As yesterday wound down to an end I sat in my office taking advantage of the quiet to get some last minute tasks accomplished. I have a rule that work comes before pleasure—aka social media—and even then I limit myself to how many feeds I view (if not I would get sucked into the social media web and lose hours of precious time trying to get out).
After I did my usual browsing for fifteen minutes I checked out my own profile. I saw the seven thousand plus people I follow (because I’m a sucker for supporting and encouraging others) before seeing the number of my followers to the right. Then I gasped. To my utter disappointment I lost two followers! Now I’m sure graveling over such a small decline sounds ridiculous. I myself cannot explain or justify the gut-sinking feeling I got over losing two nameless followers I’ve never met and who most likely followed me just so I would reciprocate the follow. But it hit me hard just the same.
I amount this disappointment to a certain perspective—the assumption that building followers will actually, one day, help me sell my books. The contrary—losing followers means that I’m not only never going to sell books but that I’m a boring person and no one will ever read my books or this blog for that matter. Fortunately my voice of reason is pretty loud and after a while I realized in the broad scheme of things having followers, whether it be one thousand or thirty million really doesn’t matter that much (one look at the world news helps to restore perspective in a getting-hit-over-the-head-with-a-mallet sort of way).That being said I related very well with this week’s Zack to the Future podcast. In addition to a reality check, I was enlightened with another perspective— no amount of fame or fortune can numb one to feelings common among all human beings. Until now I’ve never been able to understand why Mark-Paul Gosselaar could forget so much about filming Saved by the Bell. Yet in episode eight of the podcast he once again acknowledges his tendency to “pick [himself] a part in a very critical way”. For that reason he avoids watching himself and has forgotten (perhaps in an unconscious effort) his years filming the show. I don’t know about everyone else but I think I’ve often forgotten that someone deemed a successful actor could possibly have any insecurities. But insecurities are part of being human. Moreover the more I learn about human beings the more I realize one’s perspective is generally not the perspective others’ share, especially when it comes to opinion of self. I often listen to friends tear themselves apart—believing they’re a terrible parent because their kids misbehave or get bad grades, or that their own job performance sucks because their boss didn’t praise them that week, or that their spouse no longer loves them because conversation at the dinner table is at an all-time low. The fact is we can only see so much from where we stand. If we move to the right, left, or down the street we might be able to see more but sometimes a long period passes before we move an inch and our perspective can actually change. As mentioned before Gosselaar seems convinced that his acting as a youth left much to be desired. Comedian Nikki Glaser was a guest this week and even she acknowledged critiquing herself harshly in her youth. Although she questioned Gosselaar, asking, “There's no part of you that hasn’t let up on that kid?” Gosselaar’s response, “Yeah I have but if we weren’t doing the podcast I would never watch the show and I’d be fine with that.”
Gosselaar may always doubt that his performance was good in the eyes’ of the audience but I’m skeptical of the possibility of the show becoming so popular if the star lacks appeal. If he’s acting were as terrible as he imagined it to be, he probably would have never made it past seven episodes and instead received the same threat young Lark Voorhies had of losing her job.
Glaser gives another dose of “observer reality” saying, “I thought you were flawless and I was in love with you. Every girl my age thought you were perfect. None of us saw what you saw.” The comment was on point and probably what the directors and producers saw at the time. Apart from having brown eyes and not blue Zack Morris fit the classic mold that made every American girl swoon. Young girls loved Zack Morris.
To Glassner’s response Gosselaar utters “take that Mario Lopez!” He continues, “it was always like a competition between Mario and I.”
That may have been but in the 90s not a lot of minorities had the role of “sexy dream guy”. And I’d be curious how many young fans saw Slatter as their dream boyfriend versus Zack. I could be wrong but Slater seemed to play more the tough guy that a kid would call on if he/she had a problem with a bully but Zack was the one all teens/tweeners wanted. The podcast host Dashiell Driscoll added “We were all Mario boys”. This makes a world of sense. What young boy didn’t want such a physique?
As the podcast goes on Gosselaar continues to critique himself, this time his hair. In this episode Zach’s blond bangs are swept into a plateau protruding from the top of his head. He points out Slater’s comment to Zach, “they had to kill three mouse to get your hair like that”. Gosselaar continues “The wardrobe and the colors were at a high-level. They were all very bright. Zack Morris’ testosterone levels were at an all-time high. My body movements were very aggressive punching a door….saying to Kelly ‘that was stupid!’ I was going through changes. While none of Zach’s behavior struck me as odd for a teen boy, Glaser said she noticed his changes too, particularly his voice changing, and asked, “Do you remember being on set where your voice cracked and you had to retake the set?
