Syndication Files 07.14.10: Saved by the Bell
TMC
Posted by Porfirio Diaz on 07.13.2010
Saved by the Bell takes us back during a time when brightly colored
clothes, freezing time by shaping your hands in a “T”, and mullets
ruled the airwaves. But is the series viewed as a timeless classic or
as the ultimate time capsule of 1990s crappiness? Be so excited and
find out in the next freak-out edition of the Syndication Files.
I've been on a roll posting comments from the previous week that
perhaps I should do it again for this week. You take the time to waste
valuable seconds from your life posting them so I could waste several
hours reading, thinking, replying, and posting them squarely back to
you, the reader. Take it as a form of uncontaminated love unlike most
cyber relationships.
Jackass was, is, and always will be awesome. I'm going to go
listen to some CKY, later.
Posted By: MBD (Guest)
Rock on!
Uh, I really have nothing more to say. I just needed something here.
I never saw the appeal of Jackass. Sorry.
Posted By: Guest#5930 (Guest)
You're one of the lucky ones. At least you expressed it in a polite
way that's rarely seen in the 411 maniaverse. Arnold Furious got
ramshackled out of town for saying he never found Paul Reubens funny
in last week's Fact or Fiction column. Sorry Furious, but you're on
your own there.
Welcome "I Love the 90s" fans and whatever is left of Cleveland to
another exciting edition of the Syndication Files. I'm going out on a
limb here but this might be the biggest Syndication Files column to
date. Usually I like to tease you with other important newsworthy
items here (Mel Gibson hates you and me) but this show is so big with
popular culture goodness that I just want to start right away.
Syndication Files #51
Saved by the Bell
Saved by the Bell theme song by Scott Gale
I'm forgoing my usual opening video in favor of the full theme song.
Why? Because it's like rainbows, unicorns, and Nerds candy rigorously
blended into one impressive frozen treat.
Saved by the Bell is the perfect placeholder for a nostalgic trip back
to the late 1980s/early 1990s. Back then, Patrick Swayze and Demi
Moore showed moviegoers how a pottery wheel could be a seductive tool
for the spiritual world. Nirvana steadily rose up the charts
disenchanting young teens with their marble mouths and bleak music.
"The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" was currently known as "Prince".
Tracey Ullman was entertaining American with songs, sketches, and
crudely drawn filler material. And the world was experiencing the
wonderful misadventures of a group of cheery high school kids that
either delighted or horrified the hell out of every living being on
this sweet Earth.
Out of all of the examinations I've done since the very beginning of
Syndication Files, Saved by the Bell is the most difficult television
show to get a complete outlook on. Is it a timeless classic? Is it so
bad that it's good? Is it the ultimate time capsule of 1990s
crappiness? Is it so inconsequentially awful that you feel like you've
eating too much food way past its expiration date?
Let's see if I can made sense out of the whole Saved by the Bell
phenomenon. If anything, at least the show gave us the inspiration for
Fight Club with this scene.
Quit icing my grill, home skillet!
When it comes to pretty faces, these guys don't eff around.
Saved by the Bell started their humble beginnings as an NBC pilot
entitled Good Morning, Miss Bliss. This short 13-episode series
followed the life of teacher Miss Bliss as the main character. The
series also featured characters that we've all come to love in the
Saved by the Bell series, including Zack, Screech, Lisa, and Mr.
Belding. There were also three other main characters in the series
that offers no significant mention since they were cut once the show
was dropped. After the show's cancellation, NBC acquired the rights
and revamped the series with several changes: the setting changed from
Indianapolis to fictional Palisades, California, the focus of the show
changed from showing off the teachers to showing off the students, and
most importantly, the character list expanded to include three new
additions – Kelly, Jessie, and A.C. Slater – to round out the cast.
The Saturday-morning kids' show would begin bleeding critic's eyeballs
everywhere on August 20, 1989.
