Tag Archives: SBTB

O Come Let Us Adore… Holiday-Themed Sitcom Episodes

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ATTENTION: IT IS DECEMBER. IT IS THE LAST MONTH OF 2014. WHAT HOW HUH.

Ok now that I’ve made you feel like you’ve done nothing this year, it’s time to introduce you to our special holiday playlists of the month, because we like spreading joy here at Cookies + Sangria.

If you are a frequent reader of our blog, you know that we usually have a Playlist of the Month featuring our favorite songs based on the given theme. For December, we decided to give our gifts to you early (yay!) and have THREE ‘playlists’ that are all holiday themed. Today we’re kicking it off with some of our favorite holiday sitcom episodes. If you’re like us, you enjoy watching stuff like this to get into the spirit, so break out the egg nog (or just like, wine or something) and kick back with some of the best Christmasukkah crap TV has to offer!

Molly’s Picks

Parks and Recreation – Citizen Knope
{Season 4, Episode 1}

Guaranteed to bring on my annual Yuletide happy-cry, in this episode Leslie learns that as much love and dedication as she has for her friends and community, they have for her. Leslie always gives almost obsessively perfect presents, but after her rough suspension she receives the best gifts a gal could ask for: the love of her friends, a gingerbread facsimile of her workplace, and a campaign staff.

Seinfeld – The Strike
{Season 9, Episode 10}

Yes, my family has celebrated Festivus. The Feats of Strength were a real bummer because my brothers are both 6’5, but I think the Airing Of Grievances hurt more. If you don’t know what those things mean, you need to watch this episode.

The Office – Christmas Party
{Season 2, Episode 10}

Remember those sweet, early ‘will they/won’t they’ days of Jim and Pam’s relationship? When a Christmas gift exchange turns into a forced Yankee Swap, Jim’s gift to Pam is in jeopardy. She ultimately gets the teapot he bought her, but not before Jim removes the note he wrote her … then gives it to her like 7 years later.

Guys. I really miss this show sometimes.

Friends – The One With The Routine
{Season 6, Episode 10}

Do you guys remember Millennium Fever? Survivalists were freaking out about Y2K and everyone else was under heavy pressure to have the best New Year’s ever. When Monica and Ross land a spot on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, they decide to bust out their childhood dance routine.

Surest sign you were a tweenaged Friends fanatic in the late 90s: you watched the episode (taped on VHS, naturally) over and over until you had that routine down. Guilty.

30 Rock – Ludachristmas
{Season 2, Episode 9}

This one had me at the title. What can I say, I love a good portmanteau. But the episode itself seriously delivered. Jack’s mom (Elaine Stritch) is in town, as is Liz’s family (including her brother, whose brain injury makes him believe that it is perpetually 1985). The TGS Christmas party is ruined when Kenneth takes it upon himself to teach everyone the Real Meaning Of Christmas, and saved when Tracy decides to ignore his alcohol monitoring bracelet.

The Simpsons – The Simpsons Roasting On An Open Fire
{Season 1, Episode 1}

I was a big Simpsons fan as a little kid, and this is probably my favorite of their Christmas episodes. Homer gets a job as a mall Santa, but still comes up short on Christmas Eve. He and Bart hit the racetrack, and come home with the best present of all – Santa’s Little Helper, the losing greyhound they bet on.

Traci’s Picks

The Office – A Benihana Christmas
{Season 3, Episode 11}

This isn’t just one of my favorite Christmas episodes, it’s one of my favorite episodes of The Office – ever. There is so much going on in this episode that I don’t even know which storyline is my favorite. So let’s break it down. First we have Michael, whose realtor girlfriend, Carol (and Steve’s IRL wife) breaks up with him, leading him into a spiral of depression. To help him with the pain, he goes out to lunch at Japanese restaurant Benihana with some of the guys in the office. Michael and Andy pick up two of the waitresses (Kulap!) and bring them back to the office for the annual Christmas party. Except Michael can’t remember which Asian waitress was the one he was hoping to hook up with, and after a heart to heart with Jim, Michael realizes he really likes someone else and invites them to go to Jamaica with him (spoiler alert, it’s Jan). Speaking of the party, there are actually two dueling parties between Angela’s Party Planning Committee and Pam and Karen’s margarita-karaoke party. This is important because it’s the first time Pam and Karen are actually getting along despite the fact there’s the whole Jim love triangle. Eventually the two parties merge, and all is fine. Oh and as a Christmas present to Jim, Pam has been playing an elaborate trick on Dwight which involves the CIA. This episode is The Office at its finest. It has the perfect mix of humor, heart, and plot progression that will fit in a special hour-long episode. Ugh, I miss this show.