Gosselaar—“ yeah,I used it as a crutch sometimes. A troupe to get a point across...a tool.”
As a mother of three boys, two who are teens already, when I see like-behavior in other boys I usually just roll my eyes or laugh to myself about the similarities. Boys can be rude, say outlandish things, have crazy hair (because they don’t believe they need it cut or brushed), and believe there’s a certain coolness to blatant words. Most eventually outgrow this, especially when they start dating and find out girls don’t tolerate any of it, something which I can’t wait for when it comes to my oldest, even if the only change is that he obligés to daily showers and starts brushing his hair with an actual comb.
Even further into the podcast I realize how much I like Glaser and her perspective. When Driscoll points out that Zach’s zit cream worked according to Kelly but that for the audience it was hard to tell (because her face was clear to begin with), Glaser gives a very philosophic analogy, “maybe this is to say all of the insecurities are in our head and no one can see the things that we see about ourselves that are so terrible. So that’s the point of never seeing Kelly’s blemish, it was all in her head to begin with.” While I doubt that was the writers’ intention I like her assessment and think it fit in well with not only Kelly’s insecurities but also insecurities that plague mankind—actor or average Joe.
Kelly’s inaccurate insecurities are called out by Zack after he knocks on the bedroom door. During their visit he acknowledges that the cream actually turns one’s face maroon to which Kelly does not respond well. He calls her out, saying“ you’re the most beautiful girl in school..lately all you care about are your looks!” I enjoyed seeing that part of Zach because it’s not only sweet but nice that he is putting things into perspective of what really matters.
A fun part of the podcast is calling out unrealistic parts as Gosselaar does in this scene, saying “I always find that odd…...Isn’t the process—and I never used to do this because I didn’t have girlfriends in high school—you would knock on the door, the parent would come to the door and then the parent would say ‘oh you’re here to see Kelly, let me go get her,’ and alert her that you’re here. Isn’t that the standard procedure?”
Glassner seconds the odd behavior, “yeah he would just show up...” before back-tracking to the point where I’m sure many listeners got stuck, “Wait you didn’t have girlfriends in high school?”
Gosselaar, probably not expecting Glasner to return to the seemingly insignificant detail, adds “Not really… I didn’t date all that much. I wasn’t really a kid in high school. I just wasn’t there and no one was really a fan of the show and no one really cared.”
“No one cared?” questions Glasner.
“No because being in the industry, we didn’t really understand what that meant. Nowadays everyone knows being in the industry you equate that with fame and attention and things but honestly people were more impressed by the jocks and people who were popular in school. That [being an actor] didn’t carry any weight when I went back to school... that people in Ohio—-watching my show—and secretly wanted to be me.”
“People in your high school weren’t watching Saved by the Bell?” Glasner asks in a surprised tone.
Gosselaar—“Not really. I probably would have gotten my *** kicked if they knew I was an actor... ‘oh you wear makeup?’ I would have had to run for my life. I didn’t know the popularity of the show until much later on when it was syndicated in 1996. Then again we didn’t have social media.”
Glasner continues, “And you’re in the bubble of Hollywood where everyone’s kind of in it and no one really thinks anyone is really that special who’s doing it.”
“Sure but I didn’t think I was in the bubble of Hollywood because this was a Saturday morning show. It wasn’t a prime time show. We weren’t being invited to the Emmy’s we weren’t being invited to industry parties. We were on the sidelines of the outskirts. It never felt like we were a part of that party.”
“So when was your first girlfriend?” Glasner asks.
“Oh gosh I’d have to remember. ...I got married at such a young age too and I think that was one of the reasons why. I was so surprised that I actually...’
“Found someone,” Glasner finishes.
“Found someone,” Gosselaar continues, “but my ex-wife and I met on an episode of The College Years and I was married by twenty two...I was nothing like Zack Morris. Again that was a character I created watching popular kids at my high school.”
And once again the audience is enlightened with how relatable all people—even actors—are.This may have been the longest podcast yet but each one gets better and better. Even the ads for Alpha Brain are getting to me. I went from highly skeptical the first podcast to slightly curious about its ability to help one ‘focus and think clearly’, and with the bonus of saving ten percent with the code ‘Zach’, I’m even closer to checking out their website. Now if Alpha Brain could promise one hundred percent self-confidence—and no chance of doubting one’s abilities—that would be even better than this episode’s miracle zit cream and the entire world would be sold!