Saved by the Bell follows the exploits of these high school students:
douche extraordinaire Zack "Time Out" Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar),
All-American Girl Kelly Kapowski (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen), jock rock
A.C. Slater (Mario Lopez), fashion queen Lisa Turtle (Lark Voorhies),
nerdlinger Screech Powers (Dustin Diamond), and caffeine addict Jessie
Spano (Elizabeth Berkley, pre-Showgirls). They all cause havoc around
the colorful Bayside High School with their social awkwardness, peppy
attitude, and wardrobe malfunction. Brightly colored clothes, power
bangs, bikini bottoms over stretch pants, and frizzy hair? Apparently
the fashion police did not exist during this time or they were too
busy beating down LaToya Jackson. Let's also not forget Zack's
infamous gigantic cell phone that doubled as a launch detector or
lethal weapon (not to be confused with Mel Gibson's hate-filled potty
mouth). Richard Belding (Dennis Haskins) would frequently run into
them with gusto and chastisement but he genuinely seems to care about
his students and would be the one who the characters turn to the most
for help.
Seems like a good layout plan for television success, right? Yes and
no. Saved by the Bell was a hit in the ratings department but was torn
apart by critics right out from the gate. I mean, I don't remember the
show being that horrible, right?
He can either be a fairy or a queen
Don't laugh. Many of your heroes wear tights: Batman, for example, and…
Magellan. Actually, you've probably not doing much laughing to begin
with.
The show was panned for their horrible recited dialogue, bland
characters (something right out of High School Stereotypes For
Dummies), cheap looking sets (fun fact: Napoleon Dynamite would later
find all of the sets in a dumpster behind T.G.I. Friday's),
superficial messages ("Gee, Slater, you're everything a girl could
want – you're great-looking, a great dancer, a great guy." - Kelly),
and so filled with nonsensical plots that it makes Heroes look like
Seinfeld. The characters also often hooked up with each other so often
that you need some sort of "hook-up" chart to figure out who's with
whom. Take everything right out of Freaks and Geeks, strip away
everything that's funny or with a hint of poise, throw in clichés and
fads that made 1990s unbearable, and you have yourself an episode of
Saved by the Bell!
And yet you watched it away, didn't you?
This is where most of my confusion with this show lies. Critics hated
it but viewers loved it. Saved by the Bell become the highest rated
show on Saturday mornings, a place where cartoons usually ruled that
particular time frame. Even back then when I first discovered the
program, I couldn't tell whether to absolutely hate it or love it. I
still don't. What is this show's hidden secret that manages to grasp a
rather large number of viewers? Could it truly be that Saved by the
Bell is so latexed in cheesiness that it became good? Is it truly The
Rocky Horror Picture Show of television shows?
I like how Zach's super powers are never explained, noticed, or
questioned
I'm convinced. With scenes like that, how could it not be?
Related note: How come Zach only used his "time out" powers for
stirring up trouble at school and not, say, for financial purposes?
How come the most obvious thing (Zach "teleporting" out of the scene)
is completely ignored? If Zach somehow died in the middle of "time
out", would time freeze forever? These are the questions that haunt me
late at night. He has the power to do anything in the world yet he
uses his power to screw with his friends at school. What a douche.
Actually, the show's attractiveness could genuinely be from its silly
and non-smutty high school humor. As corny as the jokes were, people
were entertained by the crew's ridiculous school adventures or by the
crew themselves. Zach was seen as the coolest kid in the world and he
always got the girl…several of them actually. I believe the number
ended up being a total of 91. Could the sexual aurora of the "blond
Tom Cruise" (I'm going to punch myself for typing that) have been
because of his mullet? Didn't the mullet also received special
recognition during the ending credits? Slater swooned many young
female viewers with his machismo and fabulous dancing skills (no
homo). Kelly power banged her way in young boy's hearts. She was
Hayden Panettiere before there was a Hayden Panettiere. There there's
the rest that no one wants to relate to.
Especially this guy.
I would want to punch Screech too
Perhaps we saw the show differently as kids/young teens during an age
group where the taste in things we like are very often questioned by
young adults (coughTwilightcough). It's very similar to how I
envisioned Full House both as kid ("I love this show") and as a young
adult ("this show sucks hard"). Sure it's one-dimensional programming
but it had a colorful charm that served as nothing more than typical
sitcom tomfoolery for kids and teens.
