Tuesday, July 08, 2003

 

How am I supposed to...sing when your face is so freaking close to mine?

Zack announces that it's time for the annual costume ball (funny, since this is the first costume ball they've ever had), and he plans to be crowned king. And his queen is going to be...cue dramatic pause as Zack points at the staircase...Screech! You know, that would have been so much funnier had it been Slater. Anyway, no, the queen is going to be Kelly, only she can't go because she can't afford the costume due to having to provide for her large family, blah, blah, blah. Before she can guilt-trip Zack into throwing her another prom picnic pity party, Lisa mentions that the Max is looking for a waitress. How Kelly could not know that considering they spend every waking moment there is beyond me.

Later, Kelly is at the Max applying for the job. Jeff (aka The Sketchinator) gives her the once-over before talking to her about her application. He says he would rather hire someone with waitressing experience, but Kelly wows him with her many qualifications, such as having a big family and being perky. But it's her "Go Bruins!" cheer that finally seals the deal. The Sketchinator agrees to hire her on a probationary basis. Kelly, being a high-school junior, has no idea what "probationary" means and has to ask Jeff to clarify. Hmm, The Sketchinator thinks, young and stupid. Perfect!

Meanwhile, the dance committee is meeting in Belding's office. After some spirited discussion about who will be crowned king and queen (Zack and Kelly or Jessie and Slater, like are there no other couples in the entire school?), Lisa reveals that there is no budget for decorations. Couldn't they just recycle the sparkly streamers from the last dance? It was probably only a couple of weeks ago. But Zack has a better idea and offers the Zack Attack as entertainment, thereby freeing up the DJ money for some new sparkly streamers. Belding agrees, but only if he can sing a song with the band. Oh, this idea just has fabulousness written all over it!

The next day, Kelly has her first waitressing shift. It's already going badly when some goth/biker types complain that they didn't want mayonnaise on their hamburger. Kelly's all, "Oh, I thought you said you wanted mayonnaise." OK, Kel, rule number one of waitressing: Always blame the kitchen. Kelly offers to fix it and pay for it out of her tips. Rule number two: Don't offer to pay for anything out of your tips, because they're measly enough as it is. Jeff overhears the argument and tells Kelly that the customer is always right...until now. (And he says it all dramatic like that, too!) Then he tells the biker types to get lost. Damn straight, Jeff! Oh, except for the part where the customer actually was right in this situation. Might want to check on that before you drive away all of your business.

Later at Kelly's house, Zack comes in wearing a hat with a plume and bearing a flowy Shakespearean dress. Kelly's all excited because she made $22 in tips. That reminds me of the measly tips I used to make when I was a waitress! But at least I had the good sense to know I should have been making a hell of a lot more for the crap I put up with. Anyway, Kelly tells Zack that she can't go to the costume ball because she doesn't feel comfortable asking for the night off. Wasn't the whole point of her getting the job so she would have enough money to go to the costume ball? Gee, that was a great plan.

Zack decides to take matters into his own hands and approaches Jeff with some story about how Kelly is an only child and Saturday is her father's birthday. Too bad Zack didn't know that having siblings was listed on the "skills" section of Kelly's resume. Jeff calls him on the bogus story, so Zack admits the truth. Jeff acts all good boss by agreeing to give Kelly the night off. Ha! You may have fooled Zack, but I am on to you, Sketchinator!

To wit: Later that night, Kelly and Jeff are cleaning up and she's gushing about making $30 in tips. An improvement, sure, but still not great. Anyway, Jeff tells Kelly she can have the night off to go to the dance with her boyfriend, then immediately starts macking on her. See? Sketchy. Jeff kisses Kelly, and her reaction is what I might call "terrified," but that doesn't stop him from kissing her again. Finally, she runs away. Jeff looks off into the distance, thinking, damn, these high school girls are easy.

The next day, everyone is hanging out at the Max and talking about what a great waitress Kelly is and how hot she looks in her uniform. Speaking of which, why is Kelly the only waitress who has to wear a midriff-bearing shirt? You'd think this was Hooters or something. I blame The Sketchinator. Anyway, Kelly sits down with the rest of her friends, and Zack innocently puts his arm around her, as he has done so many times before in this very booth. Kelly looks like she's mildly constipated. The Sketchinator walks up, and Kelly looks even more constipated. She asks Zack to kill it with the PDAs while she's at work, and Lisa and Jessie exchange a Look. I don't know how Zack missed said Look, since it was supremely obvious and lasted several seconds, but whatever.

