sexually lead on the nerd princess, Louise. He asks her out on a date and tells her he thinks she’s super great and shit and she buys it all up.
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At The Max, Zack Morris romances Louise, who’s practically drooling and has a massive lady boner over how much attention Zack Morris is giving to her. She says she would have voted for him if she’d known how scheming Zack Morris was, she would have voted for him instead of Screech. She says she’ll get the boy nerds to vote for Zack Morris in exchange for a kiss so Zack Morris, not being one to pass up an opportunity to kiss a girl, even if it’s a background character from The Wonder Years, puckers up and gives Louise the thrill of her life.
Slater, Lisa, and Tori come in The Max to find Zack Morris and Louise in mid-lip lock and it suddenly dawns on them that Zack Morris is a schemer. They jump to the conclusion that he must have sabotaged their songs and decide to get revenge on him. Hey, they may have jumped to the right conclusion but it’s still jumping to a conclusion.
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They put their plan into motion after Louise tells the male nerds to vote for Zack Morris when Slater warns them that Zack Morris is stealing their girls. Slater says that soon, all the other cool guys in school will want to date nerd girls and there won’t be any left for them. This panics them that they may not get to lose their cursed virginity and they rush off to tell their fellow nerds to vote for Screech…because all of that made sense somehow I guess?
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In practice, Slater, Lisa, and Tori tell Screech they’re going to change his sucky ass song to make sure he beats Zack Morris.
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Finally, before the performance, they feed Zack Morris water tainted with pure lemon extract…
What the hell is that supposed to do?
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Oh, it makes Zack Morris unable to sing, because one of the well known properties of lemon is the numbing of the human voice. None of this makes any sense!
In any case, Zack Morris crashes and burns and there are no second chances even when it’s obvious that something’s very wrong. Backstage, Slater, Lisa, and Tori reveal the conclusion they jumped to: that Zack Morris sabotaged them. He apologizes and says he just wanted to be remembered for something positive, but he fucked up again like usual.
Screech isn’t happy with the changes the other made, but he says it’s okay because they used the same prepositions. Zack Morris asks to sing with them, and they go out to reveal the new school song.
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I’ve recapped these lyrics once before when it was sang in “Goodbye Bayside, Part 2” but, in case you don’t follow those reviews, here is the horrible song that will forever be a part of Bayside until the writers forget it exists.
It seems like only yesterday we started, But soon we’ll put away our books and pens, We’ll go on with our lives once we have parted, But how can we say farewell to our friends?
The double dates, the parties, and the dances, Cramming for a mid-term until three, The football games, The Max, and the romances, Soon Bayside will be just a memory.
Our four years here have all become unraveled, And so our high school story finally ends, But years from now, no matter where we’ve traveled, We’ll all look back and think about our friends.
So many reasons to hate this song and think the writers have never heard a school song before in their lives. And, of course, should The Max ever go out of business after PETA boycotts them for Max’s mistreatment of animals, future students will have to sing a song about an irrelevant business that used to cater to the every whim of Bayside’s students.
vlcsnap-2015-07-31-19h11m10s866In any case, the audience loves it and our episode and our final look into the Tori-verse ends with our gang friends forever more until Tori disappears out of existence. Judging from Ox’s expression, though, I think he’s caught a glimpse of Lisa’s breasts and he’ll have a lot happier memories of this episode than I will.
Firsts: The new school song.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 5, 2015 4:13:36 GMT
Saved by the Bell Season 4, Episode 25: “The Time Capsule”
We open our penultimate episode with Mr. Belding completing the all important task of polishing his picture frames. It’s an older Mr. Belding, too, as you can tell because he has a mustache. Mustaches always indicate age.
Yes, it’s the year 2003, despite the fact that Mr. Belding is still in his old office when we know he got a new one in season two of The New Class. This is the clip show episode people have been warning me about since I started this blog. Oh, how bad can it be?
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Bad. Meet our graduating class of 2003, proving that the producers of The New Class never do stop recycling the character templates of the original series. This gang makes even Brian seem like a competently designed character by comparison, though, as they seem to enjoy talking in ways that openly people who haven’t been a teenager for a very long time would think teenagers talk. Also, I lived through 2003. I’m pretty sure their fashion was pretty outdated by then.
They tell Mr. Belding they found this metal case buried outside and Mr. Belding instantly recognizes it as a time capsule buried by the class of 1993. He says this was a special class and he was very close to it. Very close. He opens it and finds a video tape.
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Naturally, since the gang are the only members of this graduating class who matter, they’re the only ones featured on the tape. Yeah, this is how a real time capsule would look. Totally.
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They’re also apparently wizards because they rigged a booby trap for Mr. Belding that he somehow didn’t manage to set off in ten years, even with Screech all over his ass for much of that time. It’s nice to know Mr. Belding never opens that particular drawer in his file cabinet. It’s probably where he keeps his stash to cope with Screech.
The rest of the episode is about as competently produced as one would expect, as each member of the gang share their memories of their four years at Bayside featuring clips from the show where there was obviously never a camera present to record the events the time capsule is depicting. It also shows dream sequences, which means that there are cameras in their brains apparently.
It’s also strange how it’s supposed to be a retrospective of the series but the vast majority of it is clips from season one and two episodes. I don’t think they know what a retrospective is.
Also, Screech wants to pick up girls in the future. Nice to know he was always a creep with pedophile tendencies from the beginning.
In any case, all of the 2003 gang think their 1993 counterparts are super cool and they wish their 1993 counterparts were still around so they could make love to their prototypes.
The 1993 gang each give a message for the 2003 gang. Maybe this episode won’t be a complete waste and we’ll actually get some wisdom out of it? Nah, it’s just old cliches and character traits of our gang, complete with my commentary.
Jessie: Take care of our planet so the kids of 2103 can enjoy it as much as we do. Peace and love. [Jessie, the kids of 2103 will be much more concerned with caffeine pill addiction than environmental issues! Get with the program!]
Slater: Bayside was the first real home I ever had. Be good to it, or I’ll come and get you. [New Screech might actually enjoy the sound of that.]
Lisa: All my fashion secrets are taped to the back of my old locker, number 144. In the meantime, keep on rockin’ Bayside. [Nice to know Lisa’s characterization is shallow as ever.]
Screech: Class of 2003, let me leave you with one wise thought: be kind to geeks, dweebs, and nerds. Ten years from now, they’ll be the ones with all the money! [Except for Screech, who grew up to lose all his money to hookers and drugs, made a bad porno, pissed off his former cast mates by publishing a fake tell all book, and went to jail for assault.]
Kelly: No matter what happens, keep on smiling! And when life hands you a lemon, make some lemonade! [Keep on smiling, even through your loveless marriage to Zack Morris! Geez, I called Lisa’s characterization shallow? I guess this is the essence of Kelly: keep on smiling!]
Zack Morris: High school is the best time of your life! So love it, live it, and enjoy it! And, if you have any time left, do some homework. {And sometimes, in between, dress in drag and go on dates with your nerdy best friend.]
The real lesson here: clip show episodes suck, and having a premise you think is clever such as the gang recording a time capsule video doesn’t make them any better. I’m honestly unsure of which is worse: this or “Best Summer of My Life.”
And, before anyone says it, I know the premise of this episode directly contradicts the finale of The New Class. I’ll have more to say about that next year when I finally reach season seven, but, suffice it to say, both episodes can’t be true.
In any case, our episode ends with the gang smiling on as they prepare to go into the final episode…
Firsts: A look into the future.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Sept 15, 2015 2:17:43 GMT
Saved by the Bell: Hawaiian Style
Surprised to see this here this week? Well, don’t be! When I started this blog, I committed to doing everything in the order it aired, or at least in the order that IMDB claims it aired, so here we are with the first of two movies based on the series: Hawaiian Style!
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Our opening credits are basically random scenes from Hawaii to let you, the viewer, know that, yes, the producers really did splurge on travel costs to actually go to Hawaii, well, at least for part of the movie, since Dennis Haskins once admitted much of the filming was in Malibu. Oh well. I guess credit where credit is due: they made at least a little more effort to be authentic, unlike certain episodes of a stupid spin-off of the series.
Oh, and, yes, the original songs from this movie are horrible. I may do another post at some point where I break down the lyrics if there’s demand for it, but, suffice it to say, Mrs. Johnson’s kindergarten class was busy on their writing assignment that week!
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And our episode proper opens with, yes, Screech violating airport safety regulations by riding the baggage carousel. It’s not so bad. Maybe it’ll take him back in the back and they’ll ship him off to some country with a war going on. One of Screech’s random idiocies for the next hour and half is going to be him filming random stuff and just generally annoying the shit out of people. So, basically like most of his appearances in the franchise.
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Zack Morris and Slater get massive boners from all the women at the airport, which makes Jessie jealous since she and Slater are apparently dating. Where this movie fits in with the television series is confusing, and Slater and Jessie dating doesn’t make it any easier to figure out. See, this movie makes the most sense if it takes place in the summer between the gang’s junior and senior year of high school, even though that would make this a really busy summer for them between Malibu Sands, Palm Desert, and now Hawaii. In a minute, Mr. Belding is going to tell them he’ll see them in September, which means it can’t take place in between season four and The College Years. But Slater and Jessie weren’t dating the summer after their junior year, and Slater even went after Denise Richards and a princess from a made up country that summer. So, I’m just going to assume this entire movie is non-canonical, which begs the question, “Is it a complete waste of my time to watch it?” More on that in a bit.
