Saved by the Bell Ruined My Life Part II

Welcome to Part II in an ongoing experiment in which I try to experience the show Saved by the Bell as a jaded and cynical twenty-seven year-old. You can find Part I here if you want. I loved the show growing up, and I still do, as it is a nostalgic treasure. I hate it, too, though, because it ruined my life for reasons detailed in the previous section. Click the hyperlink if you’re curious. So, as a bit of retroactive retribution, I’m going to watch episodes of the show and tear down the gang in an effort to make myself feel better. It’s a psychological release, and it’s better than crying myself to sleep on my Zack Morris pillow. This episode was suggested by two (count ‘em – TWO!) readers so I’m doing it for my audience. Enjoy.

If you want to get me that clock, I won't be mad.

The episode, “Model Students,” begins as all episodes do – with no apparent connection to past episodes. Kelly is working in the school bookstore (the store is never referenced before this episode, nor in subsequent ones. Surprised?) and Zack introduces it by saying it is also known as “Nerds ‘R’ Us,” which gets a hearty laugh from the ‘studio audience.’ We see the nerds looking at a bunch of shit – books, a fucking seashell clock (pretty awesome), and an 8X10 picture of Mr. Rogers, who I guess is a nerd god or something. The nerds love the fluorescent pocket protectors that have just arrived because they glow in the dark and they can wear them with their pajamas. Fuck the nerds. Sadly Kelly can’t quit her job because she needs the money – she’s the superhot poor cheerleader who has to be ogled by nerds all day long for a buck because her dad doesn’t know what fiscal responsibility means, I guess. Slater gets felt up by the nerds and they ask him what his biceps are. He informs them that they are muscles and he acquired them by bench pressing nerds. Zack realizes that he loves his school so damn much that he wants to revamp the book store because the story needs him to. In an attempt to show Belding he should be in charge, Zack shows Belding the sales figures (which are just blank pages). Why the fuck does Zack have access to the sales numbers of a legitimate business? And why doesn’t anyone care that he acquired them through, I’m guessing, illegal means? What a fucker.

When Zack gets the reins to the store and reopens it, the nerds want their store back, but Slater scares them into leaving. Fuck Slater. These kids legitimately love this store, and Zack just boots them out because he got a funny idea. That’s really unfair. We never find out what happened to the gang in the future, but I sure hope that Slater ended up working for them in Silicon Valley or some shit and they just mercilessly belittled him day after day. “Hey, A.C.! Remember that time Zack fucked your sister?” “Slater! Remember that time you got your ass kicked in an obstacle course by Lisa Turtle, the most unathletic person ever?” “Albert Clifford! Remember that time Jessie’s stepbrother Eric outsmarted you and recorded you and Jessie making out, and she called you Papa Bear? Get me some more toner, Papa Bear!”

Skinny Pete Alert!

Zack has the store open, but nobody is there because nerds ran it! Zack needs a gimmick, but everyone else has to bail – the girls have swimming practice (Jessie and Lisa are suddenly athletes), and Screech had photo club. So Zack, in a brilliant move, has Screech illegally take pictures of the girls at swim practice. Nobody gets arrested, of course. Zack turns the pictures into Girls of Bayside Calendars and starts making money hand over fist. When the girls find out, they’re rightfully upset because a school full of horny Bayside Tigers are jerking off to pictures of them in swimsuits. The calendar business is about to be closed by Belding, but something special happens.

Some guy – a thirty-something photographer and assumed pedophile because he tracked down a fucking calendar with scantily-clad teenagers in it – named Adam Trask shows up at Bayside and tells Zack that the calendar is awesome and everyone instantly forgives Zack. Oh, the photos are good? Nevermind the host of laws you broke then, Zack. Carry on. This creep wants the girls to pose for him for a “fashion spread” and nobody thinks it’s fishy. The girls go from being upset to on board in record time, because it’s not exploitation if millions of people see you half-naked, it’s only wrong if a couple dozen horny classmates see it, right?

The next scene shows the girls getting photographed. It’s nice to see Elizabeth Berkley in some pre-Showgirls situations slutting it up. It’s a brief look into her future, only she’s more clothed and doesn’t violently lapdance someone to the point of climax. That would have made this episode better. Kelly does Kelly stuff in a distinctly 90’s-era outfit. Lisa is wearing a costume that looks like it was worn by Aresnio Hall in Coming to America. Yuck. Nobody ever mentions that the only girls in Bayside who do a fucking thing are Kelly, Jessie, and Lisa. I wonder how many girls at Bayside viciously hated them because they were the focus of the entire school and nobody else was even looked at. Even those homely twins didn’t get any attention, and they were identical twins. Hell, Kelly, Jessie and Lisa were so damn important that the twins didn’t even get names. They were just the twins, and everybody knows twins without names don’t even count as actual people. I get Kelly’s popularity because she was cute, a cheerleader – back when cheerleading was cool and not a synonym for “semen drinker” – played sports, and had a Tony Hawk poster in her room. I get that. Jessie kind of makes sense because she was a tall bombshell and was very smart, despite her inability to shut the hell up about anything for more than six seconds. Lisa Turtle, though? What the hell did she bring to the table? She was pointless and stuck up and stupid and mean. She never said anything nice to Screech and just wanted to spend money all day long. How in the hell did Lisa Turtle become popular while I wasn’t? It doesn’t make sense.