Friends – The One With The Holiday Armadillo
{Season 7, Episode 10}

This is obviously one of the more iconic moments of Friends – even though it’s from one of the much-debated later seasons. Ross wants to teach Ben about Haunukkah, since he’s half Jewish, but all Ben wants to do is talk about that Santa dude. Ross gives in, but it’s too late into the season that all the Christmas-related costumes are sold out, so he settles for an armadillo – the Holiday Armadillo to be exact (who is Santa’s representative for all the southern states. Annnnnd Mexico!) But because Ben has uncles who love him a lot and want to help out, Joey and Chandler dress up too, and the result looks like the Easter Bunny’s funeral.

Full House – Our Very First Christmas Show
{Season 2, Episode 9}

When I was a kid, I always thought Corduroy and his story was just the coolest. The fact that this bear came to life and gets to wander around a department store at night when it was closed just seemed so intriguing to me. Basically, any plot that involves people (or inanimate objects coming to life, I guess) being stuck in a place where they’re not usually supposed to be is great to me. In the first Christmas episode from Full House, the fam is on its way to Colorado for the holidays, but a blizzard forces the plane to land in a rando small airport and they have to spend the Christmas Eve in the baggage claim waiting room. Jesse’s dad tries to get Jesse to kiss Becky under the mistletoe, Deej is mad that their gifts have gone missing, Steph is upset because she doesn’t think Santa will find her in the stupid airport, and Joey doesn’t get a real storyline because this is Full House. Eventually some guy Steph was afraid of on the plane turns out to be the real Santa, and they all get their presents. It’s full of cheese, but what else do you expect from this show?

Parks and Recreation – Ron and Diane
{Season 5, Episode 9}

Because Leslie Knope is the greatest, she dresses up in this elf/santa’s workshop worker costume to tell Ron he is nominated for an award from the Indiana Fine Woodworking Association for a chair he recently built. Ron invites Diane to the ceremony and Leslie invites herself, and therefore meets Diane for the first time (cameo appearance from Tammy 2). Meanwhile, the rest of the gang are planning their annual Jerry Dinner – every time Jerry does something stupid, they put a dollar in the box, and at the end of the year, they use the money to treat themselves to a dinner. But on their way to spend the $500, Tom, Donna, April and Andy pass by Jerry’s house only to find out that the Gengriches, including Christie Brinkley, are having a big Christmas party without them. Ann, who is a guest at the party, won’t let them in, but they finally apologize and end up giving the Jerry Dinner money to Jerry to help pay for his hospital bills after his fart attack.

How I Met Your Mother – How Lily Stole Christmas
{Season 2, Episode 11}

Lily finds an old message on their answering machine that Ted left for Marshall after Lily left him to go off to San Francisco. He called her a grinch (bitch) and urged Marshall to get over her. Ted tells her that in all fairness she was being a huge grinch during that time, and refuses to apologize, which makes Lily furious. She takes away “Lily’s Winter Wonderland”, in which she decorates the entire apartment full of snow and Christmas items, and it’s Marshall’s favorite part about the holidays, especially this year since he’s busy studying for the bar exam. There are a lot of episodes in HIMYM focusing on Marshall/Lily and Ted/Marshall/Barney, but there are a few which get to focus on Lily/Ted, and this is one of them. Throughout college, it was Mashall, Lily, and Ted as a trio, and sometimes it’s hard to remember that with the Marshall/Lily ship, so seeing them fight and ultimately reconcile in this episode is certainly a Christmas miracle.