Slater and Jessie start fighting over random shit, and, after complaints from Kelly and Lisa that they’re going too hot and heavy on the fighting too early in the movie, they agree to tone it down and get along for the duration of their two week vacation.
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While Slater and Jessie fight, Zack Morris spots a woman who looks confused as to why she’s in a shitty Saved by the Bell movie.
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Naturally, Zack Morris thinks that this could be his chance to lose his cursed virginity, so he swoops in like a hungry pterodactyl and insists on carrying her bags for her. Her name is Andrea Larson and she decides to let Zack Morris carry her shit for her rather than yell that there’s a sexual predator beating down on her. Andrea’s a native Hawaiian, which Zack Morris thinks is so cool because Hawaii is so much better than anywhere else in the world.
Meanwhile, Lisa bets Slater and Jessie $50 each that they won’t make it the whole trip without fighting. Jessie thinks, for some reason, that she’s going to win, so she readily agrees to the bet, because Slater and Jessie have such a long track record of getting along.
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Outside, a limo pulls up to collect Andrea, and in it is Derek Worthington, Andrea’s boyfriend, whom we’re supposed to think is pompous because he tries to tip Zack Morris, assuming he’s the porter. Yeah, that would be my first thought, too, and not that my girlfriend is being courted by a sexual predator. Andrea thanks Zack Morris and wishes him goodbye as she departs in the limo. In any other world, this would be the last time Andrea and Zack Morris saw each other, but this is the Saved by the Bell universe!
Andrea must be quite a knock out, too, because she distracts Zack Morris so much he never returns to the baggage claim to get his luggage. Seriously, he never gets his luggage. He must have thought he was going to a nudist resort so he wouldn’t need anything more than his hot naked body.
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Zack Morris is soon joined by the rest of the gang, who spot a familiar face nearby. Yes, Mr. Belding just happens to be in Hawaii at the same time as the gang giving a tour to a bunch of California principals. What are the odds! It’s almost like contrivance! He asks the gang what they’re doing there and we find out that Kelly’s grandfather owns a hotel in Hawaii and invited her to bring the gang for two weeks. Well, I guess at least it’s not like The New Class where Mr. Belding would have been invited along with the gang. But, if Kelly’s grandfather owns a hotel, why is her family always so poor? Why doesn’t her grandfather help out in times of need? These are questions that will never be answered because they never even occurred to the writers.
Mr. Belding suggests they keep as much distance from him as possible so that he doesn’t involve himself in whatever hijinks are about to ensue, and the gang agrees, showing a surprising appreciation for boundaries with the Bayside faculty. Mr. Belding leads his group in a nice double-decker bus to the Royal Pacific hotel while a dinky car from the ’60s pulls up to take the gang to the Hawaiian Hideaway, just to emphasize the class differences in where they’ll be staying.
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Nearby, two cab drivers spot Screech acting like an idiot and, rather than being repulsed by him like most of the world, say only, “He has returned!” which sounds suspiciously like Screech is going to have a really dumb and pointless subplot.
We get another song and a montage of some Hawaiian scenes to remind us, yes, we really are in Hawaii…
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…and the gang arrive at the Hawaiian Hideaway to meet Kelly’s grandfather, Harry Bannister, played by Dean Jones. If you recognize Jones from anything else, it’ll probably be either from The Love Bug or Beethoven. So, other than this movie, he’s known for talking cars and big slobbery dogs. Nice. Also, Harry treats us to yet another song, this time on the ukulele. Also, Harry instantly recognizes Screech by his stupidity.
Kelly asks why it’s so quiet and where the other guests are and that’s when we find out there are no other guests. Over a lunch of fish, we find out the Royal Pacific Hotel wanted to buy the Hideaway’s land so they hired away his staff and even paid others not to work there. With no staff to take care of them, guests stopped coming. Kelly wants to know what can be done but Harry says now is the time to eat, not worry about that, and they’ll talk more in a few scenes when Harry’s lawyer can be present.
Screech nearly chokes on a fish bone, and it suddenly makes me realize how much the easily impressed studio audience is to making Screech’s gags work. He tries to pull off something that wouldn’t be funny in the first place but that the studio audience would have loved, and we’re treated to awkward silence that reminds me of when your racist uncle says something really horrible about black people at Thanksgiving and you have absolutely no idea what to say other than completely go off on him. Some sitcoms have successfully done without a laugh track because their jokes stand on their own: Malcolm in the Middle, Arrested Development, The Office, The Middle, just to name a few. Saved by the Bell was obviously never cut out to be one of these. This pattern continues throughout the whole movie so buckle your seat belts.
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We’re next treated to a little montage of the gang playing at the beach to remind us, yes, we are in Hawaii. Did you know you’re in Hawaii by now? Well, you are even if you didn’t realize it. Welcome to Hawaii! We also get another bad song that makes me wish for the awkward silence that accompanies a Screech joke.
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That night, Zack Morris and Screech naturally share a room because they’re hoping to finally consummate their love. Zack Morris tries to have a serious conversation with Screech about love at first sight and Harry losing the hotel, but it’s like talking a sponge so Zack Morris decides to go to bed. When Screech tries to film Zack Morris sleeping, he throws a pillow at Screech, and we get another of those awkward pauses.
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The next day at the beach, Screech films random shit, gets bit by a crab, and threatened by Lisa, the only other person on the beach, to get the fucking camera out of her face before she kills him.
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A group of native Hawaiians come onto the beach and declare that it is him…
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…and promptly swarm and kidnap Screch.
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When Lisa half-halfheartedly protests that they’re taking away the least competent member of the cast, the group kidnaps her as well to eliminate any witnesses to the perfect crime no one will ever want to investigate!
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Back at the hideaway, Kelly meets Harry’s lawyer, Brian Hanson, Harry’s lawyer who’s been working for Harry for free for the past two years. Kelly greets her obvious love interest for the film who I’m sure is not going to totally turn out to be a villain, and Brian says that there’s nothing they can do about Royal Pacific as they’re within their rights to harass a smaller hotel out of business.
Zack Morris comes in with an idea: for the gang to work for Harry at the Hideaway so he can stay afloat.
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Then Slater and Jessie come in with the same idea. I guess the writers of The New Class came in next but decided to store it away for the third season ski lodge episodes instead. Fuck me, The New Class really doesn’t have an original bone in their body.
Brian says that, in order to stay in business, Harry will need to fill the Hideaway to capacity for the next two weeks. Zack Morris says to leave it to them as they have a relationship with a certain plot contrivance down at the Royal Pacific.
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Meanwhile, the native Hawaiians bring Screech and Lisa to some open land.
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Screech decides it’s time to do something he thinks is intimidating but wouldn’t even intimidate a badly written Saved by the Bell extra, so he raises his finger and makes weird sounds. This has the expected reaction of making the Hawaiians bow down in reverence to Screech.
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Yes, Screech is their idol or some shit. Yeah, this is the Pukuku tribe and they say their former chief left to find snow (yeah, in Hawaii) but promised his descendant would return one day and help them reclaim their land from the Royal Pacific Hotel which just happens to be the evil corporation in this episode. They think Screech is their messiah, come to rescue them from the evils of bad subplots!
Gag me. Gag me now. Also, way to create a fake Hawaiian tribe by rhyming syllables that sound like “fu.” God, I hope this isn’t going to be as stupid as it sounds.
Lisa tries to tell them the truth: that their god makes George W. Bush look like Albert Einstein by comparison, but the Pukuku won’t listen to reason, insisting that ignorance is bliss, and decide it’s time for a bit of idol worship in the Saved by the Bell universe.
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Back at the Hideaway, the gang see the Pukuku carrying Screech back as a god to the Hideaway. Harry and Brian say that “Pukuku” is Polynesian for “idiot fringe” and the Puuku rush off to drive their cabs in happiness knowing their god is the biggest idiot in the world.
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At the Royal Pacific, Zack Morris finds out the principals are on the twelfth floor. He sends Kelly and Lisa to deal with some principals on the beach while the rest of the gang rush to the twelfth floor for Plan Be a Dick.
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See, in Plan Be a Dick, Slater dresses up like a hotel employee, eats one of the principal’s breakfasts on the spot…
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…and then delivers it with a slice of bacon and toast, outraging the portly principal, especially when Slater demands a 30% tip and then takes the rest of the breakfast when the principal refuses to comply.
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Jessie pretends to be a maid and chases one elderly female principal out of her room while she’s still in her nightgown.
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Kelly and Lisa instigate a scare of sharks in the water so that people will trample each other to visions of Jaws.
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And Zack Morris and Screech do a copyright infringement impersonation of Wayne and Garth from Wayne’s World that really should have seen them sued by Mike Myers and Dana Carvey. They pretend to fumigate this room with skunk stench to scare out the occupants for the next twelve hours.
