Welcome to Back to the Future, I'm your co-host, Stachel Driscol, joined today by Marfell, Goslar. Hi, Daniel. Hello, Mark. It is so good to see you on this day. It's so good to see you on this day. Yeah, we won't say which day it is because we don't know when you're listening to it. We want to just whatever day it is for you. That's the day. It's so good to see you.

But it's the listeners day. Every day, every day. And Mark Paul, did you do your homework? Daniel I did my homework. And it wasn't as easy as last week's homework. I must say. I enjoyed the show like I always do. I always like watching the gang. And you know, that theme song because I'm saved by the bell.

I was good. You got to put a little more like from your diaphragm. You wanna, like, really like belting.

I don't feel I have it in me to do it now. Maybe later in the show I'll give you a better bell.

OK, well, it'll be you know, it'll be a little later in the day. Maybe you'll just be you know, we'll we'll see, we'll see if we get there.

But back to the show, Daniel, help me out here because I feel a little conflicted by this particular episode.

It wasn't as carefree and innocent as the last episode, but maybe it's because I'm watching it through these eyes and not the eyes of a 13 year old or the audience that watched it back in the 90s.

You know, this is definitely one of the more jarring episodes to go back and watch. I think you're you're spot on about that. And I don't like this plot did not stand out to me as a as a childhood viewer. When I went back to watching as an adult, it was like, whoa, this is a this is pretty I mean, it's played for laughs. And it's supposed to be fun, but it's definitely like unsettling would be the word I would use.

Okay, well, how about this how about we put a disclaimer out there. We're not going to turn up. We're not going to say that we don't see some of the morally abhorrent or dated situations and responses to certain things. But we're also here to give you a fun podcast. It's a celebration of, say, by the bell. So with that in mind, I mean, I feel like we're doing, you know, like I said, a disclaimer.

But with that in mind, if we don't comment on something, it's not because we didn't see it is just because we want you to just have fun with us and enjoy the show the way you did when you were watching it. You know, maybe not as not as the evolved human being that you are today. Yeah, we we recognize it's messed up, but we're also not here to just tell you how messed up it is that, you know, let's try and have some fun.

You know what it comes down to? This isn't Zach Morris is trash. If you want that, you can go on YouTube and you can catch it there. And it's brilliant work, by the way. I've said thank you. Yeah. Yeah, you're welcome. I've said this from the very beginning. I'm a huge fan of Zach Morris is Zach Morris is trash, has a really good job of taking situations that happened in this episode and shining a what kind of light would you say that would be?

Just the light of day, just shining the light of day on. But, you know, like to your point. Yeah, my my my hot take on this is out there and well documented. And there's 50 of them. So let's try to do something a little different for maybe both of our sanity, because I'm not sure I want to walk down that road again any more than you do. I don't want to walk down that road. I just want to have fun.

And I want to I want to talk about some of the things I saw in the episode, maybe some of my memories. It did jog a few of my memories. So I'm I'm I'm going I'm I'm looking forward to sharing some of those memories with the audience.

Look at that. Well, in case the audience did not do their homework, any one of you and I'm not going to single anyone out, but in case you didn't, I prepared a brief summary so you can get up to speed more or less on the Lisa Card, the episode we'll be discussing today. Take it away, Daniel. Thank you more, Paul. The gang got their report cards back and Lisa's father gave her his credit card as a reward to buy herself something nice only.

She went nuts and racked up nearly 400 dollars in charges of non-refundable clothes and is scared of what will happen if she tells her dad the truth. So Zak takes it upon himself to help her repay her debt, which means selling tickets to kiss Lisa without her consent, then auctioning off her pre worn clothes when his apparel sale gets busted by building, Lisa gets a job at the max, which pays next to nothing and still leaves her hundreds of dollars short of paying back her dead.

Lisa finally tells her dad, who doesn't really care because they're rich, but she has to keep her job until she pays him back to learn a lesson. And that's the episode what's the what's the first scene that we're going into? Well, the first thing we're going into is you at the max. But before we get into that first scene, it's worth noting here that this episode, as it happened, almost didn't happen. Lark had a bad taping of an episode before this in making the original run of Saved by the Bell episodes.

And Brandon Tartikoff, who is Peter Engle's boss, told Peter Àngel, hey, buddy, you've got a you've got a dud here. And then you can't afford to have any weak links you need to fire LaValle's. And Peter Engel said, yup, sure, I get it totally. And he tried to set a meeting to fire her, but I think Laerke knew she was going to be fired as as Peter Wrangell accounts. And so they both kind of ducked each other.

And he didn't want to fire her. She obviously didn't want to lose her job. And a whole week went by and it came time to tape the Lisa card. Brandon Tartikoff shows up and says, so I guess you didn't fire her. And Peter Angle says, yup, I did not. And she killed it. She had a really good taping. And afterwards, Brandon Tartikoff position totally flipped. He said, you got to keep you got to keep Lark.

She's a winner. I didn't know that. Yeah, you were. You were working with you were working with someone on borrowed time that episode. But she really swung for it. And she did a she did a really good job. This was very much her episode, very much her episode. I while I was watching it, I just kept saying over and over how good she was and how she drew you when she was engaging. She's absolutely beautiful.