Saved By The Bell – A Home For Christmas
{Season 3, Episode 24}

Boy, do I love/hate a teen show which tries to incorporate adult subject matter. We briefly talked about how this show handled drunk driving and drugs during our SBTB Week a few months ago,  and this is no different. Most of the gang has jobs at the mall, and Zack lit’rally runs into this blonde girl and hits on her but he turns around for one second and she’s gone. Separately, Zack and Screech run into a man in the bathroom who they realize is homeless. Turns out, the blonde, Laura, not only works with Kelly at a department store, but is the homeless man’s daughter, and they’ve been living in their car after he lost his job. Zack’s mom offers to let them stay at their house until they find a place to stay. At the same time, the crew is putting up A Christmas Carol, which IRONICALLY mirrors a similar story between Laura and Kelly and their mean scroogey boss Mr. Moody. The episode ends with everyone singing Silent Night around a piano, and S2G, if I watched this episode as an adult I would hate it, but because I watched it so many times as a kid, the corny factor doesn’t even bother me. God bless us every one (esp Zack Morris).

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Doing Lines: Saved by the Bell

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Listen. I think we’re all on the same page when I say while Saved by the Bell is one of the most beloved TV shows of kids who grew up in the 90s, it’s not the best in terms of, say, storytelling or acting. It’s a show for teens and tweens, and in cases like myself, children under the age of 10. But because it was geared towards a younger crowd, they could get away with more ridiculous storylines, something that they wouldn’t have been able to get away with on “adult” programming.

That being said, we’re back with another installment of our Doing Lines series (you can catch the other ones here), and this time we’re heading to the Pacific Palisades and seeing what kind of trouble the kids got into during their five-year stint in high school.

Season 1

Episode 3 {The Gift}

Fun fact: the image on the TV is an exterior shot of John F. Kennedy Junior High School from Good Morning, Miss Bliss!!

Screech gets struck by lighting and suddenly has a superpower where he knows what will happen before it happens. Also, he acquires an afro.

Episode 5 {Screech’s Woman}

Zack decides to help Screech get a girlfriend but no one is willing to go out with him, so Zack dresses up as a girl named Babmi and goes on a date with Screech, but he starts to like Bambi frreal.

 Episode 8 {Cream for a Day}

Screech accidentally invents a zit cream in chemistry class, which gets rid of pimples overnight. Kelly wins homecoming queen but uses the cream the night before – too bad the cream makes everyone’s face maroon.

Episode 11 {The Friendship Business}

Zack leads the gang in a project for business class, in which they have to create and market a product. They choose an item called Buddy Bands, but when their company becomes successful, the power gets to Zack’s head and Kelly, Jessie and Slater decide to make their own friendship-related item, Love Cuffs. Also, this timeless commercial.

Episode 12 {The Mamas and the Papas}

The gang participate in a project to simulate a domestic marriage, and everyone gets paired up. Jessie and Slater, Zack and Kelly (foreshadowing!!!) and Lisa and Screech. I think the most importnant thing to remember from this episode is that Lisa ALL OF A SUDDEN is allergic to Screech. Because she keeps sneezing and scratching everytime she’s close to him, Mr. Belding separates them and Screech becomes Zack and Kelly’s son, while Lisa goes over to the Slater/Spano family. Lisa’s allergy was never spoken of again.

Episode 14 {The Zack Tapes}

Zack learns about subliminal messaging and attempts to trick Kelly into going to the dance with him with a sneaky cassette tape. She finds out and decides to turn the tables on him. Ah the troubles of being a teen heartthrob. 

Season 2

Episode 7 {Rent-a-Pop}

Mr. Belding wants to set up a meeting with Zack and his dad because Zack’s been failing his classes. Zack doesn’t want his father to find out, so “rents” an actor to be his dad, because, Los Angeles.

Episode 8 {Miss Bayside}

After watching The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell story, we learned that the writers asked the cast what their talents or hobbies were, and incoporated their answers to the scripts. TAT used to be a beauty queen, which explains the Miss Bayside pageant, but can/do real schools actually do this?

Episode 9 {Jessie’s Song}

It’s the infamous ‘I’m so excited’ episode. And honestly, my problem isn’t with Jessie’s ridiculous addiction to caffeine pills, it’s that a trio of teens from the Pacific Palisades, and called Hot Sundae, easily got the attention of music executives. They were on the fast track to stardom until Jessie’s freakout!

Episode 10 {Model Students}

A photographer comes to Bayside and “discovers” Kelly after Zack and Screech secretly take pix of the girls in swimsuits and make a “Girls of Bayside calendar”. The photographer gives Kelly the opportunity to go to Paris to be a model. Zack isn’t okay with this. Is this photographer somehow in cahoots with the music execs who wanted to sign Hot Sundae? 