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Operation Be a Dick complete, Zack Morris and Screech meet Andrea in the elevator, who just happens, in yet another funny coincidence, to work at the Royal Pacific. Zack Morris asks to meet Andrea after their plan is finished, but Andrea says she doesn’t want to commit statutory rape. Zack Morris says he can’t stop thinking about her and she tells him to go masturbate and feel better
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The gang join Mr. Belding for the breakfast buffet just as the other principals come up and blindly express outrage that Mr. Belding booked them at the Royal Pacific. Mr. Belding doesn’t think anything’s up that the gang just happen to be there when this chaos is taking place.
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Meanwhile, turns out that Derek is the son of the owner of the Royal Pacific and insists on having breakfast with Andrea despite the fact she needs to be at work since his wants and needs automatically trump those of the hotel guests and other employees. Andrea quickly capitulates, but not before saying no to his proposition for a nooner.
Derek sees the chaos with the principals and they all demand to be booked somewhere other than the Royal Pacific. Derek gives up really quickly with, “Who needs these people anyway?”
Mr. Belding wonders where he’ll find another hotel with forty rooms and the gang suggest Mr. Belding book the principals at the Hideaway since that will be a convenient way to get the main plot going. Lucky for him, I guess the Royal Pacific was nice enough to just give him a full refund when he and his group randomly leave, something no hotel would ever do in real life.
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The principals arrive at the Hideaway as Brian starts flirting with Kelly and insinuating he doesn’t share Andrea’s aversion to statutory rape. Also, Screech remembers that some unfortunate Hawaiian tribe is counting on him to save their land. Oh, any other time this would mean that the tribe is going to lose their land for sure.
Mr. Belding finds out the gang are the staff at the Hideaway and has reservations for some reason whether he can actually pull off a decent set of activities for the principals. Zack Morris tells Mr. Belding not to worry despite the fact he has five years of experience with this group of teenagers that tells him he should worry. After all, with a mere hour left in this film, what could possibly go wrong?
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Well, there’s reason to worry right away when a group of the principals let Zack Morris and Screech take them on an ocean expedition.
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Screech, being a confirmed dumb ass, manages to fall off the boat almost right away. Oh, Screech, you’re such a moron.
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Slater tries to teach another group how to throw a net into the ocean…for some reason. I assume he’s supposed to be teaching them how to fish but it’s never really made clear. In any case, he throws a net over and it snags Mr. Belding who just happened to be randomly swimming in that exact same spot! This makes Slater look like an idiot and not Mr. Belding because the plot demands it.
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Jessie’s on kitchen duty since it’s funny she’s feminist and has to do traditional women’s gender roles and shit. Naturally, she sucks ass at cooking a ham, even with a recipe.
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Kelly and Lisa teach an assembeld group how to hula dance but didn’t find out anything about hula dancing and that one makes a story with their hands while dancing, so they teach the principals how to do “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” Classy to Hawaiian culture there, girls. The hulaing principals seem to eat it up, though, since it’s not integral to the plot yet.
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Back at sea, Zack Morris can’t get the boat to turn over. Yeah, turns out Zack Morris, in another instance of never learning from his mistakes, trusted Screech to check the gas, who decided not to do something so simple and common sense. Also, Screech isn’t wet from falling into the ocean because he has Marty McFly’s self-drying clothes from Back to the Future II.
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Lucky for Zack Morris, Andrea just happens to be driving by on her own boat at that very moment and agrees to tow them in since she won’t have much of a plot if Zack Morris dies at sea.
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Back on land, we finally meet our arch-villain of the movie only thirty-five minutes in, Charles Worthington, the owner of the Royal Pacific and the evil industrialist who wants to tear down the Hideaway. The producers must have thought he made a good villain here because he’s the same guy who played Mr. McMillan, the evil Bayside alumn who never got laid so he wanted to get the school shut down in The New Class two-parter “Goodbye Bayside.” He just likes being a dick to people for little justification, doesn’t he?
Mr. Worthington and Derek confer with a construction worker over plans to tear down the Hideaway and you can tell he’s a construction worker because he’s wearing a hard had and holding blueprints and wearing bad thrift store clothes. Mr. Worthington is convinced owning the Hideaway is a done deal since they haven’t had any customers in so long, and that’s when the construction worker spots Andrea towing in the Hideaway’s boat.
Mr. Worthington tells Derek he better get his girlfriend to respect his authority and not be nice to anybody.
On dock, Zack Morris thanks Andrea for saving him, a damsel in distress, and asks if they can have lunch tomorrow. Derek comes up raving like a mad man and Andrea speeds off in the boat so she can have as little contact with Derek as possible. She does, though, agree to have lunch with Zack Morris tomorrow since that’s the only way we’re ever going to advance the plot.
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The principals aren’t happy with how the day’s gone, though, and they say the dinner better be fucking good or else they’re going to create more conflict!
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The gang find that Jessie’s managed to cook a pre-cooked ham for seven hours because she sucks at life and there’s no way they can serve this to their guests.
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Lucky, at that very moment, the Pukuku come in with a stew for their idiot god and his friends which doesn’t taste bad. Harry and the gang decide that this is their only way out so they decide to serve the stew to their guests.
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Lucky, the guests love the stew and there’s no jokes about it being made from pig testicles or anything! Score one for a good ending to a really stupid day at the Hideaway!
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Brian shows up to see how their day’s gone and invites Kelly out to see Honolulu. You know, I think this is the first time we’ve actually been told where in Hawaii they are. Way to wait forty minutes into the film before revealing where in Hawaii this takes place instead of leaving it as “Random Hawaiian Place.” Also, is there an implication in the middle of all this that the Royal Pacific and the Hideaway are the only two hotels in all of Honolulu? I think the producers have about as good a grasp of Honolulu as they had previously on Indianapolis.
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The next day, Slater, Jessie, and Screech lead a group of principals on a trip to a cultural center to see an exhibit on Polynesian history. Lucky for them, Slater doesn’t need a license to drive a bus full of people in this universe! We get some more scenery of Hawaii to remind us that, yes, we are indeed in Hawaii in case you fell asleep and forgot what you were watching. Jessie, acting as navigator, finds what she believes to be a shortcut on the map to the center, and nothing could possibly go wrong with this!
Also, we randomly cut to Lisa shopping…for some reason that’s not explained for a few more minutes.
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On their lunch date, Zack Morris and Andrea have their date, and Zack Morris tells Andrea all about himself: about how he likes to dress in drag randomly and date his idiotic friends and shit like that. He’s ashamed of his Indiana heritage, though, because he leaves out the part where he lived in Indianapolis and moved to LA with his friends and his principal and found new parents. He also claims to have been born in LA.
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Kelly, on her date with a much older man, is quickly wooed by his efforts to seduce her. He decides to bring up an obvious question: what will happen after the gang leaves and Harry can’t keep going. He thinks Harry ought to sell the Hideaway and move back to LA to be close to his family even though Kelly once said that she had an uncle in Hawaii so why wouldn’t Harry just go live with him? Oh, yeah, because the writers can’t keep up with their already established bullshit.
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Jessie’s shortcut leads the bus to a dead end because, once again, Jessie sucks at life. The principals all wonder why they have to work in the same state as these idiots.
Back at Zack Morris’s date, Andrea doesn’t seem to want to talk about herself, saying she needs to get back, but Zack Morris tightens the screws on her and makes her talk about her and Derek. Why would she date a douche like Derek when she could date a dickhead like Zack Morris? He tries to kiss her and she says she really needs to go before she gets caught up in a zany plot not of her making. She says it’s a bad idea for them to get together and, when he asks why, she says to walk her back to the hotel. They proceed to abandon all their picnic stuff for Yogi Bear to find and trot hand in hand back to the Royal Pacific, Andrea seemingly forgetting minute by minute that, yes, we’ve established several times that she’s already dating Derek.
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Slater manages to back into a hole just wide enough to trap the bus (how convenient!) and he and Jessie fight over who’s the more incompetent one in the relationship!
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Derek drops Kelly back off at the Hideaway where they kiss and the audience would lose their shit over illegal love, that is if there was an audience. Kelly says she’s going to talk to Harry about the Hideaway before the guests get back, and our not obvious at all double agent contemplates how he went from doing soap operas to Saved by the Bell films.
In case you forgot we’re in Hawaii, we get yet some more scenes of people doing random beach stuff in Hawaii to remind us that, yes, we are actually in Hawaii in case you just tuned in and thought we were in LA during a movie called Hawaiian Style.
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Andrea introduces Zack Morris to her daughter, Jennifer, and, though he’s initially shocked that people in the Saved by the Bell universe can procreate, he quickly gets over this aversion to the existence of children and introduces himself to Jennifer. Good thing he got over this shock of the possibility of childbirth before he got stuck in an elevator with a birthing Mrs. Belding!
In his office, Mr. Worthington chews out an unseen accomplice for allowing there to be guests at the Hideaway and possible complications to his evil, dastardly plans. And are you ready for the big reveal they’ve been building up to for the last minute? You won’t believe it!
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Yes, Brian is working for Mr. Worthington and using Kelly and Harry to ensure Mr. Worthington’s evil plan goes off with no problems! How shocking! I didn’t predict this at all when he was first introduced in the movie! Gee, I need to go take a break and contemplate how well done that plot twist really is! It ranks up there with the ending of The Sixth Sense or Darth Vader being Luke’s father!