This was this is a great episode for her.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. She kills it. So on that the episode begins at the max and you're doing one of your talk to camera segments to open it, which you do not open the first episode in series, but you see, as they called it back then, I think you had one one too many T's there.

Talk to the camera. I think it's just a TTC. I think that the the is. Well, how is it Silenzi if I'm saying it. I guess not. You know what you would probably know better than I would what they would call it. Whatever the damn I want, you will call it whatever the damn you want and you're going to call it a TGC talking to that, their camera. And yeah it's kind of the way that, the way that ninety percent of the episode I would say open.

Do you remember working on those are kind of what you were thinking when you were making those.

I just remember always being anxious to to do those scenes because I was not only talking to a camera with a little red light on top, and that's back in the day. We used to have four cameras that would be pointing in different directions on the set. And there's actually a person in a booth with the director and the director would say camera one and then camera one would turn on and a little red light would go on. And then he'd say, camera three to get another angle and another red light would go on that one.

So you always knew which camera was on you. So I'm staring down the barrel of a one of those cameras with the red light. And the red light to me was always go time. But not only am I talking to that camera, I'm talking to a live audience. And that's where the anxiety for me would come in, because it's one thing to be able to talk to a camera. It just becomes very personal, very intimate.

But then when you're talking with an audience, you can hear them giggle, you can hear them whisper, you can see them actually they're there in darkness, but you would see certain things and you just don't want to mess up.

You want it to be right. You want to be good. So those those T scenes, we're always we're always a bit. Yeah. Anxiety ridden for me.

Yeah. Pressures on that red light means the the pressure is on and it's all on you, but you handle it and you deliver some like fun jokes here about how everyone's getting gifts for their grades, which not not a standard occurrence as far as I can remember from schooling. The Kelly gets a very, very sad ice cream cone as a as a gift from her parents. It's not very sad.

It's just the fact that she gets great grades and only gets one scoop of ice cream. Ice cream cone is actually perfect. It is a perfect shape. Yeah. It never drips. It never melts. Yeah. She likes it twice and then never looks at again and she's basically holding it is as if it's a microphone under the table. I've never seen someone hold an ice cream cone quite like Kelly holds it in that scene. I was, I was riveted watching her hold that throughout the scene.

I guess when your parents are only getting you one ice cream cone a year, you're really going to going to take good care of that thing, which seems to be the the Kelly Karpovsky story is as painted early on and not Likit.

I think she was trying to preserve it as long as it as long as she could.

You know, she brought it from the ice cream store to show her friends and say, like, check this thing out.

And it's interesting, we don't talk about the guy's grades. It's just the the boys grades. We just talk about the girls. We don't know. How later did we know? How Screech probably did they did fine, he did OK. Speaking of Screech, hey, yes, a calculator. Watch that calculator. Watch, which is a something tells me you had one dash. Yeah. That is, you know, I had multiple. Oh, my God.

Shocking. Yes. Shocking, shocking, shocking news here. Did you have that Casio watch? I didn't have the one with the raised buttons, which I believe is the model that Screech has, which I, I had to look it up, is the model that Marty McFly had. He had the raised button one. But no, I had the flat button. Cassio a little more discreet, a little more for your your days on the town doing calculations.

Which one did Walter White have? Walter White, I want to also say had the raised buttons, I think raised buttons. Looks better on camera would be my my pick. But, you know, flat buttons for the for the real discerning gentleman. I know what you're getting for Christmas from me this year. Oh man. A bill probably is probably going to be for your time for talking about calculator watches. But yeah, Scrooge has one Breaking Bad and saved by the bell.

That calculator watch might be the only thing the two universes have in common.

Oh, you mean there isn't an episode where Zack cooks meth? We're getting ahead of ourselves. Our.

Oh, and we also have in that scene a very odd or like a very adult joke, which is Lisa says Lisa is trying to rationalize. So it Lisa comes in and she bought three hundred and eighty six dollars of clothes, which is a lot. And I did the math on an Internet calculator. It's eight hundred and twenty three dollars in today's money. But she tries to rationalize it and says, like, these clothes were half off and then you get this joke from scratch that's very adult, like it's a very blue adult joke.

I do not think that he understood that joke to what it was supposed to mean.

Yeah, it it goes by really fast. But I like I don't think those kind of jokes keep happening later in the show run that are. So that's a dirty joke. She's like half of Lisa's clothes. Oh my God. Like steam is going to start coming out of his collar. And there's Zach Dangerfield again. Yeah.

What does he does he think I went overboard and he says, like the crew of the Titanic. Yeah, yeah. Zach Zach takes Zach waste no time like making a joke at the expense of everyone who died on that boat, everyone who was working, who died on that boat. And so Lisa is freaking out about her. Three hundred and eighty six dollars. And her response in the next scene in her bedroom is, is to run away from home.

She thinks the best way to deal with this is to to run away from her family. And we had a fuzzy ping pong fantasy sequence.

I was just going to say, yeah, we go back to that trope. Yeah.

That knew that new thing that, you know, is from the show you were in the fuzzy pink border fantasy sequence. But I would like to just point out that, like, fantasy might be the wrong word because this particular scene, it's more like a nightmare. It's really dark. I mean, Lisa, Lisa's envisioning telling her father and he basically turns into the devil. There's like a red light and then screech shows up as the Grim Reaper ads.

