HIGH SCHOOL WASN'T LIKE SAVED BY THE BELL
TMC
I, like many other people, grew up watching Saved By The Bell.
Throughout my grade school years, my after-school activities consisted
of plopping down on my couch between the hours of 5:05 and 6:05 so
that I could spend an hour watching the wacky antics of the Bayside
crew on TBS.
To me, as a young kid anxiously awaiting the adventure that was High
School, Saved By The Bell wasn’t just a witty show that kept me from
doing homework one hour a night, it was my future.
You see, I was convinced that Saved By The Bell was an accurate
representation of what High School was like, and I was thoroughly
convinced that when I graduated from the 8th grade and made my way
into the wondrous four years that are High School, my time was going
to be filled up with just as many wacky antics and memories as Zack,
Kelly, Screech, AC, and to a lesser extent, Tori.
Boy, was I wrong.
In many ways Saved By The Bell ruined my High School experience, as it
set my standards for High School awesomeness so unrealistically high
that there was no possible way anything was going to meet and/or
exceed it.
For example, thanks to Saved By The Bell I was of the belief that
class in High School was optional, a fact that I found out the hard
way wasn’t the case.
I figured I was justified in having that belief, because the cast from
Saved By The Bell seemed to only go to class when they felt like it,
and on the occasions they did attend they could leave whenever they
saw fit. It wasn’t uncommon for Zack to storm out of Mr. Dewey’s math
class after having some sort of argument with Kelly, or for Jesse to
march out of Mrs. Culpepper’s art class after she was insulted that
Slater called her “babe”.
Little did she know that in a few years she was gonna’ be in
Showgirls; oh the irony.
Anyways, thanks to those examples I thought that that’s what High
School students could do; I figured they could get up and leave class
whenever they felt like it, but I found out the hard way that wasn’t
the case.
There were many occasions throughout High School where I attempted to
walk out of my Chemistry, Biology, and even my History class, and I
was glared at by the teachers. They then instructed me to sit down,
and threatened me with a detention. When I retorted with, “But Jesse
Spano does it !!!.” I was given a condescending glare which was soon
followed with a headshake of disappointment.
I also thought that all High School students had access to an awesome
diner like The Max, where your lunch is served by a magician who
eerily resembles the Verizon Guy. Sadly that wasn’t the case.
No matter how hard I tried I could never find a diner in the general
vicinity of my High School that served burgers and fries while
performing magic acts, and whenever I walked into a McDonalds and
asked the cashier to entertain me with a card trick, they normally
just stared at me with a confused look.
I’m not sure if that’s because they thought my request was odd, or
because most cashiers at McDonalds don’t speak English; whatever the
case may be, I never had a burger served to me in High School by a
dude who could pull a rabbit out of his hat.
Granted the idea of eating a burger served by a guy who regularly
manhandles small animals seems rather unsanitary, but the awesomeness
would be there, and that’s all I look for when eating ...
awesomeness.
I was also greatly disappointed at my Principal in High School, as
Saved By The Bell made me believe that my Principal would be a guy who
I could joke around with and make fun of. I longed to have a witty
banter with my Principal in the same way Zack did with Mr. Belding; to
me that would be extremely cool, but it never came to fruition.
I envisioned myself making fun of my Principal’s bald spot, or highly
evident lack of fashion sense. I assumed he’d retort with a joke that
nobody found funny, but would cause him to laugh uncontrollably to
himself before walking away. I figured my principal would see me as a
“bad boy with a good side”, and even though I’d push his buttons on a
regular basis he’d treat me like his son because he saw something in
me; that never happened, as my Principal was a prick.
If I went up to my Principal and insulted his receding hairline, he’d
normally give me a detention. If I insulted his corduroy jacket, he’d
send a letter home to my parents, and when I once proposed that my
Principal should have his much younger and cooler brother organize a
white water rafting trip for the school, he stared at me as if I had
two heads before informing me he was an only child.