Episode 12 {Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind}

This is truly one of the more ridiculous storylines to ever come to Bayside. A tabloid is offering money for photos of real aliens so Zack and Slater dress Screech up as an alien and film him being creepy at the school to fool the tabloid. Except a special agent with the government is convinced Screech is a real alien.

Episode 13 {Running Zack}

Zack finds out he’s part Native American and to learn more about his roots, befriends a man named Chief Henry who has a great impact on Zack. Meanwhile, Jessie finds out her ancestors used to be slave owners and spends the rest of the episode ‘apologizing’ to Lisa. I’m convinced at least one scene in this episode is slightly racist.

Episode 14 {The Babysitters}

Kelly’s parents leave their baby son with Kelly who has to bring him to school (because, hello, she’s a teenager), but when she has to take school pictures, she’s forced to leave her baby brother behind with the gang. Honestly, why didn’t Mr. Belding or any of the teachers or any of the students not notice baby Billy and alert social services or something??

Episode 15 {The Fabulous Belding Boys}

Mr. Belding reluctantly lets his surfer dude brother Rod serve as a substitute teacher and immediately all the students flock to him because of his laid back nature. Rod suggests taking the kids on a white-water rafting trip, but just before they leave, Rod tells his bro that he can’t take the kids because he has a date with a girl – and Zack overhears the whole thing. Mr. Belding is left with covering for Rod but they end up having a lot more respect and appreciation for their principal at the end. Also, the title of this episode sounds super gay. Like literally gay.

Season 3

Episode 7 {Check Your Mate}

The annual chess competition between Bayside and Valley gets ugly when Valley plays dirty and steals his lucky beret. In retaliation, Zack and Slater decide to switch Valley’s best chess player, a Russian exchange student, with Zack in a wig. I guess I never realized it until now, but these kids really were into disguises. Must have kept the local wig store in business.

Episode 9 {Fake I.D.s}

Zack meets at girl at The Max named Danielle who is a student at USC, so naturally, Zack pretends to also be a college kid who’s majoring in photojournalism. He agrees to meet her at The Attic, a night club for kids 18 and over, which obviously requires fake I.D.s. While at the club, Zack, Slater and Screech spot Jeff, Kelly’s boss (aka the skeezebucket Kelly wanted to date so she promptly dumped Zack) kissing another girl. Zack tries to tell Kelly what he saw at the Attic but didn’t believe him, on account of jealousy. This episode is a reminder that the gang basically lived out things I would never have the balls to do as a teen. Fake IDs and sneaking into a club? I’d much rather stay in and watch The Baby-Sitters Club Movie on repeat.

Episode 11 {Pipe Dreams}

In one of those *the more you know* episodes, this one tackled the environment and saving it, etc. Oil is found in the school’s football field, and the kids go crazy thinking of what they’ll do with all the money. However, they soon find out that ~getting rich comes with a price~

Episode 16 {All in the Mall}

The gang fails at buying U2 concert tickets, and when they accidentally find a shoebox full of cash, shenanigans ensue. This never happened to me when I went to the mall. The only thing that went down was me trying to avoid eye contact with anyone I went to high school with.

Episode 17 {SATs}

Jessie gets a 1205 on the SATs while Zack miraculously scores a 1502, sending overachiever Jessie into a tailspin. For you kiddies that aren’t American or took the SATs after 2005, a perfect score on the SATs during this time was a 1600. So naturally, Jessie is as confused as all of us to learn of Zack’s score, especially because this is a kid who puts no effort into learning or anything relating to academia.

Episode 21 {No Hope With Dope}

Super megahot Hollywood actor Johnny Dakota chooses Bayside as the location for an anti-drug commercial but the catch is that Johnny himself uses drugs! A celebrity doing drugs?! Actually I think his drug of choice was pot UGH EVEN WORSE.

Episode 22 {Rockumentary}

This is personally one of my fave episodes, and it seemingly comes out of nowhere. Casey Kasem returns to give a Behind the Music-esque documentary about Zack Attack (the band all the gang is in, obvs), and their rise to fame from a garage band to superstar band. It was never explained how they all suddenly learned how to sing and play instruments.

Episode 24 {Home for Christmas}

Zack has a crush on a girl who works at the mall, and later finds out she and her dad are homeless. Again, this is one of those *very special* episodes that makes you think twice before you judge the girl working at a department store.