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Back on the beach, Zack Morris manhandles Jennifer and builds her sandcastles and shit. Jennifer thinks Zack Morris makes a really good sandcastle building slave and wants to know when she can force Zack Morris to do stuff for her again and he says that’s up to her mom.
Andrea gives Zack Morris the full story: she met Jennifer’s father in high school. They fucked and didn’t want to get married so, four years later, here she is as a single mom hoping to mooch off Derek to give Jennifer a better life. Zack Morris tells Andrea that Derek’s being a huge poopey face to the Hideaway and Andrea refuses to believe that a character as honest and morally upstanding as Derek would do something so sinister, blaming it instead on Mr. Worthington.
Jennifer wants Zack Morris to come to dinner with them that night but she reminds him that they’re having dinner with Mr. Poopey Face himself. Zack Morris invites them to the luau at the Hideaway tomorrow night instead and Andrea says she’ll let him know. Zack Morris leaves to get back to work, secured in the knowledge that his relationship plot is finally coming to fruition nearly two-thirds of the way through the film.
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Back at the Hideaway, Kelly tells Harry that it might be time to sell the Hideaway. Harry’s naturally resistant to sell his business since that would make for a pretty shitty climax to the film, but Harry promises he’ll think about it.
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Slater and Jessie come in fighting and muddy and talk about the day they’ve had. Mr. Belding’s also muddy and says that the principals are so fed up with this incompetence they want to leave the Hideaway. But where will they go with no other options in Honolulu?!?! Zack Morris promises Mr. Belding his group will love the luau. Mr. Belding says they better or else his group will pull out for sure, meaning that Harry will have to sell the Hideaway.
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Lisa comes in with forty TV dinners. Yes, she was apparently supposed to be on kitchen duty that day but went shopping instead. Gee, I wish they’d explained that to us, the viewer, earlier before they randomly inserted footage of her shopping. Also, she’s overjoyed to find out that she’s won $100 since Slater and Jessie are now fighting. And thus ends the “Slater and Jessie try not to fight” subplot.
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I guess everything must have went smoothly throughout the entire night and next day because it’s already time for the luau, folks! Zack Morris, Slater, and random Native Hawaiian blow through shells…
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While Screech dressed in an insultingly bad getup that I guess is supposed to make him look like a chief to the Pukuku but really makes him look even stupider than usual. Unfortunately, Zack Morris, still not learning from past mistakes, trusted Screech to bury the pig. The Pukuku start digging up the pig but, when they can’t find it, he realizes he forgot where he buried it. Zack Morris fights the urge to kill Screech and instead tells the principals they’re going to start the stage show while Screech figures out what he did with the pig.
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We get a montage of a stage show involving fire and stuff. Good thing playing the drums seems to be one of the gang’s many skills.
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And, look, Andrea and Jennifer made it to the luau after all! The little girl gets to be scarred by the gang after all!
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Back stage, Zack Morris and Slater dress for the next act and Slater tries to talk some sense into Zack Morris about dating an older woman with a child in a state hundreds of miles away from his home who he’s only known for a few days, one of the only times we ever get someone who doesn’t think statutory rape is awesome on this show. Zack Morris is all, “I don’t need reason and shit! I’m more in love with Andrea than even Kelly,” thus invalidating all the stupid shit he said about Kelly a few weeks ago in “Senior Prom.” I always wonder if the producers of this show realized at the time just how much of an ass they made Zack Morris out to be.
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The girls have a similar conversation since Kelly’s not sure she should date yet another older man who this time is even old enough that he’s graduated law school already! Lisa and Jessie convince Kelly that it’s awesome older men like her and she should just put out before they steal Brian from him. She sees their logic and decides that she might as well do it!
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Screech, realizing that he can’t keep living on his fucking insanity forever, brings in a random dog he must have stolen from someone on the street and gets the dog to sniff out where the ham is. Better hope it’s a ham and not a dead body or a bomb that’s going to get you wrapped up in an episode of Baywatch Hawaii!
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We go into our final thirty minutes with some sexual arousal for everyone! Well, except for the asexuals that is. You’ll just have to do with this gripping plot line with an obvious ending. The girls do a hula dance in costumes that were still lying around from “Aloha Slater” while Zack Morris and Slater have taken their shirts off. Lucky for us, Screech is occupied with digging up the pig so he’s not around to strip as well, for once. Electric guitar randomly starts playing during the dance despite there not being an electric guitar anywhere in the vicinity and our principals join in dancing the night away.
Screech comes out and announces he’s found the pig so they can now finally eat instead of suffering because of his idiocy.
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Harry’s beyond happy at how great things are going and says it’s just like old times. Brian’s face betrays that he’s not happy at how well Zack Morris’s plan is working but, then again, he’s probably not watched enough Saved by the Bell to realize that nothing Zack Morris does can ever go wrong. Unfortunately, I have.
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Zack Morris asks Jennifer what her favorite part of the show was, and she says when Screech fell on the pig. Yeah, I don’t blame you kid. Any opportunity to see physical pain inflicted on Screech is always great for me as well. Andrea says they had a great time but now she needs to get Lindsay to bed. Zack Morris walks Andrea to the car, carrying Jennifer in his arms, obviously still hoping she’ll fall asleep so he can get a little something something from her mother.
Mr. Belding tells Harry that he has nothing to worry about now because the luau was such a success the principals have magically forgotten about the rest of the incompetence displayed over the last hour. Harry tells Kelly that he thought about what she said but knows that, after seeing all these happy faces, knows that he wants to be here and isn’t ready to give up. She says she understands as Brian comes up spouting more bullshit about Kelly’s beauty.
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Slater and Jessie pay up to Lisa, who rushes off to spend her newly earned money at the mall, which she says is open for another hour. Geez, how late do malls stay open in Honolulu? Does Hawaii have twenty-four hour malls I’ve just never heard about? In any case, Slater and Jessie argue some more about whose fault it is they lost a bunch of money to Lisa in the most predictable way possible. I’d say the writers of this film. They’re probably the most to blame.
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After placing a now-sleeping Jennifer in the car, Zack Morris kisses Andrea, meaning he’s now at least to third base with her in this universe. Zack Morris asks when he can see Andrea again, and she says anytime. If she knew Zack Morris better, she’d realize that could possibly mean 4:00 am while she’s showering the dirty things she’s done that night off her body.
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Kelly walks Brian to his car, having told him of Harry’s decision off screen. Brian says he respects Harry’s decision and will do everything in his power to help Harry until the end. They kiss, and Kelly’s barely off screen before Brian calls Mr. Worthington and telling him of these developments, assuring his evil master that he has a backup plan to put the Hideaway out of business involving a showdown on the loan extension. Unfortunately for Brian, Lisa got lost on the way to the mall and somehow ended up behind his car but outside his line of vision.
The next day, it’s been too long since we had a montage of scenes from Hawaii to remind us that, yes, indeed, we really are in Hawaii, guys, we promise! Highlights include Zack Morris surfing, the gang playing football, Zack Morris and Andrea harassing Jennifer, and the gang playing tug-o-war, pulling Mr. Belding and Screech into some water in the process.
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The real highlights come from Screech’s incompetence to deal with life, like riding his bicycle with no hands…
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or ruining a game of volleyball by idiotically falling on the net….
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…or floating in the middle of the ocean on a floatie and having to be pulled in by a random guy. Yeah, I’m pretty sure if there’s anything I ever learned from Baywatch, it’s that pool toys are not allowed in the ocean, for very good reason. Maybe the lifeguards allowed it because they were hoping Screech would be pulled out to sea.
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At the bank, Harry pays the bank manager the money he currently owes on the loan. He says he owes the rest of the money on the loan, though. Brian tells the manager that they filed for an extension on the loan, which the manager says he never received. Brian was supposed to have sent in the papers but blames it on Harry, saying he was supposed to do it.
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Mr. Worthington and Derek, also customers at this same bank, rush into a private meeting which I’m sure isn’t a conflict of interest at all. The manager tells Mr. Worthington that Harry is on the brink of foreclosure because nothing says above board like telling your customer’s private information to a competitor directly in front of him. Mr. Worthington tries to get Harry to sell again.
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At the Hideaway, Harry calls an emergency meeting of all the principal characters minus our villains to discuss the situation. Andrea offers to talk to Derek and his father, but Harry says that he’s already agreed to the sell to avoid losing everything. Mr. Belding says that, having such a minor role in the film, he just can’t understand how the Worthingtons maneuvered Harry into a place where he’d have to sell. Lisa suddenly thinks that the nefarious plan she heard Brian talking about may be worth mentioning. Kelly’s first reaction is, naturally, to get pissed off that Lisa was watching them smooch. Yeah, priorities there, Kelly. Harry realizes that Lisa’s on to something and, when he finds out it was Brian’s idea for Kelly to convince him to sell the Hideaway, our assembled main characters realize what I did seventy minutes ago: Brian’s not a good guy.