Kelly is selected for a cover shoot and Jessie and Lisa instantly hate Kelly but then mature in two seconds and are happy for her. Everyone is best friends again, and all is right in the world. Until Kelly is informed that she’ll be going to Paris and Zack gets pissed because Kelly will be gone for a month and Zack is afraid of losing Kelly, and thus missing out on a chance to nail her at the drive-in or something. Zack, the asshole that he is, doesn’t care about Kelly’s happiness at all and schemes to make sure she doesn’t leave him to get jackhammered by Adam Trask on the Eiffel Tower. Zack makes Kelly feel guilty about leaving by ensuring that everyone realizes their lives will fall into a horrible chaos without Kapowski around to do shit. The girls will have to team up with a fat chick in the swim meet (yuck, amirite?), Slater will fail biology because he’s a wrestler and stupid, and Screech’s birthday will become unimportant without Kelly there.

Look at that shirt. That looks like the shirt of a sexual predator

Additionally, Kelly, in the span of two days, loses all of her freedom because she has to take round-the-clock pictures because she’s a model. Zack makes Kelly feel even more guilty by ensuring that the gang doesn’t show up to the shoot and practically brings Kelly to suicide. Adam Trask talks some sense into Zack – maybe because he’s a mature, professional photographer, or maybe because he’s a sexual predator, I don’t know – and finally Zack wises up. He tells Kelly the truth and she forgives him because he’s Zack Fucking Morris and consequences don’t exist in his world. He says to Kelly that he can’t compete with Paris, but Kelly reminds him that Paris can’t compete with him. Of course Zack’s a shithead; he has people constantly forgiving every transgression and telling him he’s better than one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Fuck him. The gang joins them in Kelly’s room and they have a party. Kelly’s brief and illustrious career as a globetrotting model is never mentioned again.

I remembered this episode fondly because it had Kelly as a model. That’s a six year-olds’ wet dream, I’m telling you. Really, while it is a solid episode of the show, it isn’t in the upper echelon of the show’s esteemed pantheon (that’s reserved for the one where Jessie gets addicted to caffeine pills, the one where Zack and Kelly break up, the one where Zack solves a murder mystery, the one where Jessie gets a step-brother (a two-parter!), and the one where the black kid hyperactively freaks the fuck out for the “B-BA-B-BA-BA-BA-B-GO-BAYSIDE!” song), it is a perfect example of the show as a whole. It is a twenty-two minute showcase for Zack Morris’s douche baggery and how everyone excuses his frankly disgusting behavior. In this episode alone, I suspect that Zack broke no less than three laws in the state of California, screwed a few kids out of a job they truly loved and appreciated, betrayed the trust of his girlfriend and two childhood pals, produced smut and sold it on school grounds, and used his “friends” in an effort to stop his girlfriend from achieving worldwide fame and success as a supermodel. And what happened at the end of the episode to Zack? Fucking nothing. In fact, he got a smooch from Kelly Kapowski and partied with his pals.

While that is bad enough, Slater is shown as a mentally deficient meatwad who has only achieved such a high place in the social hierarchy of Bayside because he’s got pecks and is a good athlete. He physically threatens to beat people up because they are, rightfully, upset that some blonde asshat stole their jobs from them. Screech is portrayed as a moron and Zack’s personal puppet. Lisa doesn’t do much of anything. Belding lacks any amount of self-awareness and finds his own face superimposed on Jessie’s body sexually arousing. He also doesn’t punish Zack for breaking all those laws or exploiting his students because a fucking photographer shows up and says the pictures he illegally acquired look good. A photographer! That’s like me going into the police station and telling the cops that I’m a waiter, and the guy behind bars shouldn’t be held accountable for murdering his ex-wife because he makes a good spaghetti and the cop unlocking the cell. And then we get Jessie as the hypocritical nag who freaks out about being exploited for thirteen seconds before getting excited about the prospect of being exploited to more people. She’s the worst feminist ever.

Seriously, fuck these guys. Fuck all of them. They’re assholes, douche bags, idiots, hypocrites, and clueless. I don’t mean that. I still love them. Kind of. But you try watching this episode as an adult and not being disgusted by what’s happening. You’ll be sick within five minutes. Zack Morris is the scum of the earth. I don’t know who the most entitled dickweed character to never face any consequences for negative actions ever is – Zack Morris or Michelle Tanner. It’s close, I’m telling you. I would love those two to be starved for three days and then placed in a room on opposite sides of the other with a banana in the middle, just to see what would happen. This is what growing up with television in the nineties did to me – it made me a cynical, miserable pop culture freak who fascinates about imaginary characters fighting over a phallic fruit.

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