STARTLED BY THE BELL!

How the new dvd boxset of the complete SAVED BY THE BELL and star Dustin Diamond’s backstage expose of the series in his book BEHIND THE BELL saw this reviewer plunge into a world of teenage dope smoking, drink driving toga boys, caffeine pill abusing showgirls, dead lizard funeral attending and an obsession with the length of Tiffani Thiesson’s cheerleader outfit for one more lost week of his life!

by Mark Gordon Palmer

Part One:

"…we were far from the perfect teens we portrayed on Saved by the Bell. In fact, truth be told, we were all pretty fucked up.” – Dustin Diamond, Behind the Bell.

I’ve grown to quite like Dustin Diamond, the actor who played Saved by the Bell’s most despised or adored character (delete as appropriate) - Samuel ‘Screech’ Powers, over the last few weeks.

Before watching all the episodes across four long seasons of possibly the most fondly-remembered teen-orientated TV comedy show ever (thanks here to Saved by the Bell: The Complete Series DVD Box Set from Fabulous Films), I made a point of reading Dustin’s scandalous and frankly quite dementedly bitter book about life behind the scenes of this hugely popular series in Dustin Diamond: Behind The Bell. At first I decided dear old Screech/ Dustin was now a sad and selfish individual, obsessed with sexual conquests, preoccupied with the ‘monster’ in his trousers and dishing the dirt on his fellow cast members for personal gain and worse – stabbing in the groin an NBC Vice President who he claims he had an affair with but who is now no longer with us to answer back. But behind all these shock-stories and sometimes outrageous expulsions of bile and wild assumption from Dustin Diamond, lurks a man who writes with a clearly addictive style and who knows how to tell a great ‘horrors of being a child star’ story – true or otherwise, in a way that is as far removed from a traditional Hollywood sob story as it gets.

Dustin Diamond was a man who, as a boy, was clearly made to feel unwelcome on a show that remains fondly remembered to so many (including myself), and who was – and remains - an eternal ‘outsider’. There’s some warmth in the terrible tales of Screech that go beyond the headlines, and Diamond is today apologetic for behaving like “a dick” at times in the years since his face became a familiar one as much as he is philosophical about his time on the show as uber-geek Screech. There, I’ve said it – I like Dustin Diamond. Now send me to Hell!

For many, the squeaky clean image of Saved by the Bell has already been battered into submission. Elizabeth Berkley shocked the show’s fans and production crew (less so her fellow cast members who Dustin says saw each other naked in the dressing rooms so often over the years, the thrill had worn off) while still appearing as her proto-feminist character Jessica Spano by stripping off for the soft porn fiasco of Showgirls (fiasco? Steady on there... Ed). As for Screech himself, well – Dustin made a short sex tape Screeched that clearly made his return to a show reunion a big no-go for evermore, even if he hadn’t screwed his chances already by dishing the dirt on his fellow cast members in his book.

Of Elizabeth Berkley’s role in Showgirls (1995), Dustin comments: “the primary audience for that rotten tomato was a perverse curiosity to see the snatch of that chick on SBTB”. You can’t really argue with that (I can, and will! Ed). Screech’s own sex tape is almost as corny as some of the jokes in Saved by the Bell itself with Dustin having his way with two ladies who clearly think less of him and more of themselves. The big joke is that one of the girls can’t put a condom over Dustin’s engorged (and boy it really is something to boast about – you got to give the guy that much credit!) “monster” that he always seems to be going on about in his book. In fact, this one girl in his video does the same dumb thing twice: “Why’s the condom not going on? You’re so big!” - “It’s the wrong way round again – haven’t you ever seen one of these before? Sheesh!” It’s the kind of humour you would expect to see in a show with Screech in post-Bell. When even Dustin’s own sex tape gets to be a sub-standard bluer version of Saved by the Bell you can see why the poor guy was worried about being typecast!