Do you remember any of this stuff is being like you own kind of a scary show.

I don't remember that particular scene, but I do remember it's coming back to me. Daniel, check this out, please.

Those fuzzy fantasy sequences were shot, were pre shot before the audience actually got there. So we would always film on a Friday. It was pretty much an all day affair. But in the morning we shot without an audience and in the evening we shot with the audience. And so that particular scene or those scenes were shot, pre shot without an audience and for instance, and that's in that bedroom scene, we do the beginning part. She goes into that fantasy.

The camera pushes it into her. They replay the part that we filmed, the the pre shot part we film and the audience laughs or, you know, we get a reaction from them and then we hold and we come back into the scene. So it's a seamless way of doing it. And the audience, there's not a quick changeover because obviously that would take forever to change her into this wig that she's wearing in that scene.

Can we talk about that wig? Sure. Yeah. The can we talk about that appearance? Is that a Joan Jett? Like what's going on there? Tina Turner? It feels yeah.

It feels very like punk like like is it going to its nineteen eighty nine. So it's like oh my daughter's a punk and like denim and chains and you can't love a punk, you know someone in denim. She's not welcome at Thanksgiving. If you're not Daddy's little girl, you are not coming home for the holidays, you're just presumably living on the street making like a lo fi punk records. And so, Lisa, after this nightmare, which, by the way, that is that's really interesting.

That's how you you shot those and makes sense that you wouldn't break down the scene and set it up again. But also for the studio audience, that's cool. They can, like, be along for the the journey kind of thing.

And actually, I now that I'm thinking about it, we we would pre shoot some other scenes that weren't. Fantasy sequences just to maybe because there was a there was a intricate stunt or there was an interest in intricate wardrobe change, so we appreciate those things so that we didn't have to take up the time of the audience. The whole objective was to keep the audience in there for as little as possible, because, again, we we had our peers in the audience.

And I think the max they wanted to keep people in the audience was for two and a half hours sitting there. And I'm sure you've you've been to other studio tapings where it could go on into the into the into night.

Yeah, no, I've I've had friends who write on shows and I've tried to do my best to support them. And like, I'll come to a taping of your show and sometimes you're there for like four hours and it is. And there's got to be a better way to support your friends.

Know, this was like coming to a live show. We tried not to do multiple takes because, again, we shot a lot of things before the audience actually showed up. So if we if we messed up, we may have gone back or we may have just moved forward and use the take that we did earlier in the day.

It's interesting, too, that it was on a Friday. I'm when I was after school. Yeah, no, when I am. But also like Friday energy. Like you're kind of taking a bunch of kids who are like primed for the weekend and kind of in a Friday headspace and found this fun environment.

But it was also a really fun environment cause we also had a warm up guy and he would do jokes and kind of warm you up. But and then afterwards, yeah, I know the Casani, we would always go to a place called Debevoise here in Los Angeles, and it was sort of like a fifties diner kind of thing where, you know, they would do the bop and fun little things like that.

And you would see other other actors from other shows just came to my mind, like Chad Allen would would be there and endemics on on La Cienega Boulevard between Wilshire and 3rd. How do you know this shows? Do I even want to ask how you know this? I grew up in Los Angeles and I had many a birthday party and even just some my casual pop into myself at Debix. Did you ever see me? You know it. I don't know.

But but ships in the night quite possibly getting there. Their chicken tenders, which I remember were exceptional. And I would also get up into the YMCA there. That was like their thing, like at least once every 20 minutes. If you were a server, that diabetic's, it was basically the closest thing to working at the max, like they would get up on the tables and as a as a team, the whole crew would do.

The YMCA, I'm sure was a good way for the the staff there to audition for roles because a lot of people in the industry went there.

Yeah. Yes. Beverly Hills. Like, I'm sure there are a lot of people there because you kind of work the tables as a waiter and like do little bits for people not dissimilar. If you've seen Pulp Fiction to like the Steve Buscemi Buddy Holly waiter kind of thing, which I think is kind of loosely based on it.

But, you know, that's a whole other thing. But that's that's very interesting stuff, Marvel. Now, Paul, wouldn't you love if every clothing store you shopped at already understood your loves, hate and total no go zones? Well, there is a company focused on making that happen.

Oh, I think I know where you're going with this, Daniel. Are you talking about stitch fix? I am talking about stitch fix because fashion changes. True style doesn't even so you're timeless. Look, can use a pick me up every once in a while. Get help from someone who wants what you're going for without ever leaving home with a stitch fix styling expert.

You know, we both signed up for Stitch Fix and I must say that that process was seamless. You see what I did there?

Yeah. The Stitch Fix website makes it very easy to very quickly say, OK, I like this, that the other thing I would certainly love to wear that I would never, ever be caught dead in that. And they curate clothes specifically to your taste and send them right over, because in the world of clothes shopping, there are no consistent sizes.

Why should we have to try to guess if a of a medium is really a medium or we're constantly having to return clothes, purchase online to find something that fits perfectly?

This is amazing. And let's face it, your your wardrobe could probably use a refresh right now. You've probably been wearing the same pair of sweatpants for the last five months, so why not introduce a few new pairs of sweatpants and a couple of comfy shirts while you're at it, maybe even just like a tie if you want to give yourself the illusion that they are going out and have a night on the town.