There is one positive that Saved by the Bell did bring to light:
teenage issues. Behind the demon, hairstyles, and colorful backdrop,
the show takes on social hurt-hitting issues that real teens deal with
– sexual relationships, peer pressure, drug abuse, financial issues,
and such - and teaches them various lessons from it. For a show that's
suppose to be all about the comedy, Saved by the Bell incorporates
many dramatic elements in the show in order to provide average teens
with something more than just caricatures on screen. Because of their
well-intentioned premise, Saved by the Bell is seen as the best
serious "comedy" sitcom ever. It gives the viewer a chance to learn
from the character's mistake in hopes that they may grow from their
experience.
Fortunately for us, their intentions gave us one of the most memorable
scenes in television history. How could I not talk about Saved by the
Bell without talking about this scene?
I'M SO EXCITED!
In order to truly understand the apex of the series, a little backdrop
is in order. Here's the cliff note version of the episode titled
Jessie's Song.
The serious side of crappy 1990's live action tv show network
And that's how Jessie's caffeine pill freak-out became the series'
crowning moment as she melts down in front of Zach in dramatic
fashion. Who knew that the song I'm So Excited" would become the
foundation for Jessie the bookworm's caffeine addiction? It's an
emotionally invested scene that Elizabeth Berkley nails perfectly and
would use that same emotional acting to lick stripper poles in
Showgirls.
The scene also reveals the dangers of overdosing on caffeine pills.
According to eHow.com, "a caffeine pill is an over the counter psycho-
stimulant drug that is generally used to raise alertness in humans.
They can be used as a way for someone to get a burst of energy and
also to prevent drowsiness and sleepiness which makes them popular
among college students who need to cram for an exam." Not bad with the
pill in general but overdosing could lead to some serious side-
effects, like starring in a sexploitation film that involves you in
the funniest yet saddest sex scene in the history of cinema. Not
exactly heroin, but at least the series is informative in enlightening
viewers about some of the dangers of drugs.
Fast forward to the present: with the brilliant invention of YouTube,
I now see this same scene about as hysterical as a Mel Gibson phone
conversation.
Bill Simmons – ESPN columnist and sports monkey that expects you to
know why the 1958 NBA Finals was a travesty to all mankind – listed
the episode very high on his official "Unintentional Comedy Rating"
scale (95 out of 100 to be exact). Jessie's freak-out scene is also
#17 on his "YouTube Hall of Fame". So even the pop-culture junkie of
all pop-culture junkies understands the significance of this episode
(by the way, feel free to link him this column…please? He's cool when
he's not drowning in Boston sports vomit). Not to mention that it led
to the further rise of Pointer Sister's "I'm So Excited" in what also
has to be their shiniest moment in the sun.
The freak-out scene ranks up there on the Mount Rushmore of Dramatic
Television Sitcom Moments, along with Gordon Jump's wacky molestation
adventures (Diff'rent Strokes), and other two debatable moments (my
picks would be Sammy kissing Archie [All in the Family] and when Jake
Pavelka picked Vienna Girardi just as quickly as they broke up [The
Bachelor: On The Wings of Love Who Shot J.R. [Dallas]). No doubt this
particular scene made for great television that day.
So in honor to Elizabeth Berkeley's defining career highlight, here's
a mash up video that tributes the mindless entertainment and catchy
1980s swing that people love so much.
Credit: DJ PHLIPZ
Saved by the Bell defined what the 1990s were all about. It's a show
where you may love it but never want to admit to others that you love
it. Even now, many years after this particular sitcom ended (May 22,
1993), people believe that the series holds up very well today.
Producers tried to repeat the same success with spin-offs, Saved by
the Bell: The College Years and Saved by the Bell: The New Class, but
could not repel the failure that came with it.
I couldn't for the longest time decide whether Saved by the Bell
ranked among my best or worst television show list. After about a week
of researching and video clips, I've decided that Saved by the Bell is
so bad that it's simply too good to pass up. After all, I like the
Adam West version of Batman and that has about the same amount of
stinky cheese as Saved by the Bell. The show deserves to be ridiculed
in every corners of the Earth but it'll eventually get to a point
where there's simply too much unintentional comedy to be ignored.