90s Kids….Our Shit Rocked!
Last week my entire household was down with a bad cold. It started with the kids and then once we nursed them through it and got them back to school, it hit my wife and I.
According to my wife, I was not on my deathbed but I still did not feel too hot. I decided to take a day to recover. I strapped my ass onto the sofa, fired up the tv and gave the finger to the outside world. As we all know daytime television blows. Once you watch Price is Right from 11 to 12 there really isn’t much to consume. Even Price is Right has lost the childhood magic it once had. No one did it like Bob Barker and his “Barker Beauties.” I waited on bated breath to see if Sherry from Colorado Springs would sink the putt and win the Ford Escape. I screamed at Chuck from Fort Myers because only an idiot would put the Plinko chip in that slot. YOU’RE ONLY GONNA WIN 50 BUCKS, DUMMY!! I harbor no ill-will toward Drew Carey but his bleach-blonde hair, checkered suits and assortment of male “Drew’s Beauties” or whatever the hell we are supposed to call them, just doesn’t do it for me.
Anyway, after watching Price is Right channel surfing became a futile effort. I stopped and started several times, never landing on that perfect sick day show. I was just about to give up and read a book (LAME) when I heard a familiar school bell ringing and was welcomed back into the halls of Bayside High School. Saved By The Bell was the absolute coolest show in the world when I was a kid. Zack Morris could do no wrong. Now you are probably expecting a post about how the show didn’t age well, it wasn’t politically correct and it no longer fits in the modern zeitgeist. To all those points, I respond with a very hardy..FUCK OFF AND RELAX!
The show completely holds up and is absolutely hysterical. The first of two episodes I watched was Screech competing in a chess tournament against an exchange student from the Soviet Union. Throughout the entire episode Slater refers to the exchange student as “The Commy.” If you do not think that is hysterical, we can’t be friends. That shit would never fly today and what’s even funnier is that it aired on Saturday mornings. It was a show catered to young children and they are calling someone from the Soviet Union “The Commy.”
The other episode I watched was the classic Rod Belding episode. Rod was Principal Richard Belding’s ne’er-do-well brother. He is brought in as the gang’s substitute teacher, immediately does away with tests and goes full spread eagle on the desk while he launches paper airplanes. He promises to take the students on a white water rafting trip, only to flake out at the last minute to spend the weekend with a flight attendant named Inga. AGAIN THIS AIRED ON SATURDAY MORNINGS!!
There is just nothing even close to this type of show today. Going from TGIF which included Family Matters, Boy Meets World and Step by Step to Saved by the Bell on Saturdays was the most badass way to start a weekend ever. If you weren’t having pizza and wings with your parents and watching these ABC bangers, you clearly had issues and I hope you got the help you needed.
Kids today have nothing close to this. In a way I feel bad for them but in another way men like Bob Barker, Soviet Chess Player Guy and Rod Belding could only originate in the best decade ever. God the 90s were awesome!
