02.28.07

Goodbye, Miss Bliss

Posted in Saved by the Bell, Television, JD at 11:19 am by jd

The best moment of my recent life came about 4 weeks ago at 7:15 on a Monday morning. The alarm went off and Sports Center was running NASCAR highlights from over the weekend, so naturally I turned the channel in disgust. Angered by ESPN’s willingness to show NASCAR highlights just 15 minutes into an SC program and still half asleep, I stumbled upon TBS, the Super Station. Never has a moniker been so fitting, for what did I find? That’s right, I found Saved by the Bell. Upon further investigation, I not only found SBTB, I found that it runs in marathon fashion EVERY MORNING from 7:00 to 9:00. Two hours of tasty high school goodness, replete with lame jokes, legions of nerds (not to mention the distinction between geeks and dweebs) and the rare iconic pop culture reference. This is fantastic. My mornings have not been the same since. Fridays are a special treat, when we get our weekly installments of “The College Years.” Seriously, if you’re not watching this, you are missing out on a trans-generational phenomenon.

That being said, I have some comments about certain episodes and recurring themes that rear their head during the run of the series. I’ll be using this space (shooting for twice a week) to post on these themes, general plot and some of the memorable lines from the show. Enjoy!

Today’s episodes were a carryover from yesterday when the 8 and 8:30 episodes were the first half of the movie “Saved by the Bell: Hawaiian Style.” Even James Lipton agrees that this movie was truly “a delight.” Basically the story goes like this: The gang (and yes, I’ll often refer to them as “the gang” herein) goes on Summer vacation in Hawaii to visit Kelly’s grandpa, the owner of the Hawaiian Hideaway. It should be noted here that the group is between their “Junior” and “Senior” year of high school, though the years were never specifically stated until the graduation episodes and I swear there were like 24 Prom episodes, but anyway… This trip is supposed to be, according to Lipton, “Sans Mr. Belding. But when they get there, who else do they see, but Mr. Belding!” Dustin Diamond responds, “That was the twist!” A quick recap of the rest: Zack instantly falls in love with Andrea (single Mom with 4 year old daughter) and the gang finds out the Hideaway is going bankrupt and will probably have to sell to the Royal Pacific owned by Mr. Worthington. 2 notes, Mr. Belding’s tour group is staying at the RP and Mr. Worthington’s son Derrick is Andrea’s boyfriend. Side plot develops where Screech is the savior of a Pacific Islander tribe called the Pukuku (Poo Koo Koo) and they do a crazy Screech Chant. Since RP is trying to get rid of the Hideaway, the gang comes up with a plan to get Belding to switch his tour group to their hotel and of course, hijinx ensue. Blah blah blah, fast forward, fast forward, Kelly falls for her grandpa’s young handsome attorney Brian who also happens to be RP’s attorney. Hmm.. The gang sabotages the deal, black mails Mr. Worthington into leaving the hideaway alone, Screech gets the tribe jobs working at the Hideaway and everyone is happy. Ok, now lets touch back on two issues. First Zack falls in love with Andrea (who at the end admits she loves him too). We find out her daughter is 4 and that she was in labor during her high school graduation ceremony. Which means she was at least 17. 17 + 4 is 21. Call her 21 to be conservative. Zack says, “I’ll be 18 soon.” Hmm, statutory? But wait, that’s not all. Kelly is younger than Zack. Kelly dates Brian the attorney who has gone through at least 7 years of college, conservatively which makes him 25. BIG TIME statutory. Plus it’s an older guy which tends to make things even worse. Why wasn’t this guy or girl arrested? Because minors dating older people is a running them of the show. Just ask Kelly, who also dated Jeff when he was a 20 year old Sophomore at UCLA and managing the Max, and Kelly was a 16 year old high school Sophomore. Disturbing. Anyway, everything ends up great in SBTB: Hawaiian Style and Zack promises to come back after graduating from College to find Andrea. Kelly breaks it off with Brian when she finds out he’s scum working for the RP.

Ok, take a deep breath.

Ready to move on? Or do you still need more time?

Ok here we go… I was very excited at the 8:00 episode today when I realized it was going to be a “Good Morning, Miss Bliss” episode (now titled also as SBTB). The first episode was the one that Zack likes a girl but gets caught lying to her and she dumps him and goes to Miss Bliss’s house during her date to talk about it. Miss Bliss, great person she is, takes Zack in, talks and gives him Apple Pie! Metaphor? Maybe not, but coincidence? I think so. Especially after her date leaves and the two of them are alone. Older people… There’s that theme again. Not that I’m saying Miss Bliss and Zack had a relationship, all I’m saying is she was fired from Bayside before the kids got to high school. There’s got to be a reason. The second episode was the one where Zack and Screech reach an agreement. Zack gets Screech a date with Lisa and Screech writes a paper for Zack. Nothing works out and Zack gets caught of course. He doesn’t learn his lesson about anything though as he has Screech continually do his work down the road and “fill him in on what to say in the presentation” AND again bribes Lisa to go on a date, this time with Jessie’s step brother from New York, Eric. But that is another story.

Today’s Line of the Day (Sung): “Welcome to the Hawaiian Hideaway. Your cares will slide away, beneath the sunshine in the morning and the moon at night.”

Ok, this got out of hand length wise. More updates tomorrow. Ish.

Feel free to drop your favorite SBTB quote, episode or reaction here!

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