There’s a certain fascination with seeing once famous child stars strip off as adults – it’s the only reason the film Havoc generated huge interest in its pre-release, because folks thought the beloved former teen star of the Princess Diaries movies, Anne Hathaway, now grown-up, was about to participate in some very explicit sex, instead of the mild raunchiness we eventually found out was actually on the table. Well, not literally on the table, but… Anyway, it was perfect marketing. But I fail to see how Screech’s sex tape could be something anyone would wish to watch and not be forever tarnished with demons in the mind for ever after. Elizabeth Berkley’s turn in Showgirls possibly killed dead any serious potential acting career, according to Diamond - but she’s still appeared in some great movies such as The First Wives Club (1996) and Woody Allen’s The Curse of the Jade Scorpion as well as regular TV roles in US TV series from The L Word to CSI: Miami, as too are all the main cast of the show still working on high-profile projects and far from has-beens. I don’t think Dustin Diamond’s clearly underwhelmed opinion of his co-stars on Saved by the Bell should be – too often – taken entirely seriously. There’s no doubt the cast have all gone on to better things. Even the main preppie star of the show, golden boy Zack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) after a career in movies went on to be a regular star on TV cop show NYPD Blue as Det. John Clark, Jr as well as currently starring in the ‘lawyers on the case’ comedy crime hit; Franklin & Bash.

It was odd seeing Berkley strip off in Showgirls but the concept isn’t new; and even today the likes of Lindsay Lohan cover up their cute past by stripping off for the camera. Other child stars such as Brooke Shields stripped off as a child star and spent the rest of their career putting more clothes back on with each successive new film. Some actresses just have to be different! Screech is different, but naked Screech is just horrible. But even that wasn’t as much of an eye opener as the full length porn movie This Ain’t Saved by the Bell (2009) featuring an entire lookalike cast of the original series stars in predictably compromising positions. The world seemed determined to taint the goodness of the show forever – and ‘Kill Screech’ was so often the flag-waving battle cry. Poor Screech!

If you do read Dustin’s Behind the Bell book before launching into the new, rather brilliant box set of every episode ever made of Saved by the Bell then be prepared to view often meaningless, scatter-brained episodes that you just about remember from those hungover Saturday glory mornings back in the early 90’s but, following Dustin’s behind the scenes revelations, every episode will also now take on a whole new seedy meaning (I’m sorry but this is true). It’s not such a bad thing, actually; it helps banish nostalgia and allow the show to be seen in a post-Screech dirtier light.

I say the UK box set features every episode – it does, but only of the Saved by the Bell series. The two movie specials: Wedding in Las Vegas (1994) and Hawaiian Style (1992) aren’t present or correct, and neither is the Disney show that launched the subsequent NBC Saved by the Bell series; Good Morning Miss Bliss (1988-1989)- the rare one that starred Hayley Mills as the class history teacher and only lasted one season. Some of the episodes of Miss Bliss were later used in the syndicated Saved by the Bell show, with a Zack introduction to include flashbacks of early school years. These episodes aren’t included here either. The same is true of original series follow-up Saved by the Bell: The College Years (1993-1994) and Saved by the Bell: The New Class (that lasted a whopping 7 series from 1993-2000!) – both shows that will hopefully earn themselves their very own box set too one day, though The College Years lasted just one season before it was cancelled so it will have to be small box for that one!
Just remember – only one regular character made it into every series of Saved by the Bell and appeared in every single spin-off and you may think I’m going on to say that it was Screech who was that one brave soul. But no – it was only Mr Belding, the School Principle who lasted the distance. Screech was in almost every series but bailed for The New Class: Season One. When that turned out to be a disaster, they sacked most of the young cast and brought Screech back for Series 2 onwards. Screech really did get to save The Bell. Sure, Screech was increasingly a caricature as well as being increasingly annoying in some later shows (purposely it turns out, as according to Diamond, he was trying to finish Screech off as his signature role in a haze of slapstick and grotesque gurning and tellingly names his comedy hero as the great Rowan Atkinson – this overplaying though, ended up leaving his character “in the realm of the absurd”) but the little guy with the sweetly dumb expression, as Dustin points out so often in his book, was always in fact - something of a survivor.

Continued on Page 2