Later at band practice, Zack asks the guys if they think Kelly's seeing someone else. Slater says that's crazy because she's at school all day. Screech adds that when she's not at school, "she's at the Max with that good-looking college guy, Jeff." OK, I'll give you "college guy." Well, maybe not "college," because Jeff looks old enough to be Kelly's dad, which only adds to the sketch factor. I'll give you "guy." And good-looking? Actually, I'm embarrassed to admit that I did find Patrick Muldoon attractive when I first saw this episode. But I also bought a Michael Bolton CD because it had the song on it that Jessie and Slater sing at the end of the episode. So I obviously had some problems. (In my defense, I was 13. Everybody has problems when they're 13.)

At the dance, Kelly's constipation has reached all new levels. I mean, she's beyond "dramatization in an Ex-Lax commercial." She also can't concentrate on any thing that's being said to her and keeps giving Zack answers to questions he didn't ask. Dude, pull yourself together! You're giving cheating a bad name. The final straw is when, while basking in the glory of being crowned king and queen, Kelly calls Zack Jeff. I guess in the land of SBTB, this is equivalent to saying another person's name during sex or at the altar or something.

The Zack Attack is ready to play the last song, but Zack is nowhere to be found, so Slater has to take his part. You know, the person who sings for Slater isn't half bad. They should let him sing more often. Or maybe I'm just comparing him to the dying-cow noise emitting from Jessie. Anyway, Slater and Jessie sing "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You" with their faces so close together that Slater is visibly recoiling from Jessie's punch breath.

Meanwhile, Zack and Kelly are breaking up on the very picnic table where they had their prom picnic. Bittersweet, huh? Or an example of the show being so low-budget that Kelly and Zack are severely limited in their choices of where to break up. Anyway. I have watched this episode so many times that I can actually quote the lines along with them ("Oh, Zack, it wasn't supposed to be this way...not for us") the way some people quote, say, Casablanca or The Godfather. How pathetic is that? Wait! It gets better! When Zack says, "I thought we'd always be together," I improvise a little and start singing the next line ("I was sure our love would last") to "Did We Ever Have a Chance." Hey, I know it's pathetic, but I'm not the one cribbing my eloquent break-up speech from a pop song (even though it was a pop song that Zack himself supposedly "wrote"). Then again, I did buy that Michael Bolton CD, so I guess I can't say anything.

--Clare

Quote of the episode
Zack: I feel like I'm getting the cold shoulder.
Screech: Sounds like the flu. I'd wear a turtleneck tomorrow.

Grade
Clare: A+. Not since this episode of SBTB have I been inspired to buy supremely bad music because of a TV show. That's probably a good thing.

8:14 AM

Monday, July 07, 2003

 

Not-so-risky business

Zack shows up at Screech's house carrying a duffel bag and says he can't believe Screech's parents are leaving them in charge of the house for four whole days. Me neither. Zack puts his bag down and inexplicably becomes mesmerized with a ceramic bust of Elvis. Screech's mom comes into the room and immediately freaks out that Zack is touching her prized ceramic Elvis. I'm assuming this is not the first time Zack has ever been to Screech's house, so wouldn't he already know about Screech's mom's most treasured possession? Anyway, Screech's mom says that "Elvis is not a toy" and she would die if anything happened to him. Wait, is that foreshadowing? I think it might just be! Mama Screech bids her son good-bye and says how glad she is that he has a friend as trustworthy as Zack. What, is she new?

At school, Slater and Zack are ready to party down with some babes at Screech's house, but Screech, consulting the extensive list of rules left to him by his mother, says that Rule 137 is "no parties" and Rule 130-something-or-other is "no girls." Shouldn't those be like rules 1 and 2? Apparently "no ripping up phone books" and "no loud burping" are not on the list, so that's what the guys decide to do instead.

As the guys are telling the girls about their plans for the evening, Violet Bickerstaff (aka a snort-eriffic Tori Spelling) comes up and starts flirting with Screech, much to the consternation of her boyfriend, Maxwell Nerdstrom, the richest dork in school. You know, I feel kind of sorry for Maxwell. When you're born with a name like Nerdstrom, your one-dimensional high-school personality choices are severely limited. Anyway, Maxwell basically acts like a pre-singing-and-dancing Captain Von Trapp to Violet, and naturally, Jessie takes the case on as her own, telling off Maxwell and getting Violet to break up with him.

Suddenly Violet is best friends with Lisa, Jessie and Kelly, and they're all sitting around talking at the Max. Violet waxes poetic about Screech, and Lisa looks at her like milk just started coming out of her pores or something. The girls wonder what the guys are up to and Kelly says they're probably seeing who can burp the loudest. The girls think this is gross, so naturally they want to go witness it firsthand.

