Saved by the Bell

Dear Erica,

Oh my god, I am a total Saved by the Bell geek. I love Zack's acid washed jeans, bloused shirts and mondo cell phone; Slater's jumbo workout shirts, with armpits down to his waist; Kelly's hair flip; Jessie's irrational behavior; the Lisa and Screech love affair. All of it, I love! And no episode makes me happier than "A Home for Christmas," when for some inexplicable reason a homeless man turns out to be living in a posh Beverly Hills mall. The kids all band together to save the homeless man and give him, you guessed it, a home for Christmas.

I may regret admitting it, but when I first saw this episode on TBS (back when everything started 5 minutes after the hour), I cried. I got the warm fuzzies when all of these over-privileged valley kids put their room temperature IQ's together and found a solution for this homeless man. The fact that they could open homeless shelters on every corner with their millions of dollars is beside the point. Besides, all the other homeless men aren't as attractive as the one they are saving anyway.

Watching this episode now (yes, I have every season of the show on DVD), I see that Zack really just wanted to get into the pants of the homeless man's daughter. He baits her with potato chips, fancy clothes and Christmas sing-alongs. Thank goodness this was the 90's and teenage shows were entirely innocent. Were this Gossip Girl, the plot would have gone has such: "I gave your dad a home, bitch. Now get in my bed."

Even when I am old and gray, I will continue to watch this episode each year. It reminds me of a time when I was a teenager, TV was innocent and cell phones were huge.

Till next time,
Bradley