The unintentionally dumbest scenes

[Aaron]

i saw this thread on imdb, So I thought i'd post it here. Anyway I know we all love this show but truth be told some scenes were pretty dumb.

My vote goes to the episode where jessie gets hooked on those energy pills, And at the end Zack comes into her room and she acts like shes on crack or some drug and sings something along the lines of IM SO EXCITED IM SO EXCITED IM SO... SCARED! And starts crying and flips out.

[heavensjoke]

I know the infamous Jessie's "I'm So Excited" scene was lame, but it was the fact that she admitted to realizing her problem. That is the key behind the line. You have to realize, the writers were writing for a wide, but difficult demographic.

They were aiming really low, and sort of high. Now they could have made it a far more interesting, yet difficult to understand scene... excluding the lame line and put it across the screen another way but would it have hit the younger demographic the same way? That she knew she had the problem but didn't want to admit to it. So this was the big climax where she did, and I think they hit the spot with it.

Question though.... if you could have taken the scene and done it differently. How would you have done it?

Oh and I don't really have a "dumbest" scene. I know some are lame, have no real meaning... but they're all either building up to a climax or coming down from one. Personally, I dislike the scene where they boo-bop at the Diner to Ginger? The waitress... it was a pointless and lame. I mean, any singing scene in Saved by the Bell is pretty lame... the lips never match!

[acmorris]

Is that episode ever going to pass out of the stock-reply-file for any Saved by the Bell amateur? Seriously, if you're at a party and you bring up SBTB (which I do quite often), someone almost always says "Ohhhh yeah I love that show! Like the episode where Jessie gets hooked on pills!" Then they proceed to do her infamous, and worn-out, rendition of "I'm So Excited." As if this evinces some sort of consummate knowledge of the show instead of the crappy early-90s pop-culture awareness of SBTB that most people seem to have. I'm getting angry just sitting here typing it.

The truth is, EVERY scene in EVERY episode was the dumbest of the lot. Has this been addressed on any of the message boards yet? I'm doing it here, then. This show was a big, brown steaming pile of crap from start to finish. Everyone knows this. There is so tangibly little that is redeeming about this show---and in all honesty, I'm not sure if there is ANYTHING redeeming about it---that to try and find scenes or episodes that were of cultural and social significance or poignancy is absurd. The acting, the sets, the plot, the continuity---every aspect of this show, from start to finish, was a total bomb. A failure.

And yet, do I really, actively dislike this show? Of course not. I love this show. I have all the seasons (all "five" of them) and the College Years on DVD. I plan to add to my collection the HS / Wedding in Las Vegas movies any day now. I won't touch the New Class, but I imagine most of us feel that way. At any rate, I think there needs to be a greater movement of honesty on these forums---we all know that without a doubt SBTB was one of the worst, if not THE worst shows on 90s television that maintained a significant amount of popularity during its broadcast. It sucks. But we love it. Can't we all just agree on that?

[The Friar]

Uh, no we can't all agree on that, or at least I can't agree with you. See my comments on why I love the show and why I think it DOES have redeeming qualities, if for nothing else than that it is wholesome and good(see the bottom of this post).

I will agree that it was no Frasier, or Emmy award winning show. But then I don't think that was the goal. The goal was solidly moral TV for kids to watch that wasn't Bugs Bunny, that wasn't Road Runner. But to say it has NO redeeming qualities, that it sucks, no, ACMorris, I cannot agree with you.

Jun 10, 2008 0:01:06 GMT -5 The Friar said:

Hey Gang,

With the idea of trying to jump start some posting and reading through the Social Commentary thread - I am asking this question...What is it about SBTB that's so appealing? Now I know we've all answered this question many times, but I would challenge all to think this through and give it a good, solid answer. In other words answer like Screech not like Zack! I will get us started.

I have a confession to make. I am (gulp) 40 years old, I'm married to the most wonderful woman in the world, I have two beautiful kids...

and...

I am a Saved by the Bell fan.

It's true. Now don't go locking the doors when I come to town, or hiding your kids from me, and don't go looking for a pocket protector in my shirt pocket (even Screech didn't wear one of those!). I am your average, everyday man. I love watching football on Sundays (and Mondays and sometimes Thursdays, oh yeah, and Saturdays) I am a HUGE Bears fan! I love to go fishing, playing basketball, playing and watching soccer, and hanging out with the guys. I belch out loud (only sometimes!), and occasionally leave the seat up (much to my wife's chagrin). But I also love the simple life, and you can't get much more simple than SBTB.

I think the appeal is that it reminds me of my own high school days. Bayside was small, like my high school. The gang was made up of all those high school stereotypes, a prep, a geek, a jock, a brain, a beauty queen, and a fashion queen. The only things keeping this from being the Breakfast Club is the language and a criminal (but then of course there was Jesse's brother!). Those stereotypes are magnified when you are in a small school setting, they were magnified on SBTB, and they were in my high school too. They do a fairly good job of covering all the bases. Let's face it most of us can identify with one of the characters on SBTB. And if you're wondering about me I was mostly Slater, with a little Zack thrown in for good measure (I must admit it, I was a smart mouth, but only sometimes!).