So get started today at Stitch Fix Dotcom, Zach Amatzia Sick M and you'll get twenty five percent off when you keep everything in your fix that stitch fix dotcom Zach M for twenty five percent off when you keep everything in your fix stitch fix dotcom slash Zach M.

Following Lisa's decision to not run away and she's scared that her dad will murder her, so Kelly is trying to give her advice to get a job that that whole thing and job to Lisa is like a horrible, horrible word. And she is repulsed. Lisa, who is rich, she is a a rich young lady on television. She she cannot imagine getting a job. And I want to just point out for a second, this is a very specific new type of character that was on, say, by the bell.

Lisa Turtle is a rich fashion forward, black young woman on TV. And that kind of representation was not exactly abundant. You had a wetly, Marian Gilbert on a different world just before this and on NBC. And then Hilary Banks, a little after Saved by the Bell, premiered on also on NBC. But this is a new new type of character. And I wanted to bring on a guest this week, which is Amy, Joe Perry and Amy.

Joe Perry is a writer with me on the new Saved by the Bell, the one that is coming out this year. And I wanted to speak with her a little bit about her experience, both as a TV writer on The Bold Type and Saved by the Bell and about what Lisa Turtle meant to her as a character. Did you get a chance to watch the Lisa card? I did. I did. It was, you know, in the preparation for the reboot, I went back and revisited a lot of episodes.

And I didn't remember watching this until it was a nice it was a nice surprise. It was almost like I had never seen it before, even though I'm sure I thought many times when I was a kid.

Yet I had the same impression when I went back and saw the Lisa card again for the first time as an adult, like, oh, I forgot all about this. And were you at all what was your I guess what was your impression of the episode is being like, oh, this is I don't remember this plot.

You know, I don't I was a little kid. I just figured it out of the way. I was obsessed with the better life. I think a lot of people my age were aware, like my tiny body would get so friggin excited watching the show and in particular watching Lisa Turtle, the things I didn't remember. I didn't remember her not having as much agency as I seem to remember. Like there's a point in the middle of this episode, which is ostensibly all about Lisa Turtle and her trying to pay back this money, her dad, when she was like six years and like Zack is doing her story, which is so like, oh, I don't remember that from when I was a kid.

It seemed I remember her being way more involved and in charge. So maybe that was wishful thinking on the clothing option. Yeah. Yeah. Like what I'd like to see during the auction is crazy when it's like a bathing suit. But Kelly comes out where it's so strange, like she's like, I don't know, this is going to work that and then she's not in any of the scene. Very funny.

That stood out to me as well. Did the did the whole like selling kisses thing stand out as being like pretty jarring because I when I, when I watched it, I could not believe what I was seeing, that that exact scheme was to sell Lisa's kisses one dollar at a time. Yeah.

It's it's so funny. It's another thing that felt like very fun and innocent when I was like eight and then watching it was like, oh, gross. And she doesn't seem to be into it. Look, I support sex workers. Do what you gotta do, girl. Not even what the guy's sex workers want to do. Sex work is where to do that. Lisa, not not excited about selling kisses. And yet that is the plan that Zach foisted upon her.

So, you know, I will say, though. As a kid from watching Lisa in particular, there was something very magical about her being not the rich part. I don't think I really cost so much with the fact that she was so fashionable and so desired. I guess it is something that I remember really loving as a kid. So in that way, maybe it's like nice to see, like, oh, people want to kiss Lisa so much that they'll pay for it, but also you.

Hmm.

Yeah. That's a nice that's a nice spin on it. She's she's so desirable that that people will pay to kiss her. That's a very that is a very innocent attitude towards the exchange that's going on in that scene. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And it's supposed to be played for fun. It's for kids. It's a it's a kid's show. It's their kid on Lisa's desirability and sort of her the impression she made on you, Amy Jo, as a black TV writer and a child who was watching this this character on the show.

I guess the question I have is about sort of representation and what it may have meant to you as a young viewer and now as a writer to have experienced a character who is so wealthy and so fashion forward as being this kind of new trope that emerged in the 80s and 90s on television.

You know, the thing that I think when I think about like like Whitley Gilbert or even Hilary Banks, the difference between them and Lisa, for me, at least as a a brown skinned, like identifiably black woman and at the time, like a black little girl, was that Lisa was brown skinned and to me was so great, which I don't think I realized at the time as a kid. But it was so great to see someone whose blackness.

Was not sort of and I don't want to in any way minimize the experiences of fair skinned black people, but for me it meant a lot to see someone who had my complexion, who was black, black. Not like who? Your daddy, maybe? No, no, no, you're black. Look, there was something that was so nice about her being so fashion forward and so sparkly, like princesse, like even watching her dad call her his little princess.

I do think there is maybe a split among white feminists and I think black feminists in terms of their feelings about it. And I think rightfully, a lot of my white girlfriends bristle at some of the princess stuff and like looking at women as like, oh, just she only cares about clothes and fashion and rightfully they bristle at that. But on the same token, I think for sometimes for black women, because we are seen as like, oh, you're so strong.

