Wednesday, July 02, 2003

 

Three men, a cheerleader, a princess, a transexual & a little baby

The gang is gathered at the Max because Kelly has asked them all to meet her there because she has some earth-shattering emergency. In his haste, Screech has completely forgotten to put on his clothes and shows up in what I think is a karate uniform but what we later learn are actually his pajamas. Anyway, Kelly shows up with a baby in tow and tells the gang that the "big emergency" is that her parents got snowed in on their weekend away, and now there's no one to stay at home with her baby brother, Billy. Kelly has to be at school because they're taking yearbook pictures, like God forbid she not be in the yearbook! Also, have the Kapowskis never heard of the novel concept of a baby-sitter? I mean, don't they have a retired neighbor or something that could watch the kid? Anyway, like the wonderful friends they are, the gang starts making up excuses as to why they can't watch the baby, all the while passing it around the table like a hot potato. In the end, it's Zack who gets stuck on baby duty.

Today Zack decides that he's going to go to French class, even though this is the one and only time any of the characters on the show EVER are in French class. And I think I know why. It's because their teacher (who is identified in the credits as Madame Oeuf, or Mrs. Egg) thinks that the best way to teach French is by speaking English in a French accent. Um, OK. Today's lesson is on the pronunciation of the French "r," a concept that I could have summed up for them in about two seconds: Sound like you're choking on a hairball. Anyway, Mrs. Egg is confusing high-school French class with the Metropolitan Opera and starts going into this elaborate demonstration of rolling her r's. Just then, the baby pipes up with a sound that is a little like a rolling "r" and a lot like a baby whining/cooing. Zack pretends that he made the sound, and Mrs. Egg is so impressed with his pronunciation that she has the entire class repeat after Zack as the baby makes crying noises. The class continues to repeat everything Zack says as Lisa comes in and tells him something shocking about Kelly and Zack says "Emergency! Gotta go!" and books out of the room. The entire class follows him, and Mrs. Egg does absolutely nothing.

Later in the hall, we find out what happened to Kelly, which is that she broke her arm. I would ask how someone could break their arm during a yearbook picture, but when I was in high school, I was trying to climb up on the school sign for a yearbook picture and I fell off, ripping my jeans from the knee to the waistband and getting a huge gash and bruise on my leg in the process. So I'll let that one lie, too. We don't know how exactly Kelly managed to injure herself, only that she's with the school nurse (since when is the school nurse qualified to set a broken bone?) and so someone will have to watch Baby Billy for a little longer. Did I mention that this whole time, the gang has stuffed Billy in a duffel bag? Doesn't exactly seem conducive to, you know, basic respiratory functions.

Later, Zack is cuddling with Billy in the locker room, where he decides that he could really get used to this whole parenting thing. Cue the fantasy sequence, during which we are treated to a montage of Zack with his son, which is just really funny because in the last segment, Zack's "son" is getting ready to go to college and looks old enough to be Zack's father. Anyway, Slater comes into the locker room, and Zack asks him to watch Billy during the track team pictures. Slater seems pretty apprehensive about the whole thing, and as Zack is trying to convince him, Billy suddenly starts crying. Slater and Zack try to figure out what's wrong with him, and eventually determine that he needs to be changed. They get the dirty diaper off, then get into a big fight about who gets to put the new diaper on. What, so suddenly Slater is this big child-care expert? Oh, and let's not forget that they totally neglected the whole wiping step. Anyway, during the tussle over who gets to diaper Billy, Zack and Slater end up tearing the diaper. Zack yells that that was the only diaper, like who only packs one diaper when they're taking an infant out for the entire day? What exactly is in that huge duffel bag they've been carrying around? Slater suddenly wants nothing to do with the baby again and books it out of there, so Zack uses one of Slater's T-shirts as a diaper.

Zack convinces Jessie and Lisa to take the baby with them to home ec while he goes to take the track team pictures. Lisa and Jessie protest this violently, but the reason why is unclear, since they oh-so-conveniently happen to be doing an infant-care unit in home ec and Billy blends in perfectly. Oh, except for the fact that all the other girls are just tossing their babies around with reckless abandon while Jessie, who has the real baby, is being careful. But the teacher doesn't really seem to notice because she's too busy manhandling her own baby. Anyway, Max comes in to take a yearbook photo of the home ec class (since when do classes get photos in the yearbook?), giving Screech the opportunity to take Billy out of the room to give him back to Zack. Unfortunately, he seems unable to find Billy, like how hard is it to tell a real baby from a fake one?

Apparently pretty hard, since when Screech shows up to deliver the baby to Zack, we discover that he's accidentally picked up a doll. In a panic, Zack and Screech race to find Lisa and Jessie, who say that they went back and checked the home ec room (it is at this point I notice that they're standing by what is supposedly Belding's office, only there's a sign on the door that says "Home Ec") and their teacher had already collected all the babies, and Billy is nowhere to be found. At this point, I think it might be smart to, oh, I don't know, check with the home ec teacher about Billy's whereabouts, but of course the gang does nothing of the sort. Kelly shows up and tells us how she broke her arm: in her words, "If you're on the top of a human pyramid, it's a good idea to make sure someone's on the bottom." Um, how would you even get to the top of the pyramid if there's no one on the bottom? Was she levitating or something?? Anyway, the gang has Max distract her with a photo op while they search every single locker for signs of Billy the Kid. Because if you want to find a baby, a high-school locker is the most natural place to look.

The search is cut short by the sounds of baby cooing over the P.A. The gang rushes into Belding's office (formerly the home ec room) and find him there cuddling with Billy the Kid. Somehow they manage to get the whole baby-losing thing past Kelly by convincing Belding that they had asked him to watch the baby and the only reason he doesn't remember is because he's getting old and losing his memory. Later in the hallway, Kelly thanks Zack for being so responsible with Billy and gives him a kiss on the cheek. Seeing this, Slater decides he wants a piece of the action and whines that he took care of Billy, too. Um, what exactly did he do, other than tearing up the kid's only diaper? Kelly gives him a totally undeserved kiss on the cheek, too. As for Billy the Kid, well, he spends the rest of his childhood in the SBTB Bermuda triangle.

Quote of the episode
Zack: You'd have to be a real doofus to lose a baby!
Screech: I think so, too, Zack, but you shouldn't call Jessie a doofus.

Grade
Clare: B+. I never understood why having the baby at school was so forbidden, especially since after Belding finds the baby, he has nothing to say about its presence at school. Even so, pretty good hijinks all around, and an excellent fantasy sequence featuring Zack's 40-something "son."

9:06 AM