Little did he know that if he agreed to the last request, his cooler
younger brother would ditch his responsibility of the rafting trip,
thus allowing him to be the hero by taking us anyways.
Another missed opportunity by a school administrator.
Also, no matter how hard I tried I could never master the mannerisms
made famous by the cast of Saved By The Bell.
I regularly walked up to people who couldn’t open their locker, and
proceeded to punch it in the same manner Slater regularly did; I
assumed that if I punched the locker hard enough, it would pop open,
and in doing so I’d look like the cool jock who was the 90’s version
of the Fonz. Sadly, no matter how many times I punched the locker I
could never get it to open, and instead of being the cool guy who
could open lockers with his fist, I became the guy with the bruised
hand who regularly had to explain to his parents why they had to pay
for damage to school property.
Surprisingly, dented lockers are pretty darn expensive to fix.
Then there was Zack Morris’ infamous “Time Outs”.
I can’t express to you how much I wanted to be able to put my hands
together in the form of a “T” and have the world stop around me so
that I could break the fourth wall and narrate my thoughts to the
studio audience; sadly, that never came to fruition.
I was very perseverent with my attempts at making time stop; I tried
pausing time in this manner at school dances, and it led to girls
staying away from me. I tried it in hallways in between class, and
ended up being trampled on by members of the football team. Once I
tried doing it during a basketball game, and I ended up getting
ejected for interfering with the action on the court; apparently
referees frown upon people who aren’t on the team yelling “Time Out”
from the stands.
I’m pretty sure I could have been damn entertaining narrating my
thoughts while everyone around me stood in one place, as when I was in
High School I had some pretty interesting things to say. I could have
talked about how I was going to seduce that cute girl who was staring
at me during the football game, or I could have run through the
details of my lofty plan to teach the High School bully a lesson;
unfortunately I never got to do that, and instead I looked like the
strange kid who liked making hand signals while talking to himself.
Honestly, my High School years sucked in comparison to the crew at
Bayside.
My school didn’t have a water polo team, nor was it built over the top
of oil that would soon destroy a pond filled with cute ducks. I didn’t
spend my Christmastime working in a mall where I learned the true
meaning of the season by hanging out with the daughter of a homeless
man; a man, who for some reason, the mall never kicked out of the
building despite the fact that all he did was walk around the stores
asking for pieces of scrap wrapping paper.
I didn’t spend my summers at the Malibu Sands with Mr. Kerose and his
daughter; instead I spent my summers working at KFC, with a bunch of
angry middle aged women who spent their time scooping mashed potatoes
into environmentally unfriendly styrofoam containers.
No matter how hard I tried, I was never as cool as Zack. My nickname
was never “Steam Up The Windows”, and no matter how hard I tried to
convince Yale, they wouldn’t let me in like they did him, even though
I slacked off for four years before scoring really high on the SATS.
I wasn’t a prominent entrepreneur like the kids at Bayside either. I
never sold anti-acne cream that turned people’s faces maroon, and I
never came up with the idea for Buddy Bands, even though I’m convinced
I could have made a fortune off of it.
Football players in my High School never showed off their midriff
while wearing their jerseys on gameday, and I never dressed in drag to
go on a date with my nerdy and socially awkward best friend. I never
once got hopped up on caffeine pills, my parents never bought me a
poster from a Peter, Paul, and Mary concert, and I never had a friend
who came over my house by climbing through my bedroom window.
The one time I tried to do that, my friend's Dad called the cops on
me; apparently that's "breaking and entering".
Nope my High School years weren't cool at all, all I got to do was
wake up, go to class, get turned down by every girl I tried to flirt
with, and get mediocre grades before praying that I got into my safety
school come College acceptance time.
Maybe my High School years would have been better had I never seen
Saved By The Bell, as my expectations would have been a little more
realistic. Honestly though, I highly doubt that’s the case, because if
I never saw Saved By The Bell I’d have been deprived of one of the
most awesome theme songs in the history of television …
You know you’re gonna’ have it in your head for the rest of the day.