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2004-10-11 - 3:43 p.m.
when I wake up in the morning and the alarm gives out a warning
Since I work for my school's events department, I'm usually pretty aware of all the things going on on campus, but generally there's not much I find interesting enough to actually attend. But a couple Wednesdays ago, there was an event on the floor where I work that I just couldn't pass up. Dennis Haskins, better known as Mr. Belding of Saved By The Bell fame, was going to speak on the Towson campus. I got there a couple minutes after it was scheduled to start, and I was a little taken aback by how full the room was. I do setups in the Chesapeake rooms almost every day, and it's rare that I see an event there where the room is filled to capacity. There were about 400 chairs in the room, all filled, and at least 200 more standing. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, though. It was a free event, open to the public, and Saved By The Bell is a touchstone for my whole generation. I stood in the back of the room and had a pretty good view. There was a video screen showing clips of SBTB and other footage from Mr. Haskins' career highlights, and by the time he was introduced and came out onstage, the audience was chanting "BEL-DING, BEL-DING". He's even paunchier now than he was on the original show, and has a corny, goofy sense of humor, like a likeable but slightly embarrassing uncle. He was also really hyper and wired and worked the crowd a lot. I heard a rumor the next day that he was "coked out of his mind", which I wouldn't be too surprised if that were true. They had a student interview, mostly as a platform for various SBTB anecdotes and gossip. For instance, Mark-Paul Gosselaar dated all 3 of the girls in the cast at different points during the series. And he talked about visiting the White House with Screech (!). And then they did a Saved By The Bell trivia game where half a dozen students competed. I was pretty impressed by the SBTB knowledge some people displayed. I've spent countless hours watching that show, and I couldn't answer most of the questions myself. At one point toward the end, Stu, who I work with and have a class with, came up to me and said "this is depressing, I'm getting out of here". But I thought it was kind of fun. It's kind of a given that any event centered around a C-list celebrity reminiscing about the old TV show that brought him fame is going to be a little sad, but it was still not a bad way to spend a Wednesday night. -al
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