SBTB was a smart, funny, well written show. The actors were good and the plots, though most times very predictable, were still very good. Yeah, it got a little cheesy here and there, now and then, but then so do most shows. It was a nice slice of what was good in life and what was fun about high school. It never pretended to be more than that, and that, among other reasons, is why I think SBTB attracted so many viewers (of course having good looking actors playing the roles of the kids didn't hurt either!). But it was more than good looking kids, it had to be or it would never have lasted for 12 years (Good Morning Miss Bliss to the New Class), that's right I said 12 years!

Mostly though, I think SBTB appeals to me because morally it was sound and that is important to me. I am really growing tired of the shows that grace the TV today (and commercials for that matter) with their morally questionable character. Where are the Mayberrys and the Baysides today? They have seemingly vanished from the TV landscape (with the exception of shows like Seventh Heaven) and have been replaced by the morally challenged (read here Gossip Girl and the like). As the world, and the U.S. in particular, loses more and more of the moral grip it once had, we will only continue to further slip into the abyss that is the decadence of today's society.

With SBTB there was no sex, no language, and no smoking. There was a couple of episodes on drugs, and there was an episode on underage drinking. But you know what? The outrageous behavior was condemned not condoned. Zack wasn't bouncing from Kelly's to Jesse's to Lisa's bed and in the process passing out STDs like they were candy for trick or treaters. Slater wasn't shooting up human growth hormone so he could beef up and beat Valley Friday night. And for me, that's ok, and in fact is preferred.

Today's shows give me a bit too much reality (and I am not talking about reality TV, that's for another post!). I'm talking about how many of the shows today seemingly do condone teenage drinking, sex, smoking, and so on. That's a part of reality that I get on a daily basis in my job and don't want to get from my TV or movie theater. Enough is enough!

I guess what I am saying is I'd rather be sitting at the Max talking with the gang over a Coke about how we were going to get back at Valley in the basketball game, than standing outside of the locker room trying to score some weed for the party later that night.

What happened to those days? Unfortunately, Opie and Screech are gone from regular TV. So I am left with my Andy Griffith Show and Saved by the Bell DVDs. They will have to do. Like I said at the beginning of this post I am a Saved by the Bell fan, and I am proud of it.

The ;D Friar

These, ACMorris, are redeeming qualities, and these make the show better than most, including you, give it credit for.

The ;D Friar

[acmorris]

I'm really blown away by your assertions that Saved by the Bell is a television show that can be favored for its "solidly moral" foundation. At best the show was morally ambiguous, and at worst it was a wellspring of immoral actions and people (namely Zack Morris, but as he was the focus of the show, it's enough to use him as a template for the whole lot).

Zack was constantly shown to take advantage of and exploit both his friends, superiors and the halpless extras that peppered the halls of the absurd, psuedo-reality that was Bayside High. Numerous episodes come to mind. In one, he bugs Jessie's room while the girls are having a sleepover, something that would almost certainly fall under a legal statute of voyeurism and be chargeable. Zack took full advantage of the lesson on subliminal advertising and used it to actually brainwash Kelly into going to the dance with him---an act that is both astonishingly effective and blazingly underhanded and vile. Zack and Slater actually kidnapped a poor bulldog from the rival school, something that would fall under theft and probably result in expulsion from school. That is, if the show's central authority figures (i.e. Mr. Building) had any sense of moral obligation. Which obviously he doesn't.

The list goes on. Zack and his two buddies clandestinely photographed pictures of the girl's swim team and set them to calendar. This is almost certainly illegal. The entire gang, even sweet-natured Kelly, make fake ID's----something even I haven't done!---to gain access to an "over-eighteen" club somewhere in downtown Palisades. Etc etc. All with absolutely no moral repercussions barring some guilty feelings and an occasional detention.

All of this would be a reasonable rap sheet if Zack and his moronic posse had ever learned their lessons in any perceptible form. But they didn't. It didn't matter if the gang learned a valuable example of tolerance, safety or love; in the next episode they would be just as shallow and unbearable as they always were. Perhaps this stems from the fact that no episode ever referenced any single one before it (with the exceptions of Palm Springs and Home for Christmas). Zack was consistently shown to be shallow, back-stabbing, spiteful and jealous to a startling degree. He actively avoided the overweight girl who successfully bid on him at a Date Auction. He attempts to manipulate the school song vote by appealing to the stifled sexual instincts of a premier nerd girl. He sabotaged Slater's driving practice car, risking terrible injury just so Slater wouldn't get his driver's license. God! If any one of these things happened to me in high school at any time I'd be blown away. I'd talk about it for years. "Hey guys, remember that time we set up Jessie's stepbrother to get caught driving the principal's car, and he ended up crashing it but as a result of a series of kooky happenings Mr. Belding never found out???" I'd write a book dedicated to that one entire adventure!