Kelly suddenly comes around to priorities and wants to cut his dick off and stick it in his mouth. Zack Morris encourages her to wait, though, as he wants to do what he does best: manipulate people to get what he wants. Since Brian doesn’t know yet that they realize he’s in on the plot, Zack Morris believes he could be the perfect center of a Zack Morris plan to keep Harry from having to give up the Hideaway. Screech mentions the Pukuku and their land deed, and Zack Morris realizes the way to go is to convince Brian and the Worthingtons that the Pukuku have a deed that prevents them from building on the land.
After a commercial break, Kelly and Brian drive to a random university for a meeting with a professor who’s an expert on Polynesian culture and supposedly has a parchment with a land deed on it that the Pukuku discovered.
Who’s the professor you ask?
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Why, Mr. Belding in a bad wig and bow tie of course! After all, since Mr. Belding hasn’t had that much of a role in this film, the writers wanted to give him one more scene so he can act ridiculously and, I have to give it to Dennis Haskins, it’s probably one of the better scenes in this movie. Mr. Belding convinces Brian that the parchment is real and that the Royal Pacific built their hotel on land belonging to the Pukuku, meaning the tribe now has the right to sue the Worthingtons for damages. He allows Brian to take the Pukuku’s parchment under the ruse that he’s going to have it tested by another expert to be sure, and Mr. Belding expresses relief after Brian and Kelly leave that he’s not in much more of this film.
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As Brian leaves, telling Kelly that he needs to take care of some business, Andrea signals Lisa who calls Brian as Mr. Worthington’s secretary, saying that he needs to meet with Brian in a half hour. Lisa then calls Mr. Worthington as Brian’s secretary, saying that Brian needs to meet with Mr. Worthington in a half hour. It’s a good thing neither Mr. Worthington nor Brian has ever met the other’s secretary to know what they actually sound like.
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Meanwhile, Slater and Screech enter Mr. Worthington’s office as the Mario Brothers electrician service and tell him he needs to vacate his office for an electrical emergency and so that they can put their end of the plan in motion. Once out of the room, they set up Screech’s video camera in a fake plant. It’s a good thing that all the annoying shit Screech did with his camera actually had a purpose.
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It’s also a good that Screech has access to sophisticated broadcasting equipment because, in another room, he’s able to pick up the video camera on the television and see what’s going on. The rest of the gang and Andrea join them to see Brian show Mr. Worthington the deed. Mr. Worthington burns the deed, saying that, without it, the Pukuku won’t be able to prove that the deed ever existed.
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After another commercial break, the Pukuku protest in front of the Hideaway to save their land, and multiple reporters just happen to be present as Mr. Worthington is there to announce that the extension of the Royal Pacific will open by Easter.
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The gang show Brian the tape, who’s so shocked that they caught all this on camera that he doesn’t even think he could just run off with the evidence.
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Brian interrupts Mr. Worthington during the press conference to show him the tape. Zack Morris tells Mr. Worthington they have the original tape, that the one he’s watching is a copy which…is actually thinking a lot further ahead than most Saved by the Bell plots do. Mr. Worthington says that they can’t prove the land deed was real. Zack Morris counters that he’s right, but that a judge would find it interesting that Mr. Worthington thought enough of the deed to burn it. Zack Morris tells him that he’s to call off the groundbreaking and sell the Hideaway back to Harry at the same price he bought it for. He’s also to leave the Hideaway alone. Mr. Worthington agrees to the terms but says he’ll get his revenge by changing his name and waiting for a much more inferior cast of characters to come along in a couple years so he can have Bayside shut down on their incompetent watch and Zack Morris will have an excuse to come back with a Dawson’s Creek haircut and cry about it.
The only thing left is for comeuppance. Andrea tells Derek to get bent…
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…while Kelly straight up punches Brian! The lesson here is two-fold: don’t mess with Kelly Kapowski and don’t be a creepy guy in his late-twenties stalking girls from California. Brian also gets fired by Mr. Worthington and told he’ll never work on this island again. No mention of Harry, oh, I don’t know, filing fraud charges against Brian, the Worthingtons, and the bank manager for basically swindling him but everything worked out okay because Kelly got to punch Derek.
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A celebration dinner is held that night featuring Screech dancing like a moron.
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Slater and Jessie decide they really love each other so they’re not going to fight anymore for the rest of the trip. Lisa bets them $200 they won’t make it back to the plane before they fight again, and we all know that Lisa won that bet since that’s the only thing they can do.
Screech reveals the Pukuku’s are Harry’s new staff because we needed a happy ending for them despite the fact Screech did jack shit for them besides use them for a bunch of the gang’s plans.
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Harry insisted they would have to hire a manager from outside the tribe. He says he’s hiring Andrea, but only on the condition he gets to pay her five times what she made at the Royal Pacific. She also has to take college classes towards a degree. Andrea wonders how that’s even fucking possible considering she does have a daughter and stuff and Harry tells her not to worry because it won’t matter since they don’t have to figure out how to show it on screen.
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Zack Morris and Andrea go for a walk and Zack Morris says he doesn’t want to say goodbye. Since he’s turning eighteen soon, he wants to quit school and move to Hawaii. Andrea tells her that he has to stay with the franchise two more years so he can end up marrying another girl. He promises, though, that, if all that shit doesn’t work out, he’ll come right back to Hawaii and find her.
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The next day, it’s time to say goodbye, and the Pukuku thank Screech for doing jack shit to help them this entire episode. They will never forget him and will sing the praises forever of the idiot who came to Hawaii and acted a huge jackass.
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Harry and Kelly say a tearful goodbye and they hug goodbye forever since Harry won’t even be at Kelly’s wedding in a couple years.
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Zack Morris and Andrea kiss goodbye quite literally with Jennifer in the middle. Between this and seeing Screech for the last two weeks, poor kid’s going to be scared for life. The gang load into the Hideaway’s car to one more bad original song and a voice over from, of all people, Screech, who bids the audience, “Aloha.”
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And our film ends with the gang driving away and waving goodbye as Peter Engel takes credit for the mixed mess you’ve just witnessed.
Overall impressions: I was pretty bored with the whole thing overall. It feels like an extended episode with no studio audience and lots and lots of unneeded padding. The Slater and Jessie subplot wasn’t needed at all, Lisa is background decoration, and Screech is just around to act with his usual jackassery. It had its moments and, I have to admit, the plan to get Mr. Worthington to sell the Hideaway back to Harry was pretty ingenious, though it would have fallen apart had Mr. Worthington not burned the fake deed, but these moments were few and far between in the film and I found myself getting so bored just having to sit through much of this crap. I get why they were trying to do a feature length film; I just wish they had gotten someone competent to produce it.
Also, I’m not kidding, this film can’t possibly be canonical unless the gang just had unlimited energy that summer. I wonder if the writers realize that it paints Zack Morris a sociopathic asswipe who got over Stacey in just a few weeks and later lied and said he had never loved anyone more than Kelly. Yeah, I’m going to assume they didn’t think through how they were characterizing their protagonist, like usual.
Thanks for suffering through this review with me! Next week, we’re back for the final stretch of season four of Saved by the Bell!
Firsts: Film, leaving the continental United States.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Oct 1, 2015 5:53:51 GMT
Saved by the Bell Season 4, Episode 26: “Graduation”
So I guess Zack Morris’s scheme to replace the normal yearbooks with video yearbooks only lasted as long as it was a plot point because we see all kinds of people getting autographs in their yearbooks in the opening at The Max. Seriously, this could have been the perfect opportunity for lots of subtle references to previous episodes for people like us who pay way too much attention to the details of these episodes, but we apparently have more important things to do, like one more foray into the administerial incompetence that is Bayside.
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Our gang’s excited because they’re done with their last final exam and Screech is a moron like usual, which makes what’s to come seem even more far-fetched.
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Jessie’s super pumped because, if she got an A on the final, she’ll be valedictorian and, since intelligence and quasi-feminism are Jessie’s primary two attributes, this would be the best thing in the world for her. Lisa tells her to fuck off with her fake humble bragging while Kelly’s bummed that their high school career is soon to be over.
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Sylvester, Pete, and Ollie come around to remind the girls to be on time for ballet rehearsal. Like usual, our gang is involved in every possible extracurricular activity so naturally they’re also involved in ballet. I’m more confused by Ollie’s sudden reappearance, though. I’m pretty sure this is his first actual appearance in an episode this season. They brought him back for the series finale but they couldn’t be bothered to bring back any real memorable guest stars?
Zack Morris has to run because Mr. Belding wants to see him. He figures Mr. Belding’s going to miss Zack Morris so much he wants to give him a goodbye blow job so he rushes off to see his soon-to-be former principal.
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In Mr. Belding’s office, Mr. Belding reveals the real reason he wanted to see Zack Morris: incompetence. You see, during Zack Morris’s sophomore year, he apparently dropped a class. In the two years that followed, no one bothered to warn him that this lack of a credit would prevent him from graduating and apparently Bayside doesn’t do any graduation audits until it’s too late to do anything about it so Zack Morris is just screwed. He has to go to summer school all because Bayside apparently has the worst administrators on the face of the planet.
Yeah, I don’t find myself defending Zack Morris very often, but this is fucking bull shit and I’m pretty sure Mr. Belding would be fired for allowing such a thing to happen under his watch, but we haven’t given a damn what high schools are really like for the past four years so why start now?
