Saved by the Bell Ruined My Life Part I

It's no surprise at this point that I'm a real geek. Not geeky like Skinny Pete from Saved by the Bell, but geeky like everyone in the world today who didn't get laid a lot in high school or play any sports. You know, the regular kids who didn't have a lot of friends and weren't even so special that they fit into a specific social strata in high school. The type that read a lot of comic books, watched a lot of movies, grew up with internet porn, and tried to play in a rock band. That's the type of person I am.

Now, I'm all grown up. Mostly. Sort of. Not really. Either way, growing up, Saved by the Bell was one of my favorite shows. Every Saturday morning, I woke up early to catch a new episode, and when the gang finally graduated and made their way to syndication, every weekday afternoon was spent in front of the tube rewatching their exploits on TBS (back when it was still called a "Superstation"). I've seen every episode of Saved by the Bell at least ten times. I am not exaggerating. That's the truth. I even pride myself on being a bit of a SBTB scholar, as I've only ever been stumped on SBTB trivia once (and that was by my sister-in-law, who loves the show even more than me (to be fair, she was also starstruck when she met Kip Winger, so that makes me sleep better at night to know I've been bested by someone who can't even speak to Kip Fucking Winger without losing her shit; it's a great equalizer for me)... we're a weird family). I want to maintain a bit of a presence here so I can hone my writing chops, and I just started watching the show again, so maybe if I get some valuable feedback on this, I can make it a weekly thing where I can mercilessly tear down the show that meant so much to me and helped ruin my life. We'll see.

The title of this piece is "Saved by the Bell Ruined My Life (Part I)" because, well, I've long maintained that the show ruined my life. I grew up wanting to be Zack Morris. That never happened (obviously). While I didn't descend into a Screech-like level of existence, I was never the Prom King. Never the cool kid. Never the guy who conned everyone I met out of something valuable (like Slater's bomber jacket, or Kelly's virginity). I never made buddy bands. I never solved a murder mystery at a mansion. I never got stuck in a mall after finding a shitload of money. I never hooked up with a pretty-hot babe who went to college back east in the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I never attempted to fool my father and my principal by having an out-of-work actor/waiter pretending to be both of them at different times. I never did anything Zack did, and I hate him for that. I love him, but I hate him, too. His story set me up for success that I would never have, which means that Zack Morris made me a failure. I will never get over having to come to terms with the fact that high school was nothing like the show portrayed it to be. It hurt. Most of this is my fault, sure, because I should recognize the difference between fact and fiction, but fuck you. Seriously. And fuck Zack Morris (mostly joking). And my primary fuck you to Zack is this: tearing down his shitty (i.e. - amazing) show.

Her existence baffles me

So, the first (and potentially only) part of my experience re-discovering Saved by the Bell at the age of twenty-seven begins with one of the forgotten episodes. I say forgotten because it is not one that is immediately mentioned whenever the show is brought up. It's one of the Tori episodes, which we all know made zero fucking sense at all. Tori, the weird biker chick who Zack kind of dated, showed up out of the blue one episode and stuck around for a while. That's fine, a lot of shows add a new character after a few seasons to spice things up. The problem is, the episodes she appeared in didn't feature Jessie or Kelly at all. They weren't even mentioned in passing. It was like Tori existed in some other dimension, and she couldn't occupy the same time and space as both Jessie or Kelly. Chuck Klostermann addressed this by explaining the "Tori Paradox" in his book, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs - a book far-better written than any of my crap, so you should stop reading this and pick that up instead (don't do that, please). Tori's existence always confused me, because everything at Bayside was exactly the same as when Jessie and Kelly were there; the only difference is they were gone. The show never bothered to address this at all, and I suppose one can assume that during the Tori episodes, Kelly was just taking care of her seventeen brothers and sisters and Jessie was, I don't know, prepping for Stansbury or some shit, but it always ate at me (I like to think Kelly and Jessie were mischievously conniving behind Lisa's back to create a new-and-improved Hot Sundae sans Turtle). And poor Tori. As soon as she entered our lives via television screen, she disappeared. Never to be seen or heard from again. I don't know if she ever even graduated high school. She might still be at Bayside, wandering the halls, looking for Zack to take her to the dance or something. It's frightening to think about. She's the literal forgotten child of a cultural treasure, and I wonder if the actress who played her has had an existential meltdown wherein she questions whether or not she actually exists. I don't know, Leana Creel, I just don't know.