Season 4

Episode 4 {Student Teacher Week}

The students take over for the teachers – Zack becomes principal for the day. And hangs up posters of Paula Abdul and Guns n Roses next to each other.

Episode 3 {Screech’s Spaghetti Sauce}

Screech makes a spaghetti sauce he sells on TV, and Punky Brewster pretends to fall for him to get his recipe. They even come up with a fun catch phrase that I still have stuck in my head after all these years:  “The sauce you can have, but the secret, she’s a mine.”

Episode 18 {The Video Yearbook}

The gang decides to make a video yearbook instead of the traditional one, and Zack’s plan to use the girls’ videos as a dating service backfires when Kelly starts receiving a bunch of calls from rando guys.

Episode 20 {Snow White and the Seven Dorks}

The gang is all in a rap version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves but when Jessie and Zack find out they have to kiss in the final scene they get all weird about it and question their feelings for each other, and subsequently fall out with Slater and Kelly in the process. And they take the drama to the stage. Get it??

Episode 21 {Earthquake!}

An earthquake hits Bayside and Zack is stuck in the elevator with Mr. Belding’s pregnant wife who goes into labor. Reminder Zack is an 18 year old Senior in high school who just delivered his principal’s son.

Episode 24 {School Song}

The school holds a contest for who can write the best school song (BTW do schools actually do this? Our high school has been using the same ‘school song’ since the 1900s and includes the words ‘rev’rie’ and ‘retrospection’). Zack is determined to win the contest so he can be remembered for something positive before he graduates, as opposed to his scheming ways. But it’s those scheming ways that brings him down in the end. Friendly reminder that I tried to convince my 8th grade music teacher that we needed to sing this song at our graduation. I lit’rally taped the song on a cassette and brought it in to school.

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The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story: Live Blog

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T: I am going in on this fairly blind folks. As a preface, Saved by the Bell was like the number one show for me. Sure I watched Full House and Boy Meets World and the ilk, but nothing really compared to SBTB. I remember watching it before I went to school in the morning and then again at night. It got to the point where I knew exactly which episode it was just by the first 5 seconds of the opening scene. I once taped (on a cassette) the school song and tried to convince our chorus teacher to let us sing it for our 8th grade graduation (I convinced her to let us sing Seasons of Love from Rent instead). It was the first show that I was every obsessed with and probably the reason why I’m obsessed with TV now. That being said, I hold SBTB and its cast/characters in a special pedestal in my heart, so I’m taking this entire movie with a grain of salt.

T: Ah yes, the movie starts out in Cincinnati, Ohio, where every great story about 90s teen idols begin.

M: These children look like a pack of college kids dressed as Saved By The Bell characters for Halloween. It’s like the Garbage Pail Kids when you’re expecting Cabbage Patch, or that weird baby with the unibrow who’s Maggie’s nemesis on The Simpsons.

T: The kid playing Zack has the DUMBEST face and I’m already annoyed with him. He looks like he’s 10. And The dude playing Mario Lopez is way too ethnic. Yeah, I said it.

I’m gonna start counting the number of times I say ‘I can’t’ outloud to myself whilst watching this trainwreck. (1).

M: FAKE ZACK CALLS A TIME OUT. I’m sort of obsessed with this movie already.

T: The depressing thing about this mob scene is that these girls weren’t even born when Saved by the Bell: The College Years ENDED. 

T: Baby Zack’s IRL time-out only works within the walls of Bayside, duh. Uh ‘Dustin Diamond’ just stole BZ’s thunder by taking control of his time-out. (2)

Hold up – Dustin Diamond was a legit executive producer on this? I know it’s based on his book, it makes sense, but my best guess is that he just tried to make everyone else except ‘DD’ look like shit.

M: Fake Steve Buscemi (okay, a man with deep-set eyes) says they need to set the show in the Midwest, although there’s never been a show set in Indiana before. See, 2014 is all about sitcoms set in Indiana, but the late 80s and early 90s were very Southern California-centric. That’s why everyone was so into L.A. Looks.

[Kids, L.A. Looks was hairgel that every early 90s teen used, and it looked like Aloe Vera. This has been a message from C+S Cares, a social outreach ministry where we teach teenagers what the 90s were like.]