Oh, you're so sometimes masculine. In some ways, the vote watching Lisa Turtle for me is like. Transgressive in some way in that it's like black women so often don't get to be doted on, you don't get to wear the sparkly dress, aren't the princess. So there's something nice about Lisa. Sort of embodying that in a way that I found very, very compelling as a kid, because you have to look at the same time I was watching Lisa Turtle, I was also so the American doll girls were like very, very big at my school.

I knew I was never going to get an American girl doll, but everyone was reading the books. So I remember, like, getting the book about the only black doll that they had at that time in the 90s, who was a family. It was a little girl whose family had escaped from slavery, which I guess for history has read that book to learn. But like, I remember being eight or nine and being like myself, but like I don't want to I want to play with, like, a ballerina Barbie.

I don't want to play like I don't have to tell you. The clothes of a formerly enslaved girl are not, like, fun to put on the doll. So, like, in that way, like American Girl has expanded since then. But in that way, like Lisa Turtle to me was like a breath of fresh air because it's like, oh, yes, yes, the black girl gets to be sparkly and great and amazing. That's what I want to be.

Yeah. Truly, she she made the show for me like I know we had talked you and I about like. How like he actually said, like so fashion forward and so great, but like she doesn't have any really other than Screech, who is like a nothing but like watching this episode, the moment we're like back towards and like, grabbed her hand for like a long time and be like sort of look at each other. I was like another kid, another kid, like I want them to kiss.

Wow. That was that was really great and really great insight from from Amy Jo, both as a TV writer but as a viewer. That was awesome.

Hats off to Amy. Just hats off to Amy. Joe, thank you. And moving right along. So we're back in Lisa's bedroom and. Yeah, Mark, the way this scene ends is is nuts, so you you, Zack Morris, rip off your shirt when you hear Lisas in trouble here and say the words, this sounds like a job for Zachman.

I think I could do that better.

By the way, can you. Oh, you think you can do a better read now this. No, I'm going to do it like I did back in the day.

Oh, you're saying it was coming back then bashing me.

Everything I did on that show is perfect. Got it. Gosh, sorry. Please. It's all yours now. Now, I don't want to do it, but if I, if I had done it earlier, it would have sounded like this sounds like a job for Zachman. I don't understand why I said full and then Zachman. Who was I trying to impersonate. I don't remember. I don't know. But somebody should have given me a note and just said, hey, you know what, just throw that away.

Well, sounds like you just just give it a you know, this sounds like a job for Zachman. Instead, I did. This sounds like a job for Zachman and whom I talk. I mean, who is that for? Who does this benefit? I feel this was for the audience more than anybody. This may have been me improvising. I don't even know if this was scripted, if I may have had a shirt that had a Z on it and say, you know what, this is going to be good.

I'm going to get them.

If I was if I was the director and one of one of my cast decided to wear a shirt with a letter on it and improvise, ripping off their top shirt to expose the letter and saying a line, I would be into it. I would be like, that's really cool. And I wish more of my actors brought this kind of unpredictable energy to set right and look at the energy it generated.

This is one of the first times because we're only on the second episode that we hear the shrills, the shouts. Yeah, yeah.

That's the first I got the first one. The crowd goes, well, there may have been something in the max when oh when Lisa got out of the the the meat cart. I think the audience came alive at that point. But you definitely hear the whistles and the and the and the hollers and it made me feel good. Good.

That's what, that's what going to a job is all about is you want to feel good when you're there and when you leave. No, I mean it made me feel good while I was watching it as an adult now.

Yes. Got it. Cool. If you're still using one of the big wireless providers this year, have you asked yourself, what are you paying for between expensive retail stores, inflated prices and hidden fees, you're being taken advantage of because they know you'll pay. Intermittent mobile and mobile provides the same premium network coverage you're used to, but at a fraction of the cost because everything's online and then mobile saves on retail locations and overhead, then passes those savings directly to you.

Does that mean mobile makes it easier to cut your wireless bill down to just 15 bucks a month? Well, did you know that every plan comes with unlimited nationwide talking text?

I can one up you with mobile. Stop paying for unlimited data you'll never use because you can choose between plans with three, eight or 12 gigabytes of 4G, LTE data.

I'm going to stop you right there because you can use your own phone with any mobile plan and keep your same phone number along with all your existing contacts.

You know what you should do?

You should just ditch your old wireless bill and start saving with mobile dashboard to get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month and get the plan shipped to your door for free. Go to Mint Mobile Dotcom Zackham. That's Mint mobile dotcom slash Zackham. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at Mint Mobile Dotcom Zackham Zach M..

We're in the classroom, so this is when we talk about this episode being uncomfortable or a little bit hard to digest. We were talking about this in this classroom scene. So Marple, as as someone who was watching this with fresh eyes as an adult, looking back on your work, what was sort of your unfolding of of how did this unfold to you emotionally as you watch the scene?

I think a lot of I did a lot of oh, Zach. And then I thought, no, that wasn't oh, Zach. That was the O writers. People like you, Dashiell. I put those words on a page that I had that I had to speak. I think this is one of those now being being the actor that I am. I would protect myself as well as my character. This would be one of those times where I would where I would have a dialogue with a writer producer and have a discussion and say, I think we should kind of look at this a little deeper.

Is this going to reflect? Well, for me, for the character and for for the future of the show?

