Dustin Diamond Page 9

  There were different styles of SBTB shows. Sometimes they would air “clip” shows, which I always thought was lazy television, just a way to buy some time while new scripts were hammered out. That’s my theory, anyway. I don’t know why they became so popular. Clip shows are exactly what they sound like, just an editing together of old clips introduced and narrated by Zack in that style of, “Do you remember when …?” Cue dreamlike music and wavy transition. Basically the same deal as how the network handled integrating the Good Morning, Miss Bliss episodes with the original SBTB. In my opinion, clip shows suck. They rob the audience of new content.

  Occasionally, we had to do a wrap-around show. A wraparound show is an extra episode squeezed into the normal one-episode-per-week taping schedule. Wrap-arounds were rare, maybe once per season (I can hear the snickering). We would film two or three weeks in a row and then get a week off. Three weeks of work would usually mean that we were taping three episodes, but for a wrap-around show, that meant we were filming four full episodes in those three weeks.

  How it would work was like this: with there being around twelve scenes per script, that meant that, in order to complete a fourth episode in the course of three weeks, we would have to tape four extra scenes each week. During rehearsals, we would run through all the scenes of that week’s episode then turn to those extra scenes (with a totally different storyline, obviously), which would eventually be cobbled together into a complete episode at the end of the month. It was normal for the writers to hand us just the pages of the extra scenes we were doing, not the entire script for the wrap-around. Sometimes this would make it difficult to get the gist of the plot, so we’d just guess at what the fuck was going on, pros that we were.

  Granted, we weren’t taping an episode of The Wire. The plots were pretty basic, and there were only so many ways the gang could fall into mischief at Bayside. Every show had its A theme and its B theme. That’s the basic structure of a half-hour sitcom. The A story would be, say, Zack cheating to become valedictorian in the graduation episode, while it’s really Elizabeth that should have been awarded that title. The B story is that they’re having problems writing the song for graduation, and they need to get it right in time for the ceremony. Nothing against the writers, but we did reach a point in our mastery of our characters where we could pretty easily reach a resolution to the dual themes of each show, complete with gags, without much plotting.

  At around 7:30 PM, we would come back out on stage, do our final bows, and the audience would be ushered out. That’s when we would normally say our goodbyes and head home. But if it was a wrap-around show, that meant a whole new round of wardrobe, with hair and makeup touch-ups. Everybody was pretty beat at that point. Plus, we had to have another third of a script memorized along with blocking, cues, etc. Wrap-around shows were considered rather tedious and definitely screwed with our internal clocks. My internal clock, for instance, would be telling me that I was supposed to be sitting in L.A. traffic, not still standing on-set. Unless of course I got lucky and Screech wasn’t in any of the wrap-around-show scenes that week. Again, that little known paradox of the joy actors feel when they learn there are scenes they’re not in.

  Another drag about wrap-around shows was that, in the course of that month, we were forbidden to do pretty much anything extracurricular. We couldn’t go outside and skateboard, for instance. There was no bike-riding, no horse riding for Princess Tiffani, no activity of any kind with the potential for physical injury. And we couldn’t alter our appearances in any way (i.e., a new haircut, a suntan, etc.). Think about it: I needed to look exactly the same on last day of taping in the month as I did on the first. In those wrap-around episodes, there could be a scene where Zack says, “I’ve got to get outta here.” Cut to a scene in the hallway that was taped a month later. Mark-Paul can’t have a scratch on his face, a smudge on his shirt, a missing belt, a hair longer or shorter than it was in the last instant of the preceding scene. To ensure that this would be the case, Polaroids became an omnipresent fixture on the set (and not just of my epic dong). The crew and departments took hundreds, thousands of Polaroid pictures to ensure continuity. Polaroids were used for all the cast, the props, the set dressing, the wardrobe, hair, makeup. The prop guys would take pictures of every table at The Max, where every ketchup and mustard bottle was situated, every napkin and salt shaker, how the books were stacked, etc.