Equally puzzling is the lack of action taken by the show's power(s) that be, Mr. Belding. Once Mr. Belding quipped that Zack's eight detention was when he "sold the school to the Japanese." Now, I live in a city whose public school district is fairly rough-and-tumble, but last time I checked, selling your school to a foreign body---disregarding the incredibly difficult process that an eleventh-grader almost certainly wouldn't have been able to work through---is grounds for immediate expulsion. I mean, no questions asked, you're out. And probably some jail time too. And some really angry Asian men. If all Zack got for forking over the deed to Bayside High was his "eighth detention", what does this teach children about the cause-and-effect aspect of adolescent life? Hey, if I decide to sell something that's not mine, I'm only going to get slapped on the wrist for it.
This was not the only absurd and technically daunting hijinx of Zack that has been referenced (see: rigging Belding's office to manufacture an earthquake, somehow). Most of Morris's even insignificant pranks at the school would be enough to warrant suspension in any consolidated district in the continental U.S. And yet he was allowed to hold domain over the place as if he owned it. Belding was a paper tiger. If Zack was a terrible role model for children, and he certainly was, then Belding was an even worse role model for what children can expect from adults. There were no morals here.

As well, Zack and Slater were shown to be relentlessly sexist toward women. Slater frequently called Jessie "chick" and "babe", much to her chagrin and repeated requests for him to stop. In "The Will" the two chauvinists try and dismiss the girl's sports as "(not) real sports". And Zack was shown to move through girls at roughly the speed of light, when he wasn't hung up on Kapowski, Carosi or Scott. So what if there was no sex? He still very clearly treated them like objects on a regular basis.

As far as your suggestion that the actors were good and the plots were "also very good", well, that's a matter of personal taste, really. Everyone is entitled to his opinion regarding matters of artistic merit. However, you write intelligently and clearly, as if it comes fairly natural to you. It seems as if you are a well-educated man, so I cannot see how you can possibly make such an absurd and unrealistic claim. The show was terribly scripted, painfully and often stiflingly acted, and such plot devices as Zack breaking his knee after speed-walking into Mr. Belding's leg (and clearly having leaned backward beforehand in preparation) show an inability of the writers to come up with anything other than the most childlike, kindergarten-level storylines.

I love this show, but I will maintain till the end of my days that it is a terrible show, and a morally questionable one at that.

[The Friar]

Yet, in all situations regarding the examples you have stated Zack and the gang are always shown to have had a lapse in judgment, are corrected for their behavior and are genuinely sorry for what they have done wrong.

You are right, Zack is a typical teenager who pushes the envelope, but in the end he is shown his wrong. In all of the situations you have pointed out, not once was the end of the program showing that what Zack and the gang had done was the right thing to do.

"Solidly moral" is not being perfect, which seems to be your claim, it is living in a world where we do things wrong and then are shown the errors of our ways, and then feel some contrition over what we have done. Many shows are exactly that (e.g. The Andy Griffith Show, The Brady Bunch, Home Improvement, Charles in Charge and on and on). These shows often times take a moral dilemma, play it out, show why it is wrong and then there is contrition and reconciliation. SBTB did just that.

I was a teenager once. I remember acting stupidly one day, getting caught at it and acting equally stupid the next day - I was a teenager! That's what many teens do. To that end I think that the Zack character is acting more teen like than say Laura Ingalls who learned her lesson and promised never to do it again (although she did in the next episode - again exhibiting typical teenage trial and error behavior). You're expecting too much of the age group if you want them to never do anything wrong. But when they do step out of line you show them their wrong and they pay the consequences. Seems to me that was what SBTB did. I remember Zack not getting to do some things as a result of his bad judgment calls (i.e. driving drunk).

Yes, I am an educated man and thank you for the compliment. I have a BA and a Masters and I do write for a living. Absurd? No. Just different. But ya know what? I still love shows like SBTB. It is a break from reality, a break I need and thoroughly enjoy, cheesiness and all.

You asked if we could all agree. I am just answering your question with an emphatic, "No, we can't all agree." At least I cannot.

The ;D Friar

[gokinsmen]

I pretty much agree with the above sentiments -- Zack and the gang were guilty of some very shady deeds...but they were always punished and disciplined accordingly.

As for the infamous Jesse Freak-Out, the strange thing about that scene is that if the pills were indeed "speed," then the scene would have felt relatively appropriate and well-done. It's the fact that they were mere No-Doze (or "Keep Alert" in the episode) that made it so embarrassing. The decision to make them caffeine pills seems especially ridiculous since family sitcoms were already doing "very special episodes" about pot and cocaine years before SBTB. In fact, they dealt with pot later on in the series anyway!

[Barb]

You guys have got to remember that this show was aimed toward 5-8 year olds...Saturday mornings, you know where they show cartoons? lol

[The Friar]

Yes Barb - and thanks for pointing that out! I do remember this was marketed to the younger, mostly girls set, although I would have thought the age bracket would have been more along the lines 8-14 year olds. However, just because it is geared toward a younger age group does not mean that the writing, acting, etc. has to be inferior or sub par. This was the point I was trying to make when answering the question posed by ACMorris. I do not think it was the dumbest show on TV, unintentional or otherwise.

The ;D Friar

[Jules]

It amazes me that someone who calls themselves a fan could talk about the show the way acmorris does, I mean why buy all the dvds if you think the show sucks that bad? seems insane to me lol