This pugnacious bastard accomplished
more in five episodes than most
teachers do in a thirty-year career.

The episode up for discussion is "Earthquake." The episode opens with Mr. Belding practicing his breathing in order to coach his wife as she is due to give birth in two weeks. That's right. Mr. Belding's wife - who should be in her mid-to-late forties - is pregnant. Nobody knew about it before this episode, and I'll be damned if the child is ever mentioned in subsequent episodes, either. The baby is a lot like Tori in that it was focused on briefly, then forgotten about entirely. Maybe there's something to that. Probably just lazy writing, but either way, without Belding's phantom child, this episode never would have happened, so at least we have that. However, I can't forgive the show for making Belding into some sort of sexual being, you know, in which he has sex with his wife for both pleasure and procreation. Belding was always better as a periphery character, never one of the main focuses, because he's a principal, and in a sitcom about high school kids, the principal is really the least interesting one. Even Max, the dipshit narcissist magician/waiter who opened a restaurant named after himself, was more interesting than Belding. I have so many questions for Max. For example: why food, Max? Why not a magic shop, Max? Why did you hire Jeff to be your manager, Max? Where did you disappear to, or is answering that a violation of the magician's code, Max? The teachers are even better characters than Dick Belding. Mr. Tuttle was a better character, but that might just be because he taught driver's ed, was one of the primary individuals behind a teacher's strike, urged the students to become young entrepreneurs by selling shitty bracelets and headbands for a mint, ran the glee club in his spare time, was at least partially responsible for the gang creating a love machine, and had a high pitched voice. That's someone I can get on board with. He was fat, too. What's not to like?

Unimpressed Tori, Weird Blonde Guy Who Shows Up in,
 Like,Ten Episodes, Bookie Zack, and Skinny Pete. 

Now we know Belding's wife is expecting. Exciting! Of course, the only reason this even registers on Zack's radar is because he can monetize it. What a scumball Zack is, right? He makes people bet on the birthdate of his principal's child. That's weird. So we see Bookie-Zack placing bets on the birthdate and he pulls out a hideous calendar, because of course Zack took the time, effort, and money to create a fucking Belding Baby Calendar. Aside from showing us how big of a prick Zack is, we also get Skinny Pete (I don't know if this is his character's name in this episode, but that was his name in the Sand Volleyball Episode, so I'm using it) placing a bet on the eleventh because he has eleven chest hairs. Keep saying shit like that, Skinny Pete, and you're never going to nail the weirdly attractive geek goddess Louise. We also find out that Zack has blown off studying for a physics midterm because he was busy making a calendar. I wonder why I liked Zack Morris so much now.

LOL Tori.

The physics examination - the teacher is an atrocious caricature of an Indian - is cut short because of an earthquake drill. Tori wants to know what an earthquake drill is, which is funny because it's pretty self-explanatory just what an earthquake drill is (maybe she thought it was a drill that caused earthquakes; no wonder she just disappeared). And you know that there will be an earthquake if they just had an earthquake drill. It's like every time we had a fire drill in high school, and then two days later, the entire school would succumb to flames. Tori reveals her fear of experiencing an earthquake, and then a scene or two later, she reveals that she was the birthing coach for her sister who had a child last year. Tori doesn't even get legitimate plots like Kelly (father being laid off so she can't afford prom, falling for her smooth-ass college-age manager when she's dating Zack, dealing with acne) or Jessie (caffeine pill addiction, asshole step-brother, environmentalism). She's just a plot point, a way to explain a bunch of shit needlessly and be a convenient person for the story at hand. Need a character to be afraid of earthquakes? Tori! Need a character to know how to deliver a baby? Tori! Mix it up, swish it around, and make it happen.



