Not too long ago I popped by one of my best friend’s homes, as I’ve been able to do now that she’s temporarily moved back from Florida. When she mentioned that we’ve been friends for over thirty-three years my eyes brightened and I joked “the friendship necklaces worked!” Together we recalled the colorful plastic hearts we traded in our youth with the words “best friends forever” divided evenly between the two halves. While realistically it was a lot more than a charm that kept our friendship going—- through several moves, college, fallouts between other members of our squad, marriage, kids, and hard times in between—the thought made us burst out in laughter. It also makes me reminisce of the popularity of any friendship-related trinkets in the 90s. So when I watched the episode “Buddy Bands” from Saved By the Bell, not only could I relate but I think the writers were spot on portraying the power we tweeners believed this short of jewelry possessed.
After Slater, Kelly, and Jessie break off from making friendship bracelets with bossy and selfish Zack, they start their own business selling friendship headbands they call Buddy Bands. There’s a point where Slater does a video for Buddy Bands claiming he used to be friendless but when he got the band he became popular (naturally, two beautiful girls—Jessie and Kelly enter promptly to prove his new-found popularity.)
Every week when Dashiell Driscoll, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and whoever the guest of the week is( this week Bennet Tramer), discuss behind the scenes details of the show, I learn something each time that completely escaped my noticed before. This week Driscoll pointed out that compared to Elizabeth and Mario, Tiffany looked rather uncomfortable dancing. They have already covered the many talents of Mario Lopez and the fact that Elizabeth was a trained dancer, but if I didn’t notice that Tiffany lacked in comparison to the other two I doubt any of the tweeners watching in 89 noticed. I guess it just goes to show viewers don’t watch shows for perfection on the minor details. What counts is the story line and if the characters are likeable or relatable, something that the writers achieved despite the fact that Zack has questionable methods and perhaps because of it.
Dashiell asks Bennett Tramer—one of the writers on Saved by the Bell— what the method was when it came to Ed Alonzo using his tricks to deliver wise advice to the kids. Tramer said it was a combination of Ed showing what tricks he could do then writing around them as well as the writers coming up with a lesson then asking Alonzo to come up with a trick. I think as a writer who has aspirations to write for a show one day, there is something quite interesting about not only the methods employed to create a winning episode but also the fact that these extra little efforts (a restaurant owner who possesses skills of a magician) make a show unique and captivating. The not so favorable discovery was Tramer’s reveal that when the show went into syndication each episode lost over a minute of airtime to commercials. This may seem insignificant but writers take pride in those scenes and cutting them even a little can be discouraging or as Driscoll said “disrupt the flow.” Added to that was the fact that writers would often have to rewrite scenes and cut out characters because the actors were so young and social workers made constant reminders about the limits of the minors’ work day. The absence of adult actors also limited the freedom to do retakes. They had to get takings down right, reshooting wasn’t an option with child labor laws.
A final observation was the relationship Belding had with his students. Tramer said it was modeled after the show Sergeant Bilko with Phil Silvers. Just like Bilko would “butter up” Colonel Hall, Zack would flatter Belding. Tramer stated, “Zack knows that Belding’s Achilles heel is his vanity. Like he said ‘look at my arms I’m such a ladies man’ Zack would play to the Achilles heel... if I could just flatter him I could get away with something.
One of Gosselaar’ s favorite lines from Belding in this episode, “we’re having a moment here brother,” He continues, “ and it’s that word brother.” Gosselaar asked if Dennis Haskins did that or if it was something that was written for him. Tramer couldn’t remember but he agreed Dennis made it that much better by the way he said it. He did enjoy writing the scenes between Belding and Zack and Belding and Screech.
In the end the kids make up and combine their business to sell a new product called love cuffs. It’s best friends forever again and with a reboot of Saved by the Bell premiering November 25, 2020 on the streaming service Peacock it does appear that love cuffs are just as effective in preserving friendships as my plastic heart necklace. Here’s to long-standing friends everywhere!
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