Back at Screech's bachelor pad, the guys are doing what all guys do when they have a house all to themselves: put on neon-colored tank tops and some of those glasses with little slats in them and dance around to "Barbara Ann." The guys are so engrossed in their little performance that they don't even notice the girls quite obviously pointing and laughing at them in the doorway. I won't even ask how the girls got in without the guys knowing; I'll just assume that everyone keeps their doors unlocked in the tiny town of Los Angeles. Anyway, the girls start dancing around, imitating the guys, and the ceramic Elvis statue gets knocked over. I totally did not see that coming at all!

Screech fears his mother really is going to die when she finds out about the statue. Cue the fantasy sequence, which features his mother as an angel. Although she has on wings, she's flapping her arms like she's in the last stages of Parkinson's as she tells Screech that she forgives him for the statue being broken, but now he must apologize to Elvis--or Mr. Belding in a really bad wig, as the case may be. If you've ever wondered if Dennis Haskins could get a post-SBTB gig as an Elvis impersonator, the answer would be no. He's really bad at it. Anyway, back in reality, Lisa tells Screech that she'll track down another ceramic Elvis.

Which, she does, only it costs $250, which doesn't seem like a lot of money, considering that there are seven of them involved in the whole Elvis-shattering incident, and they could each chip in about $35 to cover the cost. But why do things the easy way when you can do them with a Zack Morris scam? This particular scam involves Zack trying to hustle Max Nerdstrom at five-card draw. It's worth mentioning that Max shows up to the game in full poker garb, including one of those little dealer visors. First rule of poker hustling: It's not a good idea to hustle someone who has their own freaking dealer's visor! Apparently, Zack is not only unaware of this rule, but is also completely unaware of any of the rules of the game of poker, including but not limited to, bluffing. So it's totally unsurprising that the hustlers become the hustlees and Zack loses all of his money and Screech's dog to Nerdstrom. Like, who tries to run a poker scam when they obviously don't know the first thing about poker?? This is the worst Zack Morris scam of all time.

But fortunately, there's still time for Zack to redeem himself. He tries to sic Slater on Maxwell in order to get the dog back, but Maxwell happens to be equipped with a high-tech nerd alarm that alerts Belding whenever someone's trying to hurt him. But Maxwell agrees to give the dog back if they can get him a date with Jessie. Slater and Zack know Jessie won't like that, so they're all about it. I would chide them for being horrible friends, but come on, it's Jessie. She totally deserves it.

The second part of the plan involves throwing a party at Screech's and charging $10 a head to cover the cost of the statue. Are there really enough extras around for that plan to work? Apparently so. Jessie shows up at the party with Maxwell (in a leisure suit, like does this guy have the perfect outfit for every occasion or what??), and Slater teases her that "once you go geek, you can never go back." Well, Slater, I hear that once you wear a silk shirt, a patterned vest and pleated pants, you are officially gay.

Anyway, Maxwell says he won't give the dog back until Jessie kisses him, which is kind of dumb because at the time he says this, his henchman (Sylvester) has already brought in the dog and given it back to Screech. Still, Zack can't resist the chance to get in one last jab at Maxwell, and rubs the dog's nose up against Maxwell's lips while his eyes are closed. Max must have had his senses deadened or something, because he can't tell the difference between human lips and a dog's nose, and starts going into ecstasies about Jessie's kissing prowess, insulting Violet in the process. Hearing this, Screech breaks down the finer distinctions between "dog nose" and "human lips" for Maxwell, calls him a squid and orders him out of the house. A squid! God, what a great insult!

But the fun's not over yet, because Screech's parents are home early. I so did not see that one coming! Not only is there a rager going on in their living room, Slater is still not back from purchasing the statue! But Zack has a plan, and this time it's one that actually works. He tells Screech's mom that this is an anniversary party, backing up his claim by pointing to the archway, where a "Happy Anniversary" banner just magically rolls down. Man, Zack's super powers never cease to amaze me! Just then, Slater shows up with the Elvis statue, but he trips over his own homosexuality...um, I mean Mrs. Powers' suitcases, and sends the statue flying across the living room. Fortunately, Zack is able to catch it and put it in its place of honor on the pedestal without Mrs. Powers noticing. The King lives again!

Grade
Clare: A. OK, so Tori Spelling isn't exactly Rebecca DeMornay, and Dustin Diamond is a far cry from Tom Cruise. But I heartily condone any episode in which Jessie's friends sell her off to a nerd and feel absolutely no remorse about it.

3:18 PM