With the physics exam looming overhead, Zack gets the bright idea to throw Mrs. Belding a baby shower to avoid taking the test. Belding goes for it and excuses them because of course he does. What an asshole principal he is. It's no wonder the teachers went on strike; any time the kids wanted to do anything, he just let them. He even abandoned his own brother for these high school kids. Belding is kind of creepy, actually. After the baby shower, Zack and Tori take Mrs. Belding down to her car in the faculty elevator (which didn't exist before this episode, nor after it), Belding and Screech take the gifts from the shower to his office as opposed to the car (who knows why), Slater has swimming practice (he wasn't on the swim team before or after this episode), and Lisa does who the fuck knows what. Shops aggressively, I suppose. As everyone is off doing what they're doing, a vicious earthquake occurs (by vicious, I mean the sets on the show start awkwardly shaking). Zack, Tori, and Lady Belding are trapped in an elevator, but it's a huge elevator - twice the size of a normal one - so that's good. Tori starts freaking out because earthquake! and Mrs. Belding goes into labor because of course she does. The entire run of the show is just one big serendipitous shitstorm and this episode perfectly portrays that. The girl who is afraid of earthquakes and also a master at delivering babies for people is stuck in a trapped elevator after an earthquake with a woman (who is probably too old to be having a child anyway) in labor. I'm all for suspension of disbelief, but this is seriously fucking pushing it. I get that Zack has mystical powers where he can freeze time for his own gain, but this is just silly. And to make matters worse, they're trapped between floors. Between floors. Why not just pry the goddamn doors open, Zack? Why not just freeze time and go get a doctor or something, Zack? Why?

A.C. Slater: Unfuckwithable

Screech and Belding get trapped in the office because of course they do. Who really knows why? We are treated to some silly slapstick comedy between Sammy Powers and Dick Belding, and then Screech just starts playing with a puppet. Lisa survives the earthquake because she found a doorway, and so did Slater, but he was changing into his swimgear and the lockers tipped over, so now he's in a towel. Slater was a badass motherfucker, I'm telling you. He was jacked as shit. Nevermind the jheri curl mullet, he was etched out of granite. Lisa gives him her sweater when they meet up and they can hear Screech and Belding screaming for help in the office. My favorite part of the episode is next. Slater fucking Van Dammes the shit out of the door to free Screech and Belding. Look at Lisa's reaction there. She's turned on. Hell, I'm turned on. Slater also took, like, ten seconds to set up his kick. I like a man who is meticulous and perfect. The best part is just after Screech and Belding emerge and Slater tries to play it straight by doing the "tough man touches his nose" thing and everybody rushes to see if Lady Belding has birthed the child yet.

Spawn of Belding.

Zack tries calming down both Lady Belding and PTSD-Tori, and he succeeds because he's Zack Morris. Tori realizes it's baby time, and she gets down to it. The entire school waits next to the elevator and breathes along with Lady Belding as she pushes, and in what is surely the shortest labor in history, she births a little boy. A clean little boy, too. Like the kid stopped off at a spa and got the full treatment before he emerged from his mother's vagina. Born without placenta, birth juice, or even an umbilical cord. And he's, like, the size of a two-month old. Either the Child of Belding is an alien or Mrs. B. was waaaaaaay too busy before she settled down with Dick. What else am I supposed to assume, considering she was in labor for three minutes and gave birth to a nineteen-pound infant and barely broke a sweat? Everybody ends happy and the events of the episode are never mentioned again. How beautiful.


So that's it. The conclusion. The big climax. La Birth Le Belding. This episode was an amazing piece of television history to revisit because it taught me so much about life: the importance of preparing for earthquakes, having muscular friends to rescue you from the principal's office, buddying up with someone who is a master of delivering babies in case you ever find yourself in one of those situations, knowing a shopaholic African-American who can lend you a matching sweater if you ever find yourself in a bath towel and nothing else, betting on the birth of children, and relying on the life-affirming humor of a puppet in dire times. It's really important shit, people. Or, you know, it's not. It's just a constant reminder that you can be a shithead in high school as long as you're handsome. I mean, if you're a cute blonde guy with a cellular telephone and fancy basketball sneakers (Zack liked Cons), you'll come out of everything just fine. And that's why Saved by the Bell ruined my life, goddammit. Because my life was nothing like Zack Morris's, and that makes me sad.


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