In the hallway, the rest of the gang find out about Zack Morris’s predicament and, in the usual contrived Saved by the Bell fashion, the girls say it’s a shame Zack Morris isn’t in their dance class since the recital counts as the final and isn’t until Friday. This is despite the fact that, two minutes ago, they were super excited to be finished with their last final. So far this is painful as a series finale or a regular episode.
After the rest leave, Zack Morris tells Slater he has a plan to get into the recital. He returns to Mr. Belding’s office under the pretense of asking for advice on a course to take during summer school.
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While there, Pete comes in and tells Mr. Belding he pulled a muscle during rehearsal and won’t be able to be in the recital. This upsets Mr. Belding since everyone worked so hard.
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Of course, in the hallway, it’s revealed that, predictably, Pete isn’t hurt at all but pretended at the beckoning of Zack Morris and Slater, all for a Letterman jacket because that’s incentive to just quit something you’ve been working really hard on. But this is the Saved by the Bell universe so everything has to work out for Zack Morris in the end no matter what the other students at Bayside have to give up.
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Mr. Belding, depressed and desperate to save the recital, says it’s too bad Zack Morris doesn’t have dance experience. Zack Morris claims he’s been taking dance lessons for the last ten years. Mr. Belding promises Zack Morris that, if he dances in the recital, Mr. Belding will makes sure he gets the credit he needs to graduate. After all, Mr. Belding’s been incompetently administering this school up to this point so why care about the fact that a final exam is only part of the final grade now?
At the recital, the nerds suck up to Jessie for no reason, asking for an extra special ass kissing message in their yearbooks from the soon to be valedictorian. Jessie eats up the attention of people she barely paid attention to the last three years her head is practically ready to explode.
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Mr. Lazaar, the dance teacher, introduces Zack Morris as their replacement dancer and, with the girls still in disbelief, Zack Morris immediately starts sucking at dancing, but not nearly as much as a certain inferior gang a few years later.
Also, Sylvester has the sniffles. Yes, this is actually going to play into the plot in a few minutes.
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In Mr. Belding’s office, Lisa shows Mr. Belding the “B” medallion she’s made for the valedictorian to wear. She’s even had Lisa try it on for size. Mr. Belding, continuing in his theme of incompetence for this episode, doesn’t follow education privacy laws so he flat out tells Lisa that Jessie isn’t the valedictorian.
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Yes, that’s right, the stupidest, most incompetent student at Bayside beat out Jessie for valedictorian by a tenth of a point. Screech, proving how stupid he is, runs out of the office insisting he won’t accept the valedictorian and tells Mr. Belding to find another one. I’m pretty sure that’s not how valedictorian works. He’s still valedictorian even if he refuses to give a speech. But why start making sense now.
Lisa chases Screech into the hallway where he says he knows how important the honor is to Jessie so he won’t take it over her. He makes Lisa promise not to tell Jessie that Screch refused to be the valedictorian.
Mr. Belding comes out and delivers bad contrived news to the gang: the nerds are sick so they have to cancel the recital after all. The girls will be graded on their attendance and work to this point but, for Zack Morris, that means that, once again he needs to find a way to earn his credit.
Also, Mr. Belding tells Jessie she’s the valedictorian and, for once, doesn’t violate privacy laws by telling her the reason why.
Mr. Belding and Mr. Lazaar agree that, if Zack Morris can find replacements for the ailing nerds, the recital can go on. Gee, I wonder who’s going to fill in?
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At the recital, we find out Zack Morris’s plan to save the recital: put Slater and Screech in place of the ailing nerds, Screech in a giant red chicken costume. The performance actually doesn’t suck as much as one would expect, especially given that I’ve already reviewed The New Class‘s take on this scene, but Screech in that costume is just terrifying. He even throws eggs into the audience afterwards because…Saved by the Bell has no clue what ballet is really like?
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In the hallway afterwards, this is apparently the first time people haven’t walked out on a ballet performance at Bayside so everyone gets As and Zack Morris gets to graduate. The gang reminisce as they realize this may be their final time loitering in the hallway, but Zack Morris is all, “Fuck Bayside! I’m never coming back unless a rich industrialist we met in Hawaii wants to close the school, but what’s the chances of that happening?” Also, we finally find out that Screech choose to go to Cal U and that he’s upset he won’t have any company there. Oh, Screech, you’re only going to be at Cal U for a year so what the fuck does it matter?
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The rest of the gang conveniently leave Jessie and Lisa alone, where Jessie talks smack about Screech. Lisa lets it slip out that Screech gave up being valedictorian for her and, as Lisa walks away after telling off Jessie, Jessie is obviously moved by Screech’s sacrifice for her.
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And it’s time for the final Saved by the Bell scene: the actual graduation. Mr. Belding says he has more memories involving this class over the last four years than any other class and he’s sure his experiences with them will serve him well as he violates boundaries like never before over the next seven seasons.
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Jessie gets up to give her valedictorian speech but, instead, says that Screech is the real valedictorian and brings him up on stage to honor him. Screech says that he’s not much of a speech person so he brings Zack Morris up on stage to give a speech. Of course, Mr. Belding does nothing to stop all this because it’s completely normal to just randomly bring people on stage during graduation. Why, let’s just allow the whole senior class give speeches while we’re at it!
Zack Morris says he didn’t realize how much Bayside meant to him until it was time to graduate, meaning that, in the space of a scene, he’s resolved his conflict off screen about not giving a shit about Bayside. This would have been a much more interesting plot than the whole ballet thing but why start writing good, compelling stories now when we can just have character development happen off screen and have the characters tell us about it later?
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Mr. Lazaar helps Mr. Belding pass out diplomas because why bring back any of the iconic regular teachers like Miss Simpson, Mr. Dewey, Mr Tuttle, or Miss Wentworth to help out when we can just have a guy help out we only met this episode? God, I hate how cheap this show is sometimes. It’s also a good thing that Bayside doesn’t hand out their diplomas in a sensible alphabetical order and just does it randomly for the most dramatic effect. Jesus Christ, is there nothing about high school this show can get right?
The extras from this episode go first of course, followed by the gang in reverse credits order, each having an emotional reaction to receiving their diploma. Tori and anyone else not having a role in the episode apparently fail to graduate because no one except our six main characters matter in the slightest when i comes to this show.
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Zack Morris and Mr. Belding finally give the audience their long-awaited embrace, hoping for more at the after party. Mr. Belding tells Zack Morris that he know Zack Morris will turn out to be something special and he hopes to be around to see it. Too bad he’ll be with an inferior cast who won’t turn out to be anything special at all.
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Zack Morris gives us the final monologue of the season, proclaiming that the state of California has actually seen fit to grant him a high school diploma despite the fact that the closet he ever came to learning anything at Bayside was when he did a project on his fake Native American ancestry.
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And our episode, our season, and our series ends with our gang and the assembled extras cheering and tossing their hats into the air as we freeze on Peter Engel’s name one more time.
This was pretty bad for a series finale. I wanted something special, not just your run of the mill episode with a half-baked unbelievable plot written by people who never went to high school, much less understand how it functions. I guess this is the mediocre ending we get, though, as Saved by the Bell fades off into the sunset.
And, so, that’s it for Saved by the Bell. It’s hard to believe but this is it for our original series. Don’t worry, though. I’ll have a recap of season four on Wednesday. Also, there’s still three and a half seasons of The New Class left to go so I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. And that’s about it, right?
Oh, yeah. Join me again next Friday as we learn how Zack Morris, Slater, Screech, and Kelly fair in college as we join our gang on The College Years.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Oct 1, 2015 5:54:14 GMT
Saved by the Bell Season 4 Recap
Season four of Saved by the Bell is simultaneously the weirdest and least consistent of the seasons. Pretty much every source from interviews to documentaries to the Lifetime biopic each confirm that this was intended to be the shortest season since the first season but NBC, at the last moment, decided to expand the number of episodes for maximum profit. This would normally be a disastrous move but, as we’ll see, it didn’t turn out as bad as it could have…or as bad as most people remember.
This is a complicated season to recap as well since the twenty-six episodes fit into four categories, none of which really have anything to do with one another: Kelly-Jessie episodes, Tori episodes, clip show episodes, and out of season episodes. I’ll deal with the first two categories in a moment. All I’ll say about the clip show episodes is they’re horrible, each more terrible than the last, and completely worth skipping unless you have a penchant for the most boring episodes of the series. They’re not even worth putting in my bottom episodes list because they’re not even real episodes. I won’t talk much about the out of season episodes but they will come up later.
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The Kelly-Jessie episodes are the eleven that were intended to air this season. They were considered to be an epilogue for the series, featuring the gang’s senior year and providing some closure as to the series. And, to say the least, these episodes were underwhelming. They were so all over the map and provided no character development that lasted longer than an episode. Zack Morris and Lisa date…and then never speak of it again. Screech dates Punky Brewster and then break up with her. Slater and Jessie & Zack Morris and Kelly renew their relationships and redeclare their love for one another…and then never mention it again. With the exceptions of “The Fight” and “Graduation,” I really can’t understand the purpose of most of these episodes.