Yeah, no, character protection is huge because you want the audience to still like this person next week and you just can't imagine a second episode of any Teen Family sitcom where they're like I know are precocious. Youth will unknowingly, like sell kisses for a dollar of his best, one of his best friends without her knowledge or consent. That just would never happen. People would be like, no, that no one's going to like this guy next week. Well, that wouldn't happen now.

But back then, it's a different time, different time, different time. If you're looking at it through the lens of the audience that it was meant for it, it comes off pretty innocent. It's it's it's a typical, I'm sure, Zach ism throughout the run of the show, you you've created a whole nother show because of it.

Yeah, no, he was very into like making small denominations of money and seemingly arduous ways. So, yeah, this is right on on character for Zach. And another character in this classroom is one of the teachers so saved by the Bell or Bayside, rather, is home to just so many strange teachers. And this one is played by Carroll Lawrence, who is a Broadway legend. She played Maria in the original West Side Story run on Broadway, not in the movie.

And yeah. So thirty plus years after that, she's she's on saved by the Bell doing this like super heightened teaching about animals having sex. That's totally normal. It's totally normal stuff. Well, I mean, you are going to teach about that in class, maybe not by by getting up on a desk and rebidding. But I guess the point I would I'm trying to make is in the first episode, you have this veteran cartoon voice actor who plays it way over the top.

And in the second, this teacher's a a trained Broadway, you know, trained Broadway legend here. And this Broadway actress, she also plays it like to an 11. And it just kind of interesting this this bouncing of energy that they they put these teachers in the scenes with you to really give it that, like, ramped up sensibility.

Yeah, I'm sure she had fun doing it, too. You know, you get to you get to be silly. And I'm sure she she thought that nobody would would see this show.

So what the heck. You know, just a Saturday morning show. No one will ever watch this. But I was watching that. I thought, oh, I would love to have seen a scene between her and Belding. I would have loved to have seen, like, the sexual tension between her and building and being uncomfortable in her her sort of driving that. And then we get we get a little bit of belting. We get we get a taste of his his first laugh.

Yeah.

His first in the announcement. Yeah. He gets on the horn and he talks about it. There's like a charity drive which comes back later and then he's he's really there to set up an earthquake drill. But we do get a building, a signature building laugh that will become like one of his you know, one of his hallmarks is a character throughout the series Milk the Hell Out of that.

Throughout the run of the show, it got bigger and bigger and longer and longer.

Hey, when you got a good thing going, you know, just just drive it into the ground is what I say as the guy doing this, this podcast.

So, Lisa, Lisa crawls over to the actor in this and she you know, she she feels cheap is what she says, which she's not. She's not wrong because she made thirty six dollars is X response, which again in today's money is like what, 70 bucks is like a two to one kind of thing.

And with my math by the way, that was thirty three dollars from Screech.

Thirty three. Oh right. Because she only will know because it, I think she got a premium when the two dudes kissed her at once. I think that caused extra. How so. How would. How did you come up with that conclusion, because he has a board where he's crossing off the dollar amounts and I think the first dollar amount he crosses off is like one dollar off or one kiss, right. When the two slimeballs who are like extra slimy, come up and kiss her, it's like a bigger jump, like more money comes off the ball.

I think it's like I'm going to say between eight and 12 dollars if we want to use like a price is right range here. But like some more money comes off, like two for one is is actually cost more.

Does it really see this is you went to real school. I went to that school. You can see through this conversation where that paid off.

I mean, it's just it's pretty basic addition and subtraction, but. Sure, why not. But so after this this scene, which again, is probably one of the more uncomfortable ones in that we'll be watching anytime soon, we get Zach's next step in his plan, which is to sell all of Lisa's clothes at an auction in the hallway.

And I want to ask you did so like this scene has a very elaborate technical setup where all the locked doors swing open and swing closed at once, did any of that ring a bell or do you have any recollection of seeing that or being a part of that?

No, but like I said earlier, I bet this was a pretape scene because it was so intricate, all those moving parts. But I would imagine those were some pretty hefty hydraulics they were using to open those those lockers. You know, there's a few things while watching the scene that made me giggle first right off the bat, screech, sneezing. Generally, when you sneeze and you're on camera, you try to make it as inconspicuous as possible. He makes a meal out of that out of that sneeze.

I mean, it is a full on, like dance. And I just I found myself rewinding that just to watch it a few times. It made me giggle every time. I also remember this. This is like a flashback for me. But Mario always grabbing my arm so aggressively, it was almost as he would he would do that to maybe get it. We would always try to make each other laugh on the set. We would always try to be on SNL, you know, where the where the artists are always trying to get the other one to to to giggle in a scene.

So he may have been doing that to to throw me off, possibly get a response when we were kids. The other thing I noticed were some of the regular background artists. And in that scene I remembered Yuri Henley. He's the one in the background with the with a man bun well ahead of his time with that man bun and a leather jacket. He's one of the the filthy animals that bids on Kelly. We'll get to that, I'm sure.

Yeah. So he is Maria Henley's son. And Maria, as we discussed in the previous episode, is an ad on our show. She also choreographed Dancing to the Max. And Yuri would pay for a few episodes and then also join us as an extra and fun little fact, as you like to say, Dashiell. I do. Yuri hennelly now has gone from being an extra on on saved by the bell and took the direct path you go from being an extra to now.

He is a big feature film producer.