  When we taped wrap-around shows during the seasons of The New Class, there was no getting out early anymore for me. The kids’ scenes were always taped first to get them finished and headed home before they came up against the clock under child-labor laws. That meant it was always the scenes with just Den and me that were scheduled to tape last. This is when Den and I endeared ourselves to the crew and earned our reputation as the One-Take Champions. Den and I were so comfortable with each other’s style and rhythm of working that we would fly through those wrap-around scenes on Friday nights. Once, we filmed all the Screech and Belding scenes in a block at the end of the day and were out of there in half an hour. The crew loved us for this.

  Because they were quilted together at the end of the month, wrap-around shows were not taped before a live audience. So, mixed in with all the other episodes of SBTB, are shows that were spliced together at the end of those three to four weeks of piecemeal tapings, then edited with a soundtrack to provide canned laughter and all the other necessary cacophony of a living, breathing audience.

  After we wrapped the show on Friday, we all came out for a final cast bow to a thunderous standing ovation in celebration of our collective brilliance. The lead-time to air for the episode we had just taped was anywhere from three to four weeks, sometimes longer. After the ovation, we were handed our scripts for next week. We were expected to read them over the weekend to be prepared for the Monday table reading. Then, it was time for the weekend.

  WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENED

  The Sunset-Gower Studios, where we filmed many episodes of the original SBTB, were old. So old, in fact, that it’s where the Three Stooges committed many of their slapstick heroics to celluloid posterity. During World War II, a rabbit warren of subterranean tunnels was created that crisscrossed yards below the studio floors so that studio executives, movie stars, politicians, and dignitaries could move around in secret and in safety. I don’t know how vast the network of tunnels is in its entirety, but I do know from my own wanderings that it’s pretty elaborate. I remember walking from beneath one of the banks, straight under Sunset-Gower, to a recording studio at least a half-mile away—all underground.

  The tunnels were notorious for being haunted. They said that there was the apparition of a young girl who roamed the tunnels. And that there was an old man, perhaps an actor from a bygone era, who could also be seen peering from the shadows every now and again. I’m skeptical of all that paranormal boogie-man stuff, but I often went searching for it nonetheless. If a ghost existed, of course I wanted to see it; I still do.

  The studio definitely had a creepy, haunted-house feel to it. There was one room upstairs with an angled ceiling like an attic. I don’t know what it could have been used for: there were no windows, and there was no room to stand fully upright, not even space to set up a desk. The first odd thing about the room was the complete absence of ambient sound. Usually, in any industrial space, you can hear faint street noise, distant voices, or the drone of florescent lights and air vents. But the air in this room had an eerily perfect silence and stillness. There was one spot in the room that was ice cold, but the room was windowless and had no ventilation whatsoever. Even so, as you passed through this one spot, the temperature would plummet, sending a rippling chill shivering through your body.

  There was another spot in the Sunset-Gower Studios complex, in the back of Studio 11, a storage area where props were kept and where there was a trap door in the floor. Mark-Paul and I decided to pry the trap door up with a crowbar. To our delight, there was a ladder leading down into the bowels of the tunnel system. We reached t
he bottom and found ourselves in a small dirt room that, as far as we could see, led nowhere. We had brought along flashlights and a hammer to pry nails or locks or to dig or to bang for help if we got trapped somewhere. Searching around behind a dirt pile, we discovered a crawl space we could worm through on our bellies in the dirt, wriggling along to emerge into an adjacent area. On the other side, we could stand again. Through the dank, stale air we spied more tunnels snaking down black corridors and one passage that had been bricked off. Waving our bars of light into the darkness, we discovered a huge steamer trunk. The inside was filled with Civil War-era clothing and rifles, keys, and buckles. It was impossible to discern if they were authentic antiques or long forgotten props and wardrobe. This was not an easy area to access. That shit had been sitting down there undisturbed for a long time. It definitely wasn’t from the set of F Troop.

  Mark-Paul and I decided we’d explored far enough for the day and turned back. Just as we started to retrace our commando crawl through the low dirt tunnel, we heard Bobo, the head carpenter, holler, “Who left this fucking door open?” We knew the crew was diligent about locking down all tunnel access because they would get their asses chewed by the producers if any of the cast were caught exploring beneath the studio. We started crawling as fast as we could to where the ladder was when suddenly the light in the outer room was snuffed out, enveloping us in darkness. Then, above our heads, we heard the sickening thunk of the heavy trap door falling shut. Next came the whine of a hand drill as Bobo zip-screwed down into the door’s perimeter, sealing it. Mark-Paul and I hollered in terror, certain we were being buried alive, entombed below our own television studio like some cornball Edgar Allen Poe-tribute episode. We screamed at the tops of our voices, shimmying as fast as we could through the cold dirt, fumbling with our flashlights. Staggering into the outer room, we emptied our lungs in desperation at the black ceiling. The trap door flew open. Bobo and friends, like Cheshire Cats, grinned down at our grimy, fear-stricken faces. They knew we were down there the whole time. They were just fucking with us.