This doesn’t even take into account how stupid many of these episodes are. A square dance senior prom would bring open rebellion from the students. Nobody cares about Screech’s love life or his spaghetti sauce. And we get a completely unbelievable excuse to put Zack Morris in charge of the school and a resolution to the plot that left a Donald Trump presidency looking plausible by comparison. All of our favorite characters were really at their worst in these episodes, as we’ll discuss more in characterization. If these had been the only episodes of the season, this would have been my least favorite of the series.
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The Tori episodes are the ones usually remembered as bad and I think the reason has been voiced by many people in the comments: many people were bitter that Tori replaced Kelly and Jessie. And I will be the first to say she’s not a good replacement for Kelly and Jessie. With that being said, she’s not bad as people make her out to be and, more surprising, the episodes featuring her this season are of a higher quality overall than the Kelly-Jessie episodes. Even the worst Tori episodes, like “Day of Detention” and “School Song” are a lot better than the worst Kelly-Jessie episodes. Tori brought something different to the series and, for that, I’m impressed.
It’s even more impressive considering these episodes were kind of ordered at the last minute to pad out the season. The writers could have very easily just blow off these episodes and not done crap with them and, though we would have hated the episodes, we wouldn’t have been able to blame them. Instead we got some high quality episodes that aged well and are enjoyable. There’s faults with the episodes, like every Saved by the Bell episode, but, with the possible exception of continuity issues, the faults are easy to overlook.
Where and how exactly these episodes fit in is another matter entirely. Kelly and Jessie don’t seem to exist in the Tori episodes. This has lead to lots of fan speculation, from the idea that they take place in a parallel universe to Chuck Klosterman’s theory that Zack Morris and the gang just weren’t hanging out with Kelly and Jessie during these episodes. I have trouble accepting either explanation because of some continuity problems during the season. Slater has a new magic sister, Lisa doesn’t seem to remember that she dated Zack Morris earlier in the season, Slater doesn’t seem to remember Zack Morris’s relationships with Kelly and Stacey, and Screech goes back on his promise to stop sexually harassing Lisa. The biggest problem of all, though, is the fact that some elements of the Tori elements find their way into The New Class episodes, including the school song and Little Zack. It’s just impossible to resolve these contradictions. As such, I don’t think there is a satisfactory explanation. It’s just one of those things we have to accept, like the magic move from Indiana to California.
Let’s talk characters.
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Zack Morris is douchey, as usual. This isn’t helped by his competing claims in both Hawaiian Style and “Senior Prom” that he has either loved no one like he did Andrea or no one like he did Kelly. One might excuse this as just being a horny teenager who can’t make up his mind, but he doesn’t reflect on his changing tastes so it’s not clear there is character development. So much on this show is done off camera so you never know, but we need to be able to see it to be sure that it’s real.
Having so many out of season episodes, though, did demonstrate that Zack Morris has grown somewhat. He has more of a conscience than he did during season one and, rather than being a complete sociopath, is only a partial one. After all, he does engage in a pissing match with Slater over multiple girls who aren’t attracted to either of their dumb asses. I continue to fail to believe he was admitted to Yale as well and am convinced the writers don’t understand college admissions requirements.
He’s at his best in “Earthquake,” taking charge of a bad situation and turning it around. If he was like this in every episode, he might actually be a decent human being. Instead, he’s a caricature because that’s what we’ve gotten used to. Naturally, he’ll probably lose any character growth once he reaches college.
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The number of out of season episodes also shined the spotlight for me on how Slater has changed. Whereas Slater started as a rival for Zack Morris, he evolved into a clone of him, with the only discernible difference being a worse taste in fashion. Really, Slater hasn’t had a whole lot to do this season. The problem is he doesn’t have much to do this season. Only two season four episodes focused on him: one on his relationship with his father and the other one on a sister that had never been mentioned before and will never be seen or mentioned again.
Sure, he had a brief flame up of his relationship with Jessie that came the fuck out of nowhere, but that doesn’t really cut it. I miss the rival Slater, and I think that was something this series drastically needed: regular tension that wasn’t always forced through situations and guest stars.
In any case, I can’t hate Slater. He was just there. I don’t believe for a second, though, that, in real life, he would hang out with Zack Morris or Screech. The girls maybe, but not Tweedle Preppy and Tweedle Dumb. In any case, his just being there must have paid off since little girls fought over who made them tingle more: Zack Morris and Slater and, in the end, maybe that’s what Slater contributed the most to Saved by the Bell.
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Screech is a moron and the longer he’s with this franchise, the bigger a moron he is. I’ve decided that Screech’s biggest function this season is to be a walking, talking plot contrivance. Really, the only episode he’s truly the focus of is “Screech’s Spaghetti Sauce” and that episode is fucking stupid. He’s around to tell secrets, to cause drama, and to prevent anyone from dating Lisa except for himself. The fact that someone doesn’t punch him every episode is beyond me.
Really, he’s the court jester, the one who makes the lame ass jokes that make no sense. Despite this, he pushes on, convinced of his own humor, which is not so far from Dustin Diamond in real life. I don’t believe for a second he’s the real valedictorian or that he could really create artificial life. Screech reminds me more of a Ralph Wiggum or Peter Griffin than an Einstein. The fact that he was admitted to multiple Ivy League schools but chooses Cal U instead says it all. No semblance of common sense.
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Kelly hasn’t changed a bit over the past four years. Not a bit. She’s around to be pretty and give all the little boys boners. That’s it. There’s an ample comparison between “Video Yearbook,” an episode produced during season two, and “Senior Prom,” both of which feature Zack Morris doing despicable things to Kelly and both of which lead to Kelly instantly forgiving Zack Morris to get back to the status quo. Really, if it weren’t for her being overly nice, she wouldn’t have a personality at all.
I’m going to say something controversial: I didn’t miss Kelly much during the Tori episodes. She just doesn’t do a lot of important things. She has a role in “Student-Teacher Week” and a major plot in “Senior Prom,” but both plots are only in relation to Zack Morris’s plot. This season, Kelly only does things in conjunction with the rest of the gang. She doesn’t do things on her own.
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Jessie is at her strongest when she’s the moral center of the group, which doesn’t say much considering she’s pretty much a caricature of feminism. This gradually fades over the years until there’s only a handful of instances where she acts as the ethical one. Other than that, her only other discernible character trait is being a psychopath…about everything. Going off on Slater. Believing a t-shirt to be sexist. Wanting to be valedictorian way too much. All signs of an unstable mind.
It’s no wonder Slater’s really her only boyfriend over the course of the series. I mean, you could count her dance partner in “Dancing to the Max,” but that guy just didn’t know what he was getting himself into. She ranks as just slightly more tolerable than Screech but, suffice it to say, I won’t miss her on The College Years. It was time for Jessie to go, even if that exit was only caused by Elizabeth Berkley doing an NC-17 movie.
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Lisa finally got shit to do this season! After spending much of the last three years as just a big plot contrivance as Slater, she actually got to date Zack Morris for an episode, even if that was quickly forgotten in the realm of plots the producers didn’t care to carry over for more than one episode. Not to mention the fact that, in the Tori episodes, she kind of becomes a lead girl, picking up the slack for Kelly and Jessie. It’s the way she should have been used throughout the series.
And, yet, something was still missing. It feels like the producers never took Lisa seriously. Out of all the characters, she shows the most growth over the course of the series, even growing to tolerate Screech, a feat I’ve not yet accomplished. I like Lisa and I wish she had carried on to The College Years.
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Mr. Belding hit his stride in season two and he’s been going downhill ever since. He shows so much incompetence in administrating Bayside this season that one could make the argument it’s foreshadowing things to come in The New Class. At his best, he’s a wise mentor and a foil to Zack Morris. At his worst, he’s the butt of stupid jokes and just kind of existing in limbo within the series: kind of there but kind of not.
Mr. Belding is the one character who shouldn’t have been the focus of too many episodes but I still wish we could have saw the wise caring Mr. Belding more often. He only goes down after this season and it’s hard to believe that Dennis Haskins really thought his character was growing in the right direction. Rather than character growth, I think we saw character decline in Mr. Belding, not quite as drastic as Screech, but there nonetheless.
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A commenter asked me last season to be easy on Tori and judge her on her own merits, not on her legacy within the fandom. Fortunately, this is where never seeing the series before came in handy. Tori was original. If there’s a previous character I’d compare her to in terms of personality, it’s Stacey. She’s brash, independent, and doesn’t take Zack Morris’s shit. Her relationship with Zack Morris was quite sudden and not really developed, but I attribute that to the low number of episodes she was in.
Naturally, her absence from “Graduation” raises questions despite the fact we know the actual reason for her absence: “Graduation” was filmed before Leanna Creel joined the cast. The solution could have been simple: make her a junior and make her the starring character in The New Class as she befriends a new generation of characters. Unfortunately, people rebelled against Tori. She replaced a popular character and she was never going to be accepted because of that.
Tori got a bum wrap. She’s not the best character ever, but she’s not annoying. She doesn’t deserve the reputation she’s received and, I dare say, there were many times I found her more interesting than Kelly or Jessie. We’ll never know what the potential for her character could have been but there were so many things they could have done with her.