He has produced films like A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and the Lighthouse. So these are like legit huge films with, you know, Academy Award winners.

You know, I was gonna say those are Oscar nominated and I think Oscar winning movies.

I think so. If you say so, then it must be right.

Well, we'll fact check it later the the official guarantee of this podcast.

But I'd love to talk about some of these background artists throughout the course of this, the show. I'd love to get to know more of them because they were such you can't you can't miss them.

You know, they're they're part of the older family. So I would say to to to dig deeper into into some of them, like the twins, for instance. Right.

The twins who who buy cowboy boots one at a time. They couldn't they couldn't coordinate that one. And yet, Zach. So Zach is selling what worn like these are all worn items, which is a little concerning. And there's lingerie which screech buys, whereas he only has two dollars left in his life savings because he just bought all those kisses and that wig that you hold up to sell. Did that wig look familiar at all to you? Because it looked a little familiar to me.

It looked familiar to me only because I've seen pictures of me dressed up as a girl from the show. I don't remember exactly what that was, but I maybe we recycled it.

It was from the episode where you dress up as Bambi. I thought we will get to be.

I did look, it did look like it looks like Bambi's wig. And I do have to wonder where they just like, yeah, we already got a wig. We're not going to buy another one. This was a Saturday morning show. We didn't have the budget right. We did what we had to do. We were just surviving out there, just trying to get by, just trying to get by.

So building unpredictably here he he's about to bust up this auction and Slater credit.

Where can we go? Can we skipped over Rokko? Oh, you're you know, how could I just blow right past rocka. That seems so out of place for this show. I mean, what I.

You mean that booming voice of an adult man buying a girl's used wig? Twelve dollars. Yeah. That's, that's yeah. Some some questions about Rocco for sure. Like I feel like he's probably the janitor. You would think that.

I would remember seeing whoever played Rocco. And I don't so I think the reason why is because it may be Dustin Diamond's father, Mark Diamond, who was a voice actor, and I'm going to you know, we have time, guys. I will find out through the course of the season if it actually was him. And but he I think he did a few voices on our show. So I'd love to find out if Mark Diamond indeed did the Roko voice.

No. All right. Well, we'll have to crack that case, but before this one is done. But so, Belding, he's going to bust up the auction and ruin all of Zach's many sales. And so Slater runs interference by saying he's having an identity crisis and likes to wear a dress, which is he grabs one from a locker, I assume. And, you know, we're not really here to we're not qualified here to to break down why this is maybe not the best.

But suffice to say, just another one of those kind of jarring things in retrospect, that this is like one of their youthful hijinks and building takes later into his office where I you learn a little bit a little bit about Belding, which is that he both fought in Vietnam and had a girlfriend who was the enemy.

And he said she was Vietcong. Yes. Yes. And he says all this well, while holding a pipe, it's like this is like a triple threat of just like men. You would just get fired for doing this. And I have to imagine then to the 80s weren't that different. And back at the auction. So this is the scene you were talking about. Zack parades Kelly out in Lisa's bathing suit.

Yeah, a few things wrong with that, I'm sure, hygene. But, you know, I've tried out a few underwear and usually have to put the little paper there. So hopefully that was going on. But, you know, I digress. But that particular scene, I. I vaguely remember. The feeling of being uncomfortable and the reason why is because none of us were comfortable with our shirts off except for one person on that on that show.

But for the most part, being on a set in front of a live audience in front of your peers in a bathing suit, it's different, you know. I mean, it's like when you're at the beach, you're at the beach, you're you're wearing to the swimming pool, you're in a swimming pool. But walk into a office, your work environment with your bathing suit, it becomes a whole nother situation, becomes uncomfortable. So I vaguely remember Tiffany being uncomfortable, which made me very uncomfortable as a supporting, you know, worker actor for her.

So those scenes were not something that we look forward to. Yeah, well, but given that she looked amazing, I think I let out an audible whoa. When she came down those stairs again. Yeah. Not not not the easiest scenes for a teenager to pull off. No, I can't imagine.

But, you know, she she owns it. And Zac, in his infinite wisdom, buys buys the bathing suit for himself for twelve dollars, despite the the wall of of rabid teenage male bidders. And Belding comes around the corner and we get another first year. We get his his other signature. The what's going on here. No, hey, hey, hey. But a a building looking around at a scheme and going what's going on here. So Zack tries to cover quickly but basically these clothes go to the charity donation.

That's what building assumes is going on here. And Zack is not in trouble, but Lisa has lost all of her clothes. And so Lisa Lisa is forced to get a job at the max as we begin our third act here. And she's bad at it. She she is not good at this job. And she's also waiting on like the same creeps who are buying her clothes and kisses 10 minutes ago. And Slater steps in to help her because the thought is she can earn more money in tips.

If she gets more tables. What she can do by clearing the table, she has quicker now. Did he did you notice any holes in that logic? Yeah.

Isn't it usually shitty service equals no tip traditionally. OK, just just checking because maybe I've been overpaid. Yeah, no.

The worse the service is the lower the tip is. So you'd think that by someone ripping your food away before you've eaten it, it would lower it. But whatever. It's also worth pointing out that before the Mac's job starts, Lisa, according to Zach, has made fifty three dollars selling clothes, which brings her total to eighty nine dollars. And I'm kind of wondering at this point, did Zach take a cut or like what was what was his end of things.