  Later, one of the crew told me that, since I liked to explore, there was a space in between the walls in the backstage area of the sound studio where, if I looked straight down, I could see something freaky. I took a look, and sure enough there was something weird just beyond my sight. I asked our special effects guy, Chuck Hughes, what he thought it might be? He handed me a flashlight and urged me to check it out. I scooched along inside the narrow space between the walls of the studio expecting to encounter a corpse or something, the bones of some long-dead mistress who threatened to topple a mogul’s empire. When I got a few dozen yards from where I entered, the flashlight began to flicker, and then it went out. I was alone in the dark. I started to freak a little, turning back, I called to Chuck, “This flashlight is out. I’m coming back.” “Oh,” said Chuck, “maybe the batteries are going dead.”

  I start backtracking until the flashlight suddenly popped back on again. “There you go,” encouraged Chuck. Then he shut the door as the flashlight went dead again. Chuck had rigged the fucker with a remote so he could control its flickering and cutting in and out. I told you, never mess with the crew.

  * * * *

  We were taping at Sunset-Gower Studios one time when we were shaken up pretty good by one of California’s many earthquakes. It was a good-sized rumble, and the old building felt like it was going to cave in. Some of the massive 20K lights over our heads fell smashing to the floor. It was chaos as all the buildings were evacuated. Those 20K lights were dangerous enough without a major seismic event along the San Andreas fault. When those lights blew, they didn’t just fizzle or pop, they exploded, sending glass and dust spraying and raining down on the set. Everyone would run for cover, shielding their mouths to avoid breathing in the hazardous particles. That shut down production for a few days.

  The only other time I remember things getting shut down at Sunset-Gower involved Johnny Carson and a robot.

  Disneyland used to have a display for children where a performer would speak into a near-invisible radio headset and their voice would emerge from a robot. Parents would secretly feed the performer information, and then the robot would suddenly come to life as a little boy walked past saying, “Hello Bobby, I hear it’s your birthday today. Are you really six years old? Does not compute.” The kid would shit a Disney mouseketurd. Then the robot would launch into all sorts of personal info that would cause the kid to completely freak out, thinking that he had a robot stalker living at Disneyland.

  That guy’s act (and voice) became Kevin the Robot in the first two seasons of SBTB. I have no idea how he got the gig, but however it happened, his time on SBTB wasn’t without incident. Once, during a Friday taping, we were informed that the radio-control frequency being used for on Kevin was fucking up a sketch that Johnny Carson was rehearsing on the stage of The Tonight Show. Apparently Johnny was delivering a stand up routine dressed as Lincoln. In the skit, people in the audience start booing and heckling until someone fires a pistol at him, knocking off his stovepipe hat. To that, Carson says, “Jeesh. Tough crowd.” Or something like that. Well, the radio-control frequency they were using to zing the hat off Johnny’s head was the same frequency the operator was using for Kevin on the set of SBTB, and the signals were getting crossed. But instead of someone from Stage 1 at The Tonight Show simply popping over quick to ask us on Stage 3 to hold off for a few minutes while they got their take, Carson unilaterally shut down production of SBTB until further notice. We all sat with our collective thumbs up our asses, costing the network untold thousands of dollars, until someone strolled back over from Stage 1 and gave us the go-ahead. I guess I should just be grateful that was the lone time we irked Johnny Carson at NBC.

  Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank/ZUMA/Keystone Press

  Dustin Diamond in full Screech Powers mode early in SBTB

  NBCU Photo Bank/ZUMA/Keystone Press

  The cast in year one of SBTB: Lark Voorhies as Lisa Turtle, Ed Alonzo as Max, Tiffani Thiessen as Kelly Kapowski, Mark-Paul Gosselaar as Zack Morris, Dennis Haskins as Mr. Richard Belding, Elizabeth Berkley as Jessica Spano, Dustin Diamond as Samuel ‘Screech’ Powers, and Mario Lopez as A.C. Slater

  NBCU Photo Bank/ZUMA/Keystone Press

  And more relaxed shot of the SBTB cast in year one: (l-r)Tiffani Thiessen, Mario Lopez, Lark Voorhies, Dustin Diamond, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and Elizabeth Berkley

  Joseph DelValle/NBCU Photo Bank/ZUMA/Keystone Press

  Screech in SBTB: Hawaiian Style

  NBCu Photobank/ZUMA/KEYSTONE Press/Keystone Press

  SBTB cast members Tiffani Thiessen, Lark Voorhies, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Elizabeth Berkley, Mario Lopez, Dustin Diamond, with Tori Spelling as Screech’s girlfriend, Violet Anne Bickerstaff

  Kathy Hutchins/ZUMA/KEYSTONE Press

  Dustin Diamond and Lark Voorhies in an undated photo.

  Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank/ZUMA/Keystone Press

  Dennis Haskins as Principal Richard Belding and Dustin Diamond as Samuel ‘Screech’ Powers in SBTB: The New Class

  NBCU Photo Bank/ZUMA/Keystone Press

  NBC Entertainment president Brandon Tartikoff

  Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank/ZUMA/Keystone Press

  A young Mark-Paul Gosselaar as Zack Morris

  Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank/ZUMA/Keystone Press

  The cast of SBTB: The New Class, season 2: (top row) Dustin Diamond as Samuel ‘Screech’ Powers, Dennis Haskins as Principal Richard Belding;(middle row) Sarah Lancaster as Rachel Meyers, Christian Oliver as Brian Keller, Jonathan Angel as “Tommy D” De Luca, Natalia Cigliuti as Lindsay Warner, Bianca Lawson as Megan Jones: (bottom row) Spankee Rogers as Bobby Wilson

  BIG Pictures UK/KEYSTONE Press

  Mario Lopez, May 2009

  Gilles Gagnan/eyevine/ZUMA Press/KEYSTONE Press

  Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, October 2005

  wenn.com/wenn.com/KEYSTONE Press

  Mark-Paul Gosselaar, May 2009

  Kathy Hutchins/
ZUMA/KEYSTONE Press)

  A grown-up Dustin Diamond in 1998, toward the end of SBTB: The New Class

  Apega/WENN.com/Keystone press

  Elizabeth Berkley, February 2009

  PART III:

  FAMOUS AS SHIT

  THE MALLS OF AMERICA

  We used to travel all around the country, appearing at hundreds of events and signings in malls and amusement parks. There’d be twenty thousand kids in a line that snaked all through the park, kids dangling from the railings of the second tier inside some giant Midwestern mall. It sounds crazy now, but sometimes it felt like we were like the Beatles. Teenage girls would even go so far as to tear our clothes off. Seriously. Chicks wanted a piece of the Screech.

  At one mall event, there was a security breech from the sheer volume of crazed people. Up on stage were Mark-Paul, Elizabeth, and I. Kids broke through the line, stormed the stage, and swarmed all around us. Girls attacked Mark-Paul, ripping his shirt, yanking off his necklace. We had to escape the building under protection from armed security, hurried into a waiting limo like the president being evacuated from imminent peril by the Secret Service.

  It might have been more of a burden—even terrifying, sometimes—for the rest of the cast, but remember, I was the youngest. For me, these excursions were a lot of fun, especially around 1992, at the height of SBTB’s popularity. I was still under sixteen, and the law stated that I had to have a parent or guardian with me at all times, but my parents wouldn’t always go. That was when I had the best time. My de facto guardian was our set teacher, Sidney Sharron. Sweet, wonderful Sidney—very grandfatherly, very cool, and very brilliant. Sidney didn’t just teach me my math book, he wrote it, for Holt and MacMillan. Sidney even appeared on the show for a while. Fans will recognize him as Mr. Klopper, the Albert Einstein-looking janitor. But the same endearing qualities that made Sidney so trusting are what also made him the perfect guardian on road trips. Sidney went to bed early, allowing me the opportunity to sneak out while he snored away.