As for Leanna Creel, she continued trying to act throughout the nineties but she never landed another major role. Her next best remembered role was as half of Mike Seaver’s love interest in an episode of Growing Pains (she’s actually a triplet; her sisters appeared in that episode as well). According to IMDB, she currently works as President of Production at Ignite Entertainment. In any case, she never shook the fact that she was the most unloved character from Saved by the Bell and, last year, appeared in Bayside: The Musical, partly as a way to find closure in her own experience from Saved by the Bell.
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When I started this blog last year, this was as far as I knew for sure I wanted to go. And here I am. Naturally, it’s morphed into a monster featuring multiple incarnations of the franchise, and I’ve loved it completely. Yet there’s something kind of sad about leaving the original Saved by the Bell behind, even if I know that I’m not leaving the original cast yet. This is the series that people look back on fondly as a nostalgic part of their childhoods. This is the series that made six young faces household icons. There’s something special in that and, though I’m not done with this blog, I’m aware that there’s about to be a shift.
I’m not going to do a grad recap of the entire series. I’m saving that for after The College Years. But I’ve enjoyed the process of really dissecting this series. I hope you have, too. If I have made you smile, think, or notice something new in your favorite childhood show, this blog will have been worth it. I’m sure I missed a lot, but I’m only one person. Hopefully, I’ll inspire some other blogger to write about the things I haven’t. Thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing this blog. It’s been such a rewarding experience for me so far and I’m looking forward to completing the rest of the franchise.
It’s quite clear that the franchise was not intended to continue. The College Years and The New Class were both huge cash grabs as there was a finality about “Graduation,” even if it was ultimately unsatisfying as a series finale. But I move on, now, to Peter Engel’s attempt to keep the Saved by the Bell cash train going.
My Picks:
As usual, I encourage you to agree or disagree with my picks in the comments section below.
Five Episodes I Loved:
1. “Earthquake” (Episode 21): There’s no question in my mind this is the best episode of the season. It showcases Zack Morris simultaneously at his best and worst and really shows him stepping up to help both Mrs. Belding and Tori. The whole gang really steps up in this episode and it was a quite enjoyable, solid episode.
2. “Teen Line” (Episode 6): I don’t buy the concept of the gang running a teen line, but I like this episode for Zack Morris being forced to confront his own prejudices. It actually shows a rare bit of growth on his part and it’s a nice change.
3. “Slater’s Sister” (Episode 16): Ignoring the inconsistent characterization of Zack Morris and the fact Slater’s sister has never been mentioned before, this is actually a pretty good episode on its own. Slater’s animosity about Zack Morris dating his sister is actually a bit justified and it’s nice to see Slater actually do something.
4. “Masquerade Ball” (Episode 7): Another nice Zack Morris growth episode. If only more could be more episodes could be more like this one. On top of this, Tori proves she’s not one to be fucked with and both Zack Morris and Slater receive much earned comeuppance.
5. “The Bayside Triangle” (Episode 5): FINALLY a good Lisa episode. I heard Lark Voorhies and Mark-Paul Gosselaar were actually dating at the time of this episode, and it shows: the chemistry is there and right and I actually found myself rooting for a Zack Morris/Lisa relationship. The only reason this episode doesn’t rank higher is because of Screech’s idiocy. There was no reason for his jealousy and it’s actually stalker-like behavior for him to control Lisa when she’s never shown a bit of interest in him.
Three Episodes I Hated:
1. “Snow White and the Seven Dorks” (Episode 20): I hope whoever thought this would be a good idea for an episode was fired. I never wanted to see a rap version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and it just comes off as completely stupid. If I bought a ticket to the performance, I’d walk out. Oh, and the Zack Morris and Jessie possible romance was so forced it wasn’t even funny.
2. “Screech’s Spaghetti Sauce” (Episode 3): Punky Brewster comes off as a caricature of a gold digger and what’s sad is she really doesn’t do anything worse than Zack Morris has ever done. On top of that, the fact the gang actually believed Screech could make them money just showed how much they never truly learn.
3. “Video Yearbook” (Episode 18): This one is just stupid. If Zack Morris really gave girls’ contact information away to possible delinquents, he’d receive more punishment than a “GOTCHA!” He’s at his worst in this episode and, what’s worse, Screech is just as bad as him and gets no punishment.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Oct 1, 2015 5:54:22 GMT
The First of Its Class: From Sit-com to Icon
Before we take a look at the final episode of the original Saved by the Bell on Friday, I thought we’d take a look at the final bonus feature on the Saved by the Bell DVDs, and it’s, of course, another documentary about how awesome Saved by the Bell is. Three original documentaries on the DVDs. Let’s see if this one has anything new to add.
So, let’s meet our cast for this feature.
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Of course, there’s Peter Engel talking about how brilliant Saved by the Bell is and practically sucking Brandon Tartikoff’s cock posthumously. He’s wearing the same clothes he was in the other two bonus features, which leads me to believe either he has Matlock’s wardrobe or they were all shot on the same day.
I’m also not so sure about his account of the origin of the show since he says Tartikoff was concerned about losing the high end of the cartoon demographic on Saturday mornings. Considering Tartikoff’s original idea was Good Morning, Miss Bliss, which evolved from a raunchy prime time comedy into a Disney Channel original series, I kind of tend to think Engel’s blurring details together in his old age.
Engel claims that, despite research showing nobody would watch Saved by the Bell, within four weeks of it being on the air, 15% of all teen girls were watching the show. He says that, at one point, more kids were watching Saved by the Bell on Saturday morning than The Cosby Show, then the number one show in prime time.
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Bennett Tramer is a new face for this feature. He was the show runner for much of the original series and, damn him, helped develop The New Class. Interestingly, Peter Engel admits that Tramer used to get on his nerves so bad. Tramer says that they really looked for ways to make cliched plots original, like stealing your principal’s car instead of your parents’.
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Jeffrey Sachs was one of the many writers for the original series. Both he and Bennett Tramer are on set at The max, leading me to ask if they actually reconstructed the set just for this feature. Weird…
Sachs talks about the screaming audiences and how frustrating it could be that Saved by the Bell had one of the most easily impressionable audience in the world.
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Carl Kurlander was a writer and producer on The New Class, mostly during the third and fourth seasons. I have no clue why he’s here as The New Class isn’t mentioned once during the feature and he didn’t have anything to do with the original series. I guess they needed another guest to pad it out? In any case, fuck you, Carl Kurlander, for writing The New Class.
Kurlander does talk about the morality aspect of the show and how they tried to deal with the things that kids were really dealing with on the show and showed that things always work out, because that’s a positive message to send to your target demographic when things don’t work out. Also, yes, kids deal with caffeine pill addiction all the time.
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Ellen Seiter is a professor of critical studies at USC and has, perhaps, some of the best insights in the whole thing as to why Saved by the Bell became the phenomenon it has. They should have done the whole thing around her. While the others were shrugging their shoulders and saying, “I don’t know why it was popular,” she actually analyzes the show and gives real reasons for its success.
She talks about how the Saved by the Bell universe is basically utopia: what would high school be like in a universe where everyone basically loved each other and the kids were in charge and, at the same time, it helped kids to understand moral lessons realistically. Basing the situations in the mundane realities of adolescent life was ingenious for the show.
There’s a spread of ages who like the show and learned from it, she says. In addition, the fact that the characters took turns being the butt of the joke lead audiences to have a great affection for them.
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They also interview three random Saved by the Bell fans who I guess they found on the street to find out what they think. Lisa here talks about how Saved by the Bell helped her transition from middle school to high school and, I swear, the way she says “transition” I thought they were actually going to show a transgender person. I should have known better: not in a documentary featuring Peter Engel.
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Gavin says he loved the characters and idolized each of them in a different way. Oh, Gavin. Don’t idolize Screech. It will only encourage him.
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Regina says she used to watch the three hour blocks of reruns on TBS while she was on the phone with her best friend being as easily impressed as the studio audience.
Engel and Kurlander talk about how the FCC and Congress each sited Saved by the Bell as example of educational shows before the three hour ruling came out. Because everything works out, kids can learn from Saved by the Bell because they always made the right choices. Yeah, because you can predict whether kids will take that away or Zack Morris’s sociopathy. Tramer says most of the writing staff were parents and wanted to make sure they presented these issues in the a responsible way.
They also think it helps that the kids were, roughly, the same ages as the characters they were playing, unlike the background characters. Interestingly, Engel says he didn’t realize Dustin Dimaond was only eleven until three episodes in or he wouldn’t have hired him. Oh, to have a time machine and go back in time and change that. They bring up that Lisa’s and Slater’s characters were originally supposed to be white kids and they changed them because of Mario Lopez and Lark Voorhies. How progressive I guess?
vlcsnap-2015-08-02-16h02m10s864Some of the more interesting revelations are around how the show was written. The staff would spend hours laying out each episode and deciding how it would go before they assigned it to a writer. They would work the show out and break it down. Above, you see a board where they’ve written down scene by scene what should happen in every episode, from which they produced a ten page outline they gave to the writer.
The bottom line: they think each new generation finds something new in Saved by the Bell. Engel says they shot each episode like it was both their first and their last, a standard of quality I guess didn’t carry over to The New Class.
I guess this is okay for a bonus feature. Hearing about the writing process was interesting and Ellen Seiter’s comments were very interesting but, overall, I guess there’s not much here I didn’t already know.
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