Because why is he, why is he doing all this?

Hey. Stop it, leave Zac alone, Daniel, OK? I didn't think about it like that. Good point. So after Mario helps, Mario decides to to help Lisa and the whole gang, kind of they they do this. It's like another stop or another camera trick scene with a they lock the camera. I tell you, Don Barnhart was throwing out all the stops in this episode. We had the lock off scene. We had this sped up, whatever this was called.

We had a thought bubble that was pretty rare jangle thought bubble. You had a the fuzzy trappy thing. Yeah. And everything. Later in this scene, we sort of had a freeze frame that. I see that.

Yeah, the edit when Lisa is done. So like Zack, is that comfortless after revealing he lost all her clothes and they kind of like a sweet moment where they hold hands and yeah, I believe it does freeze freeze frame on that. As a nice edit to the final scene, which is Lisa's confession to her dad, who doesn't care. The dad, the dad is like, oh, four hundred dollars. OK, well, let's go to Sizzler.

We're rich. Mm. Sizzler.

Do you ever go to Sizzler? I did, yeah, I used to go with my grandpa to Sizzler. He loves Sizzler and the one near by us is the more street names, the one on they used to be on Highland. I remember that sunset. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, you know, I remember that one.

I was a child actor. Believe it or not, I believe that. Yeah. And I would this is before saved by the bell. But I would I would sometimes go to three or four commercial auditions a day after school. And so I would do my homework on the drive over the valley. I lived in the valley and we'd take Laurel Canyon over into Hollywood. And I would I would I would get car sick from doing my homework on a windy road.

And I was good and nauseous for my for my auditions for for whatever commercial I was doing. And before we would head back over the hill, it would be, you know, close to the evening and I got to get home. We would go to Sizzler, my mother and I, and that was like a regular occurrence to go to that that exact same sizzler on Highland.

So you're telling me we were both running around antibiotics and Sizzler, same locations? We easily could have. We easily could have bumped into each other.

Let me throw another one at you, Shakey's. Did you ever go to Shakey's, the one on Santa Monica.

Bye, LeBron. You know, the one on the Santa like that. You know, in the valley it was on in the canyon. No spy rule, victory or Roscoe somewhere like around there. I know. Rascon victory. What am I saying? Those are like miles apart. It was Laurel Canyon, I believe, somewhere by victory. No Shakey's. I'm not familiar with that particular shakey's.

But but we can I look forward to continuing to play this game to find out where we may or may not have shared a meal many, many years ago. And so after Lisa's dad is cool, it's at Sizzler, we get that that cool pink bubble thought bubble, which is much rarer than the full blown fantasy, which is I wish they used it more. It's really cool thing. Feels kind of comic book to match the cartoon energy of the show.

And Lisa gives her dad the money she's made so far. And Zack and Jesse show up with some more money so she doesn't pay. Her debt is lower, but her dad says she still has to keep the job. She has to learn a lesson, which is good governance lessons every now and then. And we end with like another very bizarre prop comedy gag, which is Zach pulling out a a Lisa card, which looks like a Visa card, the Lisa card.

Don't leave home with it. How is that read? That's perfect. Yeah, that was really good. This is like again, it does raise the question, who is this for? Like, because it feels like Lisa sees the Zachman thing, whereas the Lisa card is is just between Zach and the audience. It's it's very it's it's a very interesting way to end the scene. But it is kind of strange, this like cartoon esque logic of just pulling out gags and that kind of thing.

Saved by the bell, saved by the bell, because I'm saved by the bell. That was a better. That was better. You did. I'm going. I'm getting better. Yeah, I'm warmed up. All right. Well, we're going to we're going to do two or three of those every episode until it's like CD quality audio. And I think we can get there. I really do. Now we have more homework. More. Paul, can you believe that?

Can't wait. Good. You don't have to you can do it right now if you want. The homework for next week's episode is to watch Season one, episode three of Saved by the Bell called The Gift, which again, if you're watching on streaming platforms, it's put under season two because Miss Blessed Season one. Now, don't overthink it or worry about it too much, you'll find it. You seem like a smart person who can figure it out.

No more call. Do you have any guesses what happens in the gift o the gift? There's an intricate plot about the gang coming up with a way to figure out how to give a gift to someone.

That is that is not it at all. But that sounds like a good episode too. And I think I think there is an episode. What you just described does happen. This is why I'm not a writer. I don't know. I think you could get the job. No problem. I'm pretty sure you could. You could have my job tomorrow if you really want it. Thank you so much for taking the time, Marple, to do your homework and to talk about this episode.

Thanks so much to Amy Jo Perry for taking the time to talk to us about her experiences. Thank you, Amy. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the pod, be sure to subscribe and leave a review. Zak to the Future is a production of Caden's 13. It's executive produced by McPaul Goslar, myself and Chris Corcoran, Production and direction led by Terrence Mangan, editing and Mastering by Andy Jesuit's. Engineering and Production Coordination by Sean Cherry.

Artwork by Kurt Courtney with illustrations by Jeff MacCarthy. Marketing is led by Joseph Francis with PR by Hilary Suf. Thanks to the whole team at age 13 and to you for listening. See you next week.