T: So apparently BZ/Mark Paul Gosselaar had the hots for Lark Vorhees from the beginning? Relatedly, this is what Lark looks like when she goes to the Hollywood Farmer’s Market.

Was it really necessary to point out that MPG is part Indonesian? And that DD commented on his hair?

M: Fake Hayley Mills has major 2014 hair. Inaccurate.

T: True story: My first introduction to Hayley Mills was via Good Morning, Miss Bliss, so I’m probably one of the only few people that doesn’t correlate her with The Parent Trap.

M: The adults in the futuristic office discussing SBTB are so stupid. Like, an unlikely level of stupid. They don’t believe that kids would rather watch a show about kids instead of teachers. They exposition that there has never been a live-action show starring kids before. But even in the 50s and 60s … Mickey Mouse Club? Leave It To Beaver? Lassie? Okay, I guess the last one was mostly the dog.

They also gloss over the existence/firing of Mickey and Girl Mickey. Those kids from Good Morning Miss Bliss? And the girl freed the frogs from the science lab? That might have been Jessie, actually.

T: No, I think it was Nikki (Girl Mickey). Can’t remember Mickey’s real name. Too lazy/don’t care enough to look up.

[ M: Laterblog: I googled it in the morning. Mikey and Nikki. Yeah, I’m just going to keep calling them Mickey.]

Far (L) Mickey or something. Far (R) Mickey the boy version.

T: DD comes into rehearsal lit’rally acting like a quacking duck and everyone – everyone thinks it’s hilarious. Even the dude playing Mr. Belding. BZ/MPG says, ‘He’s awesome!’ about DD. I feel like that sentiment’s not going to last throughout the movie…

M: At what age, if you’re saddled with a name like “Tiffani Amber,” do you say screw it and just introduce yourself as Tiffani? Evidently older than “Tiffani Amber” is here.

T: The original title of SBTB was apparently ‘When the Bell Rings’, which is very similar to ‘As the Bell Rings’, a short (like 5 minute interstitials) on the Disney Channel like 7 years ago. The show was actually kind of similar to SBTB, and took place entirely in a school hallway, starring pre-Demi Lovato Demi Lovato and the white kid in MKTO. I may have been obsessed with this one song, because I am 12 years old.

This blonde casting bitch is really into racial profiling. First she wanted to adhere to Lisa as a ‘Jewish American Princess’ and now AC Slater turns out to be Latino and not Italian.

M: “It’s a comedy about kids, how much range do you need?” LOTS. Tons.

T: Since when was the SBTB casting room Mad Men in 1989?

If I’ve learned anything from this movie so far is that DD’s dad was a real asshole and cared a lot about his car’s mileage.

(3)

This first table read is already a mess. DD realizes everyone is starting to get along without him and he even has to sit next to Dennis Haskins (Belding) because it’s the only seat left.

The Executive Producer Peter Engel tells the gang that they need to keep their relationships professional, but Mario Lopez apparently didn’t get the memo. He also didn’t get the memo that he doesn’t need to dress up like his character at the table read.

UH OH MPG AND LARK ARE HOLDING HANDS UNDER THE TABLE! And by hands, I mean Lark offered her pinky, and MPG is grasping it with his hand.

I have a problem with this set. Mainly because it’s NOTHING like the real one.

M: Fake Bayside is probably the worst casting yet. It looks like a Disney Channel Original Series set.

Real Bayside. BONUS: Those rando twins who must have been recurring contract extras; Jessie Spano being the worst, probably.

M: Now the kids exposit about their talents, interests, and ethnic backgrounds. God. There is nothing more insufferable than someone full of hope and promise telling you what they’re good at.

T: Kelly was urged to talk about her beauty pageant days (Miss Bayside?) and Elizabeth talked about how she’s a dancer. Mario said he was too, and she replied, ‘YOU’RE a dancer?’ and Mario was all, ‘You tell me’ and I legit had to stop to gather myself because, second hand embarrassment. (4)

The people in the live studio audience are definitely not wearing 90s fashion. Who dressed them? I WANT MORE SCRUNCHIES.

M: Wardrobe moment: Lisa’s outfit and hair look so accurate, and Slater has a good jheri curl mullet and crop top, but they’re trying to make Kelly look too “normal” – I think I’ve seen her outfit at Target, and her 90s bangs are M.I.A.

T: But really, was it because the real SBTB set has some kind of copyright on it because this re-creation is not the same.

M: Jessie says she won’t celebrate President’s Day until there is a woman president. And then she calls Slater a chauvinist. Ah, yes. Jessie Spano was probably the first introduction most millennials had to feminism, and she was also awful. Whenever a 20-something celebrity does that “I’m not a feminist but…” thing, I think: Oh. You’re thinking of Jessie Spano. We have Beyonce now. /90s history from C+S Cares.

Shut up, Spano. (Jessie’s ancestors WOULD tho)

T:  … so BZ is actually a good actor as Zack, but not as MPG. He belongs on the Disney Channel. Or on Degrassi. Which he was.

M: Fake Lark Voorhies mentions church – everyone know she’s a Jehovah’s Witness? If Lisa Turtle showed up my door with religious literature, I would actually let her in instead of pretending not to be home – but only so I could pepper her with questions about SBTB.

M: Fake Steve Buscemi is on the phone calling Seinfeld “too Jewish.”

We learn that SBTB’s popularity spread by word of mouth. At this time that meant ACTUAL WORDS out of HUMAN MOUTHS, not texting or tumbling or instafacing.  Remember when the only phone you had was attached to the wall, and you couldn’t stay on it too long because your stupid brother would pick up one of the other phones in the house and listen in?

T: Among those doing the whole grassroots thing were these girls:

M: Sometimes Fake Mario Lopez sounds like somebody doing an impression of Aziz Ansari.

T: We’re back to Cincinnati, which is weird because the flashback should’ve ended with this scene at the end… or at least that’s what a good script would do.

The girls run into teen fans while shopping, and one of them says she was inspired by Kelly to break up with her BF because she knew he was lying. This inspired the actresses to pitch more serious subjects – THERE’S NO HOPE WITH DOPE?!?!?

DD recalls Mario inviting rando fan girls to the stage for a tour then promptly making out with them, as DD creepily looks on. Honestly the worst part of this is that DD is a voyeur.

And THEN he has a daydream JUST LIKE IN THE SHOW. And his daydream makes him look like Stretch Armstrong in a hot tub with bikini-clad ladies. (5)

So this movie makes it look like MPG and Lark were dating for pretty much the entire series. I thought they all dated each other? I mean except for DD. He dated no one.

M: Fake Mark Paul Gosselaar tries to talk up birthdays to Fake Lark Voorhies. And all of us watching who know 2 things about Jehovah’s Witnesses are screaming “nooo!” like he’s walking alone down a dark hallway in a horror movie. Don’t do it, Fake Mark Paul!

T: LARK VORHEES WAS/IS A JEHOVAH’S WITNESS?

MPG and Elizabeth are having a heart-to-heart about his not-real GF Lark and it’s actually really touching. I hope this happened IRL. They’d be like Jessie and Zack BFFs for real!

MPG and TAT rehearsing their kissing scene. Bring on the LULZ

Um my DVR just did this really weird thing where it stopped after an hour of recording and played a promo for the movie then continued where it left off, but stopped recording after a minute? And then the final hour started as a “separate program”? IDK if that even makes sense but basically I just missed 15 minutes AND DOES TIME WARNER CABLE NOT UNDERSTAND THIS MOVIE IS VERY IMPORTANT TO ME??

M: Seriously, did they buy all of Fake Tiffani’s clothes at Forever 21 last week, because that’s what it looks like.

T: “The networks didn’t kill us but the hormones might.” – something said in the promo by anon bc MY DVR CUT OFF

M: I’ll say it. If Lifetime sold the soundtrack to this movie, I’d buy it.

T: I’d buy anything with Bell Biv DeVoe’s ‘Poison’ on it.

T: I picked back up where everyone is sitting except Elizabeth and Zack and Mario calls DD dumb and he storms out? WHAT HAPPENNEDDDD?? WERE STEROIDS INVOLVED??

M: A teen tells Fake Screech “it gets easier” after he spits out whatever was in the flask he just swigged. “It gets easier” was the proto-version of “it gets better,” when teen were taught to drink to forget their troubles instead of waiting them out like they do now.

T: Some muscley Azn dude sitting outside the studio offers DD his first swig of vodka out of a flask.

M: Screech’s flask is back. Bad news. Alcohol is the gateway drug to substances like caffeine pills. By the way, caffeine pills look like a real blast on this show.

M:  Is this squirrelly 90s boy a secret ghost who shows up when Dustin Diamond needs a drink? How is he EVERYWHERE? I think I just guessed the plot twist, guys.

T: Really? Malibu Sands gets like a 2 minute scene? And it includes a crop top-wearing Slater and a crew who didn’t dress up for a movie set in 1991.

“Then I guess we’re just as fake as Zack and Kelly” Lark is PISSED that MPG was out photographed with TAT.

Guys, I’m pretty sure this movie theater DD is at where he beats a kid up for calling him Screech is like minutes from my apartment. Going tomorrow to see if there’s a marker commemorating the scene.

DD practicing his karate is only making me think of Ross Geller.

LOLZ @ TAT and MPG getting to go to Paris to promote the show while DD is forced to go to Spartanburg, South Carolina.

But really who is this Azn enabler that’s suddenly become DD’s BFF????

Peter tells DD that “IT WAS A BIG DEAL” that he was drunk at the fan signing, and again, because this is how my brain works, it reminded me of this

“I got wasted and I got laid!” DD stop. No one wants to hear this. especially your father. (6)

Cut to TAT and MPG having dinner in Paris and being offered wine. Does everyone become an alcoholic? JK MPG just spit his red wine back into the glass.

M: Fake Kapowski just called Saved By The Bell “Bell.” Just about every play I’ve been in has been reduced to a single word by the cast and crew, and you know what? It sounds stupid. If you have enough time to introduce yourself as “Tiffani Amber,” you have enough time to call it Saved By The Bell.

T: “What’s Saved by the Bell without Zack and Kelly?” – MPG. Um, Zack and Tori? Duh.

Speaking of Tori, is she gonna show up? I’d much rather it end like how I’ve been telling myself it ended, with Kelly and Jessie graduating with the rest of the gang.

DD describes the last season of SBTB “a mess” and described Leanna Creel as “tough girl Tori”. I imagine if Tori were real, she would be living in Provincetown with her wife of 10 years, one of the girl twins that was always an extra at Bayside. They ride bikes together.

Yeah, the Azn enabler is clearly just an actor trying to be on the show. And he recorded DD smoking pot, and threatens to blackmail him if he doesn’t get him a bigger part than an extra.


M: Fake Screech actually looks a lot like real Boy Mickey.

Fake Spano says that she’s up for a film role. SHOWGIRLS. Right?

Fake Screech is beating up his Booze Ghost. How about less of this subplot, more of that time they worked at Carosi’s resort with the white and teal uniforms? Or the time the lizard died? I’ve liked this movie, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also been 2 hrs of missed opportunities.

T: Since TAT and Elizabeth decided to not renew their contracts for all of season 4, they “leave” and come back for the final episode where they all graduate. It’s actually really tender to see them all back together. Also tender: MPG and DD having a moment together where MPG apologizes for being a stupid kid. I appreciate this conversation was put in the movie, because it doesn’t make it look like they were all “against” DD.

Yeah, it’s got to be a trademark situation because I’m so annoyed the set doesn’t look anything like the real graduation set. Also they’re showing mini montages of each character before they cross the stage from that happened in the movie and it’s really not necessary.

GUYS IN THE 15 MINUTES MY DVR SKIPPED, I MISSED “I’M SO EXCITED” WTF

(7)

M: They’re all dressed for graduation, and I swear to God if they waste this opportunity to sing Friends Forever I will be livid. I mean unless Zack Attack still has the rights to it.

T: DD does one final Time-out and walks around describing what each actor did next. And shades the hell out of Elizabeth/Showgirls, IMO. Also, they’re not good at standing still because Elizabeth was just shaking her hand like it was a nervous tick.

Like this? Glad New Jessie Spano is also horrible.

Alas, it ends with an oblig throwing of the caps up in the air and an end credit card that reads “The End…ish” DD says SBTB: The College Years didn’t last long because no one wants to see them grow up – I disagree. I liked the College Years and S2G I still have my VHS of when I taped the SBTB: Wedding in Las Vegas TV special somewhere.

I feel gypped they didn’t sing Friends Forever, so just pretend the movie ended with this, and a good Casey Kasem (RIP) sign-off.

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