LOLSlater

LOLSlater and Danger Guerrero’s Top Five Saved By The Bell Moments:

#3 - No Hope With Dope

LOLSlater: If there is one thing that “Saved By the Bell” was really super good at, it was taking a serious issue and turning it into a very forced and melodramatic issue, which usually always resulted in some of the funniest morning programming this planet has seen this side of “The 700 Club.” Anytime this show ventured into the “Very Special Episode” arena, the result was absolute comedy gold.

I can’t even pick out my favorite part of this episode because it is just 22 solid minutes of unintentional comedy and picking one scene would be like trying to choose which of your children is your favorite. (PS – The correct answer is the first-born. Sorry everyone else, you were probably a mistake). Let’s breakdown the absurdities of this episode:

• Johnny Dakota, early-90s Hollywood movie star/teen idol, is hanging out at a high school, which is actually the most believable part of this episode. The part that should be really hard to believe is that his drug of choice is pot. I mean let’s get real, this guy was probably blasting rails in the bathroom at The Viper Room with River Phoenix and the Coreys, not smoking ditch weed in the bathroom at Bayside.
• Johnny Dakota hosts a “rap session” where he asks the kids how they feel about drugs. Jessie tells her harrowing tale of that one Thursday where she took 4 caffeine pills and got really excited and ruined Hot Sundae. It is such a stupid story my only response to it is this: 

• When Johnny offers Kelly a joint at the party, the one he hosted for high school kids, the look on her face is the look of terror I would expect from someone who just heard the death rattle of their only child. I assume Tiffani Amber-Thiessen getting super high right before the scene accomplished this effect.
• The PSA…oh, the PSA. Danger, I suspect you have feelings about the PSA. Please proceed. 

DG: Oh, yes. Let’s talk about the PSA. I love that once they found out Johnny Dakota smoked pot, they immediately went to the backup plan of “Eh, let’s just use some random high school students and bring in a TV executive that the kids we are trying to reach will assuredly not recognize or relate to.” If Belding REALLY knew Brandon Tartikoff, wouldn’t the better idea have been to ask him to make a call and try to get a different star? He has hundreds of them in his Rolodex. It would have been so easy. It’s such an awesomely defeatist move to be like, “What? Johnny smokes pot? Ok, throw the whole thing in the toilet.”

Also, if I may take us a little off course, Belding knew the head of NBC? And this never came up again? Think of all the times the gang tried to raise money for something or break into the entertainment business. Like, every episode, right?

I guess my point is this: Apparently Belding will make a call to fix a drug PSA that will bring the school some good PR, but when his students are in dire need of a couple thousand bucks, or even just a contact to help them follow a dream, Belding hangs them out to dry and refuses to call his millionaire media mogul buddy. What an a-hole.

One final note: Johnny Dakota? A+ work, whoever came up with that name. Not even joking.

LS: Two final thoughts on what you just said:

1. Belding is a total dickshoulder.
2. This formula for naming fictional characters: (Common First Name) + (Any State) = Awesome, should be called the Johnny Dakota Theorum. Try it out: Steven Indiana, Ellen Arizona, Franklin Colorado, Jenny Idaho, and of course Robert California and Ron Mexico. I guess Hannah Montana